Three of the nine kids born this year in May. First time ever having goats with wattles on their necks. I've always had clean necked goats, but got a buck through a picture without seeing him in person, and his cashmere covered up the wattles. I'm getting used to them. Most of the kids look alike this time. I have a very hard time telling who's who. Junior is the first, and then I think that's Mariah and Curly next. They are waiting for me to load up the hay wheelbarrow, then let them all in to eat on the hay bale while I feed the rest of the herd. I am feeding the big square bales, which are 3 feet by 4 feet by 8 feet in size. Weighing around 1250 lbs.
I have 40 goats right now, counting the dairy crew. Some will be going to freezer camp pretty soon. Remind me to always castrate the boys from the dairy goats. This was the first year I didn't, and boy are they stinky. I don't need any more bucks. Although next year I might be looking for a new cashmere buck. We'll see how the fleece is on these kids come combing time.
The garden is still going, although it is starting to wind down. Did you know that if you leave the base of the cabbage plant in the ground after cutting off the cabbage, it will grow a circle of little cabbages around the edge and you'll get a whole new crop of baby cabbages, about the size of a baseball, up to a softball? The plant is doing double duty. Can't beat that! Perfect little individual sized meals.
Here is a wall hanging I wove earlier this year from my leftover bits of cashmere handspun yarn. |The throw on the chair is also woven from handspun Cashmere. I traded the wall hanging for a spinning wheel. A Louet Victoria. Still have the throw, it is a wonderful thing to wrap up in when I get a little chilly. I really do love weaving. It's funny how it took such a long time to start doing it, I avoided it, said I would never do it, too much math. Now I absolutely love weaving, don't pay a whole lot of attention to the math part, it's not as bad as I thought it would be. I'm still learning how to read a draft. I usually make up my own patterns after looking at something.
This summer I haven't had much time for spinning or weaving, too many outside projects to do. I have the fleeces from 14 sheep I'm spinning, which is taking a very, very long time. I did warn the owner that it would take me probably a year to get it all done. I think the month of October I will focus on that and crank out a lot of yarn.
We were without internet since the 12th of September. Had to upgrade the system and the old plan ended on the 12th, we didn't get the new one installed until yesterday. This plan has more data and much faster speeds. Our old equipment was pretty outdated.
Well, I think that's it for now. Gotta get more pictures onto this computer so I can show you more of what I've been up to the last couple of years...
