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!
