Appendicitis?

Ug I've had some wierd gut problem for 3 days now. I have no idea what the problem is, but it keeps me awake at night. This might be something I go to the doctor for if it doesn't go away. I haven't been to the doctor since my post partum check up. Josh is almost 19.

We are having some lovely weather, so this is what a dry winter is like! The sun is out again today and it looks like it's going to be clear for most of the weekend too. It's been a long time since we've had a dri-er winter, I don't even remember what it is like. Last winter we were at something like 135% of normal rainfall.

I spent a lovely gloaming piddling around the ranch. I even managed to get into the tractor to survey the latest problem; easy enough it is a broken choke cable. That should be quite easy to fix. I haven't wanted to start it as there was no way ( I knew) to turn it off! Now that I see how that cable works, I see that I can manually shut it down..
I started cleaning out the loafing shed pen, and I set out salt licks for the sheep and the milkers.
I cleaned out the little trailer, and I think today I'll fill it for a dump run.

I guess I should think about shopping for the holiday, but it still seems too far off. I tried on Sunday, but it's just too far away.

Leaper

Abby the leaper on Vimeo

Abby loves to jump over the fences, the higher the better.
I need to find a dog puissance.

Frosty

I made the mistake of clicking on the "update your Blogger account" and now it's not only merged with my Google account, but now it sucks. And I don't see any way to undo what I've done.
I may go back to LJ.

I have been thinking about how isolated I spend my time, very little social interaction, and maybe it's time for me to change that. I'm older now and Imight be able to handle dealing with people and their shit better. Some days I don't talk to anyone but Ted and Josh, and some days it's just Ted ( well and the goats, but they don't talk much).

Then on Monday some people came by to get a kitten. That was nice, they were a very cute couple, and the guy was from Allentown, Pa, not far from where I went to High School. Allentown, home of Dorney Park which once had the #3 best roller coaster in the world, according to the N Y Times.

Later I went up to Eureka to pick up my steel and it turned out that they had sold the big sheet of expanded steel that I dragged my little trailer up there specifically for.
I pretended to be really mad ( only for a second) and they were highly apologetic and offered to deliver one as soon as the truck came. That's a long ways to go to deliver one sheet of steel. why would they do that? It's not like I am a huge buyer for them.
Did I scare them? I mean they are metalworkers, tough right?

Back at the ranch I was amazingly productive, almost finishing one headcatch and cutting out all the tubing for a second.
Back home that night I spun 3/4 of a lb of yarn, which was a lot to do in one night. I have an order to fill; I donated yarn to a local long time breeder and ADGA judge who in turn will knit it into a sweater to donate it to a fund raiser. The ADGA convention will be here ( well, Santa Rosa) in 2008).

I called my nephew for his birthday yesterday. They were on their way to sushi for his party. It's hard to get any information out of an 8 year old in a car. I did manage to get his e mail.

Cold cold last night, and it's frosty this morning. Ted started a fire before he left so it's pretty toasty in here now.

Here's my wonderful addition; the welding table. Already it has been such an improvement. There's the headgate that I built in less than 2 hours today, and I even cut the pieces for another.
It was such a breeze working on the table instead of on the ground.
I "heart" my welding table.

Rain. Not rain. Rain. Not rain.

We seem to be in a regular winter cycle of a day or 2 of rain and then one day of sun. That's all fine, and it actually looks like most of this week will be un rainy, which would be welcome.
Things are pretty soggy now, but it's par for the season, with little sun and lots of wetness.

Yesterday Josh and I doodled around Eureka in the rain, he drove the whole time. Mostly without incident, except when he almost went the wrong way up 1 way Henderson.

I got the packing stuff I need to pack up the milk stand to send it to Idaho. I also got seat covers for my disgusting cloth car seats that I just couldn't stand looking at/ sitting on anymore.

Today I have to go back up there and pick up my steel. I actually started the next stand yesterday with some leftover 1 X 1" square tubing. It's a dream working on the new table, projects will be so much easier now.

Someone is coming ( or so they said last night) to see about the kittens today. I have had the ad on Craigslist, and had about 5 or so calls, but no one has come. They are getting pretty big now.
One is a sweet purr bear and should go to a nicer home than my barn

It was a good thing I did go to the ranch on Saturday afternoon. I have pretty much been doing all chores by noon or so, but I went back to work on the table, and found my big Alpine buck had worked a hole in the gate and got in with J's weanlings. It makes me wonder what else goes on that I never know about. Anyway, there were 3 doelings in heat, so I'll see if the cycle again or the Lutalyse it is for them as they are way too small to be bred. Good thing I saw all of that. And I fixed the gate.

Well I finally have myself a welding table. It's like an artists easel, and I am pretty happy about it.
I made the base out of some heavy 2 X 2 square tubing that I got from Mike's scrap pile. The top is also from Mike, a piece of 1/4" with some angle welded to it; he had been using it for a door, which is amazing as it weighs at least 100 lbs.

I couldn't lift the top myself, so Ted came to the ranch last night so I could put the top on. It's just the right height, and about 4' X 4'.
Tomorrow I will pick up the next steel order and build a few more milk stands. I am looking forward to not having to work on the ground; my back is looking forward to that too.

I am waiting for the rain to stop so I can run out to do chores. It's finally letting up.

