Barney

This new kitten showed up on Christmas eve, the grandkids came over that day and told me there was a kitten under the house, I told them there was no way a kitten could get under this house, well, he was in the sofa that was sitting on the front porch. I threw my two sofas out to have room for a Christmas tree.You might be a redneck if you have not one but two sofas on your front porch, plus a kitten under it and a blue heeler pup on it. It took me two months to find a new home for them, not the kitten and pup, the 2 sofas. The plumber that worked on the house took them, refused the kitten and pup. So, Barney made it to the big barn and is slowly making friends with the goats,one chicken, Wolf (the Pyrenees), and finally letting Alex pet him. Now we have to catch him and put the elastrator on him, can't stand that tom cat spray.

Tools of the trade

An elastrator is an essential tool for raising small stock,this one is 35 years old, I have used it on my bull calves then onto ram lambs and buck kids.I had 5 almost yearling, ram lambs that were shorn last Sunday, 2 of them were outstanding quality for breeding stock. They had excellent confirmation and show quality fleeces. Two of them were out of a set of triplets and raised on a bottle and were destined to be pets. The fifth one was becoming mean.They have been very well mannered but as they got older were getting a little testy.That is testing me to see how rough they could get, (butting). It was time to make that decision and the elastrator won. It's amazing how their attitudes changed over night, all have become pets wanting to be scratched under the chin with no pushing and butting. Now they can be turned into one of the ewe flocks and enjoy the rest of their life providing wool for my spinning, now isn't that better than being a ram??? I know a man did not invent that tool, and I am thankful to the woman that did.

Sheep bottoms pasture

Most of the goats in this pasture are retirees and a few young does, Pennelope the mini horse, and two Pyrenees dogs, Wag and K. Pennelope gets along great with the goats, loves to nap in a circle with them and the dogs just curl up with them too.These are really K's goats but Wag has decided to leave her sheep and hang out with her.This used to be the sheep pasture but they are at the pond pasture because it is cooler in the summer and the barn is not as weather proof.When I go down and pull a goat out to be shorn K comes all the way to the big barn to find her.She hates for me to take one of her goats, some way some how that dog counts her goats and knows who belongs to her.I spent all morning feeding and dropping out hay, Alex didn't feel well and took a day off, she worked hard all weekend helping with the shearing.Spent the afternoon skirting some of the freshly shorn fleeces,takes a lot longer than you can imagine, hope to get them in the washer soon.

sweet babies

Two of last years lambs that were shorn over the weekend.Yesterday sure seemed like spring, I heard a lonesome dove cooing about mid-morning, and the tree frogs were at the back door.But today I came back to the real world and winter.Planted some carrot seed anyway, I'll cover them with plastic and hope they germinate.Carrots in the grocery store are nothing like a home grown carrot, so sweet, kind a like tomatoes, such a big taste difference.I'm ready for some spring greens.I get so tired of winter food, even the frozen and canned garden fare gets old tasting, and the same old meat is boring.What I wouldn't give for a garden tomato sandwhich.So, I bought some tomato seeds and will start some plants in my kitchen window and dream of that fresh tomato to come.

Close-up

A close-up view of one of the Cormo-BFL fleeces. I just love to look at it and pet it, smell it. It will be hard to bring myself to skirt and wash the fleeces, I just want to look and touch them.Somethings are beautiful in their raw untouched state, fresh fleece is one of them.Then when it is spun into yarn, I just want to hold the yarn in my hands, hold it against my neck. Then when it is knitted or woven I want to wrap up in it, especially when I don't feel well. One Christmas I was shearing the sheep and I didn't have a clean place to store the fleece, so I wrapped them indiually in bed sheets and placed them under the Christmas tree.I was the only one that enjoyed them.Fresh wool and mohair has a magical hold on me.

Good day sunshine

What a great day, in the 60's, daylight until almost 7 PM, and I could hear the tree frogs calling in the rain.Finished shearing the sheep and a few buck goats at the home farm, will have to wait on the next warm spell to finish the sheep at the other farm.I have to get started shearing early in the year to get them all done before the weather gets to hot and, they were ready to shear. I don't shear on a certain schedule, but when the fleece is ready to come off , it's time to shear.When it gets the right length, a certain bloom, with the goats it is a halo, I shear.If you wait to long the fiber will start to string off the animal, they will start to rub and then they will felt,especially in heavy rainfall.Moving like a turtle this morning until the stiffness gets worked out.

