Wild Weather!

 Are we having fun yet?  This weather is a lot different from last year. We've been in the 40s and last night we had some gale force winds that blew over a set of solar panels and completely blew over one of the goat condos!  Thankfully we only lost two of the solar panels, so not a huge drop in production.  The goat condo we got back upright and roof back on.  I was outside last night around 10:30 making sure everyone was okay and nothing was blowing away.  The gust of wind that took everything down happened later around midnight.  It was a bit scary out there with the wind blowing so hard.  All the trees were bending pretty far over.  Thankfully none broke.  "Grandpa Doug" our biggest Douglas Fir tree on the place lost a few branches, but nothing major.  I did hear a cracking sound while I was out there, but when I walked around the place today, didn't see any trees down or anything.  The cracking must've been one of the bigger branches that came out of Grandpa Doug.  We are supposed to get some more high winds on Thursday, so hopefully everything will withstand them.  When I checked on the Guineas that roost up in a tree next to the hay shed, they were clinging on the branches for dear life.  The one guinea who lost his toes last year in the cold, spent the night on the ground in the crook of the tree roots, which is a pretty sheltered place.  

The guineas are some of the smartest, yet dumbest birds I've ever seen.  They are very good indicators of what the weather is going to do during the night.  If it's going to snow, they go up a tree that is more open without as many branches, and if it's going to be rainy or windy, they go up the thicker branched tree.  That's the smart part; the dumb part is they forget they have wings, and they will pace the fenceline up to about a foot away from the open gate, then turn around and go back and forth instead of going just a little bit farther and getting out to where they want to be. Silly birds.  They do a good job of keeping ticks and grasshoppers under control.  They are very good at bug control. Which is why we have them.  Their eggs taste good, too.

I do know for sure that we are tearing everything down in the goat pens next summer and rebuilding a more efficient setup this time around.  One thing about it after all these years, I know what doesn't work, so now it's time to build something that will work better and easier.  

The snow is completely gone for now.  I think we are supposed to get some more this week, but every time I check the forecast, the amount goes down.  I do believe we might have a brown Christmas this year.  That's ok, I am enjoying the lack of snow and warmer temps.  We will probably get nailed in January and/or February with some seriously cold temps and snow.  At least the dairy goats aren't due to kid until Mid-April, so they should be warm enough by then.

I am finally getting a warp on my new to me Norwood floor loom!  It's a short warp, and I am going to use up the collection of partial bobbins that have accumulated so I can use them again.  One of these days I will figure out how to transfer pictures from my phone to the computer so I can show you more things.  

I hope anyone who is reading this is having a good day and the weather is not too bad where you are.  Thanks for reading this!   

From Dogs to Weaving

Skippy having fun in the snow sliding down the driveway. He is the most rambunctious dog I think we've ever had.

 He's also one of the smartest ones we've ever had.  If only I could trust him out there with the goats and poultry by himself, he'd be almost perfect. Maybe one day...

We are getting a lot of rain the last couple of days and nights.  We are getting the edge of the "atmospheric river" that the PNW is getting.  All this snow in the pictures is now slush and well on its way to being gone.  I think Christmas might not be white this year.  

I finally got the warp all done on the table loom!!  I took a picture of it with my phone, but I can't seem to get it to upload onto my computer like it's supposed to.  I got a new phone a couple of months or so ago, and it's not cooperating like the old one did.  When I get it figured out, I will show some pictures of what I've been doing in the fiber world.  Now to get a warp on the Norwood loom I recently got.  I got all the pegs in the sectional beam installed, got a new reed for it, and now I just have to figure out what I want to weave next!  So many choices.  I think I might weave a little lap blanket using all the partial bobbins that have built up, I'm almost out of empty ones, so it would be a good idea to empty all the partials.  It will be a colorful fun addition in either our house or someone else's. 

I got all the cashmere spun up I've had sitting here from the last time I sent some to the mill to be dehaired.  Now I either have to dehair the raw stuff by hand or find another mill to send it to.  I'd really like to get a dehairing machine of my own.  I really enjoyed using the one I had back in 2010-15.  Too bad it used so much electricity that I couldn't use it except on sunny days, which in the winter aren't very plentiful. It was a slow enough operation that I couldn't make enough money to make steady payments on it, so it went to a new home.  I had plenty of other people's cashmere to dehair but just couldn't run the machine enough to make it worthwhile.  I was scrambling to get my own cashmere dehaired before it left.  Off-grid living has a few drawbacks.  Very few, but a few. I wouldn't go back into the grid world though. 

The weather is wild in most of the country this week.  From polar vortexes and blizzards to rain deluges, there is a bit of everything.  Stay warm, stay safe!  Thanks for reading this!  

A few pictures

 I am pretty sure this is a father son duo. They both have odd antlers, one is bigger than the other, and they aren't fighting. I haven't checked the cameras since hunting season ended this last weekend.  I hope they both survived. 

We now have about 6 inches of snow on the ground.  The mucky goat pen finally froze. Our neighbor has plowed the road for the first time.  He did such a nice job! I did our driveway and the trails around here. Plowed with the atv, snowblower, and shovel. Wrestling with the snowblower is hard work.  My shoulders and back are complaining today, or they were this morning. It's always the 3rd day after an activity that the body is the sorest it seems.  

The 4wd drive went out on the pickup a week ago.  We had an appointment with the mechanic yesterday.  I made it down the mountain and to the shop in 2wd Tuesday evening.  The roads were a bit icy till I got to the highway, then everything was bare and wet.  We got it back today. Luckily the part was under warranty, so we only had the labor charge to pay. Whew!  It's nice to have the pickup back.  It's starting to show its age (1998), but it still runs good.  If it can get to 300k miles, then I will be ready to get something a bit newer.  The body on this one is really starting to fail in places.  Only have about 20k miles to go, so sometime next year I might be getting a different truck.  We shall see.

Since I am no longer posting on Instagram or other social media, I seem to have disappeared off the face of the earth.  I haven't sold a single handmade item all year.  Just some goats.  I do still have my Go Imagine shop, but nothing is happening.  Etsy wasn't working well for me anymore.  I wasn't willing to lower my prices to match all the cheap imported stuff.  I did, and still do, offer free shipping on everything in my shop. 

 Times are changing, people are changing, the whole world is changing!  I do think next year is going to be a whole lot different than this one has been.  A ton of things are happening behind the scenes that we aren't aware of and won't be aware of for a while.  The next few weeks are going to be very interesting, I think. It's rather an exciting time to be alive and witnessing all of it! 

Thanks for reading this.  Have a great day!