winter sun

It's raining today, after two days of bright sunshine.

These pictures were taken on Christmas Day.

This one was taken shortly after high noon.

"High"?

Ha!

Can you believe those shadows?

Here's Tansy, the quiet little girl with the valentine face.

And here's Azalea. She's pretty special.

I wish I could have bred her this year.

Left to right: Betula, LeShodu, and Acer.

The Big Goats.

Here's Azalea again, with her mum, Lily.

My little camera could not cope with this high-contrast world.

"Focus? How do you expect me to focus?"

And because some things are the same every day,

rain or shine,

Christmas included:

(Remember this garden cart? It used to look like this.)

Wishing everyone a lovely Sunday, whatever your weather.

~~~~~

after evening chores

When the hens were all abed

and the goats were fed and quiet,

I lingered outdoors tonight.

My view to the East:

My view to the West:

Good night, my friends.

I hope your Christmas Eve is magical.

~~~~~

lightness

It's been raining and raining. The paddocks are turning into deep, slippery mud, and yesterday I had to turn on lamps at 2PM, the house was so dark. Rain is predicted for three of the next four days.

BUT.

We have turned the corner, if "corner" really applies to something as roundish as the Earth (not quite round but slightly bulging, isn't it?) and it's orbit (not round at all; elliptical). Well gosh, this analogy is certainly getting away from me. Okay, forget "turning the corner." We have somehow - wonderfully, miraculously - moved past the longest night of the year and are now growing "lighter" by the day.

What better way to celebrate than by planning the garden?

This week I received an order from one of my favorite companies, Sow True Seed. They even included a little surprise: pretty envelopes for saving my own seed next year. Nice!

Traditionally, I have waited til the long depths of February to start perusing the seed catalogs. But it felt so right to hold seeds in my hand at the Winter Solstice. I think December is going to be the new tradition.

~~~~~

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.
~~~~~

a smattering of snaps

In no particular order, a few snapshots of the past week.

Hay, more of.

Still plenty of room:

In other hay news:

 I installed four secondhand hay racks, purchased at a recent farm sale. Two are in the bigger barn and two in this little shelter built off the west wall of my workshop last autumn.

Violet, munching.

I thought you might enjoy this view, looking down through the window of my workshop. Lily on the left, Sambucus on the right:

The racks may need to be lined with mesh to slow the goats down, but I'm trying them as is, first. No need to go looking for more projects!

~~~

Enough about hay.

~~~

I did something this week I haven't done in, gosh, maybe 8 or 10 years. I bought eggs. Because the hens are in winter production mode, but I can't seem to stop doing this:

I keep baking cranberry-apple cakes.

Even when I just baked one a few hours earlier, and gave it to the good friend who brought my firewood.

Even when the springform pan is in the dishwasher and I have to experiment with one of my old Pyrex pans.

Even when I run out of cranberries when mixing the batter.

Yes, it has now been proven: 2 cups of cranberries is the minimum necessary for this recipe. I am slowly eating this cake, of course, because wasting food is a sin. Also, it's a pretty fair cake. But it needed another half-cup of cranberries to make it a really good cake.

This is how we learn ;)

~~~

We've had some remarkably balmy days lately.

And I've done an unusual amount of housecleaning this week.

It's not my strong suit, as you may know.

I'm not good at it, and I don't enjoy it.

And it's painful.

I won't pretend I have "become" a terrible housekeeper

as my joints have become increasingly painful.

No, I have never been a very good housekeeper,

and that shortcoming has always bothered me, quite a lot.

But now it is physically difficult to be even a poor housekeeper.

Last week, I decided to force myself to do something more than the minimum in the house, every single day that I was able to. So I did as much as I could, on 5 days of the seven. And it was truly exhausting. Nothing else that wasn't absolutely necessary got done. Piper had no walks in the woods, I am ashamed to say. I cancelled an appointment at short notice. I skipped a holiday fair. I haven't posted anything here for the entire week because I have been so completely wiped out.

I wanted to write here. A couple of times I started to choose images, and fell asleep with the laptop on my chest. Once also with a heating pad on my neck and icepacks on my hands. I didn't know a person could fall asleep holding icepacks.

The house is still mostly a shambles, and I don't know if I can keep up the every-day-possible housework efforts. But right now I'm going to share this little snapshot of my kitchen, looking toward the back door. Because having this much clear space in my little house is sort of a miracle.

~~~~~