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.
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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.
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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!
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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

~~~~~

Wordless Wednesday

HayMan and the Watchdog

HayMan came yesterday.  

It was the first time he has ever chosen not to attempt the plowed driveway, but to park at the first slope and carry three bales all the way up the driveway, past the house, into my barn.  

One bale per trip.  Back and forth.

Because Piper is such a phenomenal watchdog, she stood at the parlor window watching HayMan do this, and never uttered a peep.  My first indication that there was a human on the property was the loud knock on the back door which just about made me jump out of my skin.

Nice work, Piper.

"Sorry. Can't discuss this now. I am on Guard Duty."

If there had been a squirrel in sight during any of this?  

She would have barked the roof off.

~~~

For those who were interested in the structure of snow crystals the other day, here are some ice crystals on the edge of the goats' water bucket.

And for scale, here are my boots again.  The snow is packed down around the bucket, so you are seeing the cuffs of my Filson chaps.  

I love my Filsons, but this is the first time I have ever worn them "just" for snow.  They are wonderful for working in brush (especially thorny brush) but after my my first bootfuls of melting snow on Saturday, I retrieved the Filsons from their nail in the workshop and have been wearing them for chores, over my jeans and muck boots.

WHAT a difference.

I am intrepid.

I am invincible.

I am wearing dry jeans.

~~~
Because I think someone may ask, I bought my chaps and lots of my other fieldwork equipment years ago from an outfit called Forestry Suppliers.  These folks have always been a pleasure to do business with.  One of the most fun shopping experiences I've ever had was when I was replacing my snowshoes and had a lengthy phone conversation with two of the Forestry Supplier people regarding the angle of rise on the toes of two different snowshoe styles.  When I called them, I had not realized the company is located in Mississippi; a State which may be generally called "a snowshoe-free zone."  But those folks sure went out of their way to get an answer to my question!

My chaps (getting back to the subject) were made by an old US company, as was my orange timber-cruising vest.  In the interest of providing accurate information here, I just googled the company website.  Sadly, so very often, even products that have been made in the US for ages have been farmed out (usually to China) in the past 20 years or so.

I am SO glad I googled Filson!  Because, guess what:

Filson makes 276 products in the US.

Not everyone needs chaps (or a timber-cruising vest), but for those of us who appreciate well-made outdoor clothing, or even just rugged and practical gear (they have luggage! and laptop bags!) there are a lot of items on this website that may be welcome news indeed.  It is hard to find good, strong, functional stuff.  Stuff that looks like it will be working for as long as we will be working, and then perhaps be handed on to someone else who will be very pleased to have it.  I am not much of a shopper, but several Filson items made it to my wishlist today.

(I probably don't need to say this, but just in case: I have nothing to gain, personally, from recommending either Filson or Forestry Suppliers.  Neither company would know me if I walked through their door.  Well, there are a couple of employees from Mississippi who might remember me if I walked through their door and started talking about snowshoe toes, but that's about it.) 

~~~

And that's enough about snow for a while, isn't it?

Maybe it's time to make something nice to eat.  It's been soups and quiches lately...lovely comfort food that takes almost no effort and tastes like, well, comfort.

Here's hoping you have a lovely, comfort-filled day!

~~~

"Wait, did somebody say 'quiche'?  I'm pretty sure I  LOVE quiche."

~~~~~

Real Snow

We got it.

Wore my tallest muck boots, the ones that touch my kneecaps, for chores this morning, but the snow laughed at my boots.  Then filled them up.  Then melted, saturated my jeans and froze them to my legs. Hahaha! said the snow.

On a brighter note...
aren't my goats lucky to have such nice hay to eat?
All my goats love HayMan.
HayMan is my goats' favorite person in the Whole Entire Universe.

I tried an experiment this morning.  It's something I've been planning to do the next time we had deep snow.  Instead of delivering hay via a straight line between goat shelters in the little paddock, I made a deliberately meandering path.  Here's why:

In snow that is even a few inches deep, my goats prefer to stick exclusively to MY path through the snow, walking along in single-file.  If new snow is more than a few inches deep they will actually linger in their shelter in the morning, waiting for me to break trail for them.

The big babies!

In a typical winter, that means there will eventually be a single, narrow, ice-and-poop-encrusted trail that the goats follow all winter.  They ignore the rest of the paddock that I spent so much time and effort fencing for them.

The fencing is also for me, I suppose.  There is a possibility that at least one of my goats, the big black doe, would prefer to move right into the house.  There she could relax in the parlor, alternately working on her memoir and amusing herself by staring Piper into a state of befuddled frenzy.

So, back to the path.  I would like the goats to use and fertilize more of the paddock throughout the winter.

According to my plan, then - a plan made before there was thigh-deep snow - the first thing I did when I went out to feed this morning was trudge a meandering route through the little paddock.  Took 10 minutes and I'll tell you what: I'm glad I did it first thing, because that is the LAST unnecessary expenditure of energy there will be around here today!

After that little flight of whimsy, what would normally be 20 minutes of bare-minimum chores took an hour and a half, and I came in soaked to the skin with either melted snow or sweat, depending on geography. (Yes, who's the big baby now, eh?  And I used to work in the woods, in the winter, all day long, and loved it.  Shocking!  Or sad.  Or shockingly sad!)

The goats did follow one of the loopy paths down to their hay, and to be fair, even within the paths the snow is still at least a foot deep.  I wish I had gotten pictures of one of the youngsters, thrilled to find himself at the front of the line and leaping like a fish to get through the snow to be First At The Hay!

But it was not a great morning for pictures.  It was still snowing and blowing and dim.  After nearly dropping the camera twice while trying to stay on my feet in the wind, it seemed like that was about enough fun with photography for the moment.  Fun with the shovel called to me.

 I did get this one of Piper's first leap from the porch.  

Piper embraces life, with or without snow.

But even Piper chose to follow my path.

(The big baby!)

~~~~~

Hollywood snow

We've had a few dustings since the last real snow.

In fact, just yesterday we had a fresh inch or so, but it was very peculiar.  It looked like something created in a Special Effects studio, by someone who had never seen actual snow.

This didn't look like snow at all; more like some type of very lightweight plastic material, blown out of a giant machine to turn a film set into

"New England Landscape." 

It wasn't flakes.  

It was fluffy, yet sort of clumpy, bits.

It was bits of clumpyfluff.

I don't know if these picture can convey

 how totally un-snowlike this snow really was.

Maybe a close-up will help?  You can also click any of these pictures
to embiggen.

The weatherpeople say we are likely to receive quite a skyload of snow in the next couple of days.  If it turns out to be more of this fluffy, odd-looking material, I will let you know.  And I won't be complaining.  Two feet of this stuff would certainly be a lot lighter than two feet of real snow.

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