It's Getting Better All the Time

In this case we're talking about the state of my lungs.  Many of you who saw me at Stitches know that I was suffering from a third round of this bronchitis/cold thing, and let's just say that things got worse before they got better.  So finally giving into common sense, I've been home for several days and broken out the honey-lemon-garlic syrup I should have brewed up weeks ago.

I've used this recipe to good effect many times before, often avoiding or reducing the suffering.

1 cup honey

juice and zest of one organic lemon

3-5 cloves garlic (if they're all big use 3, if small use 5)

1-2 sage leaves

Blend all ingredients together and let sit for 2-4 hours to homogenize.  Strain using a large mesh strainer and put into a small bottle.  Sip 1-2 tsps every 1-2 hours.  If blended right it should taste like a lemon drop.  Soothes throat stuff, coughing and kicks ass against most invaders as raw garlic is anti-bacterial, anti-viral and anti-fungal.  I think this recipe originated from one of Christopher Hobbs' herbals, though it could belong to someone else...

In one of my rare public appearances this week a coworker came by to carpool from my house for a conference in Sacramento.  "Wow, I know you said you lived on the Bear River, but you really do live right on the river!  It's right there!"  Yep, I really do live right on the Bear River, and the most recent rains have finally brought it up to a decent winter level of flow.  I think that both Rollins and Combie Dams have been holding back on the outflow to refill the reservoirs, which is not good for the health of the river, so I'm very glad to see the level up finally.  This is the view of the river from my "backyard".

She also met all of the chickens and goats.  She particularly loved the goats. "They're so friendly and attentive, just like dogs."  Well almost like dogs.  They don't play fetch very well, but they do like being petted and scratched, with a few key differences.  Goats like having their necks, chests and rumps scritched and rubbed, whereas a dog or cat will like their jaws, tops of heads and ears scritched and rubbed.  With goats, scratching of the head is usually a sign of trust as they  don't want their horn area messed with.

That little goat Finn, that was born last June to Dharma?  He's a big goat now, as tall as his mom but still has plenty of room to grow.  He's all leg right now and I expect him to end up about 20% larger than his mom by the time he finishes growing in another year.

Maharani was bred on New Year's Eve to my friend Joanne's buck Glimmercroft Stormfront, a third generation miniature La Mancha.  It's very easy to breed these medium-sized goats.  We watch for the girls to come in heat, snap them onto a lead and have them jump into the large dog crate in the back of the car.  A twenty minute car ride later and they are flirting with the buck of choice.  We stand around and shoot the breeze while the goats do their thing.  Three rounds is considered successful and back home we go.  

You really know you've had success when the doe doesn't come back into heat, as was the case with the little black doeling Pi.  This was Pi's first time, and she didn't have a very strong heat at New Years, so even though the deed was done, it didn't take.  She was very much in heat two weeks ago, so DH ran her over (I being sick) and there's no question about it this time.

Goats have a gestation period of 5 months (150 days), give or take 5 days either way, so we're expecting our first kids of the year at the end of May, and Pi in mid-July.  We haven't bred Dharma just yet, so we'll have some late babies this fall.  Then I'll be posting more pictures like this one of Dharma giving birth to Finn last June.

Stitches 2010

Ok, it's been awhile, but I've been busy, which means I have lots to catch up on sharing.  We'll start with Stitches 2010!

Vail and I undertook our yearly pilgrimage to the greatest concentration of yarn, fiber and knitters on the West Coast, possibly the entire northern continent.  All the hotels in the area were booked, and chances were that if you saw some knitted, crocheted, or felted item, it was probably handmade by the wearer.  After explaining what Stitches was to a puzzled male passenger on the hotel elevator, I suggested he should compliment the wearer of any such garment as we were armed with pointy sticks.  He wasn't sure if I was being comedic or serious...

