Flowers and a Milestone

I took Thane to the woods today.  The Lady Slippers were blooming, and even though I already have a million photos of them on my computer, I had to stop and take a couple more:

Look, these ones were white...not sure I've seen that before:

Lol, every time I stopped to take a photo, every kind of biting insect known to man descended upon me (well, not EVERY kind...just mosquitoes and black flies - but that was plenty!!)...but I kept stopping to take photos.  In retrospect, maybe not the best decision, but I'm nothing if not stubborn.  So these next flower photos may not be high quality shots, but just think of the (less than advisable) sacrifice behind each one of them!!

Wild Strawberries:

Violets:

Blackberries:

Little star-shaped things:

Clover:

Cheerful little yellow things:

Vetch:

Tiny daisy-like things:

Buttercup-ish things:

More cheerful yellow things:

And last but not least, pretty purple daisy-ish things:

Lol, I'll have to get out my wildflower book sometime and figure out all the real names of the flowers.  :P

I was impressed at how much is blooming right now!  And I was even more impressed at the voracity of the flying, biting insects that inhabit the woods!!  

Oh! My title mentions a milestone too...that milestone does NOT include flowers or mosquitoes.  It's about Thane.  

Today...Thane came when I called to him - even though he was playing with another dog!

  

Lol, that might not sound like such a big deal to most people, but I've had several instances where Thane followed happily after another dog - totally ignoring me calling to him - as the dog's owner hiked (and in one case jogged) up a long hill....when I wanted to go down the hill.  

But today, instead of "*Puff, puff* Please stop so I can *puff, puff* catch my dog!!", Thane ran after the other dog, played for a minute - and then he actually listened to me...and came tearing back over to me at top speed from a pretty considerable distance.  

That made me very, very happy.

And I'd like to think it made Thane happy too, because he got lots of praise and several bites of cheese.  :)

Done!! (Kind of...)

So after work today, I feverishly skirted fleeces for a couple hours, and I'm happy to report that I'm (kinda sorta, maybe, okay not really) done!

Lol.

By "done" I mean that all but one or two fleeces are now roughly skirted and in bags or bundles in our shed so that they won't get rained on.

Except for one lonely fleece that I forgot in the back of my truck, and didn't notice until after I'd closed the shed and the tied the gate shut.

And except for the giant mound of castoff bits piled under my work table.

And except for the fact that I really had no idea what I was doing, so the fleeces will probably need lots more bits cut off of them, and lots more vegetation pulled out...

...and except for the fact that all 20+ fleeces still need to be washed.  

Well.

I made progress anyway.  :P

I didn't take any photos today, so enjoy this random picture of a squirrel eating bread instead.  Because he certainly appears to be enjoying himself, so why shouldn't you?  (Hm, yeah, that doesn't make any sense, does it?  Oh well.  Squirrel!!)

Skirting the Fleece

I'm finally getting to the fleece that's been riding around in the back of my truck the past week and a half.  We've had a rainy spring so far, so when I saw that today was supposed to be bright and sunny, I knew that it was the right day to work on the fleeces.  

I've been doing some research, and I learned that I'm supposed to have a skirting table.  Most people's tables have rollers in the open space in the middle - usually PVC pipes over wooden dowels - so that the short, "second" cuts on the bottom of the fleece can fall through.  Being the sort who likes to whip up a project at the last moment with whatever happens to be on hand, though, I came up with this beauty:

Hey, it works!!  :D  

So I spent a good chunk of the day skirting the fleeces.  Lol, I plunked the first one on the table - and then took a step back...it REEKED of ammonia.  It appears that some moisture got under the tonneau cover of my truck, and some of the fleeces are a little wet.

Wet fleeces are Not Fun.  :( 

The first fleece took me the longest, and I was actually rather discouraged - but then the next couple were really easy, so I learned that Not All Fleeces Are Created Equal.  :P

Here's a big fleece spread out on the table; I toss the waste bits underneath:

Here are the "finished" fleeces (although I wouldn't be surprised to discover that there's a lot more work to be done on them):

And here are the wet fleeces, drying in the sun:

I figure I'm about a third of the way done.  

*Sigh*

I know what I'm doing tomorrow night after work....because guess what the weather forecast is for Friday?  :P

Fleece!!

So I dragged all of the fleece I bought yesterday out of the back of my truck and weighed it.  

Lol.

I now own approximately 185 pounds of raw Romney fleece.

That's a LOT.

It'll lose quite a bit of weight once it's "skirted" (gross bits around the edges removed) and washed.  

I experimented with skirting one fleece.  I had read a bit about it, but once I had the fleece on the table, I realized that I needed to do a lot more reading on the subject.  :P

I made some progress on this fleece, but I'm sure I have more to do.  I got rained out, so I stuffed all the bags of fleece back under the tonneau cover of my truck and went inside to do more research.

I'll have to decide if I want to wash the fleece and keep it to spin, or wash some to sell, or sell some raw...

Lol, my mom asked why I bought so many.  I told her that it's because it was a good deal, and because I'm an adventurous soul.

Perhaps a little too adventurous sometimes, but oh well.  :P

I Visited Paradise Today...

Paradise Farm, that is.  

I drove 2.5 hours to purchase some whole sheep fleeces, and Wayne, the owner, was kind enough to give me a tour as well.  

I got to meet GOATS!!!

