What a week! I'm sure everyone has been busy with Thanksgiving and family and shopping like crazy, but we added in some rabbit time on top of all of that!
We have a Twitter account! Please check out @SFFiowa for quick updates on our business!
I have been reading Guide to Better Rabbits and Cavies as much as possible this week, and am now half-way through the book. One of the most interesting things that I stumbled across in my reading so far is that rabbits should be fed at night, as they are nocturnal. My farming background makes me think of "doing chores" first thing in the morning, but it will actually be nice to wait until later in the day so I won't be so rushed before I head out to my real job.
My mother has been spinning like crazy lately. She's getting frustrated because her yarn is very inconsistent, but every source we've found has said that practice is all that can improve the quality. On Sunday I sat down with her wheel and spun a spindle's worth of Lincoln longwool, and I couldn't believe how quickly it went!! Now I'm longing for a spinning wheel, instead of the drop spindle that I play with from time to time.
My mother also has been working on the shawl pins. Unfortunately I don't have pictures (I should have thought of that over the weekend!) but the success is limited so far. The colors of the clay change when they are baking, so our whites turned out more of a peach color. However, the designs my mother made are beautiful, so we simply have to work out the color situation and those will be good to go.
My friend is working on designing hats, mittens, and other accessories for us to make with our Angora yarn. As we continue with this progress I will keep you all posted!
On to the rabbitry, which I'm sure is what you're really waiting for: Saturday was a beautiful day. We (my mother, my friend who is in on this business, my spouse, and I) hopped into our vehicles and met in a town about 2 hours away. We actually got lunch first at a cute little family-style restaurant, and then did a bit of shopping before our appointment at the rabbitry. Once we arrived, the owner, JH, showed us around their operation. There were several hutches outside that housed ENORMOUS Flemish Giants, some of which he let us pet. That was a lot of fun. Then he took us into their garage, which is heated and air-conditioned, and showed us their small herd of Giant, French, and Satin Angoras. We really loved getting to finally see some rabbits in person, and we had fun petting their coats. He had two Giant bucks for sale, but unfortunately we're not really interested in Giants, so we told him we would have to think about it. After more discussion later, we're pretty sure we want to stick to French, Satin, and English.
While we were there, he offered to take us up to their spinning room. On the upper floor of their beautiful historic home, they have a room full of spinning wheels and drop spindles (including a great wheel!) and bags upon bags of angora fleece. We had a good hour of "show and tell" time with the fleece, and at one point his wife, KH, joined us and began talking about her dying experiences with skeins of yarn she had spun. We ended up purchasing several ounces of Angora to take home and start spinning. We thought that even if we weren't walking away with rabbits, we could at least take the opportunity to have some starter fleece for the projects we have in mind.
When we returned home Saturday night I emailed another local breeder immediately to try to contact them about some of their rabbits that we're interested in. They live near my parents, so I was hoping to get to see their livestock on Sunday, but the short notice prevented us from being able to get together. Hopefully we can remedy that situation soon.
The next step for us is to get those cages put together!! They're still sitting in their boxes in my living room, but they don't do us much good like that, so hopefully this weekend I can spend some quality time with them. I'll post pictures if I have any level of success. Also, I need to be spinning as much as possible! We need to get our yarn out on the market!
Tip of the Week: Collect phone numbers as well as email addresses from the breeders you contact. Many breeders that I have been in touch with do not list their phone numbers on their website, making them more difficult to contact if they don't check their email often. However, once you've had initial contact, feel free to request their phone number, and offer yours to them as well.
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