The Faces of Friends

Every morning and evening, I'm greeted by the most beautiful and eager of faces. I have to say, I'm the highlight of their day. I bring the treats and provide most of the excitement that they experience in each 24 hour period. Their huge dark eyes fix on me while they wait, just out of reach, for their grain.

Alpacas are so stoic that you can't tell something is wrong until it's nearly too late, but just give them the hope of a treat or the promise of a good spraying down on their legs, and the poker faces disappear. They're all eagerness and self-forgetfulness when the good stuff comes out.

Baby face, you've got the cutest little baby face...






















Look Mommy! The alpaca is smiling!!

Three Babies in One Day!!

Yes, we had three, count 'em, three, babies in one two hour period today. I got home from town, looked out in the pen and yelled, "We have a baby out there! No,....wait, we have two babies!! Oh my gosh!.....we have three babies!!! All of them were still wet, two were up, one couldn't have been more than 15 minutes old and all the after births were accounted for on the ground.

So here they are! The black is a little male out of our Timothy and Zayne. The big brown one is a boy as well out of Zion and our Taliesin. The little rose gray with the white face is a female out of Miss Rose and Black Knight. The first two are out of completely home bred and home grown stock. Miss Rose and Black Knight have produced three gray females in a row now. This little one has an umbilical hernia so she's wearing a belly band.














And then there's our little Rowdy. Sadly, he lost his mama to a perforated bowel last week. She was such a sweet girl and gave us such a sweet little baby. He's our bottle baby now at the tender age of 2 months, and has just gotten over the shock of losing his mama. He's attached himself to a young maiden of ours, Zakaree, and they're quite the pair. He's an awfully good boy, very vocal and a little confused about all these babies. Today, he thinks Miss Rose is his mama, so he's been tossed into a separate pen for now. Rose's baby needs to get all the colostrum she can get and Rowdy will only deplete the supply. Rose would have taken him, too, if we hadn't interfered. She has some mental challenges and would have abandon her baby in favor of Rowdy.

We have one more female to deliver, our silver gray Eliana, and she's due any day now, if our timing is right. Oh, I just love babies!!

More Stuff From a Very Hot Farm

It's 102F today. Whew! We got the chores done early and ran to the house where we've been hunkered down in the air conditioning. The irrigation water will run all on its own until it cools off this evening and the animals all have plenty of shade and water, so we're fiddling with our own little projects.

Yesterday, a nice thunderstorm rolled in around 3:00. We're hoping for the same today.

Did I mention that I'm spinning dog hair for a woman from the Boulder area? She's saved the hair from her four dogs for 13 years. I'm working on just over 8 ounces of Golden Retriever undercoat and will start on a blend of black standard poodle and black alpaca next week. There is also a white poodle and something called a labradoodle (?). Interesting stuff. It's coming along well, but the stink--even after washing--is something else. It all smells like old dog, which will probably be a great comfort to the owner, but is just stinky to me. The black poodle died just after I collected the hair from the owner, so she's looking forward to having something from that animal. I don't blame her. I'm pretty attached to my animals as well.

My Abby is again creating cupcakes and cookies with her decorating skills and once again I'm impressed with this youngster's ability and eye. She worked with a recipe this time instead of just a boxed mix, so they taste good this time.



This is the latest bear in our growing collection. It's turned out to be a girl. Since I haven't gotten around to knitting any clothes for it, we used my daughter's doll clothes to cover the "bearness". No name for it yet, as it's gender could change with a simple change of garb. This one is made of handspun alpaca mohair blend, silver gray alpaca, and some bits of gray angora bunny. The ears and paws should fuzz up significantly with time and handling. However, I think it's time for something a little more traditional in the bear department. Jean Greenhowe has some very nice bear patterns and so does Debbie Bliss. I'll start there.





