Maaaaa, Maaaaa

The most recent additions to the farm are small, brown and white, they eat everything in site, and they have an insistent call of maaaaaa, maaaaaaa. If you guessed Boer Goats, give yourself a prize!



The small one on the left is Cybelle, and the whether on the right is Dinner. He was named so that there would be absolutely no confusion about his ultimate purpose on the farm! Hopefully Cybelle will be around a little longer, producing little goats for us.

They are very friendly and Cybelle especially likes to have her head scratched. Dinner is a little shy, but he is getting more comfortable with us. They have quite a job ahead of them, clearing out the hillside for us. You can get an idea of how much forage there is in this picture. But they are making good progress with it. They have certain plants they like better, such as multiflora rose, and so those are getting eaten first.

In other news, I posted some quilts over on my Etsy shop -- click on over and check them out!

Forecast Stormy

They hit it on the nose -- stormy has been the weather story here all summer long. I think the sump pump has been running for the entire month of June, and on into July.



But sunny days and stormy afternoons/evenings make for lush pastures, and the critters are eating it up! Get it, eating up the pasture...I crack me up!



Ahem...moving right along...the point is that even though the weather is crap during the hours that I am actually home and could enjoy the weather, it has brought back the east pastures pretty quickly. And they were definitely beat down while we were desperately dodging raindrops getting the fence strung on the east pastures.



So, when we found this beautiful grey and white fiber boy for sale, what else could we name him except Stormy! This is not the best photo, but the boys were not very cooperative for the shoot.

He is settling in pretty well -- I think he would have done better if we had brought home two that day, so that he could have a buddy while trying to socialize into the herd. But I think that five is our limit for now. At least until we can get the micro pastures set up.

Where Have I Been

This has been a crazy couple of months around here.

1. The shearing is done, the fleeces picked and they are at the mill now. (that should count as three!)
4. We have added to our herd -- an additional alpaca (Stormy) and two boer goats.
5. The Angoras have been cut down.
6. We have had two sets of chicks hatch, and started two more in the incubators this week.
7. The Lops and Angoras have been bred.
(Wait, not to each other...thats Lops to Lops and Angoras to Angoras.)
8. The Etsy shop is updated -- woo hoo!
9. I am getting bids on my fabric on eBay -- triple woo hoo!
10. I got a My Space page!
11. I am getting wool carded and ready for my Etsy shop.
12. And I opened a new Etsy shop exclusively for my roving and batts. (did you look? nothing there yet -- see #11 above!)

Obviously, the biggest time sucker here has been the fleeces -- getting them picked and ready for the mill takes quite a while. And even with a drum carder, it takes a while to get a batt ready. But I am having fun with it, doing a lot of blends right now with the alpaca, angora and some mystery sheep wool (I think corriedale.) And I love the scarves I dyed that are in my Etsy shop now -- gorgeous!!

Pictures later this week -- promise!