Just Great!!!!

This is my ankle as of 8:00 am this morning:

I went out to let Jack out of his pen and stepping back into the house i stepped in a small hole by the stairs and twisted my left ankle bad. I felt this wrenching sensation ,i heard a loud snap and a pain like fire and down i went, flat on my back. I laid there for a few seconds to catch my breath , it hurt so bad.

Then i sat up and took inventory, the pain was excruciating but i could move my foot, so apparently nothing broken.I got up and put some weight on it, it hurt bad but i could hobble around on it. So i got in the house and put a bag of ice on it. Within 10 minutes the ankle  had turned all colors of the rainbow and swelled up considerably.

 Unfortunately i had a doctors appointment at 11:00 i didn't want to miss.So i hobbled to the car , parked right in front of the clinics front door ( I'd take care of a possible ticket later).

The doc looked at it, said that nothing seemed to be broken ( i surmised that already ) and that the loud snap i heard where the ligaments tearing off the ankle bone. Just great!!

He said i"d been better of with a broken ankle , because for these tore ligaments to heal I'm looking at several month of painful limping.Just great !!!!

And just as the heat seems to abate and i could actually do some things outside like building a goat pen and shelter for Clyde and his girls.

But no! Here i sit on the couch, foot elevated and  in a brace . Just great!!!!

Clyde...

I found my Billy!! :) :)

Isn't he cute? and he is very small . Ellimae at nine weeks old is already a tad taller than he is .

His name is Clyde , he's 6 months old and i found him googling on the Internet.I called the owners, making sure he was still available.We went that same day to get him.Luckily he was only about 50 miles away and this time we had no mishaps on the way.

I am thrilled to death. Unlike the other two he is as tame as a puppy.A real sweetheart.The girls were less than thrilled.Lulubelle showed him she wanted none of him. Ellimae likewise. They butted him around for awhile and he's learned real quick to stay out of reach.This morning they seem to be getting along a little better.

Lulubelle:

isn't she gorgeous?

I must appologise for all these goat related blogs but thats all that's going on here right now.

Still knitting on the black socks, still got three pairs to go.

Getting aquainted...

So, this morning i tied Lulubelle out in the back yard so she and Ellimae can get some fresh greens ( weeds , which we have a lot of ).

Of course Skimpy and Jack had to investigate these strange creatures a little closer. They circled like vultures, trying to get a good look and sniff.Ellimae didn't care but Lulubelle kept a close eye on them.

Skimpy got tired of it after a little while and opted to watch them from a distance.

 Jack of course couldn't leave it alone and he got nailed pretty good by Lulubelle.

 after that he decided they weren't going to be much fun after all and he went to harrass the cats.

After awhile Star came over to say hello.

 The goats weren't scared of here at all and all three of them grazed together for awhile.

So far, so good.

Still looking for a little billy :)

The Great Goat Adventure...

I've been toying with the idea to add a goat   to our menagerie for awhile now.I've been tempted several times this summer to buy a baby goat but i didn't because i was really looking for an African Pygmy goat.

I used to raise them several years ago for about 8 years in all.I love these little goats. Tamed they are very affectionate,loving pets.They're smart and because of their size (below knee high ,weighing about 40-50 # as adults) easy to handle.

So yesterday i decided to go to the local goat sale, sometimes a Pygmy gets mixed in with other goats. When we got there , there where only 6 goats there and they where all the big breeds.

So when we got home i googled local pygmy goat breeders and found a Nanny with baby  about 60 miles away.

I phoned the Lady, got some more info about them, got a price i could not refuse and told here we'd be there in a couple of hours (when i ever get rolling i waste no time :)

We had to take the horse trailer to put them in (wouldn't you know , just a couple of weeks ago i gave away a big dog crate ).Of course that meant we had to go in the truck which has no air conditioning. Boy was it hot. By the time we got there we looked like we just took a shower with our clothes on.

She took us to a little barn with several goats and pointed the pair that was for sale out. Love at first sight !

Needles to say the lady got her money and i got my goats!

We loaded them up and off we went. About 5 minutes down the road we experienced some bad truck trouble. We slowly limped to the next town 8 miles down the road and took the offending ,trouble making part off right there in the auto zone parking lot.

