It's almost July already!!

It's almost the fourth of July already!  We haven't even had any summer weather yet, and summer is almost half over.  I just got the garden planting finished today!  This is the latest I've ever been.  But, with the weather the way it's been, I'm sure this garden will grow fine.  With Square Foot Gardening, it's easy to cover any beds that need it, and one can grow 100% of the food in 20% of the space of a regular row garden.  We started doing that last year, and it worked great, so we are doing it again this year.  It's so much easier to take care of!
  The dehairing is going good.  I just got done with some that a customer had sent to another mill, got it back still full of guard hair, and then sent it to me to clean it up.  The mills that advertise dehairing, then only run it through two passes are NOT getting it even close to being properly dehaired!  This stuff I just did started out at 14.7 ounces, and ended up having 6.3 ounces of waste! (guard hairs)  There were some noils in it, too.  Those mills don't charge very much for the dehairing, but then they aren't really dehairing it, either.  Just opening it up and fluffing it, while removing less than half of the guard hair.  This is one of the big problems in the cashmere industry.  If the cashmere doesn't have the guard hairs removed, then it can't be sold as quality cashmere, and if it is sold, people will get the impression that American Cashmere isn't very good.
   AC is really good, actually, if it's dehaired all the way.  So far in all the batches I've done, there hasn't been a really bad batch yet.  When it's all dehaired, it's pretty much looking the same, and feeling fairly similar.  There is some difference in quality, but it's not huge.  The dehairing is the most critical part, and the slowest, of the whole process.  One has to have a lot of patience to run the dehairing machine! :-)  I like doing it, it's rather neat to see how it improves with each pass of the machine.  I have to make sure the speed is right, or it either doesn't get enough guard hairs out with each pass, or it starts to noil, or something.  It's not a machine you can just throw some fiber onto the belt and walk away, and expect to have a well dehaired product.  You have to monitor it almost constantly.  No two batches use the same speed, either.  So far each one I've done has been run through at a different speed.  Not huge differences, but it's amazing how just a couple of points difference, make a huge change in how the fiber comes out.  I'm enjoying the process!  It's a learning experience, too.  Some day I'll be really good at this!
   We've had a couple of days of nice summery weather now.  Hope it continues for another week or so, so the hay growers can get the hay cut and baled without any rain getting on it.  The goat pens are dry enough I'm going to start cleaning them out tomorrow.  Finally!  
  Well, that's it for now....   

Fiber Festival

I went to the Big Sky Fiber Arts Festival down in Hamilton, MT yesterday, just for the day.  Left here at 7am and got back home and into bed at 2am.  That made for a very long day!  It was fun.  My one and only festival for this year.  Now it's back to work again. 
  I saw my fibery friends that I only get to see at these events.  It was great to catch up on what's happening in their lives.  I resisted buying more fiber, except for one roving that I just couldn't pass up.  A Merino/Tencel blend in a pretty blue color.  It should make a very nice scarf or maybe even a shawl, we'll see.  I have enough to spin just with my cashmere, but I just couldn't resist. :-)  I also got some beads, and a festival T-shirt, since they had a cashmere goat on it this year.  First time that has happened, at least since I've been going to it.
  There sure is a lot of high water everywhere in this state.  Most everyone I talked to at the festival has water problems this year.  There is still tons of snow up in the mountains.  Up in Glacier National Park at the Logan Pass visitors center, it's still mostly buried in snow drifts, and the parking lot is under feet of snow.  They might not open the Going to the Sun highway till July at this rate.  It just keeps snowing up there.  We are getting a lot of rain down here, but it's still snowing up in the high country.
   I finally was able to let the goats out today.  Boy were they happy!  They went running from spot to spot, eating as fast as they could, then running a ways and eating again.  They did this as a tightly packed herd.  They looked like a school of fish or something.  It was funny to watch.  Then we had another torrential downpour so they headed for their pens and shelter.  They will get let out again tomorrow.
   Thursday and Friday I was in seventh heaven.  I was actually dehairing my own fleece!!!  I have finally realized my dream, to dehair my own cashmere.  I did one fleece, and it turned out wonderfully.  Now I'm working on one more, and then it's back to customers' fleeces on Tuesday.  It was so cool to be dehairing my own fiber.  
   Well, that's it for now..... 

