A deer checking out the trail camera at the beginning of this year.  I've got a few pictures of curious deer and their noses right at the camera.  

This is Simon, my Alpine/Nigerian Dwarf dairy buck. He is the hardest thing on fences and his houses.  He loves to butt things, and his horns are about twice as big as what they are in this picture now. He hasn't hurt me at all, he's actually a well-mannered dude, but he sure is hard on his surroundings.  We've rebuilt his house twice now, and I told him this time if he tears it down, he's just going to have to live with it. Dang buck.

 I am truly at a crossroad in my life.  I still love spinning and weaving.  I still love working with the cashmere, both the fiber and the animal. Cashmere goats have the silliest personalities of any of the goats I've ever had, whether that is dairy, meat, or fiber goats.  The kids are the cutest, too. This time of year, I love going out and just petting them, feeling their soft cashmere fleeces and seeing who has the softest fleece this year.  But, after 24 years, I'm kinda getting tired of all the upkeep and feed buying, hay hauling, pen cleaning, etc.  We don't have a tractor, so pen cleaning is done one pitchfork at a time into the atv trailer, hauling it to the compost mountain and unloading it. Living on the side of a mountain is rather scary for using a tractor.  Over the years I've had friends with tractors come up and clean out the pen, and they've all almost tipped over at least once.  I'd like to get a bucket for the ATV, they do make all kinds of implements for them, but they are rather expensive for us, so as of now, it's not happening.  It is on my list of things to get one of these years. I get in a good workout cleaning the pens by hand, but it's getting old, and as I get older, I can't do as many loads a day as I used to.

Since I dropped off social media, this is my only form of it now, and I closed my Etsy shop and moved to Go Imagine, I haven't sold anything for quite a while.  I don't really want to get back on any of the platforms right now.  With the costs of everything going up and up, discretionary spending is going down for most people. Buying something made from cashmere isn't high on anyone's list right now, I don't think. Watching the old systems crumbling is very interesting.  New systems are in the background waiting to come on board, but it's a slow process.  I am very glad we live where we do, and we don't have a huge mountain of debt to deal with.  A few years ago, we did the Dave Ramsey method, and that has worked pretty well, even if we didn't follow it exactly.  We're a long way from being millionaires, but we are comfortable now. I am grateful for everything we have and the way my life is. Most people couldn't live the way we do, but that's ok, I couldn't live the way most people do now, either. :-) It's all good.  I like going and visiting our friends that have big, huge houses, but I couldn't live in them, I'd freeze to death.  I like my little, warm house.  Although all the weaving and spinning (mostly weaving) tools are kinda taking over the place right now. :-)

This fall has been a bit different than usual.  We go from somewhat warm and rainy, to a colder spell and snow, back to warmer and rainy. We got three inches of snow the other day, but now it's calling for rain again. Makes for a mucky, yucky mess in the goat pen. Luckily, it's only in a small area of the pen that is mucky, but it happens to be right where I have to pull the wheelbarrow through to get to the feeders. I will be glad when the ground freezes and the muck is gone for the winter, to be dealt with in the spring again.  Next year we are going to change things up a bit around here, so this isn't an issue anymore.  

Well, that's enough rambling for now. I do hope you all are having a great day, and things are going well in your lives.  Take care everyone!  

Randomness

 Here's a picture of Bitterroot Lake by Marion, MT. A friend has a cabin there and we go visit every once in a while.  The energy of that lake is very peaceful and calming.  At least on their section of it. I don't like going in the summer, too many people on it, but in the Spring and Fall it is wonderful.  

With all the craziness in the world now, the bad weather, hurricane Melissa being the biggest hurricane to ever hit Jamaica, all the storms in this country, it's pretty wild! I am very thankful we live where we do. It's relatively calm most of the time. 

I just had a weird experience with this computer while typing this blog.  It all shut off mid-sentence, then when I turned it back on, it's all sized differently and looks very strange. It's not proportioned properly.  Not sure what's going on now.  It seems to be working ok.  It's a fairly new computer, so there shouldn't be any issues. Very strange...

The dairy does finally came into heat the other day.  Next cycle they will get bred.  April babies will be good.  It's warming up a bit by then. I haven't seen any of the cashmeres come in yet.  Which is fine, since none of them will be getting bred this year.