The summer cold finally caught me. The rest of the family had it last week as I gloated over being more hardy and vigorous than they. I've been fighting with a sore throat for three days, although I wouldn't admit it was actually sore--just a little tight is all--and today I have the running nose, slight fever and puffy eyes. Yuck. I hate that feeling when you're not sleepy, but your eyes and head say to lay down and sleep. As I lay there, my mind says, "The windows need washed. The weeds need sprayed. The website needs updated. The floors need scrubbing. What about the painting project? When are you going to clean the carpets? Weren't you going to sort through the storage shed?" Oh my. Why can't I remember all those things when I'm feeling good?

It's a good thing it's HOT today and I have a good excuse to give myself to neglecting all of those things, eh?

First Baby of the Summer

Our first baby alpaca (cria) of the season was born this week. He's beautiful and oh so energetic. He likes chest butting his mother and jumping on her back when she's laying down. He's quite the trouble maker in the female herd. Without any other babies arriving until fall, I'm afraid he'll find lots of ways to play and amuse himself that won't exactly endear him to the big girls.

He needs a name! His sire's name is Jumpin' Jack Flash and his mother is Odyssey's Morning Star. We've been calling him Cowboy since he sports a nice saddle on his back and we have to call him something, but we need some help! The last time we just called an animal something out of necessity, we ended up calling her Little Sister and it's stuck! Not quite an elegant or memorable name for registered breeding stock.

Suggestions? Should we have a contest?

Circular Shawl Knit Along and News From the Farm

I've been working on a circular shawl this summer. To be honest, I just started last week, but it's coming along nicely and will be done by the end of the summer. I attended a conference for 4 days and had lots and lots of time to work on it during the break out sessions, so it's further along than I anticipated. I did my first one three years ago and it's by far my favorite knitting project. I knit a lot in the car, at swim meets, and such, and a circular shawl is so convenient to take along. You can't lose your a needle because you use a circular needle for most of the work, the knitting forms a nice little sack for the ball of yarn and the project offers a nice balance between mindless knitting and mild challenge. I learned this pattern from Elizabeth Zimmermann's book, A Knitter's Almanac. For anyone who would like to knit along, I'll give some detail of how it progresses.

The pattern is based on the principle that the diameter of a circle doubles as the circumference doubles. If you're not mathematically inclined, don't be intimidated. It's very simple once you've been through the first few increases. In fact, it's so simple that I think it's a much better beginner's project than the scores of cell phone covers and fingerless mitts that are seen in the beginner's pattern books.

You'll need a set of 5 dpn's, although you'll start on 4, increase to 5 dpn's and then transfer to a circular. It sounds complicated, but it's really not at all.

I cast on 9 sts. and joined them on 3 dp needles, 3 sts. on each needle. Be careful not to twist the sts. Knit one round. This first round is frustrating, what with the needles sliding around and only a few stitches. It can be the undoing of a new or easily frustrated knitter, but stick with it and the rewards will be worth it. I had to start over twice myself. Just be sure to rest the needles on your lap while you get through this first round so your needles don't drop to the floor and roll under the table or slide down the couch cushions. (The voice of experience...)

After knitting the first round, the stitches should be firmer on the needles. Double your sts. by (yo, k1) around - 18 sts., 6 on each needle. Don't forget that yo at the beginning of each dpn. It's easy to forget, so keep that in your mind as you increase. That's the first increase round and this is where we begin the geometry of the thing.

Knit 3 rounds straight and then double your sts. again by (yo, k1) around - 36 sts. Arrange the sts. on 4 dpn's so that you have 9 sts. on each needle. Knit 6 rounds straight and double your sts. again to 72 sts. Do you see the increasing pattern? Double your sts. and double the number of knit rounds. You'll go on to double your sts. to 144 and knit 12 rounds, 288 sts. and 24 rounds, and 576 sts. and 48 rounds. You shouldn't need to knit more than these 48 rounds, which would mean increasing to 1152 sts. and 96 rounds, but I suppose it's possible. You're creating a perfect circle and I suppose the size of that circle is only limited by the supply of yarn and patience. When the shawl is the size you want it to be, stop.

