Every year I find just one plant, so now I’m going to leave it alone OR, if it’s not too wet I’ll collect the seeds and hope to cultivate them.
I just wanted to tell, that this is also a very lovely dye plant, here some tussah silk top I dyed a couple of years ago:
Min enlige gule okseøje blomstrer i øjeblikket, så jeg vil prøve at lade den være og evt. samle frø hvis det ikke bliver for vådt derude. Det lykkes mig aldrig at finde mere end den ene, som flytter sig rundt i min overgroede ex-køkkenhave, så jeg kan ikke vise mere end dette bundt silke, men jeg syntes jeg ville fortælle at det også er en udmærket farveplante!
September is for some the last summer month, but if you look at nature it’s autumn. The air is different, night temperatures drop if not also in daytime, grain harvest is usually done unless it rains too much, berries ripen and flowers wither or make an effort at a second round, not quite as showy as the first.
The kale has survived the onslaught of tiny critters I think, my weld is looking miserable and the batch I cooked up yesterday did not give very much colour compared to the small samples I did earlier. So yes, you can drag your feet too long. I haven’t gotten round to my blues either, but the temps are supposed to stay mellow, so I’m still hoping.
My back is getting back to normal after last weekend’s ordeal, just a bit of tension in my neck, still. Now of course it’s time to haul in the firewood before it gets wet again…. We get a pile delivered every feb-march, stack it to dry outside and then keep it in the shed over winter. (mind you, if we stay in this house I believe the foundation size for said shed, the original farmhouse from the 1840’s, would make a quite ok studio size for me and not too far to go to work in)
I’ve been making fresh yarn sample cards for hanging in the open but not sun for xx months, perhaps a year? And getting the solar samples paired with non-faded yarn, numbered and all sorts of organized, it took me DAYS, and I’m so proud of myself for persevering. Just have to crochet little squares to go in the wash for sampling detergent effects and then I’ll put it all in a binder. 3 years of natural dye experiments.
Next year I’ll do just a few new plant experiments if I can remember which ones have come to mind over the last few months, otherwise I’ll focus on getting as many shades as I can from just a few, lightfast plants and not bother with the fugitive ones.
The rest of my week has been spent nursing the small brown pony who came down with an abscess in his hind hoof. Treatment for such is hot soapy baths to draw the infection out and clean the wound once it’s popped open. He was quite cooperative about standing with his foot in a bucket as long as treats were forthcoming.
Some fade, others just keel over…
Den sidste sommerdag
Selvom september kan give nogen fine, lune dage, så er det alligevel for mig den første efterårsmåned. Luften er anderledes, det føles anderledes indeni, jeg begynder at længes efter at lave vintermad, overveje garnvalg til den hue jeg vil strikke, blomsterne er enten visnet ned eller giver det en sidste krampetrækning med 2. generation lidt mindre farvebomber.
Jeg er endelig nået til at høste min farvevau(-reseda), men desværre er det vist lidt sent, den gryde jeg satte over i går har godt nok ikke meget farve i sig i forhold til tidligere på sæsonen, ja blot for en måned siden. De lover heldigvis lunt vejr, så jeg håber stadig lidt på at jeg kan nå at gøre noget ved mine blå planter, vaid og japansk indigo.
Jeg har brugt ugen pÃ¥ at være rigtig disciplineret og lavet garnkort til min mappe med farveeksempler, solblegede sammen med originale, nummerering af alle fed gennem 3 Ã¥r osv. Hver plante fÃ¥r sin egen side i et ringbind med noter og halløj! Jeg er ellers ikke til den slags administrativt arbejde, sÃ¥ jeg er meget stolt af mig selv. 😉
Min ryg er ved at være i orden efter halmweekenden, blot lidt nakkespændinger tilbage. Nu er vi sÃ¥ kommet til brændestablen, som skal i skuret inden det begynder at øse ned i ugevis, sÃ¥ det trækker fugt til sig igen. Det foregÃ¥r med trillebør 50 m frem og tilbage gennem en smal port, ikke noget med at bare læsse det i traileren og dumpe det foran døren! Brændeskuret er det oprindelige bondehus fra 1840’erne og ved at falde fra hinanden. Jeg gÃ¥r og tænker pÃ¥, hvis vi bliver boende her, at fundamentet vel egentlig har en ok størrelse til et lille atelier….
Og ellers har jeg bare gået og ordnet varme fodbade til den lille brune bisse, som ragede en hovbyld til sig på det ene bagben. Heldigvis var han yderst medgørlig, bare der blev puttet noget i den anden ende samtidig.
