Combing, dyeing and puppies

 Here are my favorite tools for combing my goats.  The brush has a nifty button that pushes the fiber to the end of the teeth, and the comb gets most of the cashmere off the goat pretty easily.  I use the comb first, then the brush to go over the goat a final time after I'm done combing.  I've tried lots of different combs over the years, and these two work the best.  I just got the brush the other day. I had one that didn't have the button on it, but the pups chewed the handle on that one pretty good, so I got this one at Petsmart.

 My dyeing didn't turn out quite like I was expecting, but they are pretty colors anyway.  I had a little too much water in the pan and the dyes kind of blended together.  I started out with a nice blue, peach, and canary yellow, and it's mostly green and tans.  Not what I was trying for, but it turned out good, maybe even better than my original plan. ☺

   

   

These are my three puppies, two Turkish Akbash livestock guardians, and a tiny Russell Terrier.  Cloud, Dottie and Rocky.  Cloud and Rocky are a brother sister team, and Dottie is my all around terrorist.  I've never had a dog this small before, always had medium to big ones.  She is the littlest creature on the place, and she's taken over the whole place.  She has a Great Dane attitude in that little body. She is fearless, even around the goats.  I got her to keep the rodents in check around here.  She is best buds with the cat, too.  Maybe they will team up and get the rats, too!  That's what I'm hoping for.   All three were born in October, 10 days apart.  The big pups are already barking at deer  and people that come around.  I think they will be great guardians of the goats.  They don't try to herd the goats, either.  Now I am set for dogs for the next 8 to 10 years!
  Our winter has been fairly mild, over all.  We've had a few cold snaps, but it's been above normal for a while now.  It's rainy today, and supposed to be for the rest of the week.  Last week we were a good 10° warmer than down in the valley, and sunny, too.  They were in a foggy inversion and we were in the sun.  It was nice!  I got a lot of the goats combed then.  I think I'm up to 19 that are done now.  There are 28 left to do.  They seem to be shedding earlier this year.  I've always had a few that started early, but this year everyone is.  Guess that means I'll get it all done and processed earlier, finally! There is less guard hair in it when it's combed out this early, too. That will give me time to get some other projects done around here that have been put off for too long.  Hope I get some helpxers here, especially late summer into fall.

  That's all the news for now.  More as it happens....  

Happy New Year!

 Well, winter didn't leave after all.  I am almost snowed it!  It is snowing again tonight.  Our new neighbor bought a plow this year so we wouldn't have to hire someone to do the plowing, but he doesn't quite know what he's doing, so now the road is an extremely narrow tunnel, with only a couple of turn-outs on the entire 4 mile stretch!  We are going to have to hire someone with a bulldozer to widen it.  Cha-ching!

  In a weak moment I got another puppy.  This time she's a tiny little Russell Terrier, which are smaller versions of the Jack Russell Terrier.  The cat is bigger than she is.  As you can see from the picture, Nellie isn't quite sure what to do with her.  I named her Dottie, she has one brown dot on her white back.  Since my dairy goat Dottie is deceased for two years now, I figured I could recycle the name.  RT Dottie is one feisty little girl!  She has a temper on her.  Reggie the cat and her play together, wrestling and rolling around on the floor.  Reggie either bit or clawed her a little too hard today and she went right after him, growling and biting.  They got into a fight that I had to break up!  Silly kids. :-)    

 Rocky is growing, and he likes to play with Dottie, too.  He's a bit rough with her sometimes, but she holds her own.  She goes out with me to do the chores and that's when I let Rocky out of his pen, so he can run around and come into the goat pens with me when I'm feeding.  Dottie just runs around in between and under the goats, and they pretty much ignore her.  Lupine butted her gently today, and Dottie went after her!  She does not take anything from anyone.

Dani is still hanging in there, she's getting weaker, her back legs don't work as good as they used to,  I have to help her up the stairs most of the time.  I got Dottie to replace Dani, and I was hoping Dani would teach Dottie some manners, but she pretty much avoids her.  Dottie is the littlest creature on the place, and she has pretty much taken over!

There are only 5 pregnant does out there this year.  It will be one of the smallest  kid crops I've ever had.  They aren't due till April and May.

I've been busy spinning and crocheting lately.  Almost done with all the cashmere that was left, which wasn't very much, actually.  Kits with patterns and the yarn to make them will be coming up soon. I've designed a couple of patterns that can either be a scarf or a cowl.  I'm also going to have some wrist warmers, too. I got a bit behind with it all, spending three days shoveling and plowing out the place from the last storm.  Hope this one doesn't drop as much snow!  I've barely recovered from the last one!  One thing about it, living up here I sure don't need to belong to a gym to get a good work-out.  ☺

I hope everyone has a wonderful, spectacular 2015!