Transfer your work to a circular needle whenever it gets big enough. I transferred mine onto a 12 inch circular at 72 sts.

About the time you are knitting the 12 rounds you'll be thinking how plain the knitting looks, unless you've chosen an interesting novelty or painted yarn, of course. This is the time to start a stitch pattern. Any stitch pattern that is divisible by 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 12, 18 or 24 will do. Look in your stitch pattern books or look online at some of the stitch libraries. Most will give directions for flat knitting and will say that a pattern is worked over a certain number of stitches + 1, or +2. When knitting in the round, you can eliminate those extra stitches (+1, +2) and just concentrate on the main pattern. The repeats will follow one another very neatly as you go around. As a challenge, choose more than one pattern and place a different pattern in each space between the increase rows.

You may also choose to play with color during the knitting. Again, look at some resources or come up with your own patterns and choose something that will fit into the stitch count with no stitches left over.

If you like, choose no patterns at all and knit calmly along in stocking st. until the very end. You will have a lovely piece when you finish with concentric circles of yo's that will make it look lacy and beautiful. If you don't like the look of yo's, you can double your stitches by (m1, k1) or by (kfb, k1). However you choose to do it, just remember to double your sts. and then double the rounds beginning on the very next round.

For my piece I chose a raspberry alpaca in sport weight. I tried a lace weight, but it was much too flimsy for me, as I'm a little heavy handed. Best to know your limitations, I think. I'm using size 6 needles and a 12 inch circular. I'll have to move up to a 16 inch circular as the thing grows, but I don't think I'll need more than that. You may want to use a longer circular so you can see your pattern more clearly as it grows. I'm estimating that I'll use between 1000 and 1250 yards of yarn so I have five 250 yd. balls of the same dye lot.

After I had 36 sts., 9 on each dp, I started a variation of a simple razor shell lace pattern. I adjusted the pattern to fit one repeat on each needle. [ k3, yo, slip 1, k2tog, psso, yo, k3] This gives 6 sts. of plain stocking stitch between the yo's, which is not ideal, but it worked for me. It's a 2 round repeat, with the second round being plain knit. I continued the same pattern after the next increase round and the transfer to the circular needle. I adjusted the placement of the pattern to line up with the previous yo's. You don't have to do that. You can just begin knitting the pattern as you did before the increase round, but know that the yo's will be offset, rather than in a neat column.

After the increase to 144 sts., I started the Old Shale pattern. Since it's an 18 st. and 4 round repeat, it fit in perfectly. Keep in mind that if a pattern doesn't fit you can adjust it to fit or increase one or two sts. in each pattern repeat to accommodate it and no one's the wiser. This shawl pattern is very forgiving and blocking works absolute wonders in the end.

So here I am, at the end of my 24 rounds and right at the point of increasing to 288 stitches. And here it is again after the increase to 576 stitches and things are moving along really well.

After the final rounds, we'll be putting on a sideways edge so that we don't have to cast off all of those stitches. I'll wait to post about that as we get to that point. So get busy on that circular shawl and we'll compare notes soon. You have some sticky bits to get through and then the knitting just sails along.

As a side note, Bethy is working on her next doll. She chose Jean Greenhowe's most famous doll, Sam Scarecrow, to go with her baby scarecrow. I'm also working on writing down my pattern for the amigurumi alpaca. There've been lots of requests for that.

I've just acquired a new book featuring toy designer Alan Dart. I stumbled across the one and only copy at the local Borders store by accident. I'd never heard of him before, but his knitted toys are to die for. It's such a great book that I searched the internet for another to give as a gift, and it's quite hard to get a copy of. Hopefully, we'll be turning out some of his designs soon.

Finally, this is my latest teddy bear. He's kind of a "bear in the buff" for now, as I've not gotten around knitting him, or her, some clothes. Good thing it's summer. We've been planning a teddy bear knit along and I think we'll do one of these little guys.


















