First, can y'all read this ok? Sometimes I go to blogs and when there's a background like this, I can't see the words. I can here, but wondered what y'all see. Let me know please and if you can't see it, I'll change it.
Wow. Alpaca wool is amazing! I just now, after more than 2 months, got to actually PET this red Alpaca.
Seems like I am always in a hurry when I am feeding all the animals in the morning. I feed these 2 about half a big coffee can of sweet feed and minerals in the morning, plus hay. Misha, the red one, will eat out of my hand or the feed can. But that's as far as it's gotten. Until now.
So this morning, I put their feed in their bowls and just stood there. Misha was beside me and Sugar on the other side of him. I reached over, while they both had their heads down, and pet Sugar. Of course he moved over. But then did let me pet him for a few seconds.
But Misha, the red one, let me pet him all over his back and neck!! I just stood there, since he never even moved, and pet him all I could. It was amazing! He is SO soft. I am so happy that I have finally got to touch them! I'll do this every morning now and maybe one day I will be able to pet them any time I want to.
They are really sweet boys and I do love them. My husband says they are just stuck up. He'll say something to them and they just turn their heads away. Not the most social of animals on this farm.
We had to start up the wood stove again this morning. After being SO hot and humid here the past week, it's cold again. I mean, we had windows open and I was wearing shorts. But not today. Or the rest of this week. At least we don't have ice and snow like everywhere else. But I think frozen mud would be nice right now. It has rained a bit too much for me. Not liking all this mess.
This was from a few weeks ago. But we'll have more soon.
And yesterday morning, right at feeding time, it's just pouring rain. So I go out in it to haul hay and bread and stuff to the masses. As soon as I am done, it stops raining. Seriously. So I didn't milk Penelope. I had to be gone all day and had to leave. So I was thinking I'd go ahead and dry her up, since the day before, I only got a pint of milk.
But I don't want to dry her up. I want to keep milking her. Even a pint of milk a day is better than nothing. Or store bought. or even raw Jersey cow milk. It's good and I like it, but I really love my goat milk. A lot. I know I'll eventually have to dry her up, and will. But just not right now.
I have still not done a thing about Christmas around here. I used to decorate my whole house years ago. I just can't make myself do that here for some reason. We do put up a tree, but I have to make myself do that anymore. And I'll get the grand kids to decorate it when they're here. I might go get some greenery and red berries from Mrs. T's yard later and do the mantle and buffet and windows outside. But I really don't care. I just don't like winter anymore. And IT'S NOT EVER WINTER YET!
I think I have finally figured this carder out. Last night I watched a video of the people that made one of the carding machines, the Straouches. I know that's not how their name is spelled, but y'all have heard of them. Anyway, the guy was just pulling the wool apart real thin and putting it on the platform and letting it go into the wheels by just turning the handle slowly. So I did it. And it works! Before, I was pulling the wool back as it was going through and it was all going onto the smaller wheel and making me mad. So I have already done it this was 4 times and every time I have no wool on the smaller wheel. Now to figure out the tension on the spinning wheel. I am anxious to spin all this that I've been carding.