My typical strategy is to scope out the market during the Thursday night preview, armed with my Ravelry queue, noting yarns and prices of interest.  Go back to the hotel room, crunch numbers, and start making purchases Friday morning.  Once the basics are taken care of, then it's time for free-form shopping with the remaining budget and a second-pass through the market.  This is of course, interspersed with squealing, fondling, complimenting others' sweaters and knitted items, and breaking for meals and snacks with other knitting friends.  No one thinks it odd that we are knitting everywhere, and I always find it distinctly amusing to see knitters congregating like so many other convention goers.

Here are Daniella, Barbara Sue, Vail, me, Sierra, Dee, Eva and Sue Flynn waiting in the auditorium for the fashion show.  Thanks to Mardi for taking the picture, and congrats go to her as well for winning one of the fashion show prizes.  Say cheese everyone!

Well, some of you may remember that last year at Stitches I was bit by the spinning bug, and so much of this year's budget was dedicated to all things fiber.  There were five fiber colorways purchased at as many vendors.  Of particular note were Abstract Fiber and Snicklefritz Yarns, both offering hand dyed rovings.  At Abstract we got to talking about drop spindles, and they want to come to the Foothill Fibers Drop Spindle Retreat in May, as they too are on that crazy drop spindle train. 

Snicklefritz has a traveling gnome that she uses to inspire her colorways, and she had this carbonized bamboo fiber, which she likened to crack.  I didn't get any of that, but I think that Stephanie and Rhodi might have.  

I bought Gnome in the Sierra in BFL roving.

There was some Miss Babs mixed BFL roving,

And some Lisa Souza superwash merino roving,

And Pigeon Roof Studio's superwash merino roving.

There was yarn too.  Here's Northampton Bulky wool for the Cabled Hoodie Cardigan,

and more of the silk/cotton/modal blend for the Penelope shirt.

And least you wonder who is this person who didn't buy any sock yarn, well, of course I bought some sock yarn!  Madeline Tosh Sock in "Jade" called my name while I was in line and that was that.

Home again now, and some more posts coming soon.  After all, we have drop spindles, goats, cheese, and chickens to discuss - those baby chicks and goats from last year didn't stop growing you know!

Tie Dying with the Fiber Guild

I did it. I joined the local fiber guild. Meetings conflict with my regularly scheduled Auburn Knitting Group, but it's just one Tuesday a month, so I guess I'll branch out.

The first meeting of the year was a Tie Dye event. Now, I've never been a particular fan of tie dye, generally finding it too busy, so I was a bit trepidatious about the whole event, but found a middle ground by dyeing t-shirts for DH.

I had no plan about colors, but once I saw what some other people where doing, I decided I needed to do some color mixing experiments, rather than just using straight colors. For the first shirt I decided on a blue, teal, green and lime scheme. Mix a little blue and green to get teal, add more yellow to get lime... Ok, not bad. The results are mild, not having any really bold, contrasting colors.


Well, I'd spent so much time on the folding and dyeing of the first shirt, that I was suddenly rushed to do the second shirt. So I quickly tied it up and started applying every color I had left in front of me, while everyone else was cleaning up the room around me. A splash of red here, ooh, maybe bleed the blue across the red to get some purple, lime green over here, regular green there, add some green into the red to get some rust bleeds... This shirt was freaking me out, and it turned out great!!!

So am I a converted fan of tie dye? No, not particularly, but the idea of playing with color is something I've been wanting to explore, and this was a good introduction prior to the all day dye event on Sunday. I've been scouring the web for color combination ideas, wanting to make sure that I can really benefit from the experience of the great ladies who are putting on the event.

I plan to dye some wool roving and a bit of handspun I did in my class, which is either wool or alpaca, I can't remember. I'm also thinking about bringing some small fabric samples to practice playing with the dyes, but that may be going overboard.

Goats are like water

What is a stanchion? It's a stand for securing a goat (or sheep or cow). I use a stanchion for hoof trimming and milking. I'd been using a friend's stanchion. It worked well enough. It got the animal up to a height easier to milk, and had cleats for tying the back feet to prevent kicking. However, the neck guide was great in theory and didn't work so well for my mini goats.