Pretty Flowers

Here are a couple of pictures of my daffodils and tulips this year.  They are so pretty, I just love to go out and look at them and smell their perfume.  There are over 200 blooms on the tulips this year.  This picture is just one section of them.  All the rain as made for some pretty flowers all around this year.
  The rain is not making for a clean goat pen though!  Just when I thought it was almost dry enough to clean out, it rained again, and now it's a mucky mess once more.  At least the goats have a "high side" to their pens, so they don't have to be down in the muck.  It's been cool enough that the browse out in the woods isn't growing very fast, so the goats are still having to be cooped up in the pens.  They are getting so bored!  Starting tomorrow, I'm letting them out into the yard and driveway to eat for a bit.  The yard grass is growing pretty good, so they can eat that down for me.  I just have to make sure all the gates are closed and the "inner yard" is secure, so the goats can't get to the apple trees, garden, or flower beds.  It's rather stressful letting them out, always wondering if they will find a weak spot in the fencing, but they need some fresh greens.  One more week, if it warms up, and the browse will be tall enough and growing good enough to let them out into the pasture/forest.  They can hardly wait!
  I checked the lower fenceline last evening.  Surprisingly enough, it's in good shape, even after all the snow and everything this winter.  There is one spot where a deer got stuck momentarily and popped the wire off the post that needs repairing, but other than that, it's all good.  I saw a freshly shredded stump just on the other side where a bear had been.  Glad we have the perimeter of our place fenced entirely now.  Keeps out a lot of the critters!  Nellie does her job pretty good, too. 
   I've been doing some dyeing lately.  It's always fun to do.  I never know for sure what it's going to look like coming out of the dye.  So far, it's turning out very well.  I'm making wrist warmers out of these two skeins.  I should be able to get two sets out of each one ounce skein. 
  Well, that's it for now.  More as it happens, or I get the time to write. :-)

Spring is here!

  Spring has finally arrived!  All the snow is gone, the grass is green, the flowers are starting to bloom, life is good! 
  I got the yard all raked and cleaned up today.  Looks much better now!  The tulips the deer ate are actually going to bloom after all.  They got ate at an early enough stage of growth that the flower stems weren't growing yet.  So I'll have some pretty tulips blooming soon!  There are a few daffodils blooming now.  They are so cheery.
  About another week and the goats can get out to eat green things.  They are so tired of being penned up!  The four kids are doing great.  Astrid's kids are just like her in personality.  Always getting into mischief!  The little squirts.  They are so cute, though, it's hard to get annoyed with them. :-)
 
  The dehairing is going well.  I work outside in the mornings, spend the afternoons dehairing, then work outside some more in the evenings.  I spend the majority of the hot sun part of the day inside, so that is good.  I won't get sunburned that way. :-)
  For the amount of snow we got this last winter, things are drying out fairly rapidly around here.  The snow is all gone up here now.  The last of it melted yesterday.  Down in the Kila area, the water is all across the valley floor now.  From the highway to the mountainside, it's all water.  No houses are flooded since it's a wetlands area there anyway.  Some places the water is getting up pretty close, though.  The weather service is saying there is going to be some major flooding in the Flathead Valley pretty soon.  In some places up in the mountains, there is 600% more snow than usual!  A record amount of snow fell this year!  So when all that melts, there will be a lot of water coming down the streams and rivers.  Glad I live up high on the side of a mountain.  If we get flooded, the whole world is flooded. 
   That's it for now.... 

Happenings

I decided to liven things up with a new color. :-)   Today I took a couple of goats up to the Whitefish Community Garden for their open house they had.  I took Maggie and her kid Mariah.  They did really well considering this was the first time they had ever left this place and been around that many people. 
  Mariah did better than her mom of course, since she didn't know that maybe she should be afraid of strangers.  She was really good.  There was a little girl there that hasn't had much exposure to animals and was afraid to touch the goats.  I told Mariah to go up to her and say hi, and I'll be darned if she didn't look right at the girl and walk up to her!  The girl cautiously petted her then decided goats were okay after all.  That was a neat experience!  The girl went and got her brother and brought him over, too.  She was about 5yrs old I think.  
   The weather wasn't very good.  It was quite chilly and it started to rain just after the garden bed building demo was over.  I just barely got everything loaded up before it really poured.  It's been snowing up here just about every day.  Most of it melts, but yesterday I had to sweep the snow off the solar panels since it wasn't melting.  The end of April and I'm having to sweep snow off!  I will say, though, that I'll take this any day over the tornadoes and severe weather down South.  Snow melts, that other stuff can destroy everything in seconds. 
     My thoughts and prayers are with all those affected by that storm system.  I wonder how many goats were lost in that?  That's a major meat goat raising region.  The media rarely reports on animal losses, just human.
  Yesterday I finally joined Facebook, after just about everybody I know kept telling me I should.  Haven't quite figured it all out yet, but I will. :-)
  Well, tomorrow it's back to dehairing.  I didn't do any today, since I wasn't here, so I'd better get back to it  This time of year there is so much to do around here.  Spring clean-up time is here!  I need about three more hours of daylight and I'd be good. :-)
  More as it happens...       