Finally, more cupcakes are appearing almost daily. Abigail made these little gems in honor of her sister's return from a week at camp. I think she missed her just a little bit...

Sheared, shaved, shorn

Well, we've reached the other side of the shearing mountain. I now have a barn full of alpaca fiber in clear plastic trash bags, forming yet another mountain for me to scale.

We shear our animals using ropes and pulleys that stretch the animal out on the floor.



This is how the shearers from New Zealand do it and they're the absolute best. Because alpacas' instincts tell them that their heads, bellies and legs should never be touched lest they become a quick meal for a predator, this method of shearing incapacitates them so we can get the job done in 20 minutes or less. It's also much safer for the animal. Sheep shears can cut the skin wide open in a split second and a jumpy and nervous animal like an alpaca is especially at risk for this. I've heard of people shearing their animals standing up, but I can't imagine getting a safe, thorough and clean cut with the animal fussing and jumping around. It's also difficult to get all of the fiber off of the animal in the belly area, back end and the arm pits when the animal is standing. Not removing that fiber is an invitation for skin parasites and an opportunity to overlook areas that may harbor infection or wounds from the previous year.

Contrary to the concerns of those who believe that this method of shearing is cruel, I believe it is the most humane, the safest, the most efficient, and best option in terms of the long term health and comfort of the animal. The ropes allow me to put my hands and my eyes on every part of the animal, which gives me a chance to discover any previously unseen injuries or conditions that have developed. I think this is important for the overall health of the animal. 20-30 minutes stretched out on the ropes is much better than living 24/7 with the discomfort and long term effects of a chronic infection or infestation.

OK, enough of the preaching. This is our set up and here is an animal on the floor ready to shear. Most of the animals are not stretched tightly unless they struggle and fight. Pregnant females are not stretched fully and are not put on their bellies for any long than it takes to turn them over.

We take the blanket off first.


If we can get it in one piece, so much the better, but if an animal is having a hard time of it or if the female is within 30 days of delivery, we'll do one side at a time. The blanket is the main section of fleece, from the shoulder to the hip, possible including the neck if the fiber is of high quality. This is the prime fiber and the most valuable.



After the blanket, I shear the belly, the back leg and the neck and head--in that order. The animal is then raised upright and I shear the back end, the tail and the other side of the neck and head.



The animal is turned over to the opposite side and the last of the belly, the back leg, the front leg and the chest area are finished. The animal is completely sheared in an average of 20 minutes. We take the opportunity to trim toe nails, give vaccinations, vitamin injections and wormer paste. At the end of 30 minutes, the animal is back in the pen with the herd wondering what just happened.



I'd love to say I'm as good as the NZ guys, but that will never happen. With a full crew, those guys can shear an alpaca in 10 minutes and they can do 50-60 animals in one day. Sheesh! I'm not that fast, that tough, that young, or that focused. I do 10-12 on a good day, and I never have a full crew--just me and my two girls. I'm always afraid I'll get too tired and cut the animals by accident just because I wasn't on top of my game. Also, my shearing helpers are my two young girls who don't need to be wearing their backs out by trying to be heroic.

So that part of the year is over. We sheared our own animals and sheared for several other farms. I don't know how many we did altogether, but I'm glad it's done. We'll shear goats again in the fall and we'll be sorting, cleaning, and combing fiber for the rest of the summer. After that, the knitting starts again--hurrah!!

Adopt An Alpaca

Attention all would-be farmers, ranchers and shepherds at heart! If you’ve wanted to own fiber producing livestock, but your situation doesn’t allow for them, you can now adopt an alpaca for your very own for a cost of $200 per year. This $200 will be used here on the farm to pay for feed, water, shearing, and vet costs for 12 months.

