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

Getting there...

Slow, but its progress!

While I'm waiting for a yarn order for a custom sock order to arrive, i started on another pair of lace socks with one of the skeins i dyed last week.

The pattern looks like itty bitty shells.

Very easy pattern, only one of five rows has some yo and knit together's, the rest is just knit.

They will be added to the store when done.

Multi tasking

In between working on the retaining wall and running to the supply store on a daily basis i had a little time to dye some sock yarn:

and finish sock one of another pair of patchwork socks :

I'll be using the dyed yarn for some lace and cable patterned socks.

I love how the colors came out ,very deep and rich.

Tomorrow morning before it gets too hot i will go to our annual Helen Keller festival's arts and crafts show.They don't ever have any fiber relatet items there but i love to go and see what other crafts people are into.

Big goodie bag

 lookie what the mail lady brought me today:

One big bag of goodness! 7 pounds of raw Rambouillet from Texas.
Ingenious way of packaging it, the sack is lightweight and very strong , doesn't add hardly nothing to the weight , saves on shipping!!

I had to get a few locks right away and wash them, here is the result,

still in lock form :

combed out:

very nice and sooo soft. I'll wash several oz in the next few days and offer them on etsy. But if anybody is interested in getting some now or needs more than a few oz, please let me know. Price is $2.50 /oz loose or $3.50/oz carded.