Changes again

I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving and didn't eat too much!  For once I was very good and did not over eat.  I felt so much better! :-)

Another change has happened around here.  I found Sam a new home.  He is a great guard dog for 4-legged critters, but he is way too friendly towards people up here.  Plus with his sister living right next door, it was too much to have him around.  Every time the neighbor would let her out, she would come over here and get Sam and off they'd go for the whole day.  Sam was gone two days in a row, and that was the last straw.  The neighbor has all of a sudden started letting their dog loose every day, and she comes over here to get Sam.  I think I have the fence all secure and that he can't get out, and he finds another spot to squeeze under and away he goes.  So, since he's no good to me if he's not here, I called a friend who works with animal rescue groups, and she found him a new home.  It's perfect for him.  He has a family with 2 girls to love, and they love him.  They have an energetic Standard Poodle for Sam to play with, and some animals to guard.  I think he will be quite happy there.  It's a relief to not have to worry about him taking off from here now.  Nellie has her confidence back, thanks to Sam, so she can keep the predators away.   She also doesn't like the neighbor, so that is good, too. :-)   Plus, with Sam's 1/4 Australian Shepard in him, his herding instincts were a bit too strong and he was biting the backs of the kids (goats) as he was herding them around.  I kept getting after him about it, but he wasn't quitting.  So, after some deep thinking, I decided it would be better for everyone if he wasn't here anymore.   Next year I'll get a full blood LGD and then Nellie will have help again.

It looks like it's going to be another winter of up and down temperatures.  We had a very cold week, then it warmed up again, and now by tomorrow night, it's supposed to be below 0!  That is rather hard on the animals.  I'll have a bunch of shivering goats out there.  I'll be feeding extra hay again.  We did have about 8 inches of snow on the ground, then it warmed up and rained the last two days.  Now it's almost all gone.  Our road is pretty icy.  I had the chains on going down, but made it home without them.  I had a big round bale of hay in the back, so with all that weight, I didn't have any problems.  I'm glad I plowed my driveway so the steep hill part was bare dirt/mud.  I really don't like having to put on chains.  It's not hard to do, but when I've got my "going to town" clothes on, I don't like crawling around the muddy tires trying to put the chains on without getting all dirty.  I think it's time to get some studded tires!

Well, that's all for now......

A short (hopefully) blast of winter

We woke up to snow this morning!  5 inches of wet, heavy, icky snow.  In about a month or so, I'll welcome it, but I'm not quite ready yet!  I have one last goat pen to get ready before it's all snowy.  This will be gone by Tuesday according to the weather forecasters.

I now have an Etsy store!  PNF Cashmeres is the name of it.  It takes a lot of hours to set one up!  I still have to tweak it a bit, and if any of you go on there and see something I need to do differently,  or some way to enhance it, please let me know!  Feel free to buy something while you are there, too! ☺  I'll be adding more things as I get them done.

I think I'm ready for winter, except for cleaning out the last part of the goat pen.  I still haven't got all the trees cut up into firewood from last year's thinning project.  There are a lot of them to cut up!  I'll be able to do some when this snow melts, but I'm running out of time....

I've had some interesting helpxers this year.  A couple from France, who were a good help around here.  A couple from Scotland were here also.  They helped us get a lot done in the week they were here!  The last ones of the year were from New York.  They did a lot, too.  Thank heavens for helpx!  If hadn't of had the helpers this year, I'd be so far behind, it wouldn't even be funny.  I didn't have as many helpers this year as I did last, but I did have 8 all together.  All were a really big help.  It is fun meeting all of them and hearing their stories.  Since I'm pretty much tied down to this place, I don't do much in the way of travel, so I live vicariously through them. ☺
  Someday I'd like to find a nice couple I can trust to stay here for a month and take care of everything while I do a big road trip around this country.  There is a lot to see right here in America that I've never seen.  My husband has been bicycle touring all over the country before we met, but I haven't been a whole lot of places.  A few, but there is so much to see!  I only want a month, any longer and I'd be missing this place and all my animals too much.

I've remodeled the goat pens some.  Now I have a pen to put the does I want to get bred this year in.  If they are separate from everyone else, I can feed them a bit more to keep them strong and fit for having their babies.  This year there are only 6 that will be bred.  I'm down to 53 goats, total now, and I don't want to go over 70 next year.


Here is a picture of Reggie helping me sort and bag the cashmere.  As you can see, he's a big help. ☺  It's been interesting having an indoor cat in here.  He's the first cat that's ever been in here, and he's getting into everything!  I didn't know this house had so many hiding spots. He does spend quite a bit of time outside, but at night he's in here till he's full grown.  He wasn't sure about the snow today.  He was only out for a few minutes and decided it was time to come in.  He hasn't wanted to go out again all day.  Well, I guess it's time for me to go out and do the evening feeding.  Now that daylight savings time has ended, it gets dark early!