Goodbye to the goats, what's from the garden and dehydrating

Spent some time this morning at my friend's homestead.  She teaches me to spin wool. She has alpaca and llamas. She also owns Felonious and Peppy, two of our old goats.  We stayed to say hello to them. 

My heart is broken. The goats have gone to a new home to be pets for someone a couple of towns over. I love goats. I am married to an old farmer who believes we can't afford freeloaders. I understand and he was kind and gentle about it... hugging me as I cried when, even Angelo, was loaded up....saying, "Honey, you knew this was going to happen and this man just wants something for his new property and kids."  I love Angelo but Dude says he has gotten mean to Wilbur , our wool ram (CVM Rommeldale), ramming him and taking him to the ground and then stomping him. Plus it gets expensive raising nonproducing animals, especially when someone else want them.  Our goal is to raise sheep and wool ...not goats.  Dude can no longer eat the animals he raises other than chicken and turkeys... birds. We will expand the gardens plus we still raise bees. I understand but it still is so very hard. I stayed in the house and cried, unable to say goodbye. About the only thing making it okay is they were going to a place basically to be lawn art and eat the weeds, people want the appearance of homesteading. The gentleman was kind enough to say we could come visit anytime.

Wilbur spent the day looking for them and calling out. He sounded like the ghost of Christmas past calling out for Billy Blues and Mrs. Periwinkle. Finally he settled in with the horses.

He stayed for a bit taking in a few good hugs.

We will be looking for a wife for him. 

One day a year we are allowed to work from home to finish up yearend work. 

It was unusually warm today so I chose to work outside. It was wonderful and it' amazing how much you can get done without distractions.

The mint is still growing in this warm weather so I made a drink of cranberries and mint. 

The rest of the cranberries went into the dehydrator. Some of them will stay dried fruit and others ground to a powder.

Dinner was hamburgers and spinach and hard boiled egg salad.

I am still harvesting mint. 

Late evening snack... popcorn topped with melted butter and dill pickle powder (made from pickles we dehydrated last month). I will save a bit to take to work tomorrow. 

peace

It's all about the wool

From Wilbur to Wool 

Just wanted to show my friend got a new loom... oooh ahhh.

 She has fun stuff too. 

 Handmade stuff. 

 We washed the wool in the summer. 

 Carding the wool today. 

 Cleaned and off the lamb.

I still have a lot of wool to card and will be carding all this week and weekend so I can spin more wool !

Wilber gets a suit, what is Dude building and a goose walk

It has been a long week and even longer month. I am glad June is over and July will begin. 

Before work I needed to decide which suit Wilbur, our lamb, will wear.  He is small for a year old lamb.  I like the flowers on this one but you have to try and get it over his head and put his legs in the sleeves.  Scary thought. 

This one looked much easier but that orange rubber part looked ohso hot!

So I cut it off. 

Next we had to catch Wilbur. It wasn't as hard as I thought.  He is used to me going out and brushing the flies off him and give him a good massage. 

We got the suit on him and he was just as embarrassed as when we sheared him! Oh Wilbur, light up. 

He went over to Angelo to complain. 

Angelo told him he just needed a kiss.  Wilbur decided he would try to work with it. 

Next I picked carrots and peeled them most of the morning. 

Dude got started on a "barn" for the chickens, geese, guineas, turkey and a stall for milking the goat. All the holes were drilled.

He works alone so he has to get creative.

Giggle... oh Mr Man. 

Here's how far he got today. 

When I got home from work I saw Wilbur wandering around naked again. Dude said he worked with the horse to get it off.  I need to sew another belt on it since he is small. 

There was still some light left when I got home so I took the geese for a walk. 

Spread those wings!

Then we sat and watched the sun go down. 

So happy tomorrow is my day off! 

peace