Heat Wave

  It was hot out today! 98 degrees in the shade behind the house.  That is a new all-time record high temperature for June.  We haven't had a good rain in almost two months now, and this is our rainy season.  The West is way too dry.  The East coast is getting lots of rain I hear.  Must be nice, you can send some this way, please. :-)  

The goats don't seem to be minding the heat.  There are a few that are even laying out in it!  It was way too hot to be in the dehairing room today, so I did some needle felting instead.  I sure enjoy doing that.  The dehairing is going well, albeit slowly.  I still have over 20 fleeces to go.   This year I am going to spin up more yarn so the non-spinners out there can enjoy the luxury of American hand spun Cashmere.  I probably won't have any ready to sell till Fall, it takes a while to spin.  I have to get it dehaired first.  So far I'm working on orders already placed.  If you want some cloud to spin, please let me know soon.  I'm only offering a limited amount this year,  I have a lot of cream colored cashmere this year, not so much in the aspen colors.  There was a lower yield all the way around this year.  What I did get is really nice, though!  

The turkeys and meat birds are not enjoying this heat.  They are laying around panting, not moving around much.  I've been carrying buckets of cold water out to them every few hours so they can at least get a cold drink of water to cool off a little.  If they wouldn't lay in a tight bunch under the trees, they might be a bit cooler.  They all lay together in a bunch, putting off a lot of body heat into each other.  There is a lot of shade out there, so it's not like they don't have the room.  I hope all the free ranging they are doing isn't going to make the meat tough to eat!  I'm feeding them organic food, and they are running around all over the place eating all kinds of goodies out there.  The bugs don't stand a chance!  I'd rather have happy birds that might be a bit tough, than unhappy ones stuck in a little pen not moving much and not enjoying life.  I haven't had any of the leg problems with the meat birds that I've heard they get.  These cornish cross birds are built rather strangely with huge legs and breasts, but they can move good and are cute and friendly in a chicken kind of way.  They sure eat a lot!  I'll be glad when they are in the freezer, but it's going to be hard to process them, I've grown somewhat fond of them and their cute weirdness.  I'll just have to think about how good they will taste, and the good life they've had up till that time.  With the bird flu epidemic wiping out millions of birds, I'm sure glad I got these this year!  I know what they've been eating, where they are from, and that they've had a wonderful life and they are healthy.  It's good to grow your own food!

The garden is doing okay.  The peas are growing slowly.  The broccoli is forming heads without stalks, which is strange.  The cabbage is starting to form.  I planted some beets and carrots last week and they are starting to come up.  I planted some zucchini last week, and tomorrow morning I'm planting some green beans.  The onions and garlic are growing well.  The spinach all bolted, so I'll pull that up and plant beans in there.  

I got Cloud spayed last week.  She weighs 86 pounds at 8 months of age!  Rocky is bigger than her, so he's probably over a hundred pounds!  I sure am happy with these two.  Third time is the charm in the LGD realm.  They have bonded with the goats, they don't bark nearly as much as Nellie, who barks at every noise she hears, no matter where it's at.   They mind fairly well, although if they don't think what I'm asking them to do is a good thing at the moment, they ignore me.  They do come when I call them, which is the most important thing.  They know what NO means, too.  Right now Cloud is a yard dog till she heals up from her surgery.  Her and Rocky visit through the fence for now.  I will be glad when she's back out with the goats.  She gets into everything!  With her size, I keep forgetting there is a puppy brain in there still.  

  If I had to choose another LGD now, between the Great Pyrenees and Turkish Akbash, I'd pick the Akbash hands down.  Nellie is great, but she has always barked way too much.  Every time a neighbor makes a noise, she's barking.  The pups ignore most things unless it's on our property, then they bark and howl and yip.  All kinds of strange noises come out of them.  But, I know there is something out there on our place anyway.  They have shorter hair that is much easier to deal with than Nellie's.  Nellie is 10 years old in a few days!  Time flies.  It seems she was just a little white snowball not too long ago.  Dani is still going strong at 16, despite being almost killed three different times by Nellie the last few years.  When Nellie is anywhere near a bone, nobody can come within 20 feet of her without risking serious bodily injury.  Dani has all kinds of lumps and bumps on her, but she's doing well.  Can't hear or see very well, but she's still walking and trotting all over the place.  Her back legs get weak and she needs help going up steps sometimes, but other than that, she's good to go.  

