Mountain lion picture

     Here's one of the pictures I took of the lion.  He hasn't been back at all, which is good.  I hope he stays out in the forest far away from here.  We are surrounded by thousands of acres of forest land, so he shouldn't have to come around here ever again.
   There is still a lot of snow around our place.  Up by the house it's melting, and I have some flowers starting to come up!  There is a little patch of crocuses blooming, too.  They are so cheerful looking. 
   One kid has been born so far, she's a week old now.  Another doe is due any day, and then the last one is due around the 24th. 
   I went and raised the prices for dehairing cashmere the other day.  I was quite nervous about doing it, but I had to.  I wasn't making enough money to even make the payments on the machine at the old prices, so I raised them substantially.  So far I've heard from two customers who are sticking with me, and understand the need to raise the price.  Since I take the time to really do a thorough job of dehairing, and I actually like doing it, love it, in fact, I figure if I'm going to continue, I'd better make enough money to at least pay the bills!  This really is one of the slowest processes on the planet, yet it's the most critical part of the whole process.  If the cashmere isn't dehaired properly, it doesn't make nice yarn, or anything else.  For years I've been frustrated with the amount of guard hair left in the fiber when I got it back.  I would take tweezers and sit down and pick through the cashmere, ounce by ounce, removing 99% of the guard hairs so when I spun it up, it would make nice soft yarn.  Now since I got the machine, I run the fiber through till it gets almost all the hairs, then I handpick through it as I pull it out of the machine and bag it.  There will still be a very few hairs left that I've missed, but not many.  What's left is easy to pick out as one is spinning it. 
   I've almost got the goats all combed now.  Only 6 adults left to go.  The stand I put them in to comb them works quite well.  I built it out of scrap lumber we had laying around.  It holds the goats, I sit beside it in one of those white resin lawn chairs and comb away.  I'm comfortable, the goats are comfortable, and all is well.
   Well, it's time to go out and check on Arianna to see if she's getting ready to have her kid yet. 
More as it happens....