more than halfway there

Each Spring, after weeks of daily plodding out to the barns with my basket-o-brushes, there's always a point when I know I'm on the long, slow, downhill side of the annual cashmere harvest.

I haven't found a feasible alternative to these giant ziploc bags.
But at least I reuse them, as you see by the elegant labels.

People are often surprised to hear how long this process stretches out. I have only a small herd, but the variability in shedding is extreme. Acer always starts shedding in February; Dara has just begun and April is nearly over!

Right now, some goats are functionally "done" and will just need one or two quick clean-up combing sessions so the last of the undercoat will be off and fresh air and sun can get to their skin. Like Sambucus here:

But there are some goats who will still need more hours of careful combing despite already having been thoroughly combed at least three times. Case in point: Azalea.

It takes a lot of very gentle work with a slicker brush to remove loose cashmere without tugging on this long, thick topcoat. It took over an hour working on just her left side (above) to get to the point where a rake would run smoothly through her coat:

And as you see, it's still picking up a few wisps of cashmere.

A few days after a thorough combing, Azalea will look like the top photograph all over again, and we'll have another session. I'll be collecting less cashmere next time, but she is still carrying quite a bit.

Betula is another long-coated goat. We've worked very hard this year, Bet and I, to harvest as much of his cashmere as possible. But now he is dropping the remainder so fast that it immediately becomes a matted layer trapped in his topcoat. I'll keep working to get it off, but more for health and comfort than for useful fiber. This is all discarded fiber from one combing of Betula this week:

With the harvest drawing slowly to a close, I'm already starting to think about knitting again. The past couple of years I've had to put all WIPs aside when the combing starts, because even though my mind misses the restful quality of knitting, my hands can only take so much in one day. This year, that meant a pair of nearly-finished socks has been waiting since February for toes.

Soon, socks. Soon.

Right, Azalea?

~~~~~

respite

We haven't had new snow in 4 days!

And no snow is predicted until - oh rats.

I was going to type "Saturday" because yesterday the forecast called for a clear week. But I stopped typing to check, and found we are expecting 6-8 inches on Wednesday.

Still. One more clear day!

The snow is still deep. The paths are all packed down and nearly as slippery as ice, so I often just walk through the snow. Especially if I'm carrying buckets, or hay.

Only one gate is functioning now; the rest are snowed in and frozen shut. On Friday, I had to heave a bale of hay over a fence for the goats, then climb over after it and push the bale under the deck on the stilt barn, so it would be protected from rain or snow.

This may not sound like much, but these days, it was quite an athletic feat for me.

Speaking of goats...guess what time it is?

Yes, cashmere harvesting season has begun.

Slowly. It will pick up soon enough, so I am making an effort to do as much combing as possible now to help get ahead of the long push that I know is coming.

When I bring bags of cashmere into the house, I leave the tops open in case there is moisture in the fiber. But the other morning before I was fully awake, I heard an odd rustling sound coming from the table on the porch. I dozily wondered what could be making that sound, then came fully awake with a snap as I remembered the bags of cashmere carefully placed in a plastic carrier on the table. I saw a flash of white as Della hopped off the chair where she had been sitting, busily rearranging cashmere.

The evidence:

I'll have to find a better place for the bags.

Della and Moxie are Wild Girls.

Ms. Piper has also been on a bit of a tear recently!

Raiding the rubbish while I am asleep. Stealing the plastic container of joint supplements and eating ALL of them. Taking off into the woods so frequently that I am now putting a lead on her even to walk down and check the letterbox.

And here's what a cat's little dish looks like when Piper has managed to get to it, two minutes after eating her own big bowl of food:

Maybe it's just cabin fever?

I think I must have the opposite of cabin fever. I've spent the past three days shuffling around, recovering from the longest trip I've made in ages; very worthwhile, but physically grueling.

I left for Maine at 3:45 AM Friday, to visit a cashmere goat expert and try to learn a bit more about this thing I am doing. And it turned out to be four intensely focused hours of information and experience. It was excellent.

You know how sometimes it's the busiest, most knowledgeable person who is willing to generously share their valuable time and superpowers?

It was like that.

One half-hour of the day, I declared "my vacation in Maine."
Here is the sketch to prove it.

When I got home, I knew my Occasional Helper had already done both the morning and evening chores as arranged beforehand, despite this being his month "off." Words cannot convey the gratitude I felt - to arrive home after a 16-hour day, utterly exhausted, and know that there were no chores to be done before I could go to bed.

I did take a quiet walk around with a flashlight, to see each animal and say goodnight. But it was just a pure luxury.

Reliving my Vacation In Maine.
That half-hour has already inspired two sketches.

Which reminds me, I haven't done my daily markmaking and it's getting late, so time to post this and get the sketchbook before I fall asleep. Sleep is a good thing, and if we're likely to have snow on Wednesday, tomorrow will be a busy day.

I hope all is well in your neck of the woods!