Well, it's cooled off enough to go out and do the evening chores.  Hope this hot spell ends soon!  

My New Fiber Adventure, Needle Felting

   I have got back into needle felting animals, and am having a blast doing it!  For some reason I got it into me to start doing this again, and they are turning out waay better than the first time I did them a few years ago.  It's amazing!

  These are just two of the critters I've done so far.  A Boer goat and a Moose.  The moose is quite involved, there are a lot of interesting body parts on him.  After studying a lot of pictures online, I have come to the conclusion that there are no two moose that look the same, and even on the same moose, the antlers aren't symmetrical.  It took many hours to make him.  The goats don't take quite so long to do.  

    I am also in the middle of dehairing my cashmere fleeces.  I do have  some outstanding cashmere coming off my goats!  A smaller yield this year, I only have about half the number of goats that I had the year before, and they started shedding out a lot earlier this year, but didn't let loose of all of it, so there just isn't as much as I was anticipating.  When I went back to do the second combings on them, the cashmere wasn't  as good as the first combing, so I just threw most of it away.  I only want to sell and work with the very best of it, even for felting.  Luckily there wasn't very much that I needed to throw out.  Most of it did come off with the first combing. 

  The baby chicks and turkeys are all growing well.  The meat birds are almost big enough to process already.  I'm going to have a hard time doing them in, though.  They are somewhat friendly and are cute!  When I let them out of the "chicken tractor" to run around more, they just go bonkers at first, running around and flapping their wings.  Then they run over to me looking for their food, and I end up tripping over them trying to get to their feeder.  Good thing there are only 12 of them! 

  The 8 turklets are getting big.  There are 5 toms and three hens.  One of the hens gives new meaning to the term "bird brain".  She is always on the wrong side of the fence when the rest of them are going to new areas and can't seem to figure out how they got to where they are. ☺  I usually have to go herd her around the end of the gate, she gets within a foot of it when she's trying to join the others, then turns around and paces back the other way!  Going back and forth, so close, yet so far away...  Silly bird. 

  

 We have had record heat the beginning of the week, and then last night and today, it's cold enough I have the wood stove going!  Our usual June cold front is going through.  After this is gone, then I can plant the warm weather garden veggies.  At least we didn't get any snow this year!  There have been years when we got 8 inches of wet heavy snow that did quite a big of damage to trees and my flowers, etc.  

  All my peonies are blooming now, and the irises, too.  The yard looks rather pretty.    It smells quite nice out there with all the perfume from the flowers.  

  After the apple trees budded out way too early and froze in April, they are coming back with leaves now.  There isn't going to be much of a harvest this year, but at least the trees are still alive, and there is always next year.  

  The 5 kids are growing fast!  They are so cute, out there bouncing around and playing.  When I let the herd out into the woods to eat, they are tearing around out there jumping up and down on the stumps, logs and rocks.  There are two more Does that will have kids, one sometime this coming week, and one around the 10th of July. 

  I'm going to sell Spot, the white buck I have, pretty soon.  He's 5 years old, throws beautiful kids with excellent fleece, and he's related to too many of the does now.  Time for him to go to a new home and a new group of girls. I've got most of his doe kids, and they are some of the best looking ones out there.  

  Speaking of goats, I'd better get out there and let them out into the pasture/woods for the afternoon so I don't have to feed them any hay this evening.  

                                                            Have a great day!!    

First Kid

  Here is Cherokee, the first kid born this year.  She is out of Zindy Lou, my only gray colored goat.  She was born April 6th.  I missed the whole thing.  I went out to feed in the evening, and here she was up and mostly cleaned off,  nursing away.  Zindy is a good mom.  I'm spending time with Cherokee every day getting her to be nice and tame.  No more wild goats on this farm!

