Cap de Bouirex

Weather too good to resist getting out and with a little fresh snow I was able to persuade Andy to get on the skis. We had to carry until out of the woods, but after it was a clear skin to the summit - nice snow on the descent, we just had 20 snowshoers to avoid on the summit slopes. 

A leisurely 3h40 including lunch and 740m ascent.

Our tracks just discernible on the left of the ridge

 

Tiny Tim

It's been a couple of years with lambs, but we ve decided to sell some sheep and try to develop our flock of ouessants to produce the best wool.  We found a young white ouessant ram in Cescau (about 35 minutes from Aleu) and after an initial viewing decided he was suitable. Yesterday I quickly transformed our trailer into a sheep transporter and today we picked him up.

There was a bit of stand off at first but once he smelled the ewes all hell broke loose. William our old ram who was castrated a couple of years ago wasn't too bothered but Oaty who was castrated as a lamb but has retained some hormones (he has big horns, mates with the ewes but has no nuts) wasn't so happy and there's been some head bashing! Tiny Tim has already mated with Chihero and seems intent to stand his ground. It's very late for mating so hopefully things will calm down soon.

 

More from "Laine de Quélébu"

Three out of four handwoven cushions complete...

 ...and some of Susie's homespun handknits.

Scarf complete

 Scarf complete and washed. A few interesting mistakes! I'll write an explanation in the next couple of days of the weave and a draft for any weavers who may stumble across this and be interested.  

Scarf underway

Taking the pattern from cushion 3 and some spare warp, I've embarked on a scarf. As the remnants of the old warp was still on the loom I tied the new warp to the old and wound it onto the back beam which saved threading the heddles. I re-sleyed the reed slightly denser - this time 24 epi (ends per inch) rather than 20 epi. So the fabric is a little bit stiffer.

Pic Estibat

On Tuesday the weather sunny and warm and strolled up Joubac in shirt-sleeves watching some planes land on the airstrip, then in the evening and yesterday the temperatures plummeted and we had snow flurries. 

Today we went up Pic Estibat to check it out. Wow was it cold! A glove off your hand for a couple of seconds and it was numb. On the summit the west wind was biting. We dropped along the ridge heading towards Pic de Journalade and took shelter behind the rock outcrop at 1593m for lunch, before dropping over the edge into the Goute de Roque and looping back to the col de Port.

Deep powder overlaying the iron hard old snow made for some interesting descents!

 

Fabric off the loom

The fabric for the four cushion covers is now off the loom, washed and pressed. The one above is my favourite and in fact it was the back of the last piece I wove and something of a surprise. As I have a narrow piece of identical warp, I think Ill repeat it to make a scarf for my neighbour Alain, who gave me the old loom from his attic for free!

Below are samples of the four weaves, all from an identical warp threaded on 5 shafts in "Bateman boulevard".