As well as going to the sheep market this weekend, we also had straw delivered from a neighbour farmer. 300 bales. We don’t have the buildings to store the modern large bales, nor is the road here compatible with having deliveries by truck through the winter. So small bales that go into the loft are necessary to keep horses on the property, even if it’s a lot of work a few times a year. It takes about an hour at breakneck speed to get 100 bales up, tall guy throwing up with a fork, me blue in the face climbing up and down the stack.
Since I now only have the two senior ponies left, I’d prepared an empty stall with pallets for storage as well, in case the delivery rate got a bit overwhelming, also I have more hay in the loft this year because last winter the mice ate into about 20 of my wrapped(fermented) hay bales. Once the plastic is broken on those, it rots in no time.
I stack so that the dry hay is enclosed in straw, this prevents it from moulding, which happens with humid air contact. The straw doesn’t mould for some reason, so it insulates. So it’s a bit of a construction job at the same time.
This year I decided to try with a paper facemask, since I normally have breathing problems after a session like this, a week of lung pain and lots of slime and coughing. It seems to have helped not get much dust inhaled at least, altough of course it does not help with oxygen levels in a closed loft or the dry throat.
And most of this week I’m guessing will be very low key. I want to give the ponies a bath, trim big brown pony’s hind hooves if my back and hands agree and harvest my weld. I can’t seem to find the twine with gloves on, so it’s all barehand, ouch!
Yeah, hammock and library books sounds pretty good in fact…
first loadhalf way
Vinterforråd
Weekenden stod bl.a. på halmleverance, 300 småballer skulle jeg have, da vi ikke har lagerplads til de store, og vejen herned egner sig ikke til lastbilleverancer i vådt føre. (eller i det hele taget, de kan ikke komme om til stalden)
Det er tre timers hÃ¥rdt arbejde for to personer, en lang til at kaste op og lille mig blÃ¥ i hovedet der piler op og ned af stakken… Jeg havde dog ogsÃ¥ forberedt den tomme boks med paller i bunden, nu jeg kun har de to gamle ponyer tilbage. SÃ¥ nÃ¥r jeg blev lidt overvældet, kunne gemalen traske ind og lægge et par stykker derinde imens.
Jeg havde også lige 100 høballer der skulle jongleres deroppe, sidste år bed musene hul på næsten alle wrapballerne i ly af vinteren, 20 måtte vi smide ud, da de rådner så snart der kommer luft til. Men høballerne holder sig fine uden svampesporer, hvis man pakker dem ind i et lag halm som isolering. Men det er lidt af et puslespil, når pladsen er trang og ballerne vælter ind af lugen.
I Ã¥r forsøgte jeg mig med maske, da jeg ellers fÃ¥r nærmest lungebetændelseslignende tilstande, kraftige smerter, hoste og slim op til en uge efter. Det hjælper ikke pÃ¥ iltmængden, men jeg er faktisk ok (bortset fra træt, øm, skrammede arme og smadrede hænder ;-) Jeg kan selvfølgelig ikke finde snorene med handsker pÃ¥…)
Så jeg tror det bliver en stille uge, ville gerne have givet ponyerne et tiltrængt bad mens det er lunt, beskæring af baghove på den store brune bisse må vi lige overveje. Faktisk lyder hængekøje og biblioteksbøger også ret besnærende.
Having managed to pick only a few handfuls of dead needles (not easy to get off tree, then frost happens and they’re all on the ground), I decided to just toss them in a pot rather than save. Put in some testknit of my usual plant dye yarn and see what happens for future reference.
There’s all sorts of things I could have tested, iron, mordants etc, but I don’t think I have enough dye. One might be able to scavenge from the ground in the forest where they grow large and many.
I used rain water, pH 6. After boiling the needles, pH 6.5? I wish I had some way of preserving that water barrel over winter, but the last one is proof that I can’t:
In the back you see part of the original old farm house on this property, from the 1860’s, now wood shed.
Some colour seems to be available, one could test quantity, pH values, mordants, modifiers. Could be a nice dulce span of colours, doesn’t always have to be pow! Different from any of my previous results of plant dyeing at least.
Et lille hurtigt farveeksperiment med visne lærketræsnåle, havde kun et par håndfulde som jeg kogte i pH neutralt regnvand.
Der er da noget farve at hente, måske mere hvis man har flere nåle, bruger bejse, jern og andet til en samling afdæmpede naturtoner? Anderledes end noget jeg har fået før i hvert fald.
