April went by fast! Spring is here, it seems. We usually get a June cold front around the 8th, which sometimes means snow, (sometimes a lot), and other times a mild cool down for a day. Right now the grass is green, the daffodils are blooming, the wild Glacier Lilies are in bloom, and I see lots of buds on the Oregon Grape that covers our whole place. A sea of yellow pretty soon! Smells good, too. The dang deer are coming in and eating every blade of grass as soon as it comes up, so the goats don't have anything to eat. I have to feed them hay till the grass is growing faster than the deer can eat it. Skippy isn't much help; he rarely barks at them anymore. Someday I want to put up an elk fence around the perimeter, which is around 8 to 10 feet tall, to keep out all the deer and other critters and then the goats will have plenty of grass and things to eat. We are surrounded by literally thousands of acres of forest service land, with plenty of food for the deer, but they come in here on our little patch of 20 acres and eat this. They feel safer in here with the fence that mountain lions and other predators don't go over. A bear did breach it last fall. Squished it right down to the ground almost. Before I do start letting the goats out into the big world, I will have to go around and check the whole fence line and do some repairs. The deer also land on it sometimes and push it down. We had to rescue a deer last week that got caught in it. At midnight we were out there in our pjs and bathrobes releasing a deer that got its back legs stuck in it, jumping and pulling its legs forward too fast and sticking them through the wire. Skippy was barking fiercely at that incident. He let us know something was amiss out there. We have a woven wire field fence around the perimeter of our place. The deer is fine; she's back to jumping again and coming in the yard and everywhere. Just had some hair missing on the underside of her legs.
It's almost time to start getting the garden ready to plant. I usually don't plant anything till late May, even as late as July and we get a good harvest of everything. Of course, there are always one or two almost crop failures. Not a total one, but not a good one either.
Finally got all the goats combed, except one. He won't let me catch him for some reason. He's always cooperated before, usually coming into the combing room and jumping up on the stand with no problems. For some reason this year he doesn't want to get combed. Maybe he knows his fleece has gotten too coarse and he'll end up in the freezer, who knows. It's very annoying. I can't get him into the smaller catch pen, he knows what that is for, so he stays back even with food offered and won't get within arm's reach of me. He's a big goat, too. One of the 4 big wethers I have. He's the biggest one. You can tell he doesn't miss any meals at all. He is quite fat. The other three are of a good weight, but he's verging on obese. Last year his fleece was still quite soft. He must know something I don't yet. Oh well.
I've been doing some spinning and weaving lately. A friend and I did a weave-along, and we both actually got our projects done in the allotted time! Towels are what we both made, with a pinwheel pattern. I will be adding the two I made to my new Go Imagine shop pnf cashmeres. Gotta get some good pictures of them first. I really struggle with taking good product photos.
Time to get to work. Hope you are all staying safe in the areas that are having all the bad weather, and everyone have a great day!