Rewards

Rewards of all the hard work that went into growing this hoggett(yearling fleece), began in the fall of 08 when I bred her mother to the Cormo ram. After 5 months of gestation, these sweet lambs were born in anticipation of a different and softer wool to spin.They were shorn at 3 months of age to remove the tippy lamb fleece and to keep them cool during the heat of the summer.Now 8 months later another long,soft and crimpy fleece was shorn.Delightful.I will be like a child on the night before Christmas, very hard to sleep until I have time to wash,dry,pick,card and spin yarn from this wool.

After

Before

Change of plans

Decided to shear the flock of sheep that live at the pond pasture since they are getting hay and are ready to shear. Squirt's flock still has grass to graze so we'll get them next.When I bring them home to shear they will have to stay here where there is shelter, but no grass.Hay is hard to find now, all my local sources are out.It's been a hard winter and most farmers have been feeding their livestock all the hay they can eat to help keep them warm.Most animals in this area don't have shelter other than a wind break of trees or low lying land.I know it's rough when the sheep are in the lower side of the pond pasture, they have shelter but prefer to tough it out most of the time.Goats love a barn and couldn't make it in cold wet weather without one.Goats are like chickens, they come home to roost just before dark.There are 12 Cormo-BFL lambs in the group to be shorn tomorrow, the rest are BFL , BFL-Cotswold, and Cormo, it will take two shearing days to get them all, and another to get the last group.

Carding

Tried to card some ultra crimpy BFL to be spun into sweater yarn, just wouldn't work, the fiber was breaking into such short neps it couldn't hold together to feed into the roving twister.I knew that was going to happen.When fiber has such a springy tight crimp carders stretch it when it rolls over the drums and it breaks into short neps,UGH! Scratch that, ran some purple BFL with a multi dyed kid first clip mohair fleece.The purple wasn't as tightly crimped and ran great. Will use the blue for felting or hand carding, or sometimes I can pick it up and spin curly yarn.The weather is promising this weekend so I will try to get started shearing the sheep.It will be a challenge to load Squirt's flock on the trailer and bring them home from the mother-in-law farm, the bridge is out between here and there, so we'll have to go around on the highway.I think they will be glad to be back at the home farm.

Something to smile about

Today was such an improvement over yesterday, just a few degrees warmer and the sun shining can give you something to smile about.This dogwood tree picture from last spring will bring on good spirits. I am saving some of the snow pictures for this summer when it is 99 degrees in the shade and I will be complaining again about the weather being to hot to work.That's part of a farmer's description, never happy with the weather. It's to hot or to cold or to dry or to wet. Never perfect.But, when you work outside from daylight to dark, it can get tough.Found a little bit more of that time I have been looking for to make a chocolate pie with real whipped cream topping.The chocolate pie recipe was from Sue Harris. Every small community has its well known good cooks.Since we have two Sue Harris' this one is known as Bob's Sue.The other one is Clayton's Sue.We have several women with the same first name that have their husband's name attached to the front so that we can identify them.Then, we have women with the same name so some of them go by two names, like, Nancy Ruth and Sara Ann (pronounced one word, Sarann). This is a very special place to have lived but times have changed, a lot of the people I have known were real characters, true women and men, most of them gone, they don't make them like that anymore.

pictures

Winter had to have been even more depressing before pictures of what the past spring and summer were like. Only one's memory to recall the days long gone.Today was so gloomy and cold, not even above freezing and no sun.Haven't seen any bees out in months, usually on warm sunny days you will see them around the hive,nada, not one. Bedded the barns down with extra straw this morning and got everyone a drink of warm water along with their regular rations.Of course, this was a gravy and biscuits morning with country ham and scrambled egss, the grandkids favorite.

Sunnyside up

Sun is out and snow is gone. Started a fire in the wood stove in the garage. Got an 8' long dark red mohair fleece soaking in the washer, will be great for embellishment.Part of the fleece from Dan, the Cormo ram is drying behind the stove and a skein of Cotswold yarn in a multi brown mix is hanging on the drying rack.I have not processed a lot of Cormo fleece, but find I do a better job if I wash small lots at a time and hand process to avoid neps that the picker and carder create.Spent most of the morning feeding and putting out hay then onto scraping up a lot of manure and mud around the barns, it will work wonders on the garden.Grandkids are here for a few days!

Snow sheep

Tracking sheep

Fed the sheep their hay on the back side of the pasture, waited for them to come up,no one came, so decided to call them in, followed these tracks leading back to the barn.

