Checking Things off the List

 It's almost that time of year to start the combing of the cashmere already! I can't tell from this angle who this is, it's an older picture, but they were ready to be combed, whoever it was.  

I got the dairy barn all cleaned out yesterday, new shavings and straw installed. Goats are THE biggest wasters of hay I've ever seen, especially dairy goats.  If it's touched the ground, it's inedible.  It seems the more goats there are eating in the same pen, the less hay gets wasted.  The cashmeres don't waste nearly the amount the two dairy does do. The 5 dairy kids aren't quite as bad. But, since we drink their milk raw, I guess wanting to only eat very clean food is a good thing, less things and flavors to get into the milk.  Since I keep the buck on the other side of the place from the girls, their milk is very good.  Nice and sweet tasting, no off flavors at all.  Back when I entered the fair every year, the milk and other products I entered always got a blue ribbon.  It doesn't taste "goaty" at all.

We have had a very mild fall so far.  We've had a couple of snowstorms, but it warmed up and melted away within a day or two and it's been just occasional rain since. That means the main goat pen is a mucky mess where I come out from the hayshed and into the feeding area.  Next year things are going to get really changed around out there.  I am tired of dealing with the mud and muck.  Luckily the majority of the pen is dry, it's just the flat areas where it's gross.  But of course, the flat areas are where I want to do the feeding and have the feeders set up.  I've had to move those a bit, so they aren't in a swamp while eating.

We still have a container of flowers blooming by the front door!  I have a bed of spinach, Swiss chard and lettuce that I'm still harvesting from.  The plants aren't really growing anymore, but the leaves are still green and edible. The spinach and chard, and maybe the one variety of lettuce, should come up in the spring and take off, enabling us to have early greens to eat next year.  

I seem to have a never-ending warp on my table loom.  I keep thinking the end should be coming over the back beam every time I advance it, but it still has a ways to go.  I don't remember how long it was when I put it on, but I didn't think it was this long. 

The only thing I have left to do on my outside list is finish trimming all the goat hooves.  I'm about halfway through them.  It sure is taking me a long time to get back in shape after being injured and not able to do a whole lot for over a year!  I just don't bounce back like I used to.  I'm getting stronger, though, slowly but surely.  I must say, except for the mud issue, I am enjoying the relatively mild fall we are having.  It's nice being able to get things finished up outside and actually be ready for winter to come. 

The outside world is pretty wild these days, but around here, life is going on as usual, more or less. This year is going by at a rapid rate; it's almost Thanksgiving already!  Seems like it was just Christmas a month or so ago. 

Well, it's time to go out and feed again.  The days are getting quite short; the sun is setting before 5 pm these days.  Hope you are doing well and enjoying life, it's an amazing time to be alive!  

Weaving

 Now that the gardening is almost done, and the goats are almost all trimmed, it's about time to get back to weaving again.  I can see the end of the warp on the table loom, the same warp that's been on the loom since May. After I get that done, I am going to get the Norwood all set up and get a warp on it.  

I've been making just long lengths of cloth with the last few weaving projects.  Once I get this latest one off, I am going to experiment with sewing up a top or two, or maybe a ruana, or even just a poncho or two.  Then I am going to start weaving with the cashmere yarn I've spun up. I think I have enough to actually weave a shawl.  We'll see.  

I've been contemplating getting a mini Nubian dairy goat buck so I can breed the two doelings out of Toffee and Sprinkles next year.  That will make quite a mixed breed baby!  Sprinkles and Toffee have about 1/3 meat goat breeds in them, so they aren't the greatest of dairy goats. Their kids are out of a mini Alpine buck, so they are more dairy than their moms. I could just get a couple of purebred dairy does and have a lot of milk again, but I'm going to do this the long way around.

Since today was Veterans Day, I would like to thank all the veterans out there for your service. I have a couple in my family, some friends that served in various branches of the military, and John's nieces' husband is in there now.  

With all the solar/cosmic energies coming our way, the earthquakes and volcanos building up for big things, I think life as we know it is about to change.  Be prepared for anything going forward.  We are living through the most amazing times that our planet has ever been in.  Exciting times for humanity!  

Hope the weather is not too drastic where you are.       

 A deer checking out the trail camera at the beginning of this year.  I've got a few pictures of curious deer and their noses right at the camera.  

This is Simon, my Alpine/Nigerian Dwarf dairy buck. He is the hardest thing on fences and his houses.  He loves to butt things, and his horns are about twice as big as what they are in this picture now. He hasn't hurt me at all, he's actually a well-mannered dude, but he sure is hard on his surroundings.  We've rebuilt his house twice now, and I told him this time if he tears it down, he's just going to have to live with it. Dang buck.

