The spring pole lathe I have been working on is operational now and as the video below shows, it will turn a 36” solid flywheel for my spinning wheels. There is no place around that I’ve ever found, that makes a solid one piece wooden flywheel for a spinning wheel. They are usually made of several pieces, glued together, which is fine when they are new, but given some age, you’ll almost always find the glue joints cracked and coming apart. I have a place where I can get 36” wide boards up to four or five inches thick. They come in cherry, walnut and poplar and I have even seen mahogany, butternut and maple. This is basically unheard of locally, but I found a place that has the pieces I need.
Finding these were a Godsend for me, because I can buy this stuff and cut the wheels, mainframe…the pieces for the mother of all, the maidens and legs out of these planks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TE7u2wnXYcA
We continue to be snowed under everywhere on the farm. The chickens and ducks will go outside every day if I kick the doors open, but they only go about three feet from the door and flop down and nest all day long. They might as well stay inside where they are sitting on nice, dry wood chips, rather than frozen, packed snow…but a duck lacks that kind of reason. In fact, a duck will leave a nice warm barn to swim in ice cold water; through a hole in the ice that I cut open for them. There isn’t even any water to speak of in the small duck pond, because it is almost frozen completely to the ground. If I break a hole in the ice and shovel it out, the water that is there is like a slurpy drink! It’s that close to being frozen. If the ducks don’t get into the water almost immediately, it freezes over again within minutes. This morning it was a little milder than in the past few weeks. It is now 22° outside and they promise a mixture of snow and rain today with a high of 39°. I believe we will probably see a little snow, but tomorrow promises to be clear and cool. Friday they are forecasting 100% rain. Ohhhh boy, dig out the boat!! With as much as 39” of snow on the ground right now, that kind of forecast can be followed with a bold RED “BEWARE of flooding in low spots and along streams.”
We continue to keep on keepin’ on…working on fiber processing, artwork, web sites, the lathe or design and fabrication work. I’m working on a glue fixture big enough to accommodate a thirty-eight inch item, like a plank bottom chair seat or whatever I need. I can glue planks or boards together to make cheaper flywheels too. Anyway, below are pictures of other things we are doing here on the farm as we await the arrival of spring.
Speaking of that…I just looked out the window and here is our rain! Hmmmm…39” plus another uhhh…oh poo, who cares at this point! Let’r RIP!!!
Snow
More Snow...
Did I Mention MORE SNOW???
Bollero's fiber in a rolag....
The blending board I made Vick...We will sell these in our shop...
The blending board has an adjustable leg...
Special art roving Vick made on the blending board...
A load of Bollero ready to go through the carding machine
Beautiful, soft fiber...Great to spin
Vick cards one time by hand before feeding the carding machine...
The only sign of spring we've seen since that groundhog screwed up again...
A bag of beautiful, soft fiber from Sargent Pepper
Vick's latest stained glass masterpiece...for sale in the shop...
072131 Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC
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