fluff piece

The cashmere harvest is well underway now.

 This is Mallow, having his second combing session of 2020.
Mallow doesn't think much of the idea.
He likes the carrot penny and peanut part, but that's about all.
The careful combing for 20 minutes to get half a sandwich bag of raw fiber?
"Meh," he says.

Sheep say "Bah!" but goats invented "Meh."

I'm trying to comb two goats each dry day, but sometimes only manage one. And days like yesterday, when I had a medical appointment and was away for half the day and exhausted when I got home, it was all I could do to get everyone fed and watered.This morning my back is still aching from yesterday but I intend to get two goats combed if at all possible. The pressure is on: we've had a couple of very warm days, and everyone is at some stage of shedding now.

The time to get the cleanest fiber with the smallest percentage of top coat is as soon at the goat starts to shed the cashmere undercoat. In just a couple of days I've seen some goats go from extremely clean cashmere to cashmere containing so much shed topcoat I wonder if it's even worth keeping. Likewise, a couple of my goats also temporarily get flaky skin toward the end of their cashmere shed. They don't have chronic dry skin, and after several years of unsuccessfully using dietary supplements to try to prevent the flaking, I now think of it as a harmless seasonal celebration of air getting to their skin after a winter of wearing cashmere underwear under a topcoat. But it means I can get beautiful clean cashmere from that goat on Monday, and when I check it again on Thursday, I'll see flakes. Well, I can only try my best to keep up with everyone and harvest the fiber at the best possible time. Tick-tock.
~~~


Speaking of time, it's a great time to look for Venus in the evenings.
~~~

In other fiber news, the hap is off the needles (!) and awaits washing and blocking. This picture was taken when I was putting in a lifeline before the final rows, in case the experimental bind off wasn't acceptable and I needed to rip back and return all those stitches to a 40-inch circular needle. There were 560 stitches in a row at that point, so a lifeline seemed like a good idea.

I'm seriously considering building a hap stretcher to block this hap, instead of painstakingly pinning it out on mats. At the moment, it's hard to carve out time to do either, but we've got a rainy day coming up, and my goats aren't comb-able on wet days. A trip to the hardware store would be needed to get material for the stretcher frame, then there'd be the actual construction, but every time I think about the pinning option - which would probably take a couple of hours on my hands and knees, and then a couple of days of keeping the cats and Piper away from an intriguing area that would undoubtedly draw them like a magnet - the stretcher frame seems like an excellent idea. Stay tuned.

By the way, if any readers have ever used a hap stretcher, I'd love to hear about your experience and any tips you'd like to share. I've read a couple of excellent tutorials on making and using them - here's a link to a very detailed tutorial, in case of interest - but I've never seen one in use. In fact, I've never even seen one not in use, so I don't know if there are any pitfalls to avoid.
Please feel free to comment or email - thanks!

Now, it's time to slice some carrots.
~~~~~

thankful thursday

this evening

I am so thankful that the forester I once had the great good fortune to work with, still, many years later, keeps me on his list for an annual stovewood delivery.

He's doing me a favor - my little Waterford stove only takes 

short wood, and when he loads up his big truck with shorts and offcuts, it means a lot of extra handling. So when I get a call saying "the truck is loaded, is this a good time?" yes, it is. And watching as that wood rolls like thunder off the back of the truck feels like my birthday, every time.

The hard part is paying for the wood. I can't judge the cordage at all, because of the size of the pieces. He can probably judge the cordage quite accurately, but never does. So every year, I say, "Now what do I owe you?" And he says, "Oh, I don't know," and then names a price. And then I say, "That's not enough," and give him some cash. And then he says, "That's too much," and gives some back.

And then I start stacking the wood under cover. And all winter long, the woodbox by the stove is filled and emptied, filled and emptied.

And I am warmed not just by the fire, but by gratitude.

~~~~~

first moon of march

~~~~~

february passing

This has been a February with all the bells and whistles.

Cold, grim, freezing rain, ice, snow, sleet.

An occasional clear day.

Then back to bitter cold, strong winds, more precipitation.

And always - always! - the ice.

At the end of December I bought an inexpensive pair of boots

to keep my ice cleats on, "in case" they would be needed.

But I felt so uncomfortable about buying boots made in China

that I returned them without even taking them out of the box.

Actually, the box never even made it out of my truck - 

it went straight back to the store the next day.

I called my logger boots back into service as "designated cleated boots"

and my gosh, have they seen a lot of wear this past month!

Absolutely everything has been covered in ice.

Without cleats, I couldn't have carried hay to the paddocks or water buckets to the barns. I have been thankful for those boots every single day in February.

Also thankful for my new barn coat.

I've been reluctantly trying to replace my old barn coat for a couple of years. It was a great old coat. It was purchased when I was about to start doing Continuous Forest Inventory plots in the winter of 2000-2001, and almost 20 years later still had remnants of tree-marking paint on it here and there.

I wore this coat day in day out for years, and as garments go, it was like an old and trusty friend. It accumulated rips from getting caught on fencing or nails - and saving my skin from the same. The insulated lining was worn into tatters. Over time both big pockets had holes chewed into their bottoms and their top seams torn by goats seeking carrot pennies or peanuts.

So I watched eBay and Etsy, and checked thrift shops every time I had the chance. Last year I bought what looked like an acceptable replacement at the Hospice Shop but soon discovered my "bargain" was very badly constructed. I salvaged fabric and buttons for future sewing projects and vowed to keep looking, be patient, and only buy exactly what I wanted next time.

My persnickety determination to find a particular (goat-baffling pocket design non-negotiable), long-discontinued model of a high-quality, low-mileage barn coat at a reasonable price was at last rewarded with a coat from eBay that looked like it had just come from the original shop. It may have been hanging in someone's closet, unworn, for years. I'm still breaking it in. This coat may outlast me.

So despite the weather and the need to fill the woodbox every other day, February has passed - almost! one more day! fingers remain crossed! - without causing great difficulty. Just to be on the safe side, I may spend tomorrow a bit like this:

~~~~~

in other fiber news

Cloud Harvest 2020 has begun.

Spur of the moment contest:

First person to correctly guess

which goat was the first to be combed

will receive a little (sorry, not cashmere) prize!

Good luck, goat pals!

~~~~~