We got a little rain!

We got a little bit of rain yesterday, enough to settle the dust anyway.  It would be nice to get a lot more pretty soon.  

  Now that John is back home, we are getting a lot done around here!  We've had some good helpxers this year (as always) and now that he is here, too, I have more time to do my cashmere business.  At least I will in the next couple of weeks.  

 

This is the lower "triangle pasture" now.  We did a drastic thinning of it to prevent a forest fire from wiping us entirely out.  Once it rains a bit more, we will burn all these, and more, slash piles and get it all cleaned up for next year.  There are 17 piles in this section, and at least twice as many, if not more, in the bigger section behind the goat pens that we are working on now.  Thank heavens for helpxers!!  They have really been a big help in doing this project, and also the firewood.  For the first time ever, we will be a good two years ahead on our firewood supply, instead of always scrambling just to get enough to get us through the currant year.  

The goats are loving this, they get to eat all the tree branches without having to do much to get them.  Just go to a pile and munch out.  The aspen leaves are falling now, too, and the goats are inhaling those as well.  This is my favorite time of the year.  The bugs are mostly gone, it's cool out, the colors are pretty, and the days are getting shorter.  Back in the days when I had horses, this was my favorite time of year to go riding, too.  

The new chickens are laying eggs already, and they aren't even 6 months old yet!  Out of 14 hens, I'm getting 7 eggs a day now.  They are so small compared to the older chickens' jumbo eggs.  They will get bigger over time.  Occasionally I find a "double yolker".  

Dani, my old heeler cross dog, is still hanging in there.  I was sure she was dying a week and a half ago, but after fasting for an entire week, all she did was drink water, she's now back to eating a little and moving around again.  It's amazing how animals can pretty much heal themselves if given a chance.  I didn't force feed her or anything,  I just let her do her thing.  She didn't eat a single thing for a whole week, only drinking a little water, she's looking a bit spry and is eating a little.  We'll see how long this lasts.

The article about me in the October issue of Montana Woman Magazine is pretty good!  I like the way the writer, Andrea Blair, made sense of my rambling answers and wrote a great piece on my lifestyle and adventures up here.  

Well, that's all the news around here for now.....

Too Many Bucks!

I have seven bucks on the place now!  Time to sell a couple of them.  These two are Red and Moonshine, two of this years' kids.  They were born in April, Moonshine is a couple weeks older than Red.  $275 each.  Red is out of Spot and Snowflake.  Spot is white and Snowflake is black.  Both of them have excellent fleece, so Red does, too.  Moonshine is out of Midnight and Miss Kitty.  Black, and red. Both have beautiful fleeces.   Interesting what colors the kids come out, isn't it?

I am tempted to keep them, especially Red, I like his coloring, except they are related to most of the herd, so there aren't enough does they could breed to warrant keeping them.  So, my loss, your gain!  If you are interested, I can send you pictures of the parents.  Miss Kitty is one of the prettiest goats on the place.  Nice conformation, beautiful head, and a nice deep red/brown color, like Red, only a shade darker.  Snowflake is a pretty goat, too.  Solid black with a soft grey fleece.  Red's great grand dad was a red color, too.  So if you'd like to add red to your herd, either of these bucklings carry that color in their bloodlines.  Moonshine has a creamy colored fleece.  He's like his mom, you can't see the cashmere till you start combing it out, then there is a lot of it!

The dehairing machine left on Sunday.  It is a relief to have it gone.  It was just too big of a machine for my situation.  It is made to be in a mill, and that is where it is now.  It used too much electricity for an off-grid homestead.   I enjoyed doing my own fleeces, but it is one of the slowest processes on the planet, and it's not why I'm here.  Now I have time to do all the other things I need to do around here that always got put off for the last 4 plus years.  I am open to whatever happens next.  It's all part of the journey called life!  Who knows, maybe I'll develop a "personal" sized dehairing device that anyone, anywhere can use and it won't cost an arm and a leg to buy.  That is what is needed in the cashmere world.  So, we''ll see what happens in the coming months.....

If you are interested in either of these boys, let me know.  Thanks!

Combing Nellie

After one hour and 45 minutes, Nellie is a fluffy hairball instead of a matted hairball.  She finally let me comb her out!

 This is all her hair that came off.  That's one of the Akbashes in the goat pen watching all the proceedings.  Probably glad they shed out much easier!

