Time for a change

After many nights of thinking I have decided to sell Antrimlea Farm and move into the town of Campbellford. Not sure how Antrim will like it but he will adjust. Soooooo if you know anyone who would be interested in a nice peaceful place with lots of stars at night and the most beautiful sunrises and sunsets a person can see, please send them my way.
Here are some pics to tease you.
cheers
Kerry

New Toy

Ok so I bought the kitties their Christmas present today but couldn't wait till Christmas to give it to them. They just LOVE it. Antrim was trying to figure out why Charlie was just batting the ball in circles. He eventually got up and some how got the ball out and walked away with it. After I rescued it and put it back Nacho left frustrated as Charlie would not share and let her have a turn. Hopefully it will keep Charlie busy for hours as he is sooooo bored with not going out due to the cold weather.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays

Have a safe and happy holiday everyone.

Gift Certificates

Don't know what to get for that special someone for Christmas or just need a little extra gift for the stocking???? Why not give a gift certificate for a manicure or pedicure at Antrimlea.

Nacho

It's a tough life at Antrimlea when you get a snow day. The woodstove goes on, coffee is made and the spinning wheel goes. Here is my Nacho trying to relax in front of the woodstove. I think she is really enjoying this day.......LOL...

Just another sunset

Here is another wonderful sunset that I get to see out my kitchen window.

My Charlie Boy

My poor Charlie just won't give up waiting for a fine feathered friend to come by and "play" with him......

YIPPI!!!

Ok Folks
Today I finally finished hooking my rug that I have been working on the past year of Monday afternoons in Campbellford. Now I just have to do the whipping around the edges which will probably take up the next 4 Monday afternoons.....LOL...
Oh what will I hook next???

Fibre Alert!!!

Attention all you fibre people. You must put Sunday September 27 from 10 to 4:00 on your busy calendar. The Wilton Road Custom Fiber Mill is having their Autumn open house of their wool mill and have invited many vendors to come including your's truly. There will be Mill Tours, spinning and weaving demonstrations and lots of fibre in various blends and yarns for sale. Learn from local producers of Alpaca, Angora rabbit, Mohair Goats and Wool sheep about their animals and their fibre.
Some yarn , raw fleece and rovings will be for sale amongst other things. . Food and beverages are available.
I also heard with weather permitting that there may be an Alpaca that you can get close and personal with. So grab your friends and plan your road trip!!
I have been busy dying lots of corriedale rovings to sell so bring your cash......LOL.....
Make sure you stop by my booth to say hi.
cheers
Kerry

Wilton Road Motel
1153 Wilton Rd
Odessa, Ont
613-386-7379

Attempt at Lace Knitting

Well this is the 2nd kick at the can..... I bought this lace shawl kit 4 years ago. Two years ago I attempted to knit it and made a mistake after knitting quite a bit of it. I was frustrated with it and tore it out where it sat for the last 2 years waiting to be started again. I took it to Bridgewater Retreat in the hopes to maybe start it again. Well with the encouragement from my friends I have started it again. I have since learned about placing "life lines" every couple of rows in case you need to rip it out to fix boo boo's. Here is my progress so far and I will keep you posted . Don't hold your breath for any quick progress as Life gets in the way and I should be working on my OHS spinning homework,,,,

Bridgewater Retreat

This past weekend 10 of us stayed at Bridgewater Retreat for a relaxing weekend. Spinning , knitting, reading, winding warps for weaving, card playing, and dying wool were among the activities. No subject in conversation was untouched and lots of laughter was had... Joan and I are addicted to playing Skipbo cards so a few games were in order in between spinning. At great time was had by all and we plan to do it again next year. Want to join us??

Happy Ending

Well about 4:00 the hound dog's owner came to pick him up and was very happy to see him. He was missing for 3 days. No wonder his feet were worn and he was starving. Between chasing coyotes (which he is trained for) and out for 3 days in these thunderstorms I would be a little frazzled myself. He perked up seeing his owner and hopped in the truck to have a well deserved rest at home. I will have to remember his name "Patrick" as this is the 2nd time he has showed up in a year.