So before building my new stanchion I took a look at design variations at the library and online. I particularly liked this one from Fias Co Farm, with a keyhole neck gate design. Best of all, the plans were in an easy-to-print pdf and included shopping details. It took one afternoon to build, with DH doing the keyhole neck cuts with the jigsaw.

I have two changes to the original design. The first is the addition of cleats for tying hind feet. (It really isn't any fun when your goat sticks her hind foot in the milking pail, although the chickens enjoy the treat of resulting contaminated milk.) The other is height. 14" legs might work for a full size goat, but this is just to low for easy milking on my minis.



You can see that Maharani approves of the mini-feeder attached to the front.

So does this Western fence lizard. I'm not sure how he got in there, but he was really happy to be let loose back on the ground.



A discussion with a local forester with UN experience in Africa had this story to share. After spending LOTS of money to revegetate a particular area, my friend approached the village chief to discuss the goats which were rapidly eating all of the new plantings. "If we don't contain the goats, all of this work will amount to nothing." "Ah," said the chief, "you have to understand. Goats are like water and are not easily contained."

What does this have to do with the price of tea in China? Well, goat fencing occupies a lot of my husband's time, as goats are particularly adept at exploiting any weakness in a fence. So this story has become our new mantra. Goats are like water...

A busy summer...

A friend remarked today that her autumn sense is tingling. Yep, the lessening daylight and lowering incline of the sun in the sky, the desire for handknit socks in the morning and an extra blanket on the bed at night. Next we'll be chopping wood... Fall is just around the corner, which leads me ponder, where has summer gone?


The garden has been prolific, probably something to do with all of the chicken and goat poop and bedding that I mulch the beds with. The winter squash, which turned out to be a kabucha and not an acorn, has taken over one side of the garden. Several kinds of tomatoes are slowly ripening, and the eggplants are in super production mode. In particular, the fairy tale eggplant is doing magnificently.


At my last posting, we had a baby boy goat. Well, he's not so little anymore. He easily weighs 45 lbs and is nearly as tall as the smallest of the minis. If he were going to remain a boy it would be time to separate him from the girls. Instead, Finn is undergoing a procedure that makes my husband cringe to talk about, but the rough part is already over and Finn is handling it like a trooper. We plan to look for a home for Finn, not really needing another browsing animal, but he is pretty adorable, with the same sweet temperament of his momma, and so we find ourselves tempted to keep him anyway.



What else? Well, at the beginning of summer, a friend and I took an intensive spinning class, and I'm now the proud owner of a Ladybug by Schacht. It's small enough to fit under my craft table and take to knit night or spinning events. I used it to spin this green sock yarn which won first place in the novice spinning category at the fair. Woo hoo!


The fair. That took a week of my life, and it was immediately followed by the land trust's annual benefit concert, which took another week of life. Then there was the week of recovery... And that was about it for August.


I've been knitting all summer, some baby items for new arrivals and a tank top that I hope to finish this week. With the whisperings of cooler air, my fingers are itching to do more knitting and spinning, and get warmer projects finished up.

Upcoming Class

Math of Socks
Thursday, August 13
2 hours, $25

There's nothing more disappointing than knitting a pair of socks in beautiful hand-painted yarn to have them not fit. If this has happend to you then you need this class. If you can balance your check book (and even if you can’t), you’ll be a master of numbers and your knitting at the finale of this class.

While this 2-hour class is geared to fitting socks, the underlying concepts apply to all knitted garments. Bring a tape measure, a calculator, pencil, and a 2”x2” swatch of sock yarn knitted in the round.

RSVP to The Tin Thimble, 916-663-2134.

Study finds native bees thriving

This blip comes to you courtesy of California Agriculture, a University of California's peer-reviewed journal of research in agricultural, human and natural resources. For a free subscription or to read the entire article, go to: http://californiaagriculture.ucop.edu.