Last night I brought Simon to the ranch and at one point I realized he was gone. Then I hear the sheep baa ing and coming into the corral, which is a bad sign.
Sure enough he had sorted out one small lamb and was just following it. He does that, doesn't do any harm, but it's bad and when he came in I whacked him with the wire brush. He stayed pretty close after that. U just need to keep a closer eye on him. I also need to start his training in earnest, as he is obviously ( finally ) ready.

So now I have this lone small lamb who has now run off by itself towards the dike. And it's getting dark.
I let the lamb figure out it wasn't going to get eaten and get it's head back together and I see it running through the hayfield, looking like a little white bunny, with the whole bunch of Tim and Kathy's Jersey heifers following it.

I "baa" at the lamb which seems to get it's attention, then I spend the next half an hour trying to get the lamb to the sheep and the sheep to the lamb.
It was a lovely evening to be out in the field and Abby has decided she LOVES jumping the 4' wire sheep fence. I need to get photos and a video of her doing it, it's pretty spectacular.

Well the rain has quit for now, so I'm off to tend the flocks.

Sharon and Taylor

These are my 2 kiko cross doelings that I got from Sharon ( my landlord) and bottle raised last winter.
They have been bred and have been living with J's yearlings, even though I have been trying to get them out.
They are too fat to be on the free choice grain program, but I can't seem to be able to keep them in the pen with the other bred does.

Finally I have fixed it so they can't get out, but they are not too thrilled about their new digs. They spent the first few days outside, but have finally moved into the barn with the rest.
Even still, here they are by themselves in the yard while the rest have gone out to graze

neigh?

We went to see "Stranger Than Fiction" in Eureka last night.
It was a WAY better movie than I was expecting. It was a different kind of movie than the commercials lead me to believe.
It did for me all the things I want from a movie. I left the theater feeling like a different person.

Then we stopped by the casino on the way home to try our luck. As we entered ( through the doors being held open by the Indian Native American doormen, a guy was leaving who told us "everything we touched would be golden". That was a good prophecy.

Sure enough we once again left the casino with a gain. Although I lost my money, Ted covered my loss, his loss, the money for the movie, popcorn and still a profit.
We are still way ahead of the casino in the overall loss/ win ratio.
And the casino was full of lots of characters. It was a fun coupla hours in there, quite a different environment to spend that time in.

I had another wild dream this morning. maybe the LJ barn drama, maybe my interest and desire to get on a horse, but I was pulling a horse trailer with a grey mare in it with a tricycle up the McKinleyville hill. I thought the tricycle was better suited for the haul than my little Nissan pickup.

If I can't swim and I can't ski here, I really should try to get back into the horses. I mean, I need to throw money into the fire, right?

Not raining

On Wednesday I had all planned out a trip to Eureka to get my steel a,d run all sorts of errands.
But by mid afternoon the weather was so horrible that the thought of driving in it, plus the idea of frantic people searching for that last bag of tiny marshmallows put me off and I canned the whole trip.

I dumped almost 3" out of the rain gauge yesterday.

Before dinner yesterday I got all the pieces of my welding table base cut and cleaned up. I will leave the bottoms open and in the future I'll insert extensions so I can raise and lower it, and put some wheels on. But for now, I just want to get it done so my projects will be so much easier and easier on the back.

I managed to catch the break in the rain and started working on my meat goats feet, but I didn't catch a good enough break. By the time I got to the 3 foot on the 1st doe, it was raining again, and we both got wet. I moved inside to do the other doe.

Chores are down to a breeze now. I only have 3 pens; milkers and bred does, mediums ( weaned does), and bucks and wethers. Unbelievable. It's a total ranch vacation.

Next on the agenda I need to get the sheep in. Those lambs aren't getting any smaller and they need their tails off. The sheep have been living way off at the back of the hay field and I haven't seen them upclose in a week. I might even have lambs I don't know about.

Well we had a lovely classic Thanksgiving dinner, just us and one of Josh's friends.
Everything came out just fine, including the rolls that came out just in the nick of time, and the gravy that had to be made in the microwave as we ran out of propane.

WE watched the history channels' story of the Mayflower, which I had only a 1960's grade school knowledge of.

It was a lovely day.

Taks THAT Thanksgiving haters

Desperate Crossing; The Untold Story of the Mayflower

This was an excellent telling of the story. No PC crap, no emotional backlash, just the story. A story about people.
From the English and from Native Americans BTW.

The story seems to be more like an episode of "I shouldn't be alive".
So many mistakes were made. Such ineptness.

But in the end, it's just the history of the event; the beginning of a nation.
They were just people living their lives. It was not evil. It was what it was.

Nations come and go and they always have and always will.

Allice's Illegal Dumping

All of you who are referencing Alice's Restaurant as a protest song, I want to point one thing out.

It was about illegal dumping, probably on private property.

Being someone who lives off of "a side road, and off the side of the
side road there was another fifteen foot cliff"

I certainly would have sent the guy who dumped a whole houseful of garbage on my land to jail, or certainly have fined him heavily. And be really really pissed off.

And then the lie to the police
"Yes, sir, Officer Obie, I cannot tell a lie, I put that envelope
under that garbage."

Now I love Arlo Guthrie as much as the next guy. Heck, he shows up here in Humboldt County on a regular basis.
And I love the song, and I even have an original LP ( although, I do love the pickle song more)

But if you're going to use the song to rally the troops, be careful for what you wish for.

And I hope you don't live off a side road where he comes to dump his garbage on Thanksgiving.

It really wasn't that long ago, was it?