Who Am I????

Well you never know what you will wake up to in the morning eh?? This morning I let my Antrim out as usual at 6:30 and he started barking up a storm!! As there are lots of coyotes out here I ran out to call him. To my surprise he was busy sniffing a hound dog about the same height as himself. This dog had a tracking radio collar on along with his I.D. collar. He belongs to a fellow on the other side of Warkworth about 20 miles from here. He obviously has been running for some time as he can hardly walk on his feet. I gave him water and he wolfed (no punn intended) a bowl of kibble. I called the owner from the info on his collar this morning at 7:00 and had to put the poor thing in the barn while I went to work. I came home 4 hours later and checked the barn only to find he was still here.He was curled up in a wood pile shivering. It took some coaxing and a biscuit to get him to come to me. I took him outside and tied him to the tree for shade and gave him more water and more food. He is soooo skinny. It is now 3:00 and no sign of the owner. Perhaps the real owner (the husband) is out working today as I spoke to the wife this morning. I remember this same dog came to my house last year too. He had escaped the night before and was running all night then too. That time the owner came right away to get him. I feel bad for the poor dog and will certainly find out why he is so skinny and shy....... don't worry folks I took lots of pictures of him from all angles in case I needed them!
Animals know what house to run to for protection!

Sheep to Shawl at Grasscreek

On August 8th I had the pleasure of being on the Belleville Team competing in the Sheep to Shawl competition at Grasscreek Sheep Dog Trials. We had just 4 1/2 hours to spin a raw fleece and finish weaving a shawl. Esther Grav, Rosemary Morris, Anne Buckley and myself were the spinners and our wonderful hard working weaver was Diane Wludyka. Diane had also spun all the wool for the warp and had some of it dyed too. The precious grey/brown in the warp was spun from Wendy Pullan's Border Collies making it extra special. Unfortunately we ran out of time due to our unique weaving of the shawl and we came in 3rd. But our beautiful shawl took the highest price in the shawl auction the next day which the money goes to our guild . Congratulations to all of us . It was a wonderful fun day with lots of chatter and laughter as usual.......LOL.....

NEWS FLASH

Looks like I will be going to Mexico again within the year..... My daughter Emily got engaged to the love of her life Bencar. They live in Mexico and the wedding will be there too. I am so happy for her and me too as I will be getting a wonderful son-in -law.
All the best Emily and Bencar.
Meanwhile check out their website where they offer custom tours.
www.ohpana.wordpress.com

Colours to dye for!

On Sunday we spent the day at Mara's beautiful house in Cobourg (she is the red Tshirt) She had everything arranged for us to do some natural dying of our wool and rovings.
We had lots of fun and the weather co-operated as best it could.
Some of the naturals we used were Flowers from Black-eyed Susans , Stems from Black-eyed Susans, Walnuts, Jewel Weed, Umbillicaria and Avocado.
Here is a couple of pics to show off our wonderful colours.
Thanks Mara for the fun day....

5 down , one more to go!

Well we just finished our classes for another year for the OHS Spinning certificate. It is a 6 year course and we just finished the classes for year 5 at Loyalist College in Belleville. Now on with the homework!!!
This year we learned to spin flax, synthetics, and cotton. It has been an interesting adventure but a lot of work. We started year 1 with 60 students and 3 classes. We are now down to 17 students and one class so that tells you how tough the course is. I'll keep you posted.....

Model 101

Can anyone tell me why this stunning gal is not a model somewhere?

Sad day at Antrimlea

Why is it that things happen that seem so meaningless and almost to the cruel side. It makes you think about life and what the heck are we doing here. I feel I am truly being tested some days and today is one of them . While cutting my grass I had the grim discovery of finding a beautiful little fawn deer dead on my fence. She had caught her hind leg on the top of the fence while no doubt following her mother jumping over it last night. Her body is perfect with tiny spots covering her back. I can only imagine the agony of death she went through and I can't even fathom the feelings of her mother as she looked on unable to do nothing.
Sometimes life sucks and this is one day that does....