I got my new loom all set up now.  Yesterday we spent the afternoon re-arranging the living room/studio so everything will fit, kind of.  I seriously need a real studio that is big enough to hold all of the fiber tools and things related to this endeavor.  I got a new reed for the new-to-me loom that came today.  It's nice and shiny and looks good on the loom. Now to figure out a project to weave on it!  

We had another bit of snow on Sunday.  It's mostly melted away now.  I just have a couple more sections of flower beds to clean up before winter and I'll be set.  Then I have to do goat maintenance like hoof trimming. Some of the goats have faster growing hooves than the others.  They are all past due for a good trim. 

 We also put up an electric fence just inside the perimeter fence to see if that will keep the dog at home.  So far, so good.  He touched it once, yelped and doesn't get too close to it now.  We'll see what happens when he hears the neighbor boys out and wants to go play.  Now that Skippy tried to kill their cat, they aren't as keen for him to come over and play. Before they didn't mind him coming, they liked playing with him, but when he didn't listen at all to the mom and went after the cat, that kinda changed things. Which is good, I don't really want him going over there. I don't want him leaving this place at all. 

Well, that's it for now.  I have a lot more I could say about a lot of current events, but I won't.  Sending prayers for all the people affected by the weather events around the planet.  Things are getting pretty wild now, and it will probably get even more wild before it calms down again. Stay safe out there!    

 From snow to good fall weather again, at least till Friday night. Then it's back to rain and snow.  Got a few more garden clean up things to do, then the ground can freeze so the goats aren't walking in muck.  It's actually just a small area of their pen that's mucky, it just happens to be in front of the feeder barn where I have to walk and pull the wheelbarrow through.  I did get it cleaned up a bit, at least the muck is gone in a good-sized trail so we can all go through that area now.  It was only about 3" thick, but it's pure yuk, as any of you know that have livestock on flat ground.  You'd think living on the side of a mountain that wouldn't be an issue, but any little flat spot gathers water. 

We are slowly but surely improving things around here.  Now we are building a shed to put the two atv trailers, plow, grader, wagon, woodchipper and atv in, along with anything that comes along. This will also use up a lot of the metal siding we have around.  A win-win all the way around.  The roof is on, finally at a steep enough angle that the snow will slide off.  I still don't know why all of our roofs are almost flat.  Living in snow country that isn't a good idea.  Last year we did get an electric mini snowblower to use to get the snow off the roofs.  It actually works pretty good! Sure beats shoveling it all off. 

The goats are growing their cashmere nicely.  It's interesting, none of the does are coming into heat. Usually by now, they all have had at least one cycle.  Maybe they listened to me when I told them no babies this year. I did sell the cashmere buck I had.  I still have the dairy buck though, and he's in a pen right beside the cashmeres. Last year all the does were going around him when they came in heat, ignoring the cashmere guy. This year no activity at all.  The only goats I want to get bred this year are the two dairy girls. They aren't showing any signs either.  All the shifting energies must be affecting them, too.  

I got a new-to-me floor loom last Friday!  It's a cherry Norwood 4 harness. I ordered a new 40" reed for it, so when that comes next week, I will get things going on it.  I am going to use it to weave my cashmere on.  I'm always scared to use my big Leclerc Nilus floor loom because it just seems too big and heavy to use on somewhat delicate cashmere. I've always used my rigid heddle looms to weave the cashmere scarves and shawls I've made. A new adventure awaits! :-)  I will post pictures of the things I weave on it.  I still haven't finished the project on the table loom. I do see the end of the warp coming up on the next rotation of the back beam.  Almost there!

I'm spinning a skein of cashmere that I dehaired.  Almost done with the fiber I got back from the mill a couple of years ago.  Then I have going on 5 years of raw fleece to deal with.  I will have enough cashmere to keep me busy for a few years anyway.  I also like weaving cotton and cottolin  kitchen towels, so I have a good collection of those.  One of these days I will put some in my Shop for sale, maybe someone will want one, who knows.  