 Nellie was worn out after that and had to take a nap.  She was not entirely sure of the whole thing, but decided to let me work on her.  I guess she was tired of all the hair matts, etc.  For the longest time she wouldn't let me touch her, she'd head for the hills as soon as I had a hold of the comb.  But, today was the magical day.  We both feel better now, although I have a blister on the hand that was holding the comb the most.  It's worth it though.

A few years ago she "blew" her coat and was almost bald.  She did not like that at all, so she hasn't let me get near her since.  Now she sees that she can get combed and pretty and still have hair, so maybe from now on she'll let me comb her more often.  After that one time, she hasn't ever blown her coat again.  Feeling the air on her skin just about drove her crazy, I even had to remove her collar for a while.  Nellie is a wonderful dog, but I don't think I'll ever get a Great Pyrenees again.  It is too much work grooming them.  I like the Akbashes better, they don't bark quite as much either.  They shed out easier and have shorter hair.
 
Well, that's it for now.  More as it happens....

Rain is falling!

We are finally getting a good rain!  There is almost 3/4 of an inch in the rain gauge and ti's still coming down.  It's quite chilly, too.  43° is all.  The wood stove is going and the heat feels good!

John is enjoying being back home again, and I am enjoying having him back!  Thanks to helpxers, the wood shed is 95 % full, and John has about 2/3 of the trees that were cut and left in piles out in the woods all cut up into firewood.  They just need to be stacked and left out there for another year and brought in next summer.   It looks much better out there now.  It's nice to be able to turn the gardening over to John and I just have the animals to take care of now.  I'll have truly tame goats again!  The last three years the kids haven't been handled much, I haven't had the time, so there is almost half the herd that won't let me touch them easily.  Time to work on that!

I'm busy spinning and needle felting.   Today is a good day to be inside.  The goats are all staying under cover.  Most of them have a good cashmere coat growing already.  I love petting them now, they are so soft. ☺

We are having to run the generator today.  It hasn't been run for months, but it's been cloudy for a couple of days and lots of electricity has been used, so it needed to be started up.

We've started processing the young roosters from the batch of straight run laying chicks I got in May.  They sure are scrawny compared to the meat bird crosses!  A bit tougher, too.  But, they still taste good.  They are either Jersey Giants, or Buff Orpingtons.  So far we've done more of the Orps than Giants.  I was going to wait a few more weeks, but they are starting to fight a lot and harass the hens too much. So it's time to downsize the rooster crop.  I'm going to keep one of each breed and all the hens and go from there.  I'll let them hatch out their own chicks next year and keep the flock going now without buying more. I do think we will get some more meat birds.  They are easy to raise and it only takes 8 weeks.  It truly is only 8 weeks, too. 9 weeks or more and the quality goes down.  I kept two to them longer to see, and 8 weeks is the best time to process them.

I lucked out and got into a feed co-op here that buys organic feed at wholesale prices.  That has really helped with the feed bill on the birds.  The turkeys are eating us out of house and home.  They are getting huge, too.  The toms spend most of their time fanned out and strutting around.  The two hens stick to themselves most of the time.   It's funny how the toms gobble at any noise they hear.  Forget about trying to carry on a conversation with someone anywhere near them.  Every time a person starts to talk, they gobble.  Silly birds.

Well, that's all the news from here for now.  Time to get back to spinning....

Another Chapter in the Book

Yesterday was a rather sad day around here.  At 1:30 am Angus died.  Nellie started barking quite fiercely over towards Angus' pen, so I went out there in my pjs and bathrobe with the flashlight and here was Angus upside down with his horn stuck in the ground.  He was making little grunt/groaning noises.  I ran over and got him upright, but it was too late, he died a couple minutes later.  He lived to be 16 years and three months old!  That's pretty old for a cashmere buck.  This picture was taken last year before I combed him out and got him all pretty looking, or I should say handsome looking.  For as old as he was, he still had some really nice fleece.  Lots of crimp, it was still very tight.  The microns were way over the limit to be cashmere I think, it didn't feel very soft anymore, but it sure had style!   I saved his horns, then we hauled him away.  The last of my original goats.  I have quite a few of his daughters, so the line will continue.  