Happy Canada Day!!!

Antrim and I would like to wish everyone a Very Happy Canada Day! We are so fortunate to live in such a wonderful country and should count our blessings every day....
cheers everyone
Kerry and Antrim

Gel Nails

I can now do Gel Nails along with regular manicures and pedicures. The long tips are placed and with a little work the finished nails are done for my latest client. She loved her new nails!

Back to Back

There is always fun things to do in the "fibre world". Last weekend we formed a team of spinners and knitters and entered the International Back to Back Wool Challenge. This is a challenge that started in 1811 in Berkshire ,UK. and has continued world wide each year. The challenge is you get a raw fleece (preferably sheer the sheep at the contest) and without carding or any other prep work, spin the fleece into yarn and knit a sweater as fast as you can. The sweater pattern is a standard pattern to be used by everyone in the contest. You are allowed to have 7 people working on your team and one spare who fetches you water, food etc. The world record is just under 5 hours. The Canadian record was set in 2001 with a time of 7 hrs, 25 minutes. The InSein Yarnspinners from Manitoba hold this honour. It was a very tiring day but we had a lot of fun and finished our sweater in 10 hours and 41 minutes. Grace kindly rewarded us with a lovely lasagne dinner at her house afterwards.

My Little Princess

Just thought I would post one of my favourite pics of my grandaughter Katerra.... she is just adorable isn't she???

Good news!!!!

Great news Folks. My foster girls found their "furever" home. They have gone to live with a fabulous family in Ajax. Thank you to all my friends who were scouting for a good home for them. We wish them a long life and know they will be well cared for. It was nice they were adopted together too! I was getting too attached to Misty.......LOL...
cheers
Kerry

We had a wedding!

On Friday my youngest daughter Abby Jean Smith got married to Anthony Justin Smith. What are the chances of having the same last name eh?? She doesn't have to change her name anywhere. It was a beautiful wedding and everything was perfect. You can see in these pictures how much in love they are. They wrote their own wedding vows and as you can imagine there wasn't a dry eye in the crowd. Congratulations to you Abby and my new son Anthony! Love you both..... Moms..xxoo
Photos were thanks to
http://www.jbsmithphotography.com/blog
http://www.johnedgar.net
Please go to their sites to see more photos.

"The Girls"

Well, my foster girls came tonight and are they ever a couple of Ladies. Misty is the Blue Merle and Roxy is the Tri -colour . They are 8 and 9 years old and are just sweeties. Please pass the word around for us if you know anyone who would like to adopt them. They are in perfect health and are kid, people and cat friendly. They would like to be adopted together as they have been together since puppies but will consider separating them to the right home. Just call or email me for more info.
cheers
Kerry

Misty and Roxy

Well sometimes you just can't say no. These are my new foster girls that I will be fostering for the Collie Rescue until they get adopted. Roxy and Misty are 2 beautiful female Rough Collies who need a home. As they have been together since puppies it would be great to see them adopted together . Please contact me if you are interested. Misty looks so much like my Antrim doesn't she.

Spring is here for sure!

Well you really know it is spring when the sheep get sheared for the season. On Friday I went to help my friend Cindy Osland with her shearing. The famous shearer Ruco Braat was doing the shearing and we were doing the skirting and decision whether the fleece went for sale to hand spinners or got shipped to the wool mill. I really enjoy this day and as payment we get to pick what fleece we would like to take home... tough decision of course as their are so many nice ones. I did settle for a dark brown fleece and can't wait to start working on it. 90 sheep were shorn on Friday and another 60 will be done next week. The little white lamb was so cute watching his mommy get shorn. The noice in the barn is incredible from crying moms and babies as they are temporarily separated. They are so cute. One little lamb is so small it had to have a sweater on. I cuddled him and he weighs nothing.....