Sweet-faced ewe lamb

This was a scary day for all the lambs and kids born last spring, don't know if it was the crunching sound under their hooves or all the whiteness, no one was out this morning, all have been hiding in the barn since yesterday when the snow started falling.I was surprised at the amount of snow we got, I thought we were getting" just a dusting in the North Ga area".I did enjoy the snow for a short while late yesterday evening, tied my kids old sled to the back of my gator and pulled it around the fields of snow, spun around and acted like a child, then turned on the headlights and the snow looked like a blanket of diamonds. Snow always makes everything look and smell clean. The sky was solid blue early this morning, no white clouds, later the big white puffy clouds rolled in, the sun came out and melted most of the snow.I think we have met our quota of snow for 2010.

Favorite

With all the natural and dyed colors of wool and mohair I have, natural cream colored yarn is one of my favorites.This is a bfl wool-yearling mohair blend of Angel and Cutie Pie that I carded last fall. I sold some of it but still had a lot of it, and wanted to get some spun up. It happened late yesterday afternoon, I finally started spinning on it, I thought it would be a little sticky from all the mohair, a 50-50 blend,but it was heavenly.Didn't want to stop and can't wait to get back to it.That's the way spinning fiber should be, addictive.

Crazy Horse

I bought this crazy horse for my grandson Evan's Christmas  two years ago.She was the best horse I ever rode, at the seller's stable, the next day the drugs wore off and she has been trying to kill me ever since.Yesterday, on the coldest day ever, I went to the mother-in-law farm to feed her. She didn't come into the little red barn, I walked the pasture to find her, she was lying down as far away as she could get. She followed me up to the barn, not limping, but I noticed she was bleeding on both front legs, just above the hoof.When she got in her pen away from the sheep I noticed she had 2 deep gashes on her left rear leg.Her yearly horse vaccine with tetanus was due, so I took of to the local feed store to get that and may as well worm her while she is caught.She didn't mind the vaccine injection, but the wormer was another story.She was coming a little too close to me with those front legs when I opened her mouth.She got most of it and to heck with the rest of it, this horse has to find a new home.I don't keep animals that try to  hurt me and that I can't handle by myself.

Badger

The lettuce I planted last week germinated, hope the freeze doesn't kill it.Over-dyed some BFL yarn on the wood stove, just wasn't intense enough, so I added more purple.Skeined the rust colored yarn and washed,spun out and hung out to dry.No one knows how slow the process from animal to finished product is, until you do it.It's a good thing we don't depend on me to make all our clothing. I know why in the old days people only had one or two changes of clothing, and they were passed down until they were worn out, then became quilt peices.My Granny Sproull(husband's grandmother) was one of 14 children, she knew about being hungry,cold and pain.She was the smartest person I have ever known, no formal education, just a graduate from the school of hard knocks.She knew how to kill it,clean it and cook it into the best meal you ever ate.Grow it, pick it and can anything she could get her hands on, one time she peeled tommytoe tomatoes and canned them. She could crochet and sew and quilt the tiniest stitches.She had the drive to get something going and see it to the end.She always did for others in the community, giving food,money or her time.She worked in a mill about 40 years of her life, but managed to get so much accomplished.I was lucky to cross her path. I met her when I was 15, at 16 she taught me how to peice a quilt, I knew how to sew clothing, but learned how to peice,tie the quilt top in the quilting frame, lay on the batting and liner, quilt it, then hem.Granny said when you sleep under a new quilt, whatever you dream will come true.

Another tree

Lost another perfectly good tree, tall big pine.just fell over from all the rain.You can see the pine needles are not wasted.Sheep and goats will eat them and most other leaves, occasionally goats will eat the bark and roots that are above ground.We lost several big old oak trees last year, I don't like loosing them, takes a life time to grow them that big.Another cold and rainy day, got everybody fed quickly,will spend the rest of the day spinning yarn. Finally spun some Cotswold-Blueface wool that I dyed and blended with mohair, and carded into cloud, a rust blended with many colors.I'm getting so far behind on washing and carding, what can you do in this kind of weather when you work outside?Stay in and spin,knit,weave.

Thinking summery thoughts

This is a picture of our sunflower field last summer,Just looking at it will warm you up.Managed to get a few hours off to see the grandkids and their new puppy Buster. Rescued from the animal shelter, Buster has had a few health problems, but those 2 kids love him anyway.And he is a lucky dog.Hate to tell them, but that dog is going to be a big house dog, looks to have some bulldog in him.Met some future goat farmers yesterday, nice folks, and they are wanting to get chickens,I give a free rooster with all goat purchases. Smart huh.

