The Bones of a New Animal Shelter Appear on the Horizon!

I FINALLY made it home before dark tonight, which is no small feat considering that I don’t get off work until 4:00, have between 45 minutes and an hour to drive home, and often (as in today) have meetings after school that keep me in the building until 4:45!  I was so anxious to leave that I forgot where I had parked and had to walk all around the building to the back parking lot.  That’s what I get for varying from my routine!

Anyway, I did, just barely, make it home before it was completely dark, and snapped a few shots of the new shelter my brother is building for me, with the assistance of his friend John.  It will be 12×15 (he came up with that size as an amalgam of my request and the standard size that metal siding comes in), be set on skids so we can hook the tractor up to it and move it all about, face it different directions as the seasons change, etc. and will be wonderfully practical and sturdy.

To help hold up the heavy metal frame, they had pressed our tractor with its front-end loader bucket thingy into service, which I thought was pretty darn clever! My brother has used that bucket for more things that I would ever have imagined and for nothing for which it was intended!

It’s really quite handy to have a welder in the family.  He brings his own welder and associated gadgetry with him, which means that he can go just about anywhere and weld just about anything, even if it’s sitting in the middle of your pasture.

For this evolution, we were also fortunate to have a good neighbor who was nice enough to lend us his flat bed trailer (since we don’t own one…. yet…) so that my brother could go pick up the metal from his favorite metal supplier.

Another great thing about having a very detailed oriented welder brother is that he can take the most abstract description of a project and turn it into a well-thought out plan.  This is a good thing, for I am the Queen of half-baked ideas who needs someone with building talents to flesh them out, put a pencil to it, draw up the materials list, shove a detailed drawing in front of me, and make it all happen.  Fiber I can handle; building plans I cannot. I tell him what I want; he figures to my specifications and comes up with a plan; I write a check, and go back to knitting!

Bottom line is this: I’m going to have a great building, and if I can manage to get home before dark again in the next few days, you’ll get to watch it go up with me! 

If you need something built, or welded, or fixed, or fenced, I can point you to a great guy to do it, and he’d love to have the work, if only to be able to quit building things for me!

In the meantime, there’s that fence that needs a little work, that fiber tumbler that I’m still itching to have, and …..

And the shearing continues (on a smaller scale)

Shearing seemed to be my theme for the weekend!  Today I spent some quality time with my long-neglected rabbits.  Poor little darlings!  With work and university studies, this past week kept me so busy that I had no block of time to spend with them.  I admit it – I’m stretched too thin.  Although spring registration is underway at the university, I am purposely *not* looking at the schedule.  It’s going to be a busy spring around here, and that’s enough!

Today it was Caramel’s and Coffee’s turn once again.  It was time for the rest of their fur to come off.  I had resisted shearing them in favor of plucking them, but after much consideration, I decided to shear what was left.  Both the boys enjoyed a nice long romp around the Bunny Barn.  While Caramel was up on the table being sheared, Coffee ran free, and vice versa.

Of course, you can’t do this kind of thing all in one fail swoop.  The rabbit gets tired of sitting still and gets squirmy, much like a small child.  When you have him in your lap and he starts digging at your legs, that’s a sign he needs to make a “nature call” and you had best put him down. Quick. So I went back and forth between the boys, 20 minutes with one, then 20 minutes with the other, with lots of free roaming and exploring time in between.

Ken took advantage of my having both rabbits out of their cage duo and manhandled it outside for me to give it a good cleaning.  Despite my best efforts to the contrary, these rabbits managed to get pieces of hay stuck here and there, and fur clinging to the sides when they are starting to molt.  So it’s a good idea to take the cage set out and give it a good wash whenever they aren’t in it and the sun is shining outside.

Eventually, they were relieved of what fur they had left, and they are ready to start over.  In approximately 3 months time, we’ll be doing this again.  In the meantime, they are inside a climate-controlled space, so they will never know the chill of winter.  If the pretty weather holds out, I may try to build them an enclosed run outside.  If not this fall, then certainly in the spring.  In the meantime, they’ll have to be happy running around in the Bunny Barn.

When I had finished with Coffee and Caramel, I took Lady Charlotte out, gave her a good brushing, and cut out some mats behind her ears.  Now that I think about it, I haven’t introduced our English royalty yet, have I?

That sounds like a good subject for my next update!  In other news, little brother and his honey brought his welding trailer and tools up here tonight.  If all goes well, we’ll watch a new animal shelter come together here this week!  How very exciting for us and the animals!

Double your pleasure, Double your fun!

SATURDAY.  I’ve always heard that two heads are better than one.  It just stands to reason that two shearers are better than one also, and today my good friend and goatherd buddy Terri came out to Fancy Fibers Farm and proved the point.

Terri has cashgora goats, somewhat different from my angoras, but not really all that much.  She’s a pro at shearing with scissors and with trimming hooves, my definite weak spot.  This morning she drove her family’s monster crew-cab duely truck from Blue Ridge to Farmersville to help a friend in need:  Me!  As previously reported, I have too many animals – those I recently acquired – that need shearing, hoof trimming, or both. 

In the back of Terri’s monstrous truck was her shearing stand which was a double bonus!  This meant we could work on two animals at one time, which is exactly what we did.  Ken toted her stand into the center aisle of the main barn, and then he and I set out to corner the goat that was at the top of the shearing list.

Catching these animals is always something of a battle. They are definitely not used to us and, since their pen has turned into a mud pit with all this rain, we aren’t the most nimble creatures outselves.  Terri manned the gate, and helped coerce this first animal onto the shearing stand.  If they could only understand English!  The goat was going to feel so much better after all this matted fleece came off!

Terri started in on her with a practiced hand.  Her hooves were a mess.  I watched while she patiently carved, explained, clipped, and shaped them back into some semblance of normalcy.  One of the hooves had pretty much completely curved sideways; that one will take more trimming at regular intervals to get it back into its desired shape.

Then she started in on the fiber. Three hours later, we had a goat that was much happier with her lot in life. I used the electric shears to take off some belly mats that were close to the skin, and Terri did some finishing with her hand shears.  I had occasion to grab her shears a time or two also.  Boy are they sharp!  They put mine to shame, and mine are new! She told me that her husband, Neil, sharpens her shears after every time she uses them, and you could really tell it! Clearly I need to take a rasp to mine!

While Terri was working on my Angora doe, I worked on the Shetland sheep that we’ve taken to calling “Cousin It” after the Addams Family character.  This poor sheep had fleece dragging the ground that had matted into one continuous block.  Imagine your entire body covered in a gigantic web of dreadlocks, and you’ll sort of get the picture. Fortunately the mats did not go all the way to the skin, so once I found a place to start cutting, I could cut the matted fleece off and still leave some fiber on the sheep. It’s really too late to be shearing, so I was glad that the little guy could retain some of his own fleece.  I had visions of trying to get him into a sweatshirt….

This picture is the back of the sheep.  I started on the left side, then works around his hindquarters. The fleece came off in one great connected mat which is what you see trailing behind him. As soon as I cut the other side off, the dogs ran off with it for their tug-o-war game.  Terri helped me with the hooves on the sheep also, and then back into the big pasture he went!

While all this was going on, the Nygoras that live in this pasture were hanging around making a general nuisance of themselves.  Little did they know that they were next.  With Ken’s help (he just picks the smaller ones up and sets them down on the stand, we did four more sets of hooves before we called it quits.

Next weekend will be our last opportunity to shear those who still need it, and/or decide who is okay to leave as is for the winter.  While Cindy and Laurie mind the store at the Snowflake Bazaar, Terri will join me for one more