Another big change is the dehairing machine is leaving any day now.  I have it all cleaned up and ready to go.  I have quit deluding myself into thinking that this was actually working.  The machine is just too big, takes too much electricity, and is too expensive to justify keeping it for personal use.  I don't want to do other people's cashmere, it's too slow of a process, and I have other things I want to be doing.  While I did like to dehair my own fleeces, they came out so much better, this machine is just too big, it needs to be in a mill, which is what it is designed for in the first place.  Now that I decided to let it go, I am so relieved!  Now I will have time to really take good care of my goats again, and take them out into the woods to eat the neighbor's places down for fire control and all of that good stuff.  

I also got a sizable grant to get out of debt with!  Now that the machine is going away, I am out of debt and back in the black instead of deeply in a financial hole I didn't see a way out of!  That is such a relief, my mind is working much clearer and I can think properly again.  Which is why the machine is leaving, I admitted it wasn't working the way I envisioned it would be when it first came.
Now I'll be sending my cashmere out to mills to be dehaired like I used to before the machine came along.  I'll just be picking out the remaining guard hairs with tweezers before I sell or use the fleeces.  I'll still know what goats the cashmere comes off of, if the mills run it through like I will be asking for, they will just be in combinations instead of individual.  So, it will still be basically the same good stuff my customers are used to.  I probably won't have it back as early in the year as when I was doing my own, but since it took me a long time to get mine done anyway, it might not be all that different.  We'll see.   A little course correction on the path of life.  It's all good!

Last kid of the season

 Here's Ivory, the last kid to be born for the year.  She was born on Thursday at 11:55 am.  A nice, mid-day birth on a warm sunny day.  She is less than an hour old in this photo.  She is Lupine's first kid.  Lupine is a great mom, has plenty of milk, and keeps Ivory super clean.  I think Ivory is the cleanest baby out there.  She has a tiny brown spot on her left back leg, and I think Lupine thought it was dirt for a long time, it was wet from her licking it after everything else was dry. :-)   Now the kidding is all done and I can just enjoy playing with them.

I'm half-way done with the chicken butchering.  There is only so much killing I can do in a day.  I do have the entire process down to 20 minutes from start to finish.   I did an experiment with the meat, too.  I have discovered that chilling the meat for 12 or more hours does make a difference on tenderness.  I've had two of the breasts, and I chilled one for 24 hours, and the other one I ate a couple of hours after butchering.  The chilled one was much more tender.  I cooked them the same way and everything, so the chilling does make a difference.

It sure would be nice to get some rain!  Today was supposed to be numerous showers and thunderstorms, but nothing is happening.  It's cloudy, but there aren't any storms happening.  It's after noon now, too, so it's time.  If it's going to be cloudy, it needs to rain, otherwise it needs to be sunny so I can run the dehairing machine.  Since I'm having to water the garden every morning, if there isn't any sun, the batteries don't get charged fast enough to run the machine, too.  Oh well, I'll do some spinning and needle felting I guess.

Time to get to work.  Have a good day!!

Butchering the meat birds

I did it, I butchered one of the meat birds this afternoon all by myself, and it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.  I used the killing cone Colin made when they were here three years ago, a razor blade to slit the throat, and it was all over and in the fridge cooling in 45 minutes.  I watched a few youtube videos on how to humanely kill a chicken and went from there.  I thanked the bird for providing it's meat for me, and that was it.  I don't have a really sharp knife around here, I don't seem to be able to get them sharp to save myself, so I used a straight edge razor blade, the kind that goes in paint scrapers, and that made it quite easy and probably pretty painless for the bird.  It didn't struggle or squawk or anything.  It was all over in less than a minute.  One down, 11 to go.  It is nice being able to raise one's own meat.  They have a good life here, free ranging all over, eating organic food, and enjoying the great outdoors all day, every day.  So much better than the factory farms!!!

We went from record setting heat on the 4th to cool, somewhat rainy weather today.  I actually have the wood stove going!!  It was just a little too chilly in here today without the sun shining and temps in the high 40's this morning.  It never did warm up in here till I started the stove.  First I cleaned it out thoroughly, cleaning the chimney, then under the stove part, and then the fire box.  Now it's totally safe again.  The soot was starting to build up in the chimney, and the ash was getting somewhat deep everywhere, so I did a good cleaning on it.  Now it will be good till this fall.

I am on baby watch now.  Lupine is due any day.  She is my unplanned pregnancy this year.  I wasn't planning on breeding her till this fall, along with the other does her age, but she squeezed through the fence and got in with Spot 5 months ago, and now is about to be a mom.  I hope she does okay with it!
  The other kids are doing great.  I'll post a picture or two one of these days.

Have a great day!!