Trois Siegneurs par Goutets

A walk from La Foulie up the long piste to Goutets. From there under a large avalanche field up to the Col de la Pourtanelle, where the wild daffodils and dog tooth violets were just starting to come out into flower.

Some huge room size blocks in the avalanche

Great views from the col

From the col a laborious climb up the ridge to reach Cap de Gragnots 2110m where the continuous snow started. the ridge has large cornices and the crack line was clearly visible some 10m from the tip.

The horizontal part of the ridge before Pic de Trois Seigneurs

The last part of the climb was steeper on harder snow and as only I had an ice axe, Sheri and Susie stopped just below whilst I quickly visited the summit.

The last part of climb

Summit shot

Choughs

On the return the wind and cloud cover increased and an unidentified bird speeding by in the strong tail wind, turned out to be an Egyptian Vulture!

 

 A 7 hour walk with 1200m of ascent over 16km.

 Garden mulched

Spring!

Spring is sprung! The wild flowers are starting to emerge, the grass is growing and birds are singing.

Sheri is back from Antartica, so it was a good excuse for a long overdue walk - to the Table des Quatre Seigneurs, alas no raptors to photograph this time.

A close encounter with a wild boar below the house, but I couldn't get a good focus on him through the branches. If you look carefully you can see his tail, a piggy eye looking straight at me and his snout trying to smell what might be making the rustling sound. Pigs have good hearing and smell but poor eyesight, I was downwind and because I didn't move he couldn't see me...at least for a while.

Morels are starting to sprout, but I don't foresee the bumper crop of last year...just a few so far.

The firewood for 2024 has been cut, split and stacked, we have run out this year with the gîte full and a cold if dry winter, so we're eating into next winter's supply now. The gardens are mostly dug over and some peas, onions, garlic and potatoes are already in the ground.

I've ordered a new loom (not the one in the previous video which was alas too expensive) but a much better one than my homemade one, which is for sale. Surplus guitars may follow!

With more lambs due in late June we have also sold some sheep. Apache and her four offspring are going to another wool producer with alpacas and angora goats, whilst three of the Ouessants are heading for coastal pastures near Perpignan. Sad to see them go, but we need to make space for new lambs and hopefully better wool.

Possible keeper

Same weave across this image, but in the upper half the alternating dark blue weft has been replaced with an aqua blue weft which is slightly thicker, completely changing one's perception of the pattern.

Another fabric on the same warp with an advancing treadling. An interesting pattern but the structure of the weave is not practical. A textile but not a fabric!

 

Sampling

 Trying some different tie-ups, treadling and wefts on the latest warp. 

Looms

Tie up started for latest weave. Half way through the heddles. Video below is of the Louet megado 16 shaft mechanical Dobby loom....loom envy!

480 threads!

More pictures of Kez

 

Next weave ideas

After spending a long time creating a random snowflake weave on the PC (above), a last minute change of mind and I've instead created a "moiré weave" on 8 shafts (below). This type of weave is effectively two twills which create interference patterns, its usually done on 16 or more shafts but I think my version will work and create wave like ripples of colour across the fabric. A fine 16/2 warp and a much thicker wool weft which will give the fabric some texture and hopefully fluff out the ripples into more distinct blocks of colour....we will see!
 

Kestrels

Seen a male and a female in the last few days checking out the field in front of the house....hopefully they'll pair up.

 

Sledging above the Col de Dret

Napkins finished just in time for the visit for from Jasper and Rosa. Susie's birthday was on the 21st but it was marked with sadness as our neighbour Michelle Cao was buried after she died suddenly from Covid last week.

On Tuesday the weather was good and Susie was feeling better, so we drove up to the end of the road close to the Etang de Lers, from where we walked up to the Col de Dret then on to the natural bowl below Courtal d'Arbiet....perfect for sledging.

 

We quickly realised that we didn't have time to inflate the innertubes that Susie had bought for sledging (they weren't fitted with a pump valve and blowing manually would have taken hours) so we sledged on them up inflated like a you would on a plastic fertiliser bag. An hour or so of sledging before it was time to head for home.

 6 napkins of the loom - washing and hemming next

Covid and plumbing

Susie started feeling unwell on last Tuesday morning, she took daily tests and at first they were negative but on Wednesday that changed. She's been pretty poorly but seems to be slowly improving. I've been isolating from her and sleeping in the spare bedroom and remain negative. We bought a new mattress last week which was delivered on Friday - alas I haven't got to sleep in it yet....Susie says it's fantastic!

Yesterday I was sorting out the connections to the water tank from the solar panels and installing the controller. I thought I could fill the system using the circulating pump, but apparently not. As I need to add 40% anti-freeze I can't use the mains either, so I had to buy a pump. Today was filling day, but a large number of leaks were discovered when I tried (repeatedly) to fill the system...really frustrating. Eventually on the third time of reassembling the system I inadvertently forgot a washer in one of the joints, the glycol went everywhere when I pumped it into the system and on opening the joint I realised I had overtightened it without the washer and damaged it! The joints for the flexible stainless steel tube are order only, so the job is now on hold for 3-4 days. I took out my anger on the workshop - which got a long overdue purge of junk and a tidy up!!

5 out of the 6 of the napkins are woven - they'll be off the loom soon.

Solar hot water

 After nearly three years of delay, finally the solar hot water project is go! Panels installed and pipework into the tank room. Just the usual couple of missing plumbing fittings to get from St Girons tomorrow....hopefully hot water by the weekend!

on the loom

Napkins on the loom. Another fine pattern but with just one colour weft if flies along. I only have one reed (the comb in the beater which keeps the warp threads apart) which is a bit coarse for such a fine fabric (8 dents to an inch, the fabric is 24 ends per inch) so it distorts the true pattern during weaving. The warp (and pattern) will find its correct place once it's washed.

 

End of napkin one, start of napkin two with hem allowance. A couple of errors in the section on the photo - very difficult to spot as work progresses with this pattern, especially with temple (a device which holds the weave at the correct width) covering the last completed section of the work.

Next weave

 

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.