~~~~~

box of bags

I know all you cashmere-savvy readers are thinking, "Why are we looking at bags of raw cashmere in December? The Cloud Harvest is months away!"

You're absolutely right! Of course you are. After all, if you've been following this blog for any length of time, you know a LOT about cashmere goats!

Well, after the harvest winds down in Spring, goats can still look a bit scruffy. I often run the combs over them a time or two just to help them look tidy and feel good - I think it must feel good to get fresh air and sunlight down to their skin after being covered in dense cashmere plus a topcoat for several long months.

Whatever residual cashmere I comb out is discarded immediately - too much guard hair, VM, dirt, or matting.

But this past Spring, I thought it might be worth experimenting. Maybe put some aside for a "spare time" project. Clean and wash a little of it to see if it could be used for crafty felting...cashmere stones? Cashmere landscapes? Cashmere buttons?

So I put some aside.

I put some aside, and then forgot all about it.

Yesterday in the ongoing Plod Toward A Comfortable Home, I moved a box of ornaments (yay, ornaments! great timing!) from a chair, and discovered an even bigger box beneath. This one held several bags, each containing handfuls of raw fiber.

Oh. Oh, right. I put the fiber aside in case it could be useful  and then forgot it was there. In a box. Under another box. On a chair that no one could sit in because of the boxes. Yes.

So yesterday during my two-hours-total-achieved-by-many-brief-sessions of cleaning, I assessed all that fiber. Some was discarded, and some was put aside temporarily to make a stuffed chew toy for Piper today. Probably something as simple as a sock stuffed with cashmere and tied shut with a piece of twine. Simple, yet luxurious - ha!

The rest of the fiber is now sorted into labelled samples in general "problem" categories: VM, guard hair, etc. I thought you might find the color variation interesting:

Now if I do experiment with it this Winter, the process will be much more organized and educational. And it may even help with the sorting decisions I make while I'm combing the goats next Spring.

Because in case I haven't mentioned it...

the goats are definitely putting on that cashmere glow again.
~~~~~

hey, kids! what time is it?

"Daylight Savings Time"?

Pffffft.

That's just a concept.

Guess what time it really is?

That's right...it's harvest time!

"Let the combing begin!"

Eleven goats, each to be combed

very gently and multiple times - 

though not two days in a row - 

over a period of a few weeks.

It's a process!

And we're off to a nice start.

~~~~~

mantra for the next few weeks

(With thanks to Sandra of Thistle Cove Farm for the make-your-own link!)

Must be Spring...somewhere.

WARNING: truly terrible photo alert!  

I've tried for three mornings in a row to get decent pictures to illustrate this post, and these are the best so far.  I'm very sorry.
~~~

This is a picture of a black goat.  (Trust me.  It is.)

Specifically, the part of a goat where the neck meets the shoulder.
I put a collar on the goat to help you envision this. Also, so you would believe that I am not just taking close-up pictures of bearskin rugs or something.

Now let's look a bit closer.  Watch out for the horns.

See that wisp of fluff peeking out from the black hair?

This is a sight to gladden the heart.

This is what it's all about!

This is cashmere.
~~~

Cashmere is the seasonal undercoat cashmere-producing goats grow to protect themselves from winter cold. They shed it in the warmer weather (which is not here yet, black goat!!) and the fiber is traditionally harvested - very laboriously - by combing the goats by hand when they are shedding.

Some of the outer coat is unavoidably combed out as well, and these coarser hairs must all be removed from the very soft cashmere fiber before the yarn can be spun.

Wow! More close-ups, now with arrows!!

Even though it is always exciting to see the first loose wisp of fiber that signals the start of harvest time, my reaction is mixed right now.

Actually, my first reaction three days ago was:

NOOOOOOO!  TOO SOON!

The weather has been variable, with the occasional "warm" day in the high-30s (F), but there have also been many days and many more nights of single-digit cold.

And snow. And ice.

This week has been one of bitterly cold wind, blowing for hours and hours.  For entire days and nights.

In my opinion, this is no time to be removing one's winter underwear.

Are you listening, black goat?

"Do I look like I'm listening?"

~~~
I've heard that some people now shear cashmere goats.  I haven't seen it done, so I don't have an informed opinion about it.  It certainly would be a incredible time-saver, but it would also mean the entire topcoat is being harvested, all of which would then have to be removed from the fiber as part of the processing.  And my (uninformed) gut feeling is that shearing a goat would leave a very sensitive animal in a very unnatural state.  But if anyone has first-hand experience with shearing cashmere goats, I would LOVE to learn about it, so please post a comment!
~~~

The black goat is shedding the cashmere from her neck first (tremendously slimming, don't you know!) so very little hair came with it.  When I start combing her body, there will be a lot more hair mixed in with the cashmere.

In this picture you can see the individual black hairs mixed in with the cashmere fiber:

You can also see how I came up with the name

Cloud Harvest Cashmere

~~~~~