Well, I think that's all that's going on around here for now.  I got a new phone and I'm still figuring it all out.  I think I got it down.  Except, the Kindle app has none of the 30 some books I have on there!  I can't find them on the Amazon account or anywhere.  Good thing I have them on my actual Kindle. It would be nice to be able to get them back since I did pay for them.  I read the help section, the questions and feedback section, and I didn't see any information on how to get them back.  Just new books that don't download.  Maybe that's a sign to go back to buying the real books printed on paper instead of the digital ones. Who knows.  That's it for now.  Hope you all are having a great day! 

First snow!

 This is Skippy, the mostly worthless-as-a-livestock guardian dog. One day he might be able to be trusted around the goats and poultry, but not now.  He's slowly getting better, but I still can't trust him to not chase or attack.  We put up a poly tape electric fence along the top of the field fence.  I'm going to change that over to electric wire, that tape doesn't work very well.  It's old, got it from a friend who had it for years, and that was a few years ago that I got it. It kinda works, but the snow weighted it down and it's touching the fence in a few places, so I will switch it out to regular fence wire. Before the snow it worked ok, Skippy got shocked by it, so he doesn't try to go over the fence now.  The deer have been shocked, but they still jump over it into the paddock and yard area.  They have knocked it down a couple of times, too. Dang beasts. 

 An 8 ft elk fence would be ideal to put up around at least the driveway and yard area to keep the deer out and Skippy in.  Ideally around the entire perimeter of our place.  Then there would be plenty of food for the goats to eat.  It's amazing how much a deer can eat.  A lot more than a goat, that's for sure.  I would guess that a deer eats as much as 4 goats do.  We have a herd of them that comes in just about every night.  between 3 and 5 does, and 2 different bucks visit.  I got a picture of one of the bucks just about to touch the electric fence. I should've kept it instead of deleting it.  He must've moved pretty fast after touching it, because there were no more pictures of him that night.  

We had our first snow on Sunday and Sunday night.  Got 6 1/2 inches!  It's still here but slowly melting.  It's supposed to be sunny and in the 40s the next few days, so hopefully it will all go away.  I still have 40 miles to ride on my bike to achieve my goal for this year!  I'll do that in two rides.  The garden was still producing quite a bit of food.  The zucchini plants were still blooming, there were strawberries still ripening, and a few blackberries still to ripen. Got all the carrots, apples, onions and leeks harvested before the snow came.  I spent the afternoon chopping and freezing the leeks.  I ordered 20lbs of pears from Azure that I will get tomorrow.  I'll freeze most of them, too.  

The pullets have started laying eggs now!  There are nine of them, I get one little egg every other day. So far there are 7 eggs in the fridge. 

I have made some progress on my weaving project finally.  It's only been on the loom since May.  I don't get much weaving or spinning done in the summer, too many outside things to do. I might get this project done by the end of the month. 

Then, to make things exciting, we seem to have ETs checking us out.  John was going out to close in the chickens this night, and this showed up on the camera.  That white round light above him.  We have no lights that high in the sky, just solar lights on the ground and along the fence.  We've been checked out by them now.  Probably lots of times, but this is the first time caught on camera.  Interesting times we are in! 

We got new phones this last week.  I am learning all the finer points of this new phone.  It sure is a pain having to change phones.  I like things changing in my life for the most part, except for computers and phones.  It takes me a while to figure out the new ones.  My old phone was fine, even though I was being told by most people that it was time for an upgrade. I had no major issues with it.  Although I am noticing this phone is a lot faster than the other one.  Maybe a new phone is a good thing. :-) 

Well, that's it for this week. I am making a good effort to write once a week here now.  Every Tuesday is the plan. Have a good rest of the week, hope the weather is not too bad where you are.  I see there are storms in various places in this country and around the world.  Humanity is undergoing major changes and so is our planet.  Turbulent times ahead!  But we can make it through this and what is on the other end of this is going to be wonderful. Hang in there everyone! 
      

It's Fall already

 Here are a couple of pictures from the trail cameras I have set up around the place. This buck has some uneven antlers.  

