First Week of Homeschool

Anna started homeschool for the fall semester.  We are part of a homeschool group that gets together on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  Parents chip in and pay for teachers (one of the advantages of living in a college town) and the kids take classes in a yurt in the back yard of one of the homeschooling families.  This semester Anna is taking Math and Art on Tuesday, and Physics, Latin and French on Thursday.  Anna's favorite subject is Math, and she is a dedicated student.  She worked on her math homework all afternoon...

Until I got home from work and we canned some tomato sauce (a homeschool lesson in its own way)...

And then finished her math at my office the next morning...

She thought it was due the following day rather than the next week!  So far Anna is enjoying all her classes and the company of her friends.

Skirting Fleeces

On Sunday, Anna and I took advantage of the sunny, windy weather and started skirting our fleeces that were sheared back in May.  Our friend Emilie called and when I told her what we were doing, she said skirting fleeces sounded like fun, and she'd like to watch/help.  This was Emilie's romantic view of skirting (it looks lovely through the garden, doesn't it?)...

before I explained that it was definitely NOT nice or fun, and involved picking out poop and hay from dense wool, and shaking the fleece in the wind to loosen vegetation, dirt and "other stuff," and then picking some more.  It's VERY dirty work and the lanolin in the fleece makes everything stick to you.  Emilie and Joachim came over after we were done skirting.

Here are some photos of our day.  First Michael sets up the skirting table with his best helper, Jumper ( I believe he is part dog)....

The tabletop screen we use is actually an 5 ft x 6 ft section of dog kennel.  This is Amy's beautiful fleece...

And here we are about half way done picking through Miss Fudge's fleece...

It takes at least a couple hours to skirt and pick through each fleece well, but it's important because clean fleeces make better yarn.  We were complimented at the Green Mountain Spinnery for the cleanliness of our fleeces, especially since we don't coat our sheep.  We only got through 2 out of  our 6 fleeces on Sunday.  You can guess what we'll be doing this weekend.  Anyone interested in helping out?  :)