Happy Holidays

   I hope everyone is having a great Holiday season!  I had a good Christmas, going to a friend's house for dinner that afternoon.  I spent the morning digging out from the 7 inches of snow we got, then barely made it to dinner on time.  
  Yesterday I spent 4 hours plowing our forest service road with first the drag plow, then the ATV and plow.  I got a bit chilled out there!  But, I'm very glad I did it, because it's snowing again today and we have a "winter storm watch" till Monday morning.  Glad I got a bale of hay yesterday, too!  Now I can stay home for a few days till the weather improves.  Next up is another batch of seriously cold temperatures starting tomorrow night and lasting all week it sounds like.  Oh joy, back to the solid ice water troughs, etc.    At least the sun is supposed to shine some, so I hope I don't have to run the generator.  

   John's nephew Matt got married today.  They should all be at the reception now having a grand time.  I made them an afghan, I hope they like it!  Maybe some day they will come out here for a visit.  I hope so!  

   It is amazing how fast this year has gone by!  As usual, I didn't get half the things done that I was wanting to.  But, the most important things got done.  Now I can be inside more and doing fun things like spinning up the cashmere that I kept to make yarn with.  I sold most of it as cloud to fellow spinners, but I did save some to make into yarn.  Now I just have to do it! ☺  I'll have fun dyeing some of that, too.  I'm not an expert at it yet, so it's always somewhat of a surprise what color or colors it is when it's all done.  So far, (touches wood) it's always turned out good, anyway.  

Well, have a great rest of the Holiday!  Happy 2015!  May everyone see their dreams come true!

A Perfect Day

 Here is Rocky, my new Akbash puppy.  He's 9 weeks old.  I got him a week ago Monday.  He's a cute little guy (soon to be big!)  He's already watching the goats pretty good.  I've only let him in with the goats a couple of times.  He's not quite coordinated enough to get away from the ornery ones fast enough.  He's been whacked by a couple of them pretty good.  So I'm keeping him out of the pens now, except when I'm right there and can keep the meanies away from him.
  Sam is well loved in his new home.  They are so glad they got him.  So that whole episode ended well.  Now Rocky just has to grow fast so he can help Nellie guard the goats.  It's funny, Nellie barely looks at Rocky.  I think she is annoyed that he is here.  She figures she can guard things just fine by herself.  If she was younger, that would be true, but now that's she's almost 9 years old, she is going to need help just about the time Rocky is old enough to be of some help.  As soon as spring arrives, I'm re-doing the fencing around the goat pens and making an alleyway all the way around the perimeter of the pens so Rocky can run around the whole outside of them to keep the goats safe.  That way he won't be stuck in one pen if something is threatening another one.  

This carrot I discovered in the garden when the snow melted off it last week.  I pulled it and another one I missed during the harvest.  A crab grass root was growing right though it!  I broke off the rest of it pulling it out of the ground.  Talk about a tenacious root!  

Today was one of those days when everything seemed to go just right.  The sun was shining so I didn't have to run the generator tonight.  I finally found a good source of excellent hay.  The animals all behaved themselves, and I had fun at the Alpine Weavers and Spinners Guild Christmas potluck today.   The only almost not perfect part was when I was unloading the hay.  It's a big square bale weighing around 1300 pounds.  It took a bounce, even though I was driving very slowly out from under it, and fell over against the dehairing room wall, and pushed the wall in a couple of inches.  I just about had a heart attack!  I was afraid the wall was going to collapse before I could move the bale away and fall on the machine.  That would not be good!  But, I got the bale moved with no more harm, and all is well now.  A scary moment though!

We've had some interesting weather lately.  Last week for three days it was 50° up here and a good 10 degrees cooler down lower.  I went to town on Friday and there was snow still.  We didn't have any up here, so I wasn't dressed for snow.  Then on Sunday I went down again with my snow boots, and all the snow was gone.  I was a bit over dressed. :-)  But now we are back to normal.  We have a couple of inches of snow on the ground now, and not much left down below at all.  It's colder again up here.   This week the temps have been perfect.  Mid-twenties during the day and upper teens at night.  We've had a couple of bouts of near zero temps to way up in the forties back to back.  That's hard on the animals.  I lost a yearling doe in the last one.  Not sure exactly what was wrong.  I don't think she was drinking enough water and got a blockage or something.  She went down fast.  That was a bummer, she had really nice fleece in a soft gray color.  I don't have many of the black goats with that color.

Well, that's all the happenings around here lately.  Seems there isn't ever a dull moment around here, something is always happening...

