Well as life goes by the kids grow up, get married and start new lives that don't include sheep and goats.  My Allison is still home but a few years ago she decided she wanted to sell out of the livestock that we kept at the farm.  We did give away all the rabbits but two angoras that were mine personally.  I decided I could do a few rabbits for myself, because cute fuzzy babies make me happy.
      I have had my share of health related problems that have kept me from doing all that I would like to but I am able to do a few things that make me happy.  I still play with wool, angora and other fibers that I have bought from others that grow their own in MI.  
     A while back I could no longer treadle my spinning wheel.  This was devastating. Allison found me an electric spinning wheel that we purchased so I could still do some spinning.  I also have taken a liking to making amigurumi toys and stuffed animals.  This has kept me busy but I recently had surgery done on my ankle and I am very hopeful that after healing I will be able to use my spinning wheel again. 
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​This week Allison and I packed up the truck, with our wool class materials, both service dogs and some snacks.  Exploration Days is a three day event held at Michigan State University.  Participants pick from over 300 different sessions on many different interest areas.  Some sessions are half sessions allowing the participant to pick two different classes and some are full sessions lasting the whole three days.
Fun With Fiber was a full session this year allowing us to expand on what we could offer.  Before we began we set out different types of fiber for the participants to see and fell the differences.  We talked about different types of sheep and the differences in wool types.  We worked out questions about crimp and micron count.  We started out with a raw fleece that we skirted and then washed.  We then used the washed wool to dye it in different colors.  We added some angora, dog hair, processed wool roving and mohair to our dye pots.  Since we were in the Plant and Soil Sciences building we were able to set our dyed wool projects in the greenhouse to dry. 
As Alli and I were walking through the hall to the Sparty store we were approached by a young lady.  She said that she had taken our class last year.  She wanted to thank us again for the introduction to fiber crafts.  She is still using her love of fiber and has just gotten her first spinning wheel two weeks ago.  She made our night.  It was so nice to know that what we are doing is making a difference.
The next morning our dyed wool was all dry and ready for carding, so we passed around hand cards and a couple flick carders to show different ways to prepare fiber for spinning.  Everyone had a great time mixing the colors and different fibers including some alpaca and llama.  This led right into spinning the fibers that were carded on drop spindles that everyone got to take home.  Everyone that wanted to took a turn on the spinning wheel. 
Our fiber adventure took us to needle felting next.  We brought along cookie cutters to use as forms for the felting.  Some beautiful scenes including animals were made.  Others made animals to be turned into Christmas ornaments.  It was great to see the creativity as each one made something different.
From there we jumped right into locker hooking using roving.  Although we only used a small amount of canvas to make a drink coaster, everyone got the idea of how to do locker hooking.  Again the creativity floored me as someone free handed a horse on their canvas.  We tried to share some history of each craft as we went along including the fact that locker hooking came from Australia. 
The class ended with bubbles of fun as we did wet felted wool wrapped soap bars.  This craft is a lot of fun as you put your wrapped bar of soap in a knee high stocking, dunk it in really hot water and then in really cold water.  By rubbing all six sides across bubble wrap you felt the wool to the soap.  A couple people made dryer balls as well.  We made a lot of bubbles and a lot of mess but it was a great way to end our class.
Everyone was sent home with a drop spindle, their felted soap, the foam that they used for needle felting, and a bag of fiber to practice at home.  We would like to thank everyone that took our class as you were a delightful group.  We had as much fun teaching as you did learning with us.  Thank you for accepting our service dogs hanging out in the class with us.  A big Thank You to Jan Kelly for donating wool last year that we were still using this year.

2016 has brought some big changes to the farm.  After doing a lot of soul searching as a family we have decided to sell most of the animals.  It is a hard choice to do so since we have put so much into this venture.  Samantha is working and doing college classes while Allison is concentrating on breeding and showing her Standard Poodles.  As for me, Sheri the mom, I am having some health issues that make it hard to do milking and chores.  We will continue to spin, knit and crochet.  We have a lot of wool built up so we won't be empty for a long time. 

As far as who will stay... we will keep three sheep.  Pandora (CVM and Sam's pet), Taz (Romney, CVM Cross) and Tank (Registered Romney - with the original Bellairs Blood line).  We are also keeping Marshmallow the alpaca.  This will reduce the feed bill and the work load. 

I am planning to use this blog more for communicating what is happening on the home front and what projects I am currently working on.  I will undoubtedly have puppy news available too.  At the moment I am stocking our shelf with homemade wash cloths.  We seem to run out of them frequently and instead of going to the store to purchase more I decided to make some.  I began with the fancy ones that have a picture in the middle then switched over to the basic one my Gma used to make.  The picture ones are cute and creative but I needed to make them quicker than that pattern allowed.  Besides it is nice to just sit and knit and not really think about the pattern.

