A Busy Time!
A lot has happened since the last post. John got back from his Alaska trip. He rode his bicycle from here to Haines, then rode the ferry back to Bellingham, WA, then rode home from there. He had a great time.
I held down the fort here while he was gone, as usual. Most everything went well after the first week. We got just enough rain to save the gardens. I froze quite a bit of peas.
I’m down to 51 goats, or I will be when the last two are in the freezer on the 1st. Now I will be hauling hay again starting this week, I think.
The Farmers’ Market is going okay. Last week I did quite well, this week, not so well. But, it will all work out in the end, it always does.
I’ve been doing some spinning. Working on some Alpaca I got a couple of years ago. I cleaned out and reorganized the fiber shed today. Found some more good cashmere to spin and/or sell! So I will hand pick through that and get the rest of the guard hairs out and spin some and sell some for others to spin, or felt with.
This week will be soap making week. Although I’m getting low on Olive oil. I only use the high quality organic stuff, and that isn’t available here in stores, at least not in bulk so it is affordable.
I’ve been taking the goats out into the neighbors’ places to eat. (with their permission) They like getting out there and eating all the good brush and stuff. They come in pretty full.
It’s that time of year when the rats start coming around. I set the trap tonight in the hay shed. I can smell one in there, and I see it’s poops. Stinky things. They are so disgusting! The cats have already killed a couple of them. This one will be the third one to come around. We usually get 9 or 10 a year.
We now have a mini horse. He’s a nice looking little gelding named Rascal. His feet were so over-grown when I got him, it was awful! I spent two hours trimming them so far, and they still aren’t all the way down to where they should be. At least now they are straight. I’ll be finishing it soon. I gave him some time to get used to having straight legs again, and now I’ll trim them the rest of the way so he can move normally and be able to run and buck, etc. He’s a very vocal horse. He has a nice musical whinny that he uses whenever he sees us. He reminds me a lot of Prince, my Arab I had for 20 years. I hadn’t realized how much I missed hearing him, until I got Rascal and heard him. Prince used to yell at me whenever he saw me, too.
Well, that’s about all that is happening around here now. More when it happens….
