Whew! Part Two

A while back I received my NS Museums update and was told about the Wooly Weekend at Ross Farm Museum. Shearing? Spinning? Oh, I am there!

Since it fell on a workday for Phil, I convinced my mom to come. Friday evening the children and I went out and gathered good picnic food and went to bed early so we could get an early start on Saturday.

Saturday...it rained.

However, we're Nova Scotians. If we let rain deter us from doing the things we want to do, why, we'd never leave the house! We packed the car anyway and hit the road.

Ross Farm also understands that Nova Scotians are not going to be detered by a bit of rain, so they have this cozy little visitors centre with a nice little fire going in a woodstove and a table with benches for indoor picnics. We had a lovely little meal, then spent the rest of the day running through the rain to the various buildings.

The first animal we met made my children very excited

She was like a rougher, slightly dirtier version of our Ginny. And affectionate! Poor barn kitty, starved for love! (Just kidding, the farm has lots of visitors every day, plus the staff..this kitty looks quite loved)

Next up we headed into the barn to see the lambs


Oh, they were so cute! And their mamas were friendly too, especially when we gave them some feed.

And then we met this poor mama

Oy! I thought nursing one was hard on a body! When mama pig had enough, she rolled over. Most of the piglets made it out and trotted off to jump on each other, but one poor babe got stuck and was all legs a-flying. Mama sort of looked back and raised up enough to release the little guy, but as soon as he was out she laid back down and ignored the piglets attempts to get back at her teats. Finally the wee ones took the hint and started to clamour at the fence hoping we had something for them. Little pigs!

We went into the cow area, but...um...it was rather stinky and gross in there. All we saw were bovine behinds, and uh...their product. Cam, being an 8 year old boy, found the cows pooping to be really quite funny, but the rest of us were trying not to hurl. We did not stay long, or take pic of the cows and oxen.

Next stop was the Rose Cottage. There we got to see some dyeing. Because the farm is set up to work as though it did 100 years ago, there was no dye sets from Knit Picks here!
Here we have a pot using coffee beans

The yarn has to stay in it's dye bath for about 24 hours to get a good saturation, according to the dye recipe book they are using.
These were coloured with plants, all natural and found on the farm itself.


My children were put to work picking wool, basically pulling it apart and getting the dirt out while shown how the spinning wheel worked

Later, Cameron was put to work in the kitchen, grinding up coffee

Made me appreciate my grinder, that's for sure!

It was hard to leave the warm kitchen with it's homemade cookies to venture back out into the rain, but the workshop had a nice warm fire too...and we got to see this

Using old fashioned shears, this man's job was to hold down this rather annoyed ewe and give her a haircut. She protested with bleats and the occasional wiggle and kicking of legs, then settled down and relaxed (which meant farting...Cam found that to be hilarious).

The shearer mentioned that outside there was a ram who had been sheared the day before, and they got 20lbs of fibre off of him. I managed to get this photo of him

After taking that shot, I noticed this sheep staring at me through the fence, with an expression that can only be described as disapproval

I took that to mean that she did not approve of my taking naked sheep photos.

The kids had to say goodbye to "Farm Ginny" before heading home


We changed into dry clothes and hit the road, stopping for ice cream and again at my favourite coffee shop.

All in all, a great day out, despite the rain :)