I have hit the Mother Lode of old Television from my childhood

http://www.tvparty.com

My Mother The Car, The Monroes, Officer Joe Bolton and Saturday Morning line ups.
Even New York kiddie shows, Movie of the week theme songs, Romper Room, That Girl, Red Skelton, Here Come The Brides, Winky Dink, Wonderama, I am in nostalgia heaven.

I could watch this stuff all day. Get me a box of cereal and I'll curl up on the couch.

Feelthy. Deesgusting.

I think I have been looking for this cartoon almost as long as there has been search on the internet.
I remember this cartoon from my childhood so much that I know the song by heart, but I don't think I have seen it for 40 years.
Tonight I saw it and I watched it and I sang right along.

La Petite Parade
1959

Now you're talkin'

O K, I'm playing the lottery.

Really rainy

I slept with the window open again last night. It has been so warm, it makes me think that this is what winter is usually like in Sonoma County. I'll take it.
More rain today, but we still haven't been getting the brunt of this weather, which seems to be going north of us. I don't mind at all.

I managed to clear out the drainage on the cement yesterday so the water will run out. It wasn't backing up too badly, but I'd like that to continue. With so few goats everyone is so snug with so much room in the barns, it's really cozy in there.

I think everyone is bred now. I have a few AI breedings I am not so sure about, but they won't cycle again for another week or so. It's getting to the point where I'm about to give the shots I give 8 weeks before kidding. Late January I have the first kids.

Josh came right home last night and started cooking dinner. He has been wanting to cook; he commented ( when he couldn't find ANY ingredients) about "no wonder people like cooking in the Deli at the grocery store" because you have everything you need right there.
We had some home grown beef a friend had given him and some yummy fried potatoes. I whipped up an apple pie, but we need to get the oven worked on.

I have ordered a whole bunch of steel, enough to build more than 2 milk stands, and I'm going out in the rain to get it today. Most will fit in my truck, but I ordered a full sheet (4' X 8') of the expanded steel, as they charge 6.00 for every shear cut. I can manage to cut it myself as I have to cut it down from the size I order anyway.
I am hoping it can be laid down on my tiny flatbed trailer.

My one and only nephew will be turning 8 next week, and I haven't seen him since he was a tiny baby. I do call him on his birthday, but his Aunt Sarah is just some faceless voice on the phone. Maybe with the new extra room he can come for a visit someday.

Chores are so minimal now, it's almost like not having my little ranch. I can get everything done once a day in less than a half an hour if I don't linger. I can stand and watch the goats for long periods if I let myself, however.
I have always enjoyed being inside the barn in bad weather. When I was a kid and had the horses I could just lie and listen to them chew their hay.

I spent most of yesterday still dealing with the head problem, but by the afternoon it seemed to be finally sailing away. I am still stuffy and runny and coughing but that I can deal with.

I slept with the window open last night and I also think that helped a lot. I noticed the house seemed stuffy when I came home yesterday so I opened the windows and turned off the heater. It's been pretty warm so no need for the heater.

I just got off the phone with Molly who is trying to land a contract to graze her goats on BLM and private lands next summer. She wants me to be the goatherd living and moving with the herd to protect them from predators. She thinks I would be the perfect and only person for the job. I wish I were about 20 years younger, but I still told her I could probably do it. She would also provide me with horses, which is a big selling point right now as I am totally jonesin' for some horse.
She also told me about a ranch for sale near her ( northeastern California, Tule Lake area) 400 acres, big new house, sub irrigated bottom pasture, some hill pasture, huge barn and HOT SPRINGS!!!
Only 600,000.00 which is still a lot less than they are asking for my 80 acre swamp here in Ferndale.

I was having another camp dream last night/ this morning and I woke up and actually fell back asleep back into the dream. I was dreaming something was crawling on my leg and I kept looking and trying to figure out what it was, when I woke up and it was actually my thumb on my leg! I don't ever remember having that happen before.

Yay for me

I have finished the next milk stand. This one was special ordered, and they wanted me to add A I (artificial insemenation) rails. It's ready to be shipped to Idaho.

I already have another order for one that they want done by Christmas! AAACK!

This cold could move on anytime now. Really. I was up many times during last night now fighting the headache portion. This morning I couldn't fight it and took too many pills that it made me sick.
But it seems I turned the corner and after chores ( 12:30..Late!) I felt good enough to mow the lawn.
The ground gets so dry before rain comes in. The lawn had already gotten so long since the last time I mowed, right after the rain started, that I had to go slowly through the thickest parts.
And then it started to rain.

Yesterday I waited almost all day for the semen collector; she was almost 5 hours late. In that time I did manage to clean out a whole pen from all summer. so it wasn't a total waste.
But the deed was done and I also scored some AI supplies. I'll say it again, semen collectors are all goofy.

Ted is gone to Portland until tomorrow night. We get to find out what sales award he has won on this trip.
Last year we got the whole ski trip/ San Francisco/ Salinas trip.

I don't have one, but...

iPod ettiquette

Goat semen, Tuna. And earthquakes. Ah, California

It seems ( for now) the little earthquakes we have been having for a week or so have stopped. They seemed to stop right after that big one near Japan/ Russia 2 days ago.

That probably caused me to have that earthquake dream this morning right before I woke up at 5). It was a huge quake, but my house was still standing, although a lot of the hill behind it had piled up behind the house, to the 2nd story.
Everyone was O K.

