Spinning Field Trip

I wrote a week ago saying that a neighbor around the corner was kind enough to show our children how to spin fibers into thread.  I promised pictures but it has been a busy week.  Ok, here are the pictures!

  This is one of the first steps in the spinning process -- carding.  This little machine aligns the fibers of the wool so that it can be spun into thread.  This is angora rabbit wool and it is so soft and splendid!  Our children loved the carding machine because they could turn the handle and help card the wool.

 

And here, Mrs. L. is showing us how she spins the wool. The spinning wheel looks like the spinning wheels I've seen in movies and pictures.  I ALWAYS thought that the large wheel had the thread spun on it.  That is not true!  The large wheel is connected to a spool with the white cord and the wheel  turns the spool.   So Mrs. L. uses a foot pedal to spin the big wheel, and the big wheel is connected to a spool that spins and she feeds the angora wool through a hole and it is spun into thread.  This spinning wheel is flexible and she can also spin 2 threads of wool together to make a stronger thread.  Very neat!

Spinning the wool takes expertise so none of our kids tried it.  But they all got to spin the wheel with one foot.

 

And oh, the bunnies!  We visited them as well and they are so adorable!  Here, Mrs. L. is demonstrating how she "harvests" their wool. They are so fluffy that they need their wool removed often for their own comfort.  Mrs. L. has 3 rabbits, 2 male and 1 female, and has plans to breed the female.  If there is anything cuter than an adult angora rabbit, it is baby angora rabbits!

 



Here are the resident alpacas.  Also extremely cute, though you can't cuddle them in your lap :-). 

After visiting the bunnies and alpacas (and horses), we got to see maple sap being collected from their maple trees.  Mrs. Laura very kindly gave us a gallon of maple sap AND another jar of sap that was mostly boiled down already.

We took the fresh maple sap and boiled it down and down and down.

When it was about 75% boiled down, we filtered it with a coffee filter to remove impurities, and poured it back into the pan.  We added the jar of sap from Mrs. L. that was already concentrated.  Then we boiled and boiled and boiled some more.

And this was the final result.  Mrs. L. says that you need about 40 gallons of maple sap to get 1 gallon of maple syrup.  We started with probably the equivalent of about 2 gallons, so ended up with 1/20th of a gallon. Not a LOT, but plenty for everyone to enjoy a small serving on their supper waffles.  Everyone agreed it was delicious.  Kevin, who has always said he preferred Mrs. Butterworth syrup to maple syrup, said this was the best maple syrup he has ever tasted.

Mrs. L. told me that her maples aren't the traditional sugar maples so the syrup probably tastes a little different than store bought maple syrup.  We all thought it was incredibly good.