Alpacas are walking miracles. They are gentle in temperament and highly intelligent, with huge dark eyes and expressive faces that will completely disarm you. They produce a luxury fiber that is prized for it’s warmth, amazing softness and drape in every fiber preparation from knitting to weaving to felt making. Our alpacas are a combination of Chilean and Peruvian bloodlines that produce soft fleeces in dark and rich colors; blacks, medium to dark browns, and grays, with a few whites thrown in for variety. We have male and female breeding stock, non-breeding males, young weanlings, and 10 babies arriving in the fall.

Here’s what you will receive:

1. A framed picture of your alpaca.

2. A copy of the ARI registration certificate for your alpaca, showing the date of birth and genetic history of the animal.

3. Monthly reports concerning activity, breeding, diet, veterinary information and picture updates.

4. After our yearly spring shearing, you will receive the raw fleece, both the prime blanket and the seconds, which will be bagged separately. If the fleece is not acceptable, you will be given a similar fleece as a replacement.

5. Input into naming the offspring produced by your animal and first hand information concerning any breeding decisions made.

6. An open invitation to visit the farm and interact with your alpaca in person, as well as an invitation to shearing days and any shows attended.

7. The ribbons and awards won by your alpaca at any alpaca show or fleece show.

8. Knowledge that you are helping to support the small family farm and provide the board and care for an exquisite animal.

9. If you adopt a bred female, you can add the baby for only $50 for the first year and receive the fleece from it’s first full body shearing. This is the very best of the best in alpaca fleece!

10. If you decide to purchase livestock from us in the future, you will receive a 20% discount on the listed price of any animal on our farm or 25% off the price of your adopted animal.

Support fees are not refundable. This money will be spent for the costs of daily care for your animal. With the price of fuel at an all time high, all farm costs, including feed and water, are also at an all time high, so please take your commitment seriously. Your payment of support does not constitute ownership of the animal but entitles you to regular communications, ownership of the fleece, farm privileges, all awards, and advance information on anything pertaining to your animal.

In the event that your animal is sold or, God forbid, passes into the ether, you will be given another animal to love and care for. You may make that choice yourself or we will choose a similar animal for you. At the end of 12 months you may opt out of the program or choose a different animal.

Thank you for your support. You involvement means so much to us. My family lives on the eastern Colorado farm where I was born and where my parents farmed for 45 years. Traditional farming has become an exercise in futility and we are constantly looking for ways to preserve and pass on our heritage while maintaining our contribution to our community, both locally and nationally. We look forward to partnering with you as you endeavor to do the same.

You can find out more about us and view all of our animals available for adoption at www.alpacanation.com.

For sheep lovers, please go to adoptalambny.blogspot.com to see some gorgeous lambs at Maggie’s Farm.

Contract Knitting and Winter Fun

My daughter and I have been knitting sherpa hats this week for a fellow alpaca breeder. They sent us a box full of yarn with loose directions to knit hats with ear flaps and tassels. This is what we've come up with so far. I'm not sure I would have chosen purple and yellow to go together exclusively, but apparently, those are the school colors where they live. Overall, I think the results are good, and we can proceed with the rest of the lot as soon as they look at the first shipment and give us the go ahead.

I'm so proud of my nearly 14 year old daughter. She can turn out a knitted sherpa in a single evening. She's not always motivated, but this time she's doesn't have to wait for the items to sell to get her money, so she's quite keen to get paid. It's a good lesson for her to learn--time is money--and she does good work in a short amount of time. She's got her procedure mapped out pretty well and I'll post it here for any interested knitters.

Materials: 250 yds. alpaca yarn DK or sport weight.
Size 7 circular needle (12-16 inch)
Size 7 double points
Scissors
Tapestry needle

Holding 2 strands together during all knitting, cast on 98 stitches and join without twisting. Knit in stocking stitch for 35 rounds. Add any color patterns, cables, lace or knit/purl patterns you like. Decrease as follows: K12, K2tog around, knit 1 round plain. K11, K2tog around, knit 1 round plain. K10, K2tog around, knit 1 round plain. Continue in this fashion, changing over to double points when necessary. When you reach K5, K2tog, eliminate the plain round and decrease every round. Fasten off. This type of crown decrease will produce a swirl. If you prefer a straight decrease line, alternate K2tog with SSK every other decrease round.