After chores yesterday I loaded up 2 fat lambs to take to the slaughterhouse along with a 5 month old wether goat. The lambs were ordered, I was hoping to sell the wether. Those lambs were wet and dirty and I was a mess when I got in the truck.
Strangely, when I parked in town to get a coffee before I left, not one person seemed to notice the funky trailer with lambs. That's Ferndale.

The butcher ( nicknamed "Butch", of course) wanted a larger wether goat, so he stayed in my trailer as I traveled up to Arcata.
There I spent a lovely afternoon trimming hooves at the dairy. It may be strange, but I do enjoy doing this. Hanging out with J, getting done what needs to be done, and of course gossip and goats. If I had been organized I would have remembered my gloves and not have had to quit when the blister started.

I got rewarded with a sack full of home canned tuna (YUMMY!!!!). And M overpaid me for the wether, so I'll send another their way when the next one is big enough.

Their place looks really good right now. They have a lot more roof up, there's loads of dry inside space, and the goats all look in really good condition. There's a roof up over the alfalfa, and a HUGE tarp over their giant stack of grass hay.

All in all a pretty good day.

This evening or in the morning the semen collector is coming. I also am sending 3 more fleeces to Whitethorn, courtesy of a ride down in the morning on the wool express.

day after

I have been having really vivid dremas right before I wake up in the morning.
This morning I was at some sort of college or camp on the last day when everyone was clearing out. Then, when I was alone, a man shows up pretending to have a flat tire. I don't let him in, and we stalk each other around the house with guns. I have the little .410 I got from my mother, who in turn got it from Uncle Dick, the father of a family friend and ex business partner of my father .
The story about the .410 is true, and I think the dream means I need to get the gun out and clean and oil it

The other morning I was a penguin in the colony of singing and dnacing penguins. When I told Ted about the dream he said "too bad you weren't the leopard seal.."

A few days ago I dreamed about being at a camp that was on a dog sled trip. We would ride the sleds each day from cabin to cabin, and camp each night, a whole bunch of us.
Certainly inspired by the pictures on Snow Girls Flickr page


So yesterday I went up to Eureka for the producers meeting. Ilet my freak flag fly. My hair was just hanging out there in public for the first time. Most people didn't say anything, which I thought was strange, although I could see them looking when I was talking to them.
Sanford Lowry was there and strangely so glad to see me. He shoved his way past people to come and give me a hug.
I met a local goat person I hadn't met before, but had certainly heard about for years, and have talked to on the phone at least once.
It was a pretty informative meeting for me, mostly the renewed local feed nutritionist. After serving the local goat dairys horribly in the 90's. he had been gone for many years. While out there in the central valley his eyes were opened to the reality that is the goat milk industry, and he has been reborn ( well we'll se about that). I must say, I was pleased and surprised when he actually acknowledged his poor performence of the past, and even apologized.
He knows better, he is definitely humbled, and he seems to want to help us now, instead of brushing us off.

Today I'm going up to J's dairy to help with trimming hooves.It's been a while since I've been up there. I kind of enjoy this chore; I know I would have loved to have someone come and help me whan I had my dairy, and it's pleasant enough work.

I'm also gathering up the sheep and shipping some lambs. I didn't think I had any lambs of good size, but money does grow on (grass)trees, so the lambs that were too small a few months ago are just right now. And Thanksgiving demand is here..
I'll also bring my big wether and see if they won't buy him too.

Sunny again!

The sun came out enough yesterday for me to mostly dry the lovely silver fleece I am hoping to send to the processor this weekend.
I timed myself last night and I can spin a bobbin full in one hour. That was a long time to spin straight, but it was good to know how much time goes into a skein. That's pretty good.

I've had a bit of a sore throat for quite a few days. I'm ready for this to go away. My head is full of goop.

Today I go up to Eureak to crash attend a Dairy Goat commercial producers meeting. I was sent an invitation so it's really O K. I am not in the mood for this, nor does my hair look like it belongs to anything resembling a reasonable person, but I am trying not to talk myself out of it. It will coincide with a lunch with the Farm Bureau, so I will probably meet some new people; with this hair.

I need to get going with my chores so I can get back and clean up.

Sun?

I was up at 4:30 this morning. And I know I was awake for a long time before I got up.

While I was up ( until about 5:45)the coyotes went berserk yelping and howling for about 5 minutes, and we had a tiny earthquake.

The sun is out this morning and that is good news for the fleece I am trying to get dry. I am sending more down to Whitethorn to get carded.
I am more than halfway through the first bag of roving (I figure each bag is about 4 lbs) and 2 sleeves of the next sweater are done. I spun a bobbin full in about 2 hours yesterday; I need to figure out how long it really takes, and weigh each skein, in order to price the skeins.
Now I need a label and a logo.

I also need to make a flyer for my stanchions. While at R&S the other day, lookoing at all of his panels and gates and such, the light went off that I can sell these things at the feed stores. Doy!. Randy said he doesn't have room for one ( well, I might argue) but I could put up a flyer.
I will order more steel and get started on the next one.

With the rain we've been having, I thought I should move my smallest kids back into the barn for the winter, and when I got to the ranch yesterday morning, the 5 I had in mind were all out( the wind had blown open their gates). So it worked out perfectly and they followed me down to the barn.
I have so many empty pens right now it's kind of strange.

I sold Josh'd LEGO collection on eBay yesterday, so I need to pack that up and send it off. In the balance that is money, I had just ordered more plastic collar chain which pretty much came to the exact same amount.