 This fox is awfully close to the rooster pen!  Thankfully it didn't get into them.  This spring we got 26 rooster chicks to raise for meat.  It's about that time for them to go into the freezer now.  They are very close to being full grown, and rather noisy at times.  They aren't as big and meaty as the actual meat birds we've got in the past, but they are close. And we got a screaming deal on them.  Bielfelder, Welsummer, and a F1 olive egger are the breeds we got.  The Bielefelders are the biggest ones.  We also got 9 pullets and another rooster that is an F1 olive egger.  The girls are Bielefelder and olive eggers.  One of them actually laid an egg the other day!  They are 5 months old now.  Hopefully all of them will come on line in the next couple of weeks.  The older group of 6 hens and Henry the rooster are still around, they should be going into the molt pretty soon.  

This year I got an Ebike back in June.  My goal is to get 300 miles on it by the end of the season.  I have 40 miles left.  Been so busy with all the other things, I haven't had all that much time to ride.  John hasn't either.  I'm hoping to get in the miles later this week and maybe next week.  

I also got a handpan!  I've been wanting one of those since I saw and heard one over 10 years ago.  I thought they were thousands of dollars (which the top-quality ones are) but amazon has some that are decent for under $500, so I got one of those.  It sounds good.  It's tuned good, and so far, is staying in tune.  I am really enjoying playing it.  YouTube has lots of videos of people playing them if you don't know what they are.  Just type in Handpan in the search.  It took a bit more effort to learn how to play it than I thought it would.  But now I'm getting the hang of it, so I'm starting to sound half-way good.  My mom was a music teacher, and I grew up playing almost all the things in the wind department.  Was in all the bands, even into college.  So, I was surprised that there was a bit more to playing this than I expected.  It's fun.  Not quite ready to make a video just yet, but maybe someday.

I'm acquiring another floor loom next week.  It will be a tight fit in this little house, but I will make it work.  It's a Norwood 4 shaft with 10 treadles.  Used of course, and it's free!  It's smaller than my Leclerc Nilus and lighter weight, so I think I will have fun weaving on it.  I think it will take a bit of work to get it restored and working great, but that's ok.  I like fixing up things like that.  

We had our killing frost for the garden Monday morning, so the garden is pretty much done for the year.  Still have carrots in there and maybe a stray bite of broccoli.  This was the year of the berry!  We had a bumper crop of raspberries from our little patch, the strawberries did well, we are getting a second crop from them right now. I covered them so they didn't get bit by the frost.  There are quite a few on the verge of being ripe.  Our blackberry bush that we've had for over 20 years finally produced a lot of berries, still some ripening there, too.  It likes it's spot up against the south side of the house. The birds got 99% of the goji berries.  The apple trees gave us a good amount; we just picked them on Sunday.  Honeycrisp, Cortland and a couple of trees we aren't sure what kind they are. 

I've been milling our own flour and baking bread and things.  I can actually eat this real wheat without having a reaction.  I've been gluten free for decades, but the freshly milled flour with all the nutrients still in it, I can eat without a big problem.  Good stuff!  

I still have the goats, but I am not breeding the cashmeres anymore, at least I'm pretty sure. I sold the buck I had. After 24 years of raising them, I'm starting to get tired of it.  I won't ever not have any, I do like working with the fleece, and their personalities are goofy, but I would say I've pretty much "retired".  I still have a couple of dairies does so we can have the milk, cheese, butter and all the good things, and I still have a dairy buck, but as one acquaintance said years ago, "there is more to life than goats". At the time I didn't agree with him, but now I'm starting to. :-)  I'm still very much tied to the farm with the dairy goats, it's very hard to find someone who can milk them, and especially these two I have now, they are scared of anyone but me getting anywhere near them.  John is finally able to walk close to them and hand feed them, but him milking them is out of the question.  Life is changing for me, and I'm rather liking it.  I still have my GoImagine shop with a few things for sale in there.  I have lots of ideas on what to weave next this winter, but I'm not pushing myself to try and sell things online anymore.  With all the cheap cashmere items that are mass produced or imported from other countries at low prices, and most people wanting low prices, not realizing just how much work actually goes into a cashmere handwoven or crocheted piece, I'm over it. Most people don't think about the whole year of feeding and taking care of the goats, so they do produce high quality fleece.  The hours it takes to process the fleece, from combing it off the animals, washing, dehairing, spinning it into yarn, then weaving or crocheting it into something wearable.  That takes a lot of hours!  I figured out one year that if I count everything, I make about a $1 an hour with the prices I have on the items.  So, if anyone buys anything from me you are getting quite a good deal!  goimagine.com/pnfcashmeres/   is where my shop is.  Hopefully that link works. 