Relentless

The cold rain only let up for a short while but I managed to get everyone their grain and hay, moved a few goats around to give them more room.Trinket a tiny doe kid born last spring was shivering, I forgot to close the barn windows and the rain blew in, after bedding them down with fresh straw. Who knew we would get howling winds all night. Penned her up with her mom and twin, she was fine after eating breakfast.She's never had any problems, just tiny and cute.Severe weather is stressful for goats.Sheep just back up to the wind and rain. It's stressful for me too, worrying about everyone's safety.Thankfuly, no one was kidding or lambing.When we had the Great Georgia Blizzard it was a disaster, lambs and kids were being born, most of them ended up by the wood stove for a few hours, there was at least 4 kids and 2 lambs in an old handmade cabinet, they really enjoyed snuggling up to each other.The does and ewes were so shocked they didn't fuss alot when I took them away, but were glad to see their babies returned.

Persnickety Hen

This young hen hatched 12 chicks around Christmas day and will not let anything get near them.I'm sure most of them are annoying roosters.I have been trying to get a picture of them from day one and this is as close as I can get.Terrible weather today,so I am waiting for the rain and wind to slow down before I head out. I see one of the buck kids munching on wet hay, it's going to be a tough day.Made more blackberry jam last night, real jam,just blackberry pulp and sugar. I used to make real jam many years ago, then I found a product called pectin, in a box. Pectin is a success everytime,but where's the challenge? It's like knitting with store bought yarn. And here's my problem with store bought stuff, I never have that stuff when I need it. So, I'm back to making real jam with no added preservatives or 2 page long ingredients that I can't identify. Just plain and simple with a little more time involved. So there it is, I found some of that time I have been looking for.

Miracle warming up

Took a chance and sheared Miracle a couple of weeks ago. She is a young doe in extra good shape with a ton of hair. You can tell when a fleece is beginning to drag a goat down, they usually get sluggish and spend a lot of time scratching, so off it came.Miracle was a bottle baby and will always be my pet.Annoying most of the time, escaping out an unlatched gate, knocking over a bucket of feed sitting on a fence post, under my feet when I am trying to feed.If you shear in cold weather the animal must be in good condition and fed well with good rain free shelter, bedded down with a thick layer of straw.I am waiting on a warm spell to shear the sheep. Sheep can take the cold better than the goats, most sheep, including mine, have a layer of fat, fat animals can stand the cold better than skinny.

Early?

The hard freeze killed all but a small patch of lettuce, so when we had a warm day last week I cleaned out the old bed and planted it with winter radish and lettuce mix.Covered it with plastic to help warm the soil,hopefully enough to germinate the seeds.Raised beds are great for winter gardening, with all the rain we have had who knows when we will be able to get over the garden with a tractor.Did the grounghog see his shadow? We had no sun here yesterday, so if the grounhog that lives down on the creek came out, I know he did not see his shadow.I'm ready for spring.

Breaking through

The sun was trying to break through the clouds after a night of cold rain.Goats do not go out in cold rain, so these does were looking for breakfast. There is still some grass to graze and I had dropped out hay earlier in the morning, they are headed back to the barn for a bite of grain.The cold winter weather has made it hard to work outside so I have done some inside cleaning and throwing away.Have you ever known an old woman that rinses out every glass jar, saves every newspaper, milk jug, feed bag? Not to mention 3 barns full of wool and mohair fleeces. It's hard for me to let go of things.So I am taking some time off from going to so many shows and breeding so many sheep and goats, to get organized and just throw away.And to rest and enjoy the simple things like the seasons, not to just endure them and wait for them to pass.I have to make some changes so that I have that time again.

Sassparilla

Still a pretty doe at 10 years old, Sassparilla's hair makes the silkiest yarn for shawls.This will probably be her last kidding, we'll see.Yesterday was cold and sunny, real nice day.Spent the weekend cleaning  up after the plumbers,carpenters and electricians, what a mess, must have washed 20 loads of clothes and vaccumed up 20 pounds of dust and dirt. Hopefully this will be the last week of repairs and this work will last another 30 plus years.Cooked a big dinner of ribs,green beans,corn,slaw,sweet tea and chocolate cake for the kids and grand kids yesterday, then we took a 2 mile hike, I was dead and headed for my chair about 5.Dinner is at 12 noon, supper is the evening meal served shortly after dark.This is a working farm and our lives and meals revolve around the seasons, I never have a watch on but I can tell you the time of day within a few minutes.In late November my body starts getting sluggish with the shortness of daylight but a few days after Christmas I slowly start back up and when the first few warm days roll around I am ready to go day and night.