Still holding two strands together, pick up 24 stitches along the bottom edge of the hat using one double point needle. Purl back. You will be knitting back and forth now. Begin decreasing on the stocking stitch side as follows: K1, K2tog, K to 3 stitches before end of row, K2tog, K1. Purl back. Continue these decreases until you have 12 stitches left on the needle and decrease on both the knit side and the purl side, one stitch in from the edge. When you have 4 stitches left, decrease the center two stitches and bind off all in the same row.

Pick up 24 stitches on the opposite side of the hat. Be sure that you pick up the stitches at least a third of the way back from the front so that the flaps will cover the ears and be far enough back from the eyes. (Flaps should NOT be centered, but towards the back of the hat.) Repeat above for second flap.

Finish the entire edge of the hat with a double or treble crochet edge. Wider is better, since stocking stitch rolls back on itself. Weave in all ends. Make cords and tassels using contrasting scrap yarn or the remaining yarn in the ball for the end of each ear flap and for the top. For the most durable finish, thread the cord through the flaps and the top, rather than sewing them on after the fact. We do knitted cord, twisted cord or braids and then leave a tasseled fringe on the bottom or attach a puff ball or other type of tassel. Traditional Peruvian sherpas have short cords and tassels, but Americans seem to prefer longer cords and heavier tassels. Your choice and your taste.

My youngest daughter and her friend spent nearly an entire weekend dressing up the cats in teddy bear clothes. Just another activity in their very busy winter social schedule. It's a good thing the cats are patient animals and tolerant of being dressed in drag.

A New Recipe with a Dash Update

It's 11 F (-11 C) today and light snow is just starting to fall. Oh look, can you see Dash? He's peeking over the fence to see who's coming out to impose on his day and he's not even wearing his blankie. His mama (the big white girl) is letting him nurse now, after two weeks of spitting him off and generally treating him like an annoying stranger after his illness. I don't know if there's any milk left for him to have, but I don't think it matters. He's done so much better than either the vet or I expected, although he's really small and the weight gain is painfully slow. The gray baby is a full two months younger than he is and has had a growth spurt over Christmas. She makes him look like a squirt.

I just have to post a new recipe that I tried out. I found it in a book called "Soup and Bread", by Crescent Dragonwagon. I thought the author's name was a little strange, but the book is marvelous. With it being the frozen days of winter here, I was glad to find a book dedicated to two of my favorite types of winter foods and without a lot of the odd ingredients that are so fashionable, expensive and hard to find like kombu, daikon, kuzu, mahimahi, seitan, among many others--I don't even know what most of these are and doubt that my family would eat them even if I did. This book offers pure home cooking with some healthy and flavorful twists and I just love it.

My current favorite is called Supreme of Chicken and Olive Soup. I had never heard of putting olives in soup before and it sounded intriguing so I took the chance of my family refusing to eat a bite of it and wasting all the good ingredients. Results? Everyone loved it and it's now on our favorite list. I served it with hot baking powder biscuits and cold green salad.

So here is it is for your consideration and use. Enjoy!

Supreme of Chicken and Olive Soup Eureka

4 c. chicken or vegetable stock
1 c. dry white wine
4 tbsp butter
1 medium onion, diced
1 medium carrot, peeled and diced
1 rib celery diced
5 tbsp flour
1/2 c. peas
1 1/2 c. milk or half and half
1/2 c. cooked rice
1/4 c. pitted olives cut into fat rounds
1/4 c. pimento stuffed green olives, sliced into fat rounds
3 c. chunked cooked chicken
Salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

1. In a soup pot, combine the chicken stock and wine and boil. Turn down heat and simmer.
2. In a skillet, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the onion and saute until slightly softened. Add the carrot and and celery and saute, stirring, another 5 or 6 minutes.
3. Sprinkle the veg with flour and lower heat. Cook 2 minutes while stirring in the flour. Gradually stir in some of the stock mixture and then whisk in the thickened pan contents to the remainder of the stock. Simmer over very low heat for 20 minutes.
4. Add milk to soup. Add the peas along with the olives, rice, and chicken. Heat through and season to taste.