  I've got back into needle felting.  This is the first horse I've done.  The legs aren't quite right, but other than that, I think it looks like a horse!  I've made some goats, too, but for some reason, the horse has more detail than the goats do.  Maybe that's because I've been around horses since I was 12 years old and goats only 14 years?  I used some mohair for the mane and tail, and wool for the rest of it. I used thin electric fencing wire in the legs to get them sturdy enough to hold up. I really enjoy the felting.  It is fun and it's neat to see what all can come out of stabbing fiber with a barbed needle. :-)

  For yet another year, no babies were born on my birthday.  I was really thinking one would be this year, but it didn't happen.  Oh well, maybe next year....

  The wind has really been blowing the last couple of days.  It's a cold wind, too.  Probably a good thing no babies were born, they'd either blow away or freeze!  There were snowflakes in the air again today, too.  At least the sun is shining so I don't have to run the generator to charge the batteries.

I'm washing more fleeces.  I do a couple every day.  I'm almost half way through them.  I almost cried the other day.  The Akbashes got into 6 bags of fleece and scattered the fiber all over the ground in the combing room, mixing them all up and getting them full of junk, straw, manure, etc.  I saved most of it, but it's all jumbled up now.  The machine is going to really have to work to get this batch cleaned up!  I decided to just mix these fleeces together, they are all similar in color, and since I had to throw away some of it, there wasn't enough left to do individually, so I'm mixing these.  At least I know which goats the fiber came from.  Dang puppies!

Well, it's time to go feed everyone their dinner.  Hope the hay doesn't blow away in the wind when I put it out for them to eat!    

What a Month!!

   This month has been one heck of a wild ride!  It started out good, my goats are going to be on TV in a reality show around the holidays this fall/winter!  The filming went good, the goats behaved, and all was well till it was time to load them up to come home.  The two wildest goats, Barney and Cleo, both two year olds, made a break for it and headed into the woods.  I wasn't right there when that happened, I was on the other side of the barn, someone came and told me they had escaped.  I guess three of the guys working on the set chased after them, which made them run faster.  They disappeared in the thick woods on the other side of the road and were only seen off and on after that.   That was on the 4th, a Wednesday.  Cleo made it till Sunday night, then she wasn't seen again.  On Tuesday I was over in that area in a huge 1000 acre tract of land following a goat track, so Cleo got ate by something out in there, probably a mountain lion.  I never did see Barney that day. It was BArney's track I was following.  Barney was seen a few times that week, but he was so wild that as soon as someone even started to open their door, he was gone like a shot.  I went on a couple of wild goose chases when I'd get a call saying he'd been seen.  I drove over there as fast as I could, but he was long gone each time.  The last sighting of him was on the 13th.  He probably got ate by a lion, too, or a wolf.  That area on the East side of Flathead Valley has more predators than we do over here!   So that was sad, they both had nice yields of beautiful cashmere!  I'm glad I got them combed before the filming, so I at least have their fleeces from this year.  I have their parents and sisters, so I can make more, but those two will be missed.  Barney had a cute little white dot on his nose, and Cleo was a badger color, which I only have one other goat that color.
  The film crew was a fun group of people to work with.  Except for losing the two goats, I had a great time doing that whole thing.  Bart the goat was a hit, he had to be right in the middle of things seeing what was happening at all times.

  Then on the 7th, Dottie, my little 5 month old Russell Terrier puppy got picked off by a coyote just on the other side of the fence behind the goat pens!  It was just about dark and I was putting up my game camera out there so I could hopefully get a picture of what the dogs had been barking at for the last few nights.  She had been staying close to me, but I turned my back to hook the camera to a tree, and she ran off.  I called and called, and pretty soon I hear a startled yippy bark, then three short shrieks, then nothing.  I ran over there  where I heard her with Nellie following me, but I couldn't find her.  It was all but dark out by then.  Nellie started barking at a thicket of little trees, but wouldn't go in there, and I didn't want to get too close since I could barely see anyway.  The next morning we went over there again, and Nellie found two little pools of blood on a trail, and that was it.  I searched in a wide area around those pools and didn't even find Dottie's collar.   That was really sad.  I only had her for two and a half months, but she had wormed her way into my heart pretty good.   I must admit, it's a lot quieter around here without her.  Reggie the cat misses her the most.  They were best buddies and played together all the time.  I have decided that I won't ever get a tiny dog again, this just isn't the right setting for one.  I'm sticking with the big dogs like the Akbashes, they are huge and they are only 5 months old now.
  So in the space of 4 days, I lost three animals!  