Twins!

Astrid had her kids yesterday.  I missed it!  I was in town running errands.  When I got home, here were two babies up, dry and eating.  Astrid is a great mom, with plenty of milk.  I am really surprised that she had twins after her episode a couple of months ago getting her head stuck in the fence and getting butted right in the side, repeatedly.  She had a little blood coming out her back end, and wasn't feeling good at all.  I guess me pulling her out of the pen as soon as I found her and isolating her for two days must have saved the kids. The black one is a girl, and the brown one is a boy.  Oksana and Socks.  His socks are so white, they look like splints or something.  He will be a nice wether!  They are so cute when they are little.  Today they were out bouncing around and playing with each other. Not real coordinated yet.   Mariah and Luna were just kind of watching them.  They are too big for these two to play with yet.
  This is a strange year for goats around here.  My dairy does are not pregnant according to plan.  I put Hercules in with Belle, (and the other three) last fall.  Belle was the only one in heat, so I figured the others would be safe.  Yesterday as I was milking Speckles, I was thinking her belly was getting more and more round.  So  I took my "s" hook on a string and held it over her back to see if she was pregnant.  She is!  Belle, on the other hand, is not.  So, now I need to start drying off Speckles, I've been "running her through" this year.  Now that I know she's pregnant, and due on May 24th, I need to get her dried up so she can put her energy into the babies and not making milk right now.   Not sure why Belle didn't take this year.  I know Herk got her, more than once, so I don't know why she didn't take.  I had her with bucks three different cycles, and she didn't take.  Hope she does this fall! 
  The two cashmere does had their babies a week late, each.  Astrid was right on her due date. At least they are all healthy, strong little kids. 
  We had some snow again today.  A little sun, too.  I dehaired all afternoon and the batteries still got charged.  Longer days sure are nice! 
   Well, that's all for now.... 
 

Is it Spring yet?

  Winter sure isn't wanting to leave very fast this year.  Except for this morning, we have had at least a dusting of snow every day all week!  Finally today was a nice, mostly sunny day.   Easter will be nice, too, then back to colder, rainy or snowy days again.  Our yard is slowly appearing as the snow is melting.  I guess I can't complain too much.  This is way better than what most of the rest of the country is experiencing with the severe storms, etc.  At least the snow just melts.
  I'm still waiting for Astrid to have her kid.  The other two are doing great.  They are so cute.  Now that Luna is old enough, her and Mariah are starting to play together a bit.  They sure have different body builds!  Mariah is going to be a solid, sturdy doe and Luna is going to be a lean, mean, racing machine.  She is going to be a long legged, rangy type like her grandma.
  I got another dehairing order done today.  It's such a good feeling to cross another one off the list!  I'm taking tomorrow off, since it is Easter, and I'm going on a cooking and baking spree.  Then I'll be back at it on Monday with another order.  I've got cashmere to dehair scheduled clear into July now!  This is a good feeling.  Hopefully I'll get to mine sometime in there.
  When Alltel switched to AT&T, we lost our phone service till we could get a signal booster again.  Of course all the equipment we had with the old phone didn't work with the new ones.  So we had to hike half-way up the hill behind the house to use the phone for a week.  Now that we have the signal booster, I can talk almost anywhere in the house!  Before, we were tied to the wall in the bedroom since that was the only place the signal came in good.  Now with the new booster, we can talk everywhere but there.    Progress is good, even if a bit expensive.  I've been taking lots of pictures and short videos of the goats on the new phone, but haven't figured out how to get them from there to the computer.  I think I need a USB cable or something.  One of these days I'll stop in at the cell place and find out.
  Well, Happy Easter to all...