The light at the end of the tunnel...

For awhile I was sure the light at the end of the tunnel was the proverbial oncoming train, or even worse, that the light was cut due to budget constraints, but I'm finally there.  The end of the tunnel.  The 2010 Nevada County Grown Farm Guide is off to the printer, the 20th anniversary land trust event was a success, and everything wrapped up last Saturday with the spring native plant sale. Whew, regular programming can now resume. 

In case I hadn't said, I've been volunteering with the local chapter of the native plant society as a way to hone up on my plant id skills.  So Saturday found me cashiering at the biennial plant sale. Riley helped too.  You can see him here checking out a selection of native plants.

Here's what I can home with: monkey flower 'terra cotta', a hot pink penstemon, coral bells 'red bells',a couple of bleeding hearts and blue-eyed grass. And then we picked up some 6-pack plants at Eisley's, including parsley, celery, chard, some cosmos and strawberries.  Here's a wheelbarrow full of the day's haul.

Last Sunday started out with planning the expansion of the goat pens in preparation for the new arrivals expected at the end of the month, testing out the drip irrigation system and getting supplies. Sadly, when one has been working continuously for 5 weeks, the weeds have an opportunity to take over the unmulched portions of the perennial garden, so before I could really plant anything I commenced with the weeding. 

Riley liked weeding. We removed quantities of annual grasses, chickweed and a non-native mallow, as well as the ever present blackberry sprouts. The vegetable portion of the yard is ready for planting, having been thoroughly sheet mulched in the fall  with straw, hay, and goat poop from the goat pen. 

And then I sprained my ankle.  Kind of put a stop to my gardening plans for the rest of the week.  Troy did a great job of stepping up (since I literally couldn't) and continued weeding out the blackberries and installing a fence to keep the chickens out of the garden.  Still gimping around, we managed to get most everything planted this afternoon

Meet Riley

Riley is our new Corgi puppy, and here are just a few of the questions I field daily:

Yes, he's a purebreed, they're the smallest of the herding dogs, being used historically in Wales to herd cattle and be a generally awesome farm and companion dog.  Yes, his ears are really big, no, his legs are just the right length, and yes, you can take a picture of him.

We've had our pup for two weeks, having driven to Oroville to get him from a breeder.  He's now fifteen weeks old.  We knew getting a Corgi pup would be a big adjustment in our lives, having introduced the equivalent of a toddler to our household.  Before bringing him home, we had to puppy-proof an area of our little abode.  Luckily, he's a very smart pup (part of that herding dog thing) and we've already started puppy training.  We're working on sit, down, stay, leave it and come.  

Introduced him to the rest of the animals - chickens, who he finds fascinating, goats, which he finds a bit on the large and alarming size when they jump suddenly, and the cats, who are glad he can't get onto the bed.  And we introduce him to lots of people and new places, like the office, spinning Saturday and knit night.  Luckily he tires quickly, so if I time it right, he'll pass out for awhile.

Everything was going swimmingly.  Then I got the phone call Friday at work, while Riley was home with my husband.  "He vomited about an hour ago, seems a bit disoriented and his back legs are a little uncoordinated when he tries to walk."   A quick internet search shows that this could be the beginning symptoms of many things, including Parvo and vinca poisoning.  PANIC!

My SIL is a vet tech at Grass Valley Vet, where I normally take my cats for their routine care, but they close at 5:30 and there's no way we'd get the puppy there in time.  She recommended LOP vet, just around the corner from where we live.  

Two hours, a basic exam, blood panel, chem panel, 2 x-rays and a fecal exam later we'd ruled out Parvo, toxins, and blockages to confirm what you already knew, that dogs like to eat other animals' poop!  He has coccidia, a protozoa.  I have the treatment for that because of the goats, so they gave him a subcutaneous injection of electrolytes to combat dehydration, suggested a bland diet, and sent us home with the treatment instructions.  Half an hour later, you certainly wouldn't have thought from watching him play that we'd been concerned for his well-being that same afternoon.

So other than being sleep deprived from getting up a couple of times a night to take out Riley, we're all doing just fine and we love our puppy!

Happy Equinox!

Equal day length.  After today the daylight minutes will outnumber the dark and continue to gain in dominance until the summer solstice.  Spring is officially here.

To celebrate I joined the California Native Plant Society's wildflower walk along the Independence Trail.  The trail exists in the remains of the Excelsior Ditch, which moved water 25 miles from it's source on the South Yuba to the diggins at Smartsville.  Since the ditches were designed with subtle elevation differences, the old canal beds area smooth and easily accessible, and it was a good first "hike"since recovering from pneumonia.

Meandering is a good word to use to describe the speed one walks when looking at wildflowers.  We stop, gather around a wee flower, consult the book and come up with both scientific and common names.  I took pictures.  Turns out my new camera has a voice memo utility, so after I snap a pic I record the name.  No more notebook!  (This is really cool.  I love technology.  No, I'm not making squeeing sounds, really!)

Highlights?

Some shooting stars.  The fertilized flowers flip over and point up, the unfertilized are still pointing down in their come hither pose.

Hounds tongue, in the forget-me-not family.

A view of the South Yuba just downstream of the 49 crossing.

A California newt.  We put him back where we found him under the giant chain ferns.

Daylight Savings Rant

Last fall during the bi-annual time change, a friend of a friend on facebook posted something to the effect that daylight savings time was a relic of farmers and farming practices, and since farmers are a minority of the population, Day Light Savings should be removed.

As a homesteading/farmer type of person, I immediately and vehemently objected to his statement.  After all, he wasn't the one who was now milking goats in the dark because of the sudden time change at, nor any of the other chores that must be done before and after work.  My work hours certainly didn't change just because the time on the clock did, and instead all of our diurnal actions are shifted for this bit of tomfoolery.

So why do we have DST?  DST as a concept was suggested as early as 1794 by Benjamin Franklin, and was adopted in the United States in 1917 by an Act of Congress.  The basis for DST has always been energy savings, the idea being that people will consume less energy if they are maximizing their use of daylight hours. Unfortunately, studies don't bear out this assumption, but countries around the world continue to follow this principle.

Here's an excerpt from Wikipedia:

The practice is controversial. Adding daylight to afternoons benefits retailing, sports, and other activities that exploit sunlight after working hours,but causes problems for farming, evening entertainment and other occupations tied to the sun. Traffic fatalities are reduced when there is extra afternoon daylight; its effect on health and crime is less clear. Although an early goal of DST was to reduce evening usage of incandescent lighting, formerly a primary use of electricity, modern heating and cooling usage patterns differ greatly, and research about how DST currently affects energy use is limited and often contradictory.

Who really benefits from DST?  Well, the pool and BBQ industry fronted the biggest lobbying checks that got the US Government to add an additional 4 weeks per year of DST, with three weeks in the spring and one week in the fall beginning last year.  Those don't sound like farmers to me!!

So tomorrow morning the sun will not rise until 7:15am and I'm back to milking in the dark in order to get to work on time. 

DST or not, spring is just around the corner, and I have the evidence!

Goats in the sunshine

Flowering quince

The rosemary is beginning to bloom

As is the calendula

And the lilacs are preparing to spring forth!

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.