  I have all the goats combed already!  They all shed early this year, even Mandy, who normally doesn't even start to let loose of her fleece till May.  Now I am in the process of washing the fleeces, then I'll get the machine up and running and get it all dehaired.  I should have it all done by the end of May, which will be the earliest that has ever happened.   I'll have time to do other people's cashmere this year,  and they will get their fiber back before October!

  This has been the strangest winter/spring, weather-wise we've ever had, at least that I remember.  The flowers are blooming, the grass is green and there isn't a speck of snow anywhere!  The garlic is coming up, too.  Usually at this time we are still buried in snow!  Many a year we've had more snow fall in March than the rest of the whole winter, but not this year.  I just hope it rains on a regular basis all summer!

   I signed up for another two acres of thinning to do.  I'm doing out behind the goat pens, and then down at the bottom of our property.  There are hundreds, if not thousands, of little "pencil" trees that need to be cut out of there.  They are so thick I can't walk through it, and it's perfect for predators hiding out, as evidenced by Dottie getting killed.  Although she was on the outside of the fence by a few feet.  It's a big fire hazard if a forest fire happens.  So, I'll be doing that along with all the other things around here.  I have a few helpxers coming, so they can help me with everything, thank heavens for them!  Thank-you Heidi for telling me about the HelpX site!

   Well, I think that's all that has happened this month.  A stressful one for sure.  Now I'm hoping for a goat kid to be born on my birthday in April.  There are two does that are due around that day, so maybe this will be the year I get a baby for my birthday!        

Winter, or Not

   Are we all enjoying winter yet?  We've had warm, spring-like weather, the East is buried in snow and cold.  We did get just short of 2 inches of snow last night.  Today the sun is out with a few clouds.  There is a breeze, too.  Now it's more like a normal winter, at least for a few days.  The apple trees are starting to bud out, and there is a robin hanging around up here already!  

  I actually raked up the yard and burned the tall grass out of the iris bed on Thursday.  That is the earliest I've ever done that.  Now it's supposed to get into the single digits tonight, so I am really hoping the apple trees don't die.  At least the snow is covering the tender tiny spinach plants and flowers that are starting to come up.  

  I've got about half the goats combed, I hope the combed ones can stay warm enough tonight and over the next few days.  I'll be feeding extra hay to help keep them warm.  The act of digesting warms them up.  

  I've been driving up our road in 2 wheel drive, unheard of this time of year!  Usually it's either an ice skating rink, or almost blocked with snow.  I must admit, I've been enjoying it, I haven't had to shovel any snow for over a month, and there is little to no ice to break on all the water troughs and buckets for the animals.  

  The Akbash pups are growing up fast.  They are pretty tall already.  Dottie is still ruling the roost around here.  Now that the snow is mostly gone, she is venturing out far and wide if I'm not constantly watching her.  She's caught a mouse or two, along with Reggie the cat.  I'm thinking they are going to make a good rodent catching team this summer.  

  Today I am dyeinig two skeins of yarn.  One a solid blue, and the other a variegated blue, yellow and green.  I'm going to make me a nice hat out of them.  The cashmere is from Emma, who is getting up there in age and her fiber isn't quite in the micron range of true cashmere anymore.  Since this is probably the last fleece I get from her, I decided to make something for me.  It's still soft, and has incredible style, it's just a hair coarser than it should be for true cashmere.  (no pun intended)  The variegated one is mixed with silk.  A little over four ounces with both skeins, so that should make a nice hat.  

  I am out of last year's cashmere now.  At least the stuff I wanted to sell.  I saved the short stuff and coarser fiber to do some needle felting with.  I think I'll make some animals with it.   Someday I want to get a needle felting machine and make some vests and things with it.  

  Well, I'm out to trim the two dairy girl's hooves now.   I hope everyone that is in the cold regions stays warm, and everyone else enjoys the mild weather where you are!  Have a wonderful day!   

   

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!