Changes again

I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving and didn't eat too much!  For once I was very good and did not over eat.  I felt so much better! :-)

Another change has happened around here.  I found Sam a new home.  He is a great guard dog for 4-legged critters, but he is way too friendly towards people up here.  Plus with his sister living right next door, it was too much to have him around.  Every time the neighbor would let her out, she would come over here and get Sam and off they'd go for the whole day.  Sam was gone two days in a row, and that was the last straw.  The neighbor has all of a sudden started letting their dog loose every day, and she comes over here to get Sam.  I think I have the fence all secure and that he can't get out, and he finds another spot to squeeze under and away he goes.  So, since he's no good to me if he's not here, I called a friend who works with animal rescue groups, and she found him a new home.  It's perfect for him.  He has a family with 2 girls to love, and they love him.  They have an energetic Standard Poodle for Sam to play with, and some animals to guard.  I think he will be quite happy there.  It's a relief to not have to worry about him taking off from here now.  Nellie has her confidence back, thanks to Sam, so she can keep the predators away.   She also doesn't like the neighbor, so that is good, too. :-)   Plus, with Sam's 1/4 Australian Shepard in him, his herding instincts were a bit too strong and he was biting the backs of the kids (goats) as he was herding them around.  I kept getting after him about it, but he wasn't quitting.  So, after some deep thinking, I decided it would be better for everyone if he wasn't here anymore.   Next year I'll get a full blood LGD and then Nellie will have help again.

It looks like it's going to be another winter of up and down temperatures.  We had a very cold week, then it warmed up again, and now by tomorrow night, it's supposed to be below 0!  That is rather hard on the animals.  I'll have a bunch of shivering goats out there.  I'll be feeding extra hay again.  We did have about 8 inches of snow on the ground, then it warmed up and rained the last two days.  Now it's almost all gone.  Our road is pretty icy.  I had the chains on going down, but made it home without them.  I had a big round bale of hay in the back, so with all that weight, I didn't have any problems.  I'm glad I plowed my driveway so the steep hill part was bare dirt/mud.  I really don't like having to put on chains.  It's not hard to do, but when I've got my "going to town" clothes on, I don't like crawling around the muddy tires trying to put the chains on without getting all dirty.  I think it's time to get some studded tires!

Well, that's all for now......

A short (hopefully) blast of winter

We woke up to snow this morning!  5 inches of wet, heavy, icky snow.  In about a month or so, I'll welcome it, but I'm not quite ready yet!  I have one last goat pen to get ready before it's all snowy.  This will be gone by Tuesday according to the weather forecasters.

I now have an Etsy store!  PNF Cashmeres is the name of it.  It takes a lot of hours to set one up!  I still have to tweak it a bit, and if any of you go on there and see something I need to do differently,  or some way to enhance it, please let me know!  Feel free to buy something while you are there, too! ☺  I'll be adding more things as I get them done.

I think I'm ready for winter, except for cleaning out the last part of the goat pen.  I still haven't got all the trees cut up into firewood from last year's thinning project.  There are a lot of them to cut up!  I'll be able to do some when this snow melts, but I'm running out of time....

I've had some interesting helpxers this year.  A couple from France, who were a good help around here.  A couple from Scotland were here also.  They helped us get a lot done in the week they were here!  The last ones of the year were from New York.  They did a lot, too.  Thank heavens for helpx!  If hadn't of had the helpers this year, I'd be so far behind, it wouldn't even be funny.  I didn't have as many helpers this year as I did last, but I did have 8 all together.  All were a really big help.  It is fun meeting all of them and hearing their stories.  Since I'm pretty much tied down to this place, I don't do much in the way of travel, so I live vicariously through them. ☺
  Someday I'd like to find a nice couple I can trust to stay here for a month and take care of everything while I do a big road trip around this country.  There is a lot to see right here in America that I've never seen.  My husband has been bicycle touring all over the country before we met, but I haven't been a whole lot of places.  A few, but there is so much to see!  I only want a month, any longer and I'd be missing this place and all my animals too much.

I've remodeled the goat pens some.  Now I have a pen to put the does I want to get bred this year in.  If they are separate from everyone else, I can feed them a bit more to keep them strong and fit for having their babies.  This year there are only 6 that will be bred.  I'm down to 53 goats, total now, and I don't want to go over 70 next year.