Pretty simple and basic--mostly just a home made cream of chicken soup. I used 2% milk and left out the peas (because my oldest son won't touch them) and added nearly three times the amount of olives. I also boiled the chicken and used the stock from that rather than purchasing actual chicken stock. Good luck and I hope you like this as much as we did.

Dash

This is Dash. He's seven months old, just weaning age, and he went into kidney failure last week. We rushed him to the vet when we noticed him laying down, listless and acting too friendly for an alpaca. Blood tests showed that he had a pretty severe infection--what and where we don't really know--and that his kidneys were shutting down. How can this happen so fast? The day before, Dash was running around the pen with the rest of the herd and eating and drinking.

Happily, Dash is recovering nicely and his body seems to have healed from the infection, thanks to a brilliant vet, some stout antibiotics, 500 units of I.V. fluids a day, and very dedicated intensive care nurse--me.

He's got some ground to make up with putting some weight back on, but he's been out of his warm little sick room and out with the herd in the barn. It's pounding snow outside, so the barn doors will be closed to keep him inside. It's amazing to me how quickly an animal will perk up when he sees his herd. Dash was barely moving around, scooting from place to place because he was too weak to get up on his own, wetting himself for the same reason, and when I took him outside with me while I fed the animals in the barn, he saw his mama and started wobbling around on his feet. Now, three days later, he's getting around so well that I can't catch him, he's eating everything he can get to, and pushing to get to the water. He's not 100% yet, but very nearly. The turning point was getting him back out with his herd mates.

So, 10 days after the initial crisis, Dash is up and seems to be healthy, albeit more than a bit thin for the experience. He hates me now. I think he keeps waiting for me to grab him and poke him with needle or force something down his throat, just like I have for the last 10 days. I'm sure he thinks I caused it all, and who's to say I didn't? I'm responsible for the well being of my herd and if I dropped the ball, I guess he has every right to hate me. He'll be my reminder to remain vigilant and on guard for parasites, infections, and disease. It's my job after all and I'm so thankful that Dash has come through it alive and well. Tragedy averted.

Blue skies and old barns

What a glorious day it is today! We had our first hard freeze over the weekend and our first snow on Sunday, thankfully doing away with nearly all of the flies. Today, the sun is back in it's full glory and it will soon be 70 degrees F. Tonight it will be down to 25 degrees or less. Indian summer we call this and it's my favorite time of year.

The third cutting of hay is in windrows, ready to bale. There's not much of it this year. We tried to put in grass alongside the alfalfa and we're not sure how successful we really were. It's always been alfalfa for us so we don't really know what a successful crop of grass hay looks like. We've actually had a pretty good year for rainfall. The last few years were drought years, with less than 8 inches of rain in a year, but this year we had intermittent, but heavy rain and at opportune times.

The old barn still looks somewhat picturesque surrounded by the aging trees and the fading fences. One day it really will blow over and I'll be sad. Until then, I can complain about how shabby it looks and how ugly it is, compared to the barns others in our area have. It sits not 30 steps from my back door and perhaps that's the real problem. Rustic, encroaching on an attempt at civilized living, makes the whole works look messy and old. Ah well, it does it's job and does it well. And the price was right, since it didn't cost us a penny to build and put to work.

I was struck by how utterly clear and blue the sky is this morning. That's not unusual for us, but somehow this morning, it just bowled me over. Have I said before how much I love the life I lead?