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.