Many thanks to those of you who came and made our 2011 fall open house a wonderful day! Can’t wait til potluck at the spring open house. Here’s a little album of the wool activities… continued »

We sure hope you’ll be able to join us sometime today between 2 and 10 pm for our fall open house. The weather promises to be gorgeous, the wind is just right and we’ve got the whole farm spruced up as pretty as can be. You can expect to have lots of chances to sit and look at animals, wander around the pastures and gardens and visit with nice folks. We’ll have woolcraft activities, blue grass music and a potluck dinner at 6 pm. So bring a dish and join us! Click here for the full schedule of events. continued »

All are invited to this little homestead open house. Celebrate the harvest of a great growing year with us! Bring lawn chairs or picnic blankets, drinks for the day and a potluck dish to share for dinner. We’ll have swings to swing in, trees to climb, goats to get in and romp with, music to dance to, as well as lawn games set up all day. In addition to the events listed below, there will also be Homestead Meats for purchase at 10% off (bring a cooler), as well as Maidmarion Cottage Industry wool products and other locally made foods and crafts for sale. continued »

Join us next Saturday for a celebration of summer fun and food on the farm! All are welcome from noon til night – bring a blanket to sit on and food to share for the evening potluck. We’ll have Hillbilly Golf, Cornhole Boards and other lawn games out to play all day. A camera is a good idea, as are messy shoes so you can visit the lambs and goats in their paddocks. The following is a schedule of the day’s events, including a pre-party Herbal First Aid Class presented by Nicole Klinge who led a very popular herbal walk here last year. continued »

Last Sunday we hosted a group of really cool ladies for a fabulous fiber dyeing party out here in our summer kitchen. (see our Farm Birthday Parties page for info on how you can plan such an event out here yourself) Pretty much every weekend brings something new and exciting to us, but we had a particularly good time on this one! Maybe having a dyeing day right on the cusp of spring gave the group some extra inspiration (or maybe it was the wine and amazing cheese they brought with them.) The yarns and scarves turned out simply scrumptious! Check out the photos at our facebook page or see a few samples here: continued »

We had another lamb waiting in the barn for us this morning – a tall white eweling born to Rizzo, one of my white Merinos. I named her Candy because she came into a world completely encased in ice and shiny like a candy apple. Last night’s rain froze on everything, turning our muddy farm into a glass sculpture. continued »

We had our first lambs of the season yesterday morning. Cricket, one of my white Merinos, dropped two gorgeous ewelings in the clean hay at the back of the little stone barn – right inside one of two jugs we use to seclude new families so we can keep an eye on the nursing and bonding. Good girl! All I had to do was bring a bucket of warm water with molasses and shut the gate. That was just the perfect spot. And the perfect day – sunny, above freezing and dry. Today is another matter, though, as we watch and wait anxiously for the rest of the lambs to be born into this sleet… continued »

A few weeks ago a neighbor lady showed up on my doorstep with a crazy story. Her son had asked his grandparents for an alpaca for Christmas and they had said yes. continued »

The house is hushed this morning under another new blanket of fluffy snow. I’m here alone quietly playing with the cat (Miss Purrl) and my wool. But next weekend this peaceful scene will be transformed into a rather raucous beehive of activity as we welcome our Beginning-ish Spinners back for the second in the Maidmarion spinning class series here at the farm. We’ll be wrestling wheels and flinging spindles as we all work our way toward creating a few skeins of fabulous yarn to take home and knit – or just display, like a trophy! (I still have my first skein – a pretty mint yarn I spun from Piglet’s fleece and dyed with lime Koolaid.) I’m super excited about the class, for a number of reasons… continued »

Learning to spin is most certainly not an easy thing. Like so many handicrafts, it seems just about impossible if you haven’t grown up doing it. I took a year break between my first two spinning classes! For me now, spinning truly is the relaxing occupation you imagine it will be when you see someone quietly treadling an old-fashioned wheel. But first I put in months of wrestling with the wheel and getting tangled up in spindles. Hooray to the Lizzes, Carolyn, Bean, Cindy, Hilary and Stacey for sticking it out and making lots of great progress today in our Absolute Beginning Spinning Class. They make it look like loads of fun, and it is when you can allow yourself some time to make messes! More pics – continued »