 I am truly at a crossroad in my life.  I still love spinning and weaving.  I still love working with the cashmere, both the fiber and the animal. Cashmere goats have the silliest personalities of any of the goats I've ever had, whether that is dairy, meat, or fiber goats.  The kids are the cutest, too. This time of year, I love going out and just petting them, feeling their soft cashmere fleeces and seeing who has the softest fleece this year.  But, after 24 years, I'm kinda getting tired of all the upkeep and feed buying, hay hauling, pen cleaning, etc.  We don't have a tractor, so pen cleaning is done one pitchfork at a time into the atv trailer, hauling it to the compost mountain and unloading it. Living on the side of a mountain is rather scary for using a tractor.  Over the years I've had friends with tractors come up and clean out the pen, and they've all almost tipped over at least once.  I'd like to get a bucket for the ATV, they do make all kinds of implements for them, but they are rather expensive for us, so as of now, it's not happening.  It is on my list of things to get one of these years. I get in a good workout cleaning the pens by hand, but it's getting old, and as I get older, I can't do as many loads a day as I used to.

Since I dropped off social media, this is my only form of it now, and I closed my Etsy shop and moved to Go Imagine, I haven't sold anything for quite a while.  I don't really want to get back on any of the platforms right now.  With the costs of everything going up and up, discretionary spending is going down for most people. Buying something made from cashmere isn't high on anyone's list right now, I don't think. Watching the old systems crumbling is very interesting.  New systems are in the background waiting to come on board, but it's a slow process.  I am very glad we live where we do, and we don't have a huge mountain of debt to deal with.  A few years ago, we did the Dave Ramsey method, and that has worked pretty well, even if we didn't follow it exactly.  We're a long way from being millionaires, but we are comfortable now. I am grateful for everything we have and the way my life is. Most people couldn't live the way we do, but that's ok, I couldn't live the way most people do now, either. :-) It's all good.  I like going and visiting our friends that have big, huge houses, but I couldn't live in them, I'd freeze to death.  I like my little, warm house.  Although all the weaving and spinning (mostly weaving) tools are kinda taking over the place right now. :-)

This fall has been a bit different than usual.  We go from somewhat warm and rainy, to a colder spell and snow, back to warmer and rainy. We got three inches of snow the other day, but now it's calling for rain again. Makes for a mucky, yucky mess in the goat pen. Luckily, it's only in a small area of the pen that is mucky, but it happens to be right where I have to pull the wheelbarrow through to get to the feeders. I will be glad when the ground freezes and the muck is gone for the winter, to be dealt with in the spring again.  Next year we are going to change things up a bit around here, so this isn't an issue anymore.  

Well, that's enough rambling for now. I do hope you all are having a great day, and things are going well in your lives.  Take care everyone!  

Randomness

 Here's a picture of Bitterroot Lake by Marion, MT. A friend has a cabin there and we go visit every once in a while.  The energy of that lake is very peaceful and calming.  At least on their section of it. I don't like going in the summer, too many people on it, but in the Spring and Fall it is wonderful.  

With all the craziness in the world now, the bad weather, hurricane Melissa being the biggest hurricane to ever hit Jamaica, all the storms in this country, it's pretty wild! I am very thankful we live where we do. It's relatively calm most of the time. 

I just had a weird experience with this computer while typing this blog.  It all shut off mid-sentence, then when I turned it back on, it's all sized differently and looks very strange. It's not proportioned properly.  Not sure what's going on now.  It seems to be working ok.  It's a fairly new computer, so there shouldn't be any issues. Very strange...

The dairy does finally came into heat the other day.  Next cycle they will get bred.  April babies will be good.  It's warming up a bit by then. I haven't seen any of the cashmeres come in yet.  Which is fine, since none of them will be getting bred this year.

I got my new loom all set up now.  Yesterday we spent the afternoon re-arranging the living room/studio so everything will fit, kind of.  I seriously need a real studio that is big enough to hold all of the fiber tools and things related to this endeavor.  I got a new reed for the new-to-me loom that came today.  It's nice and shiny and looks good on the loom. Now to figure out a project to weave on it!  

We had another bit of snow on Sunday.  It's mostly melted away now.  I just have a couple more sections of flower beds to clean up before winter and I'll be set.  Then I have to do goat maintenance like hoof trimming. Some of the goats have faster growing hooves than the others.  They are all past due for a good trim. 

 We also put up an electric fence just inside the perimeter fence to see if that will keep the dog at home.  So far, so good.  He touched it once, yelped and doesn't get too close to it now.  We'll see what happens when he hears the neighbor boys out and wants to go play.  Now that Skippy tried to kill their cat, they aren't as keen for him to come over and play. Before they didn't mind him coming, they liked playing with him, but when he didn't listen at all to the mom and went after the cat, that kinda changed things. Which is good, I don't really want him going over there. I don't want him leaving this place at all. 

Well, that's it for now.  I have a lot more I could say about a lot of current events, but I won't.  Sending prayers for all the people affected by the weather events around the planet.  Things are getting pretty wild now, and it will probably get even more wild before it calms down again. Stay safe out there!    

 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.