I went to working on my welding table yesterday and the first thing I did was to cut the only good piece of angle iron too short. I am easily discouraged and I couldn't go on.
I need more scrap angle iron.

I also should haul some lambs to the butcher, but they will be all wet today, and I'm going up to Eureka tomorrow, but I have a meeting, so I shouldn't be all lamb yucky.
I need to do a Fortuna run, so I think I'll do that today instead
bank
gas
hardware store (paint)
maybe I'll treat myself and get a set of clamps.
hay

It's so slow in the ranching department. Most of the does are bred, no new lambs for a few days, probably for a while, no babies to feed. It's pretty low maintenance right now. Babies coming the end of January, though.

EDIT!!! For the love of all that is sacred!!!

People who use Flickr, PLEASE!! I have one word for you
EDIT!!
You only need one shot of each subject. Just one! Pick the best one and let it shine!
The public gallery thst is Flickr is NOT your attic. We love to see your pictures, but your BEST!! PLEASE!!

We don't want to see 20 versions of the same shot. It's called photo sharing, so please, just share the best!
We don't want to spend an hour seeing all the photos from your vacation, or all the shots of your dog. Just one of each PLEASE!!
Pick ONE

Remember the jokes about slide shows of vacations...cut to the chase!

The Discovery Channel 1957

The Discovery channels Store has it's toys divided by gender.
I am shocked.

Honestly, there shouldn't be any toys that are gender specific.
I am appalled. And saddened

This is arguably the worst weather we have here. It's raining and it's cold. Around 45 degrees. And i can honestly say that I'd be warmer at 30 degrees and snowing.

This dampness just sucks the heat out.
I have a wool vest. I will change my socks, which often helps.
I have a fire in the woodstove and the heater is running over here by the computer, and I'm still cold.

For a great rainy Sunday afternoon I watched "Thank You For Smoking" which I really liked.
I actually laughed out loud in many places.
It's not so much about smoking as it is about the argument. Any argument.

And I am spinning and spinning my beautiful roving.

Well my new goat family came and picked out a doeling yesterday.
They are adorable! The little girl arrived with "I Love Goats" velcroed to her shirt!

After all the thought I had about which of Kia's kids I wanted to sell, she ended up picking Wicked, a grade Lamancha!
I certainly have learned my lesson to try to get a kid to pick a kid. I now know that they know something else, they see something I don't.

So now thay have a lovely little doeling and they are excited to get her bred, and to show!
It's so wonderful to have a new kid involved in the dairy goats.

And I sold her for exactly the same amount of my bill for my wool processing !
I washed another fleece yesterday that I hope will someday dry, and I have 2 others that are washed, so I'll be sending more down to Whitethorn.

Larry was at the ranch in the morning obviously there to show the place. And once again, I recognized the family that showed up. They live right around the corner. They are not farmers.
That was curious.

satur

Another new lamb was born yesterday, and another ewe. I wonder why my ewe to ram ratio is so high? It isn't so with the goats.
This makes 9 new lambs for me. Cha ching! And after gathering up the whole mess of them yesterday I see I have quite a few lambs ready to ship. That was most welcome news.

Alas the demise of our beloved Kiwi. Of course hamsters only live for 2 years.
We still have her son/daughter (?) Steve.

And speaking of gender confusion, I asked Josh about one of his band members. "Is she his sister or his girlfriend"
"I don't know"
That should NEVER be the answer to that question.

The new family interested in a doeling is coming today. The way it poured rain all night last night I figured we'd be standing in the barn. But this morning it's clear and sunny.
My neighbors brought over another doe to be bred yesterday. They have already called ADGA about registering the doe that have( detective work on my part found that the doe is 100% Alpine and can be registered as such, along with all of her kids) and it all looks good. She was pretty excited about all of that, and I am thrilled for her, and that she is all into registering these goats.

And Ted went and bought us a new vacuum. To say that he has problems with vacuums is not enough, so this was a big step for him.
It's adorable and the house immediately got vacuumed.

Happy, ths spinner.

The new family who was interested in goats called back in the afternoon. They had been reading up on showing goats ( where did they get a book in one day?) and are all excited. Of course the doeling I thought about as the first pick has a nice snotty nose today, so I told them to come out on Saturday.
It's so great to have new people. We always need fresh blood, like the Shakers.

Then I went to Fernbridge to meet the wool processer to pick up my wool. This whole project was a little experiment; I didn't know if it was worth it ( I can pick and card the wool myself) or how the wool would come out.
As soon as she opened the hatch of the van I was thrilled. The wool is SO beautiful. light and well carded and clean and lovely. By picking it up it didn't get compacted from shipping, so it's just like thick ropes of cloud.



Then the even better part.
I had budgeted quite a lot for the bill. Roughly estimating weight and what her prices were, how happy was I that the bill was less than half of my lowest estimate?
That was SO totally worth it. I'll be sending her some more wool soon.

Thanks to Aunt Janet's Fiber Mill in Whitethorn, California!

I jumped right in and had to try some out, and what a dream it is to spin. I don't think I ever want to use my drumcarder again.
I got 2 bobbins full last night, and by Conan I had knitted 4" of the sleeve of my next project.

And in other very good sheepy news, I had another new lamb yesterday. Of course, a ewe.

My World

Goat Show!

Life in Balance

AKA
The universe helps those that help themselves.

