Category Archive: Life
On the left is Daisy at 4 months (I know -not French, but she said that is who she is) and Beau on the right when he was 2 months. I find it interesting how long those little noses grow. Daisy has become quite playful. She gets so excited when I come to see her that her whole little body wiggles. However, today, Lacey let her know that she (Daisy) is at the bottom of the totem. She didn’t hurt her, just rolled her over.
Here is the “Ribbons” table runner for which I tested the pattern. It is available from the Sheep show
I was given a ticket to the fair so I could watch the sheep show. And I planned my week accordingly.
I enjoyed watching them ready the sheep for the ring and
enjoyed watching the judge choosing the winners and stating why he chose them.
My friend placed some first, some seconds, and some thirds so was very happy.
After the judging, I went over to the wool area. I think I should enter some wool next year.
After the show I hurried home as I had a large bunch of grapes to turn into grape juice. At least these were the plans for today. Instead, I received a phone call asking if we could have lunch with family members here tomorrow. Ok. I could hurry home and be ready. When I got home, I turned on the stove to continue steaming the grapes, then went to feed the animals.
Remember the sheep that stuck her head in so far, she got stuck? Yes, she did it again and it took 2 hours before we finally got her out. She should remember the headache from this and not try it again. Oh and the hot wire we put up yesterday, we had to put a portion of it back up today as the sheep found a short in it and took some of it down.
At this fiber farm, life is interesting and we are never bored. I hope I will sleep in tomorrow – at least an hour. Happy Sabbath to each of you.
Snowmen work
I spent some time today tacking this all together and just have to buy some orange felt for the noses and then decide where to put all the holes for all 100 little flashing lights to go through the fabric to shine on the front. I have the feeling cutting the holes will take time.
Twinkling snowman and raisins
Twinkling Snowman is now basted together so that I can spent bits of time here and there sewing it down. I am pleased to get this far.
Remember the 4 gallon bucket of grapes we picked? This is what they look like dehydrated
And this is the total amount of raisins from a 4 gallon bucket of grapes
They are horrible to pick off the screen, so I’m hoping not to do any more of these this year or else find a better way to do them.
‘Strive for the Peace of Progress. Not Perfection”. I found this on Busy Gal’s Homestead blog this morning. I have been thinking about it today realize that often I feel defeated because I don’t measure up to my own expectations. The star I hitch to is way out there. This summer has been so busy, I haven’t had a chance to get caught up. I’m going to try to remember the progress made instead of how much is still to do.
All day dozing and winter food prep
Today was more food prep for winter and for the weekend. So the applesauce was canned, rice cooked, greens cooked, and split pea soup made. Laundry was washed and that’s about as domestic as I could handle today after the gym.
lt’s difficult to see in the shade, but this little fellow and his great big brother worked in the pasture all day. The day started with someone not closing a gate, so all the Cormo
sheep decided to form one group in the pasture without a fence between them. Fortunately there is only one mature ram here so they are just getting the chance to breed a bit earlier than had been planned. It could have been a disaster if we had had more than one mature ram. I will mark my calendar for 150 days from today though I don’t think any of the ladies were ready. There is always some type of excitement and that doesn’t even include having a dog that got out and was checking out the neighborhood.
Sunday, the plan is to seed the pasture that is ready and possibly finish dozing and seed the rest of the pasture next week. These things always take longer than expected and don’t seem to go exactly as planned,
Shabbat Shalom Enjoy they day.
Dozing begins
It is so dry after 2 months of no rain, that if it has even a hint of green one knows from a long distance that it is nettles growing. So the dozing begins. They have taken down all the blackberries in the top pasture and tomorrow will finish removing the nettles in this pasture. Then they will plant what they estimate to be about 3 acres. The weather forecast is for rain and in the 60s all but one day next week. Absolutely perfect weather for pasture growing. I am getting excited about this as I’ve waited a long time to get this done. The sheep will be excited in the spring.
There is so much farm cleaning and repairing right now to get ready for winter. I’m hoping to get back to the sewing machine next week, when the weather isn’t encouraging me to be outside. I think my sewing studio is missing me.
Sheep care
After gym today, we worked on sheep care. They are nearly all wormed now. We looked them over to decide potential breedings and did some pen maintenance. We worked some on a fleece we are soaking and before we knew it, the day was gone
Nothing done
Some days it seems as if I worked all day and got nothing done. Since that has been a persistent feeling this month, today, I decided to write down what I did.
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Cleaned and stemmed the grapes, laid them on trays and put in freezer, (I’ll thaw them out and dehydrate when the cucumbers are done -to make raisins)
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Loaded the dehydrator with cucumbers chips.
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Cleaned and cooked collard greens
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Took food scraps out to sheep
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Went to the grocery store
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Fed the bees
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Picked an apron full of apples, cut and cored them to cook (too many earwigs in them so lots of discard)
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Took scraps to sheep
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Went to upper barn, fed sheep, put soap in the barrel with soaking fleece and filled with water.
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Mopped kitchen floor
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Made lunch (finished lunch at 2 PM)
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Sat down to watch some “Back to basics summit” homestead videos
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Fed dogs and sheep in both locations
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made supper
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cooked apples
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made just over 3 quarts of applesauce
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husked popcorn – Isn’t it pretty
Pumpkin head #2 is now ready to be embroidered and quilted. I think I should find a little black cat and a embroider a spider to finish them off. But finishing them may not happen this year. I may pin one of them on the wall just for decoration just like he is this year.
When putting together the applique pieces, I laid an a
Pumpkin Head is now all put together. He still needs to be stitched down, but he is in one piece. This pattern is called