Evidence is mounting that pollinators of crop and wildland plants are declining worldwide. Our research group at UC Berkeley and UC Davis conducted a 3-year survey of bee pollinators in seven cities from Northern California to Southern California. Results indicate that many types of urban residential gardens provide floral and nesting resources for the reproduction and survival of bees, especially a diversity of native bees. Habitat gardening for bees, using targeted ornamental plants, can predictably increase bee diversity and abundance, and provide clear pollination benefits.

Frankie G, Thorp R, Hernandez J, Rizzardi M, Ertter B, Pawelek J, Witt S, Schindler M, Coville R, Wojcik V. 2009. Native bees are a rich natural resource in urban California gardens. Cal Ag 63(3):113-120. DOI: 10.3733/ca.v063n03p113

Birth of Goat - Part 2

So much for twins! Just one good size, sturdy boy.



It was a bit of a rough birth. There's was lots of goo (sorry Sharon) and then a foot, more goo, then a second foot. Troy was at her head, comforting and encouraging from that end. I tugged out one foot, then another, and then we got stuck for a bit. Finally a tongue, nose, big push and pull, and we had the head out. The rest of the body slides right out after that.



Sorry no pictures during this phase; we were kinda preoccupied! We hung the baby upside down to encourage draining of the amniotic fluid from it's mouth and nose, then onto the pad in front of mom. We helped mom clean up the baby, so that she spent less time cleaning and more time bonding. Also, if it were a cold day (and not over 100°F), this would minimize chilling time while wet.


The little guy was quick. Not even ten minutes and he was nuzzling for a teat. It took a bit of trying on his part - fingers, my pant cuffs, everything seemed like a good place to nuzzle, including my own dairy case. Sorry guy, no milk there. Up and standing and nursing within twenty minutes is excellent.


It's been an hour. The afterbirth is delivered, baby is dry, mom's had a treat, baby and has nursed and mom and baby are having some quiet time now. They are quietly talking to each other. It's really cute. The baby has the same white spot and lip markings as mamma.

The Birth of a Goat - Part 1

We're on baby goat watch today. Dharma has been showing all the early signs of labor today. Typically goat births are uncomplicated, but it's always best to be on hand. Even if everything goes smoothly, you can assist by helping to clean off the baby, ensuring less clean up time and more bonding time for mom and kid(s). Also, making sure the kid(s) successfully nurse within the first hour is very important. All that aside, it also means that humans are part of the kid(s)' very first experience in this world.


Don't know much about goats? Well, the doe (female goat) has a five month gestation, with typically a five day variance from the day of conception for when she'll typically birth. Unfotunately, Dharma had been living with a buck several months prior to her coming to live with us, so we didn't know her exact date of conception, and have had to rely on her general condition (and girth) to indicate when she was due. All the signs pointed to the end of June, and we've been preparing since the middle of the month.


As each doe and birth is different, she could show all, some or none of the signs. Thank goodness for us we are getting some warning. This morning we had several indicators that suggest that she'll give birth today. Her tail ligaments are softening, resulting in a limp tail, though that has since disappeared since this morning. Her udder, which has been developing for the last several weeks, now has colostrum which I was able to squeeze out this morning, a very strong signal that birth is imminent. She also had some amber colored goo oozing from her vulva, which is amniotic fluid. They can leak a whitish fluid for several weeks prior to birth, but amber is another imminent signal.

Knowing the wait could be many hours, we set up a comfortable station where we can sit adjacent to the pen, and turned the other goats into the nearby pasture. She mews if either of us leaves the area. I'm sitting here with laptop, camera and knitting, being a constant presence. We go in the pen periodically to take a closer look or just provide comfort during this strange time.

We had one contraction at 2:00pm, and some more goo (sorry Sharon), but we're still waiting. Did I mention Dharma's a first timer? We could be here a while. At least it's a condusive situation for knitting.

World Wide Knit in Public Day

Saturday is World Wide Knit in Public Day!
In Grass Valley there is an opportunity to knit at the Growers Market at the Fair Grounds from 8-noon.
Does anyone want to go to this knit in, or try to stage our own at the Auburn Saturday morning market?
Check out this link for more info and to find a WWKiP event near you. I know there are two in Sacramento!