Yesterday morning I called the woman processing my wool to light a fire under her about getting my roving.
In the meanwhile I moved that black merino fleece that had been giving me so much ttrouble out of the line up, cleaned my drumcarder, and started carding and spinning the next white fleece.
This morning I get a call that my wool is done and she can deliver it to Fernbridge this afternoon.
---------------------------------

I called Sandra F to see about getting some kids to pour this extra milk down.

This morning I get a call from a woman answering last weeks ad looking for wethers without horns.
The ones I have left all have horns, but I mention I have some nice doelings I'd sell.
She then tells me her daughter would love that and maybe even be interested in showing!
Wanting to encourage a new breeder/ shower in the area I drop the price and she's gonna think about it and call me back.

( o kay not really the + to - here, but goaty sort of)

------------------------------------------------

While I was spinning last night, thinking about my sheep and the wool and the new Romney ram that is breeding now and the quality of my wool, I remember that I had asked Kathy D to save me out a nice Dorset ram out of her lamb crop this year. I had completely forgotten about that conversation I had with her, a month ago?

Not 20 minutes later I get a message from Amy that Kathy told her my ram lamb has been born and is doing great.

Ok that was as freaky as freaky gets
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I was goat detective Sarah last night.

My neighbors, who use my bucks for breeding their Alpines, have a doe that is unregistered. Although her dam was registered, and her sire is registered, they never got a service memo from the breeder (G O for those in the know) and kind of gave up. I was helping them to register her as Grade Alpine 50%. I have her this years kid, who will be 75%, and I also have a relative doe's kid who will be 50%.

So I start looking around the ADGA website for information on the buck, who I thought I remembered her telling me years ago had the stupid name of HillyBilly ( how could one forget that name?).
I found the buck, and a few offspring, and I see he has a registered daughter with the neighbors herdname..?
So I check that pedigree and I see that the birthdate is the same as the doe they have. I am thinking that if this doe is a littermate to the doe thay have, the deal is done, they don't need a service memo and their doe is registerable as all Alpine!
So I call my neighbor, and it turns out that this is a doe that they sold to a friend, and apparently they managed to get the service memo from GO.
So now my doe from them is no longer grade, and the other doe is 75%, which is a whole generation up, which can be years of trying to get that done.

I am the goat detective.

Villagers terrorized by UFO

Yes, it has made the newspaper.

Boeing plane test run sparks community fears of disaster

“The lowest we went was 1,700 feet, ranging up to 3,000 feet,” Cadena said. “The altimeter tells the airplane how far off the deck it is. We had to spend half the time over the water and half the time over a fairly flat stretch of land. The banking and maneuvering were typical of that aircraft, but I’m not surprised it scared people. It’s big, beautiful and awfully quiet. It’s hard to gauge distance off the ground when something that big is in the air.”

“I didn’t see it skimming any trees, but I couldn’t hazard a guess as to the altitude,” Ford said. “To me, it seemed like it was cruising without problems. The engine didn’t vary in pitch, but it seemed to pass pretty slow.”

“I thought it was a lot lower than that from the perception, but when you’re used to little planes and then you see something like that, it’s quite a shock,” Mattson said. “And it was one of the quietest planes I’ve ever heard.”

The question of the day was "did you see that plane?"

Yes, here in the little village, townspeople are all a buzz about the huge plane that terrorized the community. That gives a good view of how isolated we are here, when the big story is about an airplane flying over town.

I was right, it was a 777. The weather was so bad around Boeing in Seattle that the test flight came all the way down here to where it was clear.
I hear there will be a story in the paper.

Yesterday morning I didn't feel like making coffee so I drove into town for a cuppa, and as I get out of the car, I hear Kathy calling me; she and Fred are having coffee outside Cream City, so I join them for my morning cup.
She had been milking when the plane flew over, and the cows freaked out.

Rick P called me yesterday to see if I was still interested in the studio for rent as he had someone interested. I told him my situation; he didn't know ( or acted like he didn't know) that my place is for sale. That was all fine with him, he actually seemed like the person probably wasn't going to rent the space anyway, and now he knows what's up with me.

Josh drove the 2 of us to "The Red Barn" ( the Fine Art building during the Fair)to vote last night.
Ran into Jan N, who knew all about the plane; she had called the ATC in Hydesville.
Also ran into Jill H who was working the voting entry machine,and who wanted to talk about sheep and goats.
This was Josh's first time voting, although I think he most always has come with me when I voted. Since we have lived in this town since he was 1 1/2, we've done that quite a few times.

The "Pineapple Express" that is terrorizing the northern Oregon/ Southern Washington area with massive flooding, is usually headed straight at us. I am so thankful that we have been spared this one this time.
Floods suck.

I fixed the headgate and now it is perfectly functional. I am thinking, however, that I should probably build a whole new one as this is a custom order, and it's kinda funky. Or do I just go with it, because it is a OOAK custom order and each one of these that I build will be slightly different?
The good news is that it isn't paid for yet, and I can always put this headcatch on a another deck and sell this one later.

My neighbors brought over 2 of their Alpine does to get bred yesterday. We stood in the barn just as the rain started in the afternoon. They are interested in finally getting some registration on their does, so we were looking through the ADGA guidebook and going over reg application stuff while goat sex was going on.
I'm kinda excited about them getting reg papers; it's always fun to have another breeder, not that they haven't been breeding for years, but still..

I listed some stuff on eBay; I need to generate some cash. Maybe I'll load a trailer up with some culls today and take them to Walt. Hmm I think I slept too late today for that project..

Amazingly the sun is out today. This weather has been so wonderful, with the warm weather, and the gently yet ample rains. My new lambs are already grazing, and the new fresh grass is just perfect for them.