5 minutes later we where on the road again.Within just a few minutes we ran into a horrendous rainstorm.

We crawled along at about 5 miles an hour ,could not see the road it rained so hard.

After about 15 minutes it got somewhat better and we thought we survived the worst when we run into the next one even worse.Some of the road started flooding at least over a foot deep.One little town had the manhole covers blown out with water spurting out of the drain holes like geysers.

What a mess!! but eventually we drove out of it and when we got home it hadn't even rained there at all.

We left the goats in the trailer overnight with food and water and then this morning i transferred them to their temporary home : Jacks pen.

Little jack was going to eat them up when he saw them. He's never even seen a goat before and he is only the size of the baby but he tried to attack mama goat with hair standing straight up on his back and all of his teeth showing.These little dogs are gritty! Mama goat put her head down and gave him a taste of her horns and that is all it took. Jack backed up.He was growling and barking at them but didn't try again to get close.

I tied him up to the outside of the pen for several hours this morning for them to get acquainted. I think that did the trick. Jack doesn't hardly pay attention to them any more.

So, all is well. I Love my little goats.

I think I'll call them Lulubelle (mama) and Fleur (baby).

They have not been handled a lot and are a bit shy (to tell the truth you got to run them down and hold on to them) but that will change very quick, i'm fixin' to pet the hair off of them :)

Now for a little Billy Goat.... ;D   

...aaand maybe a    ,or     ?!

Jelly,Heat and Lace

Out of desperation to break up the monotony (and avert crawling up the walls ) caused by this relentless heat we are having, I've decided to make some jelly with the elderberries growing here in abundance.I made some years ago and it was delicious.

I picked a big bucked of berries:

washed them:

de-stemmed them:



cooked them,drained the juice ,and voila:

about 1 2/3 gallons of elderberry juice.

Adding the rest of the ingredients ( added 12 oz of grape juice too) i sealed the jars

and ended up with 15 -8 oz glasses of delicious jelly,

(first batch of 12):

or so i thought....

Unfortunately it didn't set. Apparently elderberries are notorious for not setting.

So, i will have to pour all of it back in the pot, add some more pectin and hope for the best.

We did use some of it on our ice cream last night like syrup. Oh, it is truly yummy!

I do have about 20 oz of juice left over that i will make into syrup. great over pancakes or -ice cream.

Still no movement on the Studio relocation.It's been 100+ every day. I'm literally house bound. I'm still working on the order of black socks. Finished the fourth pair yesterday. It's really slow going with this batch, luckily the customer is in no hurry.

I started on the lace shawl but found out that i don't like this kind of knitting at all.Too loose.

Summer - Blah's

There is absolutely nothing going on here! Everything from construction to weaving/knitting/spinning has come to a complete standstill ( i don't even have a decent picture of anything to put with this post (hence the smileys).I am working on a order of seven pair of socks going to Germany now and then. I'm dragging my feet on them because they are all black and i'm really not enthused !!

It has been sooo hot !! The last four/five weeks have been absolutely horrible with no break in sight.Most days are in the upper 90's with a heat index of 105 - 110. Today is supposed to be an even 100 with a heat index of 105-114. The low last night was 78 and now at 6 am it's already 79 degrees. Same tomorrow and Tuesday and so on and on....
Thank goodness we traded our old Jeep in for a little Blazer and it's got a working AIR CONDITIONER!!! I LOVE this little car!!
Now i can go shopping/ run around any time i want to without feeling like i'm going to melt. I don't even mind getting caught by the train.I can wait :)
Hopefully this heat is going to break sometime soon so we can commence on our construction project.Never got to move the Studio yet :(
It seems that we can't just slide the building around without damaging it. so it will be put on a big trailer. That means we'll have to hike the building up, maneuver the trailer under it, set it down, move it to its designated spot, hike it up, pull trailer out from under it, then set it down . NOT IN THIS HEAT!! So i wait.
Very frustrating.
Well, better get back to the socks. After the second pair i started to put little cable patterns on the rest just to break up the monotony.
Stay cool y'all