Well, speaking of goats, it's time to go do the evening feeding of them. Hope you are having a wonderful day and enjoying life. 

Summer

 Today was my almost annual trip up to the Eureka Fiber Festival in Eureka, MT.  This year it wasn't as big, a few of the regular vendors weren't there so I didn't get to visit with them and catch up on things.  The weather wasn't as hot as it usually is this time of year either.  That was nice.  We've had a somewhat cooler than usual summer with a bit more rain than usual, also.  Compared to most of the rest of the country who are baking in the heat, or flooding, or both, I feel very fortunate to live where I do.

After not wanting any kids this year, Miracle, a cashmere doe, who also is very easy to milk, decided to jump in with Simon, my dairy buck back in February, and gave birth to twin boys on July 18th.  They are cute little buggers.  One is white and the other has a gold tinge to him.  At least I can tell them apart. John named them Waffle and Whiffle.  Not sure how he came up with those names, but there you go. :-)  Since Miracle has excellent fleece, I'm hoping these boys will have at least nice cashmere.  We'll see next summer what they look like.  They have the somewhat wavy hair of a cashmere now, but they are only two weeks old, so we'll see later on if they have decent fleece.  I'm back up to 32 goats with these two.  I have quite a few older goats, a few middle-aged ones, and only a couple of 2 and 3 year olds.   After 24 years of raising goats, I'm contemplating just letting everyone age out without having any more kids, or maybe find another cashmere buck to breed them to and continue on. I haven't made up my mind yet on that. 

I'll post a picture of the kids one of these days.  I haven't transferred the pictures from my phone to the computer yet.  With these two boys being nice and healthy, I'm not milking Miracle this year.  I do have two dairy goats that I am milking in the mornings.  Next week is kid weaning for them, so then I'll be getting more milk, enough to sell to a friend for cheese making, and for me to make a bunch of soap. Also use the cream separator so I can get some cream to make butter with.  

This year has been the year of the raspberry.  We are getting more raspberries than ever before.  I've been freezing most of them. Made a couple of cobblers, and a failed attempt at jelly which became syrup instead.  The only thing I don't like about the raspberries is the seeds.  Otherwise they are great.  The berries are nice and big, and if I pick them at the right stage of ripeness, very sweet. We also have some yellow ones, which I think I'm liking the taste of them better than the red ones.  We also have a "Doyle" blackberry bush that is around 20 years old that is finally going to almost live up to its promise of 20 gallons of berries per bush.  Might get a couple of gallons this year, instead of the handful or so we've always had up till this year.  I hear the huckleberries are plentiful this year, too.  I haven't picked any of those in years.  I'm thinking I might hike up to the top and see if the patch that was there years ago is still there.  Our place is covered in Oregon grape so I am going to make some jelly out of some of those.  A friend made some and gave us a pint, it was excellent, so I'm going to try making some.  

Well, that's it for now.  The garden is starting to produce a good amount of veggies.  Nothing better than going out and harvesting some veggies and having those for dinner along with homegrown meat.  There aren't a whole lot of people that can eat a complete meal grown on their own place and made within an hour of harvesting.  I feel very fortunate.  There isn't anyone on either side of our families that are doing that.  We have a very wonky alternative lifestyle compared to the rest of the country, but I wouldn't trade it for anything.  There are some minor inconveniences, but I've lived with them for 31 years, so they aren't anything to get excited about.

I hope everyone is doing okay in these wild times.  If you are anywhere in the western half of the country, I'd get some extra air filters for your vehicles.  If one of the many volcanoes erupts along the cascades, the ash will cover everything and will gunk up your vehicle pretty fast.  I remember back in 1980 when Mt Saint Helens erupted and the ash from that.  We just got a dusting where we lived at the time, but where I'm at now got quite a bit more. So being prepared will be a good thing.  

Take care everyone!      