My late Christmas present was ordered yesterday.  Mike bought me a convertible knitting needle set in bamboo.  It seems that our puppy Muffin likes the taste of bamboo knitting needles.  I just purchased a 24" size 9 circular to do my next project and Muffin ate the needles.  Hmmm....guess I will have to make sure I put my work away every night.

I hope you will continue to follow our news page as we change over to an overall view of what we are doing and not just news on the farm animals.
Yours Sincerely,
Sheri Bellairs

Well fall is fast approaching and with it is our fall fiber sales.  We are feverishly getting fleeces washed and carded using our wonderful electric carder.  We will be selling our wares at the Fall Fleece Fair this Saturday in Chelsea with the Spinners Flock.  Our Romney batts are fluffy and beautiful and they blend so well with other fibers including angora, CVM and Merino.  Add to that a little Angelina for sparkles and you have our batts. 

Beyond that is our Fall Fiber Expo in Saline MI at the Farm Council Grounds.  It is Saturday and Sunday October 24-25.  This show is one of our favorites and not just because it is close to home.  It is a lot of fun to catch up with other fiber artists that we haven't seen in several months. 

For the first time we will have some exotic and fun fibers available at both shows including poodle locks and milk weed fluff.  Offering up some Black walnuts to dye with as well as our own wool, angora and alpaca.  From now until Christmas is a busy time and we will be spinning, knitting and crocheting several things to have available.

Summer of 2015 has held many challenges.  The 4H fair is always a highlight of the summer.  This year was no different, but in many ways it was very different.  We move into fair the last week of July and I had to have ankle surgery the second week of July.  So... all of those last minute fair projects had to be done without any of my help.  I usually at least try to follow the girls through the kitchen and run clean up as they make the mess.  Also I love to just jump in and help wherever needed.

I found myself on the couch directing and issuing orders of what to do next.  Samantha doesn't need  a lot of help since she is now 18 but we also take on a young lady that can't have rabbits at home.  We managed to get salsa, bread and butter pickles, canned goat milk (with our new pressure canner), canned watermelon pickles, pickled carrots and a few others that I can't remember.  Toss a little baking in there along with a shopping trip for clothes and yes it was a whirlwind.  Samantha took Best in Show for Teen Leadership and honors for food preservation, andfood preperation.

The girls had to work the two weeks after 4H fair at a summer day camp.  Then we had one week to get ready for the Chelsea Community Fair.  We showed rabbits, hand-spun yarns, hand knit scarfs and mittens, our sheep fleeces as well as our canned items.  We enjoy doing the two fairs but boy is it tiring.  During Chelsea I was still on crutches or in a wheelchair.

So now that we are back home we are trying to solve the mysterious deaths of 5 of our lambs.  We lost 2 just before the 4H fair, two within a week of coming home and one a week later.  As suspicions grew we decided to take Boremire to MSU for a Necropsy if he didn't make it.  I suspected our grain had something to do with it so I ordered a new shipment.  The report came back with Copper Toxicity.  The girls are devastated not knowing how much of the flock would be affected.  The last death occored before we got the report.  

With time all wounds heal (including my ankle), and we will rebuild the flock after this horrible set back.

With all the work and upkeep on our fiber farm we are working harder than ever to bring out new stories for our farm news and keep everyone up to date with our fiber shows and sales we will be attending. While we do realize that our etsy store is offline for now we are going to be reopening it for the holidays and beyond.  

With this being said we have been using our new drum carder extensively creating fun and fabulous artistic carded batts. We are also creating new died combinations for our yarn and roving lovers trying to bring out fresh new looks for all of our  customers. Fall shearing have been completed for the sheep and we will be posting what we have available soon, rabbit shearing are still going on and we will keep you posted on the results from this as well.

Our next fiber sale will be at the MSU pavilion on November 22 this is also the date of a rabbit show and we will be in the rabbit show area. We hope to see some of you there just mention this post and we will know you are following our farm as it grows.  Feel free to send us your feedback we love to hear from our followers, fans and customers or stop by for a chat at the pavilion on the 22 we will be there from the beginning to the end of the rabbit show on this date.

A big thank you to all of our supporters of our Kickstarter campaign!  We met and exceeded our goal.  Our electric drum carder has been ordered and is on it's way.  We should have it by the end of the week.  So excited to start making fluffy batts.  We will also be able to invest in some extra fiber to use in our batts.  We will post updates when the carder comes in.

We are also working to get ready for the Chelsea Fair.  We are showing Silver Fox, English Lop and Angora Rabbits as well as a few chickens.  For the indoor building we will be showing some fleece, yarns and some knitted and crocheted items.  Samantha is showing her jams including mulberry and cucumber.

Always lots going on here.  Will post fair results from 4H fair real soon.