These are registered Nubians, a dairy breed known for a high butterfat content.  I bought a couple half-gallons of frozen goat milk; one I'll drink, and the other I hope to use to try making goat milk soap or lotion sometime!  :P

They were very friendly - and rather nibbly.  :)

Lol, there were a few babies, but they were so wiggly I only got one decent shot:

I've been told that goats have a lot of personality, and I can see that it's true.  :)

There are more pigs on the farm, but I only met this one:

She's a two-month-old Gloucestershire Old Spot, a heritage breed.  She's for sale...I wonder if the neighbors would notice a pig in my back yard?  :D

There were also chickens:

There were ducks and turkeys, too, but I didn't get pictures of them.  I did buy a dozen turkey eggs, though...

And sheep - Romneys.  I now possess their fleece.  I hope they don't mind.  :P

(Wayne said that they're not normally penned up; they usually graze in the orchard, but he just sprayed the apple trees, and you're supposed to wait a few days after spraying before you let the sheep graze near them.)

Paradise Farm grows and sells raspberries, black raspberries, blueberries, peaches, pears, apples, tart cherries, and grapes.  The guardian of the berries:

I asked if the "owl" really helps keep the birds away from the berries.  Wayne says that it does as long as you move it around a lot.

Then we climbed over a gate into the HUGE cow pasture.

The cows are Scottish Highlanders, a very hardy beef breed (though a couple have a dash of Hereford).  Some of these are for sale too...hmm...that would certainly cut down on my mowing this summer...  ;P

Curious cow:

Grouchy cow:

Baby cows:

Shaggy cow:

Spotted cow:

Busy cows:

On an entirely different note, and one that's even more exciting than cows, pigs and goats...Niece #3 was born early yesterday morning - lol, about 2 weeks late!  7 lbs, 10 oz., and seems to be healthy!  Meet little baby Colleen:

Lol, with all these nieces, I'll have to get a pony for my farm for when they come to visit!  :P

A Busy Day

I had a nice, busy day...it makes me happy when I get stuff done.  :)  

First, I mowed one section of the lawn.  It looks nice, but I do like an idea I had to let it turn into a nice little field full of gently-waving grass and native wildflowers.  There are actually a lot of flowers growing there - violets, wild strawberries, yarrow, little purple thingies whose name I forget, dandelions...sometimes, if I'm particularly neglectful, Daisies, Black-Eyed Susans and Asters.  Today I saw a few Lilies of the Valley too.  

But since a) we're right in town, and b) I live in the church parsonage, and c) my neighbor apparently likes the view of our yard...I decided to yield to the status quo for now and just mow those happy little flowers down.  :(  Maybe sometime I'll check with the church people (and the neighbor, lol), and see if anyone cares if I let that section of the yard go.  :P

Anyway...........I spent most of the rest of the morning working on preparing an area to build an enclosure for our garbage cans.  The bears, raccoons, Yeti, and skunks regularly tip our trash cans over and spread the contents across the yard, so I'm building a wooden thingie to try to prevent that.  It'll have a hinged lid so we can drop bags of trash straight into the cans from the porch, and doors on the front so we can take the trash cans out to bring them to the curb for pickup.  

As usual, it turned out to be more work than I would have thought, because I had to move a bunch of stuff from the area.  Add to that the fact that I went with my sister to get a prognosis on the remaining lifespan of her poor sad 2001 Chevy Tracker (getting rusty, but has at least another year or two of life - woohoo!), and went on a short walk to the Secret Pond with Dad, Timothy and Thane...and this is all I got done:

(With a little help from Dad, because he's an amazing guy who graciously drops everything when people ask him for help.)

I cut all the wood, anyway.  

Then I started cooking supper, took a shower, finished cooking supper, ate supper, and went to Prayer Meeting.  

(Supper was very yummy, by the way, if a tiny bit spicy for some of our family members.  I'll use less Cayenne next time.  :P  )

And now I've caught up on all my goat and Collie and Livestock Guardian Dog Facebook pages, and it's almost time for bed...so goodnight!!  :)

An Outing and a Goat Sighting

Mom and I went shopping today.  This was an outing that was promised to me for my birthday way back in December, and for a variety of reasons (weather, schedule conflicts, the fact that we're both homebodies, etc.), we simply didn't make it happen before now.  It was a nice day for an outing, though, and we both had lots of fun.

I bought a couple books, a pair of jeans, and some shirts for me and my sister.  Mom mostly bought stuff for the grandkids - one of her favorite things to do.  :)  (Although I'm often guilty on that count too - baby clothes and toys are WAY too adorable!!)

Oh, lol, I just remembered that I did buy one thing for my oldest niece - a Thomas the Tank Engine tricycle!  I don't think she's ever tried to ride a bike before, so it should be fun to see her first attempt.

On the way south (we drove an hour and half to Portsmouth, NH), we pulled off to look at the outside of a house I'm vaguely interested in checking out.  It's a bit more of a drive than I'd prefer, and it would need a LOT of work, but it's got over four acres of land, and it's on a nice little side road.  Maybe worth looking into...

Mom also spotted some goats on the way down, and as we were driving home, I kept an eye out for them.  When we saw them, I did a U-turn so I could get a better look.  Lol, I felt a little weird, but I did get a few pictures from a polite distance.  The kids were so cute!!

Thanks, Mom, it was super fun spending the day with you!!!  I love you!!  :)