Grass Staggers/Twin Lamb

My little flock has had to put up with some nasty weather conditions over the past 2 - 3 years since they are totally outdoor girls (and rams), no sheds and supplemental feed just to cover them from late pregnancy to post lambing. Largely got away with it but one poor girl got Grass Staggers aka hypomagnesaemia along with twin lamb disease. It was a sort of "perfect storm" for her - she's young and was perhaps under condition when tupped ('though not greatly), then she had a pair of bouncing lambs mid April which grew at a hefty rate, using her calcium galore, the weather got nasty with poor grass growth then suddenly warm and bright with rapid, flimsy new grass growth only to turn cold and wet again - add it all together and I find an ewe in the field stargazing (standing there with her neck bent back and apparently staring at the sky).
I take her to the garden shed for shelter and all her muscles are twitching, neck is extended and teeth grinding. Fifty mls s.q. 40% ca mag plus 3  - 45 mls revival tonic (molasses with magnesium, calcium etc) down a tube - fortunately she can swallow.  Back some hours later, repeat all - little response. Day two, she's a downer. Give all the above again plus additional tube feeds for energy and ions - little response.
Mostly if they don't respond by then it's curtains.
Next day:

Hello! Up and about and making a right mess out of the shed!
Thing now was to get her rumen going - no rumen, no sheep.
She won't eat by herself so still giving glucose rich by tube (tube into her gullet and she swallows the liquid - not a stomach tube). Added some probiotic yogurt (Glenisk no less). Offered greens and concentrate - just stares at it but... a bolus of lettuce popped into her cheek causes her to chew automatically and so eating begins ! Slipped in a little concentrate and that got chewed up too - then it seemed to dawn on her how to eat and she sets into a dish of concentrate. Improvement continued over the next 2 days - I'd have let her rejoin the flock but her twins might have returned to the milk bar so kept her away for a total of 5 days and when she returned they just acknowledged her but didn't bother her.  They are feeding themselves quite well and don't need her anymore.
I placed a bucket of lick with calcium and magnesium in it in the field and she's the only one to show interest in it so far.
Anyway, just an episode of sheerly emergency that arrises with the ovines from time to time.
That's sheep for ya.
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Huddie Hat

Hudson Rua, aka Huddie "blew" his coat about 3 weeks ago. Tufts of undercoat were left dangling from his hair especially along his back and sides. These have to lifted out - to clean him up and prevent hairs around the house but also, as they are very soft, to spin into yarn.  A lot could be simply picked off but a brush was employed to get lots more out. Note: this is soft undercoat which I call "doggie down", other call "cangora" - not coarse hair.
Here's some photos of Huddie yarn in progress:

 Yarn was spun and plied on my little drop spindle making about 53 yards. A swatch using 4 mm needles showed a gauge of 5 1/2 stitched /inch .
I matched this with some wool yarn I spun and dyed a while ago.
It became this hat:

Knit on circular needles, the rib is wool, turned under for a snug hem and the rest is stocking stitch, 2 rows Huddie, 2 rows wool - some of the wool is dyed in blues and a little red here and there.

It's very soft , warm and not irritating at all.

Thanks Huddie. Catch you again next year if not before.

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Goodalls Red Yellow and Black

Dye samples using Goodalls food colors. This time used about 60:40 water : vinegar and using 1 ml of dye to 1 gm of wool yarn.

They are quite bright - a bit harsh so maybe  a lower concentration of dye - say 0.5 ml per gram - would give a softer, more subtle effect.

These three 2 gram mini-hanks were cooked in the microwave and despite the small amount (6 grams in about 300 mls liquid), in individual bowls with cling film on top,  it took full 5 minutes at full power (850 watts) to get the dye in. The liquid left for the yellow was almost clear, the red left a fair bit of red tint in the water and the black left quite a lot of dye in the water. There was no bleeding from any of the three while they were rinsed .
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Goodalls food color sampling

I have several colors of food coloring made by Goodalls. I've used them to dye some yarn once or twice before and tended to get somewhat weaker colors. I've decided to make some dyed yarn samples using them to see what they might look like in full concentration and to get an idea of quantities of dye and vinegar needed for wool yarn.
I read somewhere that food color needed 1 ml for every gram of fiber - so 5 grams of yarn needs 5 mls of liquid dye etc. A 100 gram hank of yarn would need 4 of the 25 ml bottles of food dye that I usually get! - quite a lot so if I were to use this for a large project, I'd need to find a source of big value quantities. Maybe a catering products company? - but that's for another day.
THE GREEN

First pass:
5 grams of my 2-plyd hand spun yarn soaked for 1/2 hour in 1/2 water, 1/2 vinegar. Then I rinsed the yarn (probably a mistake - the yarn was all clean, the soaking was to get the acidic water all through it - shouldn't have rinsed it away).
Coveren the yarn in water in a small pot, added 5 mls of green color and brought to the boil. Simmered 1/2 hour then left to cool. Rinsed.
This produced a light green dye with quite a lot left in the the pot:

So I thought "not enough beast and/or not enough vinegar" - our water tends to be alkali, so maybe I need more acid than usual. Wish I had some litmus paper left!
Replaced the yarn in the pot, added more vinegar and simmered for a further 1/2 hour then left it to go very cool in the water.

A lot greener and very little left in the pot.

NEXT, THE BLUE GOODALLS:

6 grams yarn, 50:50 vinegar:water soak for 1/2 hour, then NO rinse, add 6 mls of blue dye to liquid and another glug of vinegar, then replace the yarn; bring to the boil; simmer for one hour then cool and rinse.

As you can see, this is a purplish blue with uneven take-up. It looks more of a navy blue in real life than the photos show. I've noticed this splitting with this blue before - not sure why. It did all take up onto the yarn.

Cochineal;

Next I will sample Black, Yellow and Red.

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Rufus gets into spinning

So I won't be saying "Prepared in an animal-free environment" ha ha !

Huddie Finds A Tail in the field

Over on his Facebook page, he's trying to pretend he swallowed a lamb!
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!/2 oz singles put to work on "Sheep Heid" knit pattern by Kate Davies.

Used two strands, of different colors so one in front forms the pattern and the one woven in at the back makes the hat thicker and warmer.
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