Life is changing a bit around here.

 We've been having some changes around here lately.  I'm fully immersed in the world of milling my own grains and baking all kinds of breads and other things.  After being gluten free for almost 40 years, since starting the milling of my own grains, I can eat wheat again!  It's pretty easy to do, a bit of adjusting recipes and things, but it sure tastes a lot better than anything you can buy.  I started following a few YouTube creators on freshly milled flours and went for it.  Bread Beckers is a great one to learn from.  Sue Becker has a good podcast called "Sue's healthy minutes" that gives the science behind it all, plus lots of interviews from people who have cured all kinds of diseases with freshly milled bread.  The nutrients in the fresh flour are so much more than commercially made flour.  Plus, there's no additives or anything when you mill the grain yourself.  Electric grain mills are fairly inexpensive, and it's actually cheaper to mill your own grains and make the bread yourself.

We did a bit of remodeling in the kitchen, which added quite a bit of counter space.  It's like having a new kitchen! Next is redoing a closet into a pantry.  That will be a bit of a job, so that might be later this spring.

The two dairy does are both pregnant, due in mid to late April.  They are starting to show pretty good.  I've combed 1 cashmere goat so far.  We've had a bit of winter this last week or so, so I am waiting a few days till it warms up again to resume the combing.  The goats are all doing well.  No kids this year, I sold my cashmere buck last summer, and I reinforced the fence around the dairy buck, so he can't get to any of the does this year. I've pretty much decided to just let everyone age out and not do any breeding anymore.  I have some young ones, so it will be quite a few years before I run out of cashmere.  

Today I got an email from GoImagine that they are closing the platform in March.  So, I think I am going to more or less retire.  I'll keep my two domain names, but not have a website anymore, at least for the time being.  No online shop at all.  If I can figure out the photo transfer from phone to computer, I'll post on here the things I've been making.    Open a Venmo account to take payments and sell a thing or two here if possible.  Maybe this summer get into a local shop somewhere, we'll see.  I was going to just stop doing everything, but once the goats grew out their fleece this last year, I just can't give it up yet.  I love working with their cashmere, and I love the goats themselves.  I am going to keep on going with it, just make things to grow my inventory for now.  I like weaving with cotton, making towels, etc., so between the cashmere and that, I will stay productive and be in my happy place.

Now that my injuries from the dog have healed up and I'm feeling good again, I'm going to be getting my gardening going again this year.  The flowers are my department; the veggies are John's.  I do most of the harvesting and processing of the veggies, but he does most of the watering and weeding during the growing season.  I need to work on the flower beds; they got pretty neglected over the last two summers.

I was watching Ryan Hall Y'all's YouTube livestream today of the big blizzard that hit the east the last couple of days.  What a storm! 3 feet of snow in a few places, and some hurricane force winds.  What a mess back there.  That will take some time to dig out of that!  Smaller livestock like goats and things won't even be able to get around in that, the snow is too deep and heavy.  

The weather has been pretty wild throughout the country.  Atmospheric rivers in the west, giant fires in the south, blizzards in the mid-section and eastern parts earlier in the season, and now this.  I was noticing on the maps today, our area is in a little bubble of mostly nothing.  The storms are mostly going around us.  We did get snow over the last few days, and it's snowing now, but we are way milder than usual.  I'm pretty sure we have some more snow in store for us, but probably not much.  We are living in some very interesting times, an exciting time to be alive! 

Stay safe everyone!  Thanks for reading this.  One of these days I will figure out the phone and get some pictures on here!

Happy 2026!

 Another fast-paced year seems to be coming/happening.  We are having a mild winter, the mildest one in years.  There is just a little bit of snow and ice in the shady spots, and green grass on the hill behind the house. I have an idea we will get nailed the last week of this month and into February with some below zero temps and some snow.  I could be wrong, I hope we don't get that cold.  I am enjoying the mildness myself.  As long as it rains on a regular basis this summer, we'll be fine. The ground is frozen, so the goat pen is livable for them and easy for me to pull the wheelbarrow full of hay around to feed them. 

I've been getting some weaving done.  I'm on my second warp on my new to me Norwood 4 harness floor loom.  A run of towels, probably 4, maybe 5 towels on there.  The scrappy blanket turned out good, perfect size for covering me up in the recliner on the rare occasions I take a nap and it's chilly in here.  Usually with the woodstove going it's in the 70s and 80s in here.  I open a window or two most days.  A breath of fresh air can come in then.

One of these days I will figure out how to download my phone pictures to the computer without having to get yet another app or sync things up.  It's such a pain having to get a new phone every few years.  There are days when I wish we didn't have all the technology, life was more natural, and nature based back before all of this. Speaking of which...

I've been milling my own flour and baking quite a bit of bread the last year or so.  I've discovered that I can eat the fresh milled wheat breads without having a reaction like I do with store bought breads.  It also tastes so much better it's not even comparable to store breads.  We go through a lot of bread around here. John takes two or three sandwiches to work with him 4 days a week, plus has toast most mornings for breakfast.  I think my favorite bread is the Hawaiian rolls I make.  I used to love the ones you buy in the store, till we started label reading and went organic for 99% of our food.  Now I found a recipe for homemade ones, and they are great!  I can change up the taste a bit by using different kinds of wheat. Using the freshly milled flour is a totally different experience from the store-bought flours.  I'm getting fairly good at turning out edible loaves now.  

The goats are doing well.  It's nice to not have to worry about kidding this year.  They sure have some nice fleece this year!  Some of them are starting to let loose of it a bit.  I always think it's way too early to comb them when we still have a couple of months of possible cold stormy weather coming.  But they still have their guard hairs so at least they aren't bald like they would be if sheared.  I will wait till February to start combing, then the whole body lets loose and not just the back end, which is what is happening now.  I'm getting quite a lot of fleeces that need dehaired.  It's been about 5 years since I've sent any out to be processed.  I don't have that many goats anymore, so it's not a huge pile, but it is building up.  We shall see what happens in the coming months.  

I have 15 roosters that need to go to rooster heaven soon.  We had 26, I've already processed some but am letting these guys grow a bit bigger.  After researching, it seems the boys will reach full-size at around 18 months.  I don't want to wait that long; they are about halfway there.  They are big, just need to fill out a bit more.  The weather is perfect for doing that now.  Sunny and in the upper 30s low 40s.  No flies or yellowjackets are out now.  It takes me 20 minutes from catch to fridge, so it's not long.  

Skippy is starting to mature finally.  He likes his treats, he ceases whatever he's doing and comes running when we call out "Skippy, treats".   I also make those at home.  The batch I made last had apple and carrots in it.  The goats like them as well as the dog does.  I'll be making that kind again tomorrow.  I still can't trust him around the goats or poultry on his own.  He chases the goats and tries to catch the chickens.  He's finally leaving the guineas alone, but the others are still fair game to him.  So annoying.

Well, thanks for reading this.  I hope you are having a great day and 2026 is a good year for you!