Maybe I'll even venture washing another fleece today. I called the woman who is supposed to be processing my fleeces to find out what is up, as it's been months, and everytime I see her she tells me she's about to do mine, or they are next in line.
Of course she told me the same thing again. I have a yarn order that needs to be filled...

Imprinted

The Red Balloon

This is one of the very first films I ever remember watching. This movie and "The White Stallion " (Chin-Blanc), and they are very similar films.

At the end of both of these films, the protagonist is taken away by their wild companion, away to the unknown.
In the White Stallion the boy and the stallion ride into the surf, to certain death..or? I remember being aghast at this, even then ( I am thinking I was 4?) my practical side was fighting with the fantasy of it. But they will die!!



I wonder how much these images have affected me.

UFO

Last night I walked the dogs down the road and back before I left for the ranch. As I was walking back I saw, at the end of the road where our valley opens up into the larger valley, a HUGE plane flying to the left, then take a right turn. This plane was HUGE and flying very low, I mean it was unbelievable.

So I drive towards the ranch and I see the plane has circled back around and now heading west.
This plane is huge, and it definitely came from somewhere else, as out local airport could never launch a plane this size. The nearest airports that it could have come from would be Portland or SF, 250 miles away.

As I drive down Meridian, there are cars stopped along the side of the road watching this thing circling our little valley.
What the hell?
I stop at the first car; it's the kid that used to live in the little house, he has a rifle sight he's looking through.
He says it's a Singapore Airlines jet, and it's been flying around like this for almost an hour.
Farther down is another neighbor with binoculars.

The thing was so huge in our little valley, it made me realize how we aren't scaled for such things. It was so huge and flying so low you couldn't help but see it if you were outside, like a huge comet in the night.

It then started climbing and headed north and it was gone.

The whole thing was really freaky.

I asked Josh about it when he got home from work.
He said the people in grocery store and the palace saloon spilled out onto the street to see it.

We get some information that it was a training flight from Seattle.
In researching, I am going with it being a 777.
We'll find out eventually.

The thing was HUGE

It is so warm. It's even warmer than summer now. We're sleeping with the window open and I'm still almost too warm.

It's only taken this little bit of rain and this warm warm weather and now the fields are greening up. I cleaned out one of the feeders yesterday and the old hay has already started to compost and mold.
It seems there's a haystack on fire near the bridge. A few weeks ago I saw a huge stack of alfalfa by Miranda's dairy, and I wonder if the little rain got it so hot that it spontaneously combusted. I've had alfalfa get so hot it almost burned my hands. It's amazing how wetness can make heat like that.

It's so much easier to clean up now; the dampness lubricates weeds and dirt. The ground is no longer hard rock and I can also build myself a burn pile. Fall is set stuff on fire season here in California.
I've cleaned almost the entire cement yard off now, it looks so fresh and lovely. I've been scraping that yard since the first few days I was at this ranch when I scraped up the mud from the flood 2 years before in 1996.

I've made a fatal engineering error in the construction of the headcatch of the stanchion, and now I will try to fix it or I will have to build a whole new one. This is the learning stage of my new trade.
It's all O K.
I did manage to weld the horixzontal braces for my welding table to the huge 4 X 4 angle iron; that steel it so thick it takes a different technique to be sure I get good weld penetration. Fortunately it doesn't need to be all that strong as it's just support and not stress.

We need a new vacuum. Like now. Like today.

sunday

It's amazing how just a few days of rain has made the seeds sprout all over! There are sprouts in every crack and crevice and the roads and driveways are coated with sprout fuzz. It's lovely.

I'm just about done with the stanchion, and the a i rails are all on. I have some minor adjustments and that project can be stamped done.

Ted has installed the new window in the new bedroom and it is now a fully enclosed new room. That totally rocks. Next will be more insulation then the sheet rock, and that's really a room. It looks like a trip to Home Depot ( 2 hours away) might be in order. Lighting, flooring and what to put on the ceiling?
What fun. And I promise not to movr into it until it is really completely done.
Oh and I didn't mention it will have a real closet!

I have a few does that are now bred 2 months, almost halfway. It won't be long until these new babies start coming. No word about what is happening with my ranch, of course the word could come tomorrow to vacate.
Everytime the phone rings...

It's kinda grey and drippy, a classic Sunday.

I'm off to do my chores..

WEll Lou Reed. He's an old guy now. The show was pretty good. I was into the whole thing, except when people in the audience seemed to think it was time for a commercial and acted like we were in their living room. I mean, people. turn off the cell phones, stop talking and listen! Why are you there if you'd rather chat and tell stories to each other? And when did it become O K to come in an hour late,with 5 people and little kids, in the middle of a song, then talk the whole time?

Yea, Lou. I'll go back to looking at 15 year old videos of you. It's OK, I'm still surprised at how old I am when I see myself in a mirror. You still rock more than most.

You paid attention during 100% of high school!

85-100% You must be an autodidact, because American high schools don't get scores that high! Good show, old chap!

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Lou Reed's New York. I heart it.

While looking around for some reviews of Lou Reed on this tour, I found this lovely homage to my favotite album, New York

"Released in 1989 Reed's album New York painted the ultimate gritty picture of pre-Giuliani NYC with it's storytelling - a dark urban lullaby to his city at the end of a decade plagued by greed, disease, poverty and Reaganism."