Here is a picture of Reggie helping me sort and bag the cashmere.  As you can see, he's a big help. ☺  It's been interesting having an indoor cat in here.  He's the first cat that's ever been in here, and he's getting into everything!  I didn't know this house had so many hiding spots. He does spend quite a bit of time outside, but at night he's in here till he's full grown.  He wasn't sure about the snow today.  He was only out for a few minutes and decided it was time to come in.  He hasn't wanted to go out again all day.  Well, I guess it's time for me to go out and do the evening feeding.  Now that daylight savings time has ended, it gets dark early!

It's been awhile!

Time flies when you're having fun, right?  I've been so busy this summer running this place by myself, I haven't had time to write on here!
There have been quite a few changes.  I got a couple of new cats, and mama and her kitten.  At the beginning of the month, a skunk came visiting and scared the cats away.  They were in the chicken pen in the brush and ended up running over to the neighbor's to the east.  Nobody lives there, it's just a junk pile of stuff.  A perfect rat breeding ground.  A bobcat was over there eating rats (I hope) and I'm pretty sure it killed the mama cat, because Reggie, the kitten, came back home a couple of days later at 2 am meowing outside the bedroom window.  I haven't seen hide nor hair of the mama, Sheba.  Sad, but at least I still have Reggie, who is a little mouse killing machine!  I keep him inside at night so he doesn't disappear, but he's outside most of the day.   So far this year I've trapped 80 mice! and 19 rats.  None in the house, thank heavens.  Most of the mice have been in the dairy barn, with some in the battery room.  I got an electronic rat trap that electrocutes them when they step inside it to get the bait.  I love that thing!  The rats can't trip it and get away.  It's zapped quite a few mice, too.  The joys of living in a place in the woods.  Dealing with wild beasts of all sizes.

I got a game/trail camera about a month ago.  I've got some interesting pictures with it!  The bobcat, for one, and rabbits, rats, owls, deer and some other creatures I can't see well enough to tell what they are.  I got the cheapest one, so some of the pictures at night aren't all that clear, but it's working pretty good, and I get to see what roams around out there on the perimeter of our property.

Sam is turning into a really good guard dog.  He's  almost 18 months old now.  He's friendly with people, but to a predator, or other animal he deems dangerous, he's all business.  He will even go out with the goats if there is something out there that they need protection from.  I found this out when there was a bear roaming around the neighborhood.  Sam went out with the goats without me telling him to, and he stayed out there all day with them!  Usually he goes out at first, then comes in and lays by the buck pen and just looks out into the pasture occasionally.  But, when there is a predator, he goes out and stays out with them.  He's also keeping the deer out of the yard and gardens!!  Someday I might end up with a LGD that is totally bonded with the goats, not me, so it will just live with the goats all the time and stay with them all the time, no matter where they are.  Sam is better than Nellie, he does actually pay attention to what is happening with the goats, and keeps an eye on them, he just won't stay right with them all the time.  I guess he does if it's really necessary, though.  I'm getting closer to the ideal. :-)

After ending up with 96 goats this spring after the kids were all born, I did a major down sizing.  Now I'm at 56 goats total.  I sold off the 2 yr old and older wethers, plus a few does, and a couple of bucks and bucklings.  56 is a good number.  Although that leaves me only 47 with usable cashmere next year. At least the dehairing will go faster then.

I got a new milk goat.  A 3 year old purebred Alpine.  She's a good milker.  Very easy to work with.  Now I have two good ones again.

I am finally almost done with the dehairing for this year.  Only 5 fleeces left to go!  Running this whole place by myself this year ended up having the cashmere on the back burner more often than not.  I'd start out the days with a project to do in the mornings after feeding everyone, while waiting for the sun to hit the solar panels so I could get to the dehairing room for the afternoon.  The project would end up taking longer than anticipated, so I didn't get as many hours in the dehairing room as I wanted to. I finally said to heck with it, and just concentrated on the cashmere for the last month and a half.  Now I'm making good progress.  John is home for a few weeks getting things ready for winter for me before heading back east again.  That has helped a lot!  The wood shed is very close to being full.  I will be warm this winter!  The solar power system is all checked and ready for winter.  So I will be warm and have electricity.  Life is good! ☺  Clean running water, a flush toilet, a warm house, a comfortable bed, and plenty of food, that is more than millions of people in the world have, so I am very, very blessed.

The helpxers that have come this year have been great.  There haven't been as many this year as last, but the ones that came I've enjoyed having here.  They have been a great help!

This year has gone by so fast, it's hard to believe it is Fall already!   It's going to be a cold winter around here this year.  Although I'm thinking it might be like it has been all year, warm spell, then cold, then back to warm.  Rather hard on the animals.  We are supposed to get well below 0°, which I'm not looking forward to at all!

Well, that's it for now.  Maybe I'll get to this more often from now on.  Things aren't quite so hectic now.