July 5th

 I'm going on a bit of a rant today.  It's about fireworks on the 4th.  The big booming, sparkling loud rocket kind should be outlawed except for the commercial shows, like towns, etc. I don't even know what they are called. Bottle rockets?  Just think of all the animals that get scared out of their wits every year because of those.  All the horses that run through fences, the dogs that run away and get lost or run over on the roads, the goats that pile up in the corners of their pens and almost squish each other.  Might be cattle stampedes, I haven't been around cattle on the 4th. But for sure the more sensitive animals get quite scared. Not to mention the wildlife.  Plus all the veterans that have ptsd that get triggered by the fireworks.  As you can tell, I'm not a fan of fireworks.  It was nice living up here in quiet for all those years, but I guess as usual, all good things must end at some point. 

After 29 years of peace up here, we have neighbors that have decided the last two years to launch the big, loud, booming, crackling kind, also waiting till late to do it.  I don't mind the smaller ones that most people have, those are fine, but the big ones should be allowed only at the commercial settings.  Last year we weren't prepared, so all the animals had panic attacks.  Skippy broke out of his pen and hid somewhere.  Luckily he didn't run away, but he sure was scared.  He didn't want to come in the house, he didn't want to stay in his house, he was a basket case.  The goats all piled up in the top corner of their pen shaking so hard they were holding each other up being packed together so tightly.  The deer went running by heading up the mountain as fast as they could go, snorting and whistling all the way.

  We live out in the forest far away from civilization, so not having those going off close by has been exceptionally nice.  It's a good thing it was raining, one little puff of wind as those were falling could've caught the trees on fire or fallen in the grass and started a big forest fire. It had dried out pretty good up until yesterday, then it started raining.   If that ever happens because of their stupidity and even one tree torches on our place, I will own them lock, stock and barrel, as the saying goes.

This year I was expecting it, so I was out there talking to Skippy and explained what was going to happen, same with the goats.  Skippy stayed in his house and didn't panic, and the goats weren't as scared.  It was raining and the dummies still shot them off.  What a waste of money, too.  Because of the rain, they didn't go up as high, which was nice, but it was still loud and scary for the animals.  

On another note, I sold 10 goats on Monday.  They are now over in Idaho.  I sold my cashmere buck, too.  Now I have to figure out if I want to continue breeding them or just age them out and not replace them as they die. On the 13th I will have been doing this for 24 years! Time flies.  I'll have to find another buck if I want to continue on, one with short guard hair, no wattles, and excellent fleece coverage.  Color doesn't really matter.  

I got an ebike on June 4th.  I like it!  I can go up hills without an issue, and I can go up faster than John.  I have to wait for him now, instead of the other way around.  It's been quite a few years since I've had a bicycle, at least 10 I think.  It's taking a bit to get my balance and agility back.  But it's coming back rapidly, and I am enjoying biking again. Fun times.  The other day we went on a ride up the county road below us and saw a moose and her calf, that was cool!  Good to see they are still around the area.  Only got dusted 3 times by vehicles, so that was nice to not have much traffic on the gravel road. It was a good ride.  Couple days before that, we went with another friend on part of the network of bike paths in the valley now.  That was also nice, although it was a hot day, and she had a bit of heat exhaustion at the end.  Surprisingly enough, I didn't have any heat issues, which is unusual.  I don't like the heat, but since I wasn't over working myself, there was a breeze, and I drank a good amount of water, I was ok.  It was around 90, we were in the middle of the afternoon with the sun blazing down on us.  Each ride I do I go another mile or two farther, so I'm building up slowly. 15.4 miles is the farthest so far. a whopping 65 miles on the bike as of now.  For only having it a month, and only riding a couple of times a week, that's not bad.  My bike has a range of around 60 miles, depending on how much I use the assist on it. Hills are the only time I really use any assist, flats and downhills I just turn it off or coast, so I don't use much battery power.  I don't know if I'll ever go that far. John still uses his regular bike, he only has an ebike for commuting to work, which he's only done a couple of times this year. 

Well, that's it for now.  Hope you had a good 4th. Sending prayers out for all the people affected by the flooding and severe weather around the country.  It's getting worse every year.