"Those poor huddles masses, let's club em to death. Get it over with"

YES! Pre Giuliani! When New York was really New York, not Disney north.

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
New York is arguably Lou Reed's greatest hour as a solo artist. A song-cycle about his beloved city in the '80s, Reed adopts a conversational tone to discuss politics, AIDS, romance, TV preachers, and whatever else is on his mind. While his voice never ranges far, the album kicks into high gear with the twin guitar attack of Reed and Mike Rathke, which takes simple, three-chord rock into a truly transcendent space. "Romeo Had Juliette" cruises like a cab down a bumpy avenue, while "Strawman" curls with rage. Like the city that gives it its name, New York never rests. --Rob O'Connor

Farming is a frivolous waste of time

This (very long) discussion of "The Omnivores Dilemma" from Slate, by people who have obviously never left the city and who think that gardening is some sort of "housewifery"

"a nationalized food system allows people to be more than pickers and growers, it allows them to pursue their dreams to be dog dentists and travel agents"

"Yes, or doctors or poets or scientists"

"where living on your own farm where all you do is produce your own food and you don't have time to do anything else"

"you're spending this time making this food, and time is part of the economy...this kind of time is decadent...this is not somebody using their mind...he is envisioning a kind of national housewifery"

"if you're going to consign a certain # of people "back" to farms.... what's the compensatory mechanism?..it's aesthetic pastoral contemplation"

???????????????????????????????????????????????WTF???????????????????????????????"


"it can't be a Mexican migrant worker,..it has to be someone for whom the act of farming is the adequate compensation for the consumer and suburban culture that's been lost."

"this is why the book has to be so fru fru and appealing in it's presentation to take on this extra "Alice Waters" kind of aestheticism"

"it's a luxury to have that much time to think about food, I mean aside from it being boring..it's a little anti intellectual, it's frivolous"

And what's wrong with Mallomars for g-ds sake?

LOU!!!

Oh yeah
we've got tickets for Lou Reed right here at HSU on Saturday.

Sweeping me away to the New York I love and miss.



swoon...

Josh Barry on bass

AKA Scooter Malone

I I I I I

Well it is wet out, and it occasionally falls from the sky, but it really isn't quite raining...yet. The dust is wetted and settled and seems to be mostly washed off of my car, but I don't think it's enough to get the pasture to grow. More is on the way, they say.

And even more earthquakes. Over 30 since Sunday night, the last few are now centered on our very own faultline, and they are bigger; 2- 3.+ overnight. Cool. What the hell?

I sold a wether to a local retired guy yesterday. He had all sorts of stories about both the '55 and the '64 floods, as he worked for the County Road department then. Sounds like that little goat is going to a pretty nice home.

I learned that not all steel is the same yesterday. A new piece of Schedule 40 pipe almost didn't fit into a piece of 1" square tubing, when in the past that same steel fit loosely. It's a good thing that what I build is not all that precise and my tolerances are large...but still.

I spun the blue dyed roving I got from the Fiber fair into a rather thick 2 ply, and I have been knitting myself another hat ( to cover my Halloween haircut). The thick yarn made the knitting very hard and dense and cramped my hands and made my fingers sore. I finished it last night, thank the knitting god, and I am now wearing it, although with this rain the weather has turned very warm (60+). It's thick and hard like a helmet, and definitely will repel the rain.

I have put the ewes with their new lambs in the front pasture, and last night I threw together a small pen so I could gather them up and deal with them. The newest fresh ewe didn't "clean up" ( still had retained afterbirth) so she needed some doctoring.
I got a hands on look at the new lambs, all of which , it turns out, are ewe lambs. I swear my ewe to ram ratio is 3:1. In this new crop is another lovely chocolate, or "moorit" ewe lamb, my 2nd ever!

Rain coming in.

Maybe it's the impending chance of rain, or maybe it was the last day of October, but I sure got a lot done yesterday. And, I still managed to catch a nap.

Even more new lambs; my 3rd set of one black and one white twins. Like Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder. I now have 7 new lambs. Cha ching.

In the morning I got some gas for the lawnmower and I mowed my side of the driveway. I also moved the blown off roof section farther out of the way as Gerry kinda drove over it on Sunday, and besides,it was totally in the way.

I also completely finished the stanchion and got the first coast of primer on it. I still need to build the a i rails, but they should be a breeze; nothing fancy or complicated. It came out very well, I am quite pleased.

In the afternoon I finished cleaning off the cement yard. That means moving the whole pile of manure and pen cleanings that had piled up from last winter. I did split that up, having gotten half of it cleared on Monday.
The yard is so clean now, even raked and some swept. That would have been a lot harder ( and heavier) after the rain would have gotten it all wet.
I think I'll move back towards the grade B barn, where I have been piling stuff and straighten and clean that all off.

Back home I made an apple tart and spun some of the blue roving I got at the Fiber Fair, then I started knitting myself a blue hat. I knitted a few more rows on the sweater too.

Today I have someone coming to look at the wethers I have for sale; an ad I placed came out yesterday.
I'll get to work on the AI rails, maybe move the lawnmowers into the barn and move the last few bales of hay so they don't get wet.
It looks like we're going to finally get some rain.

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Northeast Judging by how you talk you are probably from north Jersey, New York City, Connecticut or Rhode Island. Chances are, if you are from New York City (and not those other places) people would probably be able to tell if they actually heard you speak.
Philadelphia
The Midland
The South
The Inland North
Boston
The West
North Central
What American accent do you have?