Washing the Fleece

I know a lot of people dread Mondays, but Sundays and Mondays are my days off from work, so I generally look forward to the start of the week.  Sundays are a mix of church and rest, and Mondays are the one day that I can have all day to get stuff done!

Of course...I often end up lazing away parts of the day...but oh well.  I usually get a few things done too, so I figure it evens out.  :P  

Today, I walked the dog (in the rain!), went with Dad and my older sister to look at the flooded Saco river, helped pile some firewood, ran some errands, and washed some fleece.  And swept and mopped the kitchen floor, because Thane + rain = muddy paw prints everywhere!!

(Here's the river...if I'm reading the data correctly, it peaked at about 4.5 feet above Flood Stage!!)

So anyway...while I was stacking firewood on the porch, I had to move a bunch of bags of my fleece...and I thought, "Wow, I really need to start processing this stuff!"  So I went and bought some buckets and some dish detergent and pulled off one small section of fleece to wash.  (Ignore the Collie nose...)

I probably did things all wrong...for example, I read later that you're not supposed to make the water sudsy...you're supposed to add the soap after you fill the bucket with water...oops.  

I also discovered why most of the articles recommend rubber gloves - that water is hot!  But possibly not hot enough...apparently, to dissolve the lanolin in the wool (which, if it's left behind, will make the wool sticky when it dries), you need temperatures of at least 120 degrees Fahrenheit...and 140-160 is even better!  Yikes!

Anyway....you gently dunk the wool in the soapy water (moving it around too much might make it felt, ie., turn into a solid, unusable mass) and leave it there for a half hour or forty-five minutes.  You can soak it in soapy water a couple times if it's really dirty, and then you put it into hot, clean water to soak again.  You can actually do all of this in your top-load washer, as long as you don't let it go to the agitator setting!

You have to keep moving it into clean water until the water runs clear...which took a while with this batch, because this was waste wool that I probably should have tossed, but saved in a rare fit of thriftiness.  We shall see if it's worth the effort, or if I should take up composting and add it to the pile...

It's drying now...I'll let you know how it goes.  :P  

Happy Monday!!!

Holbrook's Thea

Exciting news!!!

Butterscotch Farm's newest puppy was finally born yesterday morning!  Meet Holbrook's Thea:

In a few weeks, this shapeless little pup will probably look a lot like this ( <3 <3 <3 ): 

And I have high hopes that she'll grow up to look a lot like her mom, Bonnie:

I'm planning on driving from NH all the way down to SC the first week of January to pick Thea up...anyone else along the East Coast want a Bonnie pup?  Thea's two brothers are still available!  :D

Anyway...I'm sure I'll be bombarding you with photos...for now, here are just a couple more: 

*All photo credits go to Helen Holbrook.

A Short, Random Story About Some Random Apples

We picked our apples more than a week and a half ago...and our first batch of applesauce burned, and was rather thick and almost dry in consistency.  The apples were okay to eat, but again, a little dry, very firm, and a bit tart.  I attributed it to the dry second half of our summer.

But then, after the apples had sat around for a few days, I grabbed one to eat - and it was delicious!  It was softer, and the perfect mix of sweet and tart!  The next couple batches of applesauce turned out much better, too.

I guess apples are one of those things that improve if you can just wait a little while!  

Anyway...anyone want to come over for some homemade applesauce?  :)

Breed Profile #7: Nubian Goats

It's occurred to me recently that not only am I behind on general blog posts, but I'm also behind on my breed profiles!  Lol, I really hope these aren't too boring...they're mostly meant to be my way of keeping track of the various farm animals I've met, researching them, and deciding whether they might be a good breed to raise on my little farm someday.  But I hope they're moderately interesting to read.

So...about Nubian goats, which are apparently America's most popular goat breed!

I visited some Nubian goats way back when, the same day I bought a ridiculous amount of Romney fleece at Paradise Farm in Southern NH.  I even bought some of their milk - it was great!  No "goaty" flavor at all; I couldn't tell the difference from the cow's milk I got from the grocery store.

As I was researching Nubians today, I learned one new thing right away - outside America, they're known as the Anglo-Nubian.  Another interesting tidbit is that their name comes from Nubia, Africa, but a far greater influence on the breed came from goats imported from India.  These African and Indian goats were bred to native British goats, and by the late 1800's, the Anglo-Nubian breed was consistent enough to form a breed registry in Great Britain.  Sometime after that, some Anglo-Nubians made their way to America, and the breed registry there began in the early 1900's.  The Americans pretty quickly dropped the "Anglo" off the front of the name, thus ending up with just "Nubian."  Why?  Who knows!  Maybe someone was lazy, and it just caught on.  :P

When I started researching Nubians this morning, I thought that they were on the higher end of milk production, but actually, they're not.  They're fairly good producers, but what makes them valuable as a dairy animal is the high butterfat content of their milk (4-5%), as well as the fact that their breeding cycle can enable them to produce milk all year long.  Interestingly, they're also valued for their meat and their hides.  

They're a fairly large goat, with the females weighing at least 135 pounds and the males at least 175 pounds.  They can be any color, and are known for a Roman nose and a rather noble appearance.  They also have ridiculously cool ears - check out the baby below: 

So...will there be Nubians on Butterscotch Farm someday?  I honestly don't know.  I can definitely see some pros and cons...I need to decide if I want a full-size dairy goat, or something a little bit smaller, like Oberhaslis.  As a popular goat, Nubians may be a bit easier to find...but having a more unique breed definitely appeals to some part of me.  

So, I guess I'll stick Nubians on the "Maybe" list for now.  Ultimately, it's not so much a matter of what I decide, but of figuring out what God's will is...and I'm confident that if He wants me to have goats, they'll be the perfect ones for me and my situation.  :)

Sources:

The Goat Guide

Some Random Pet Site

The Maryland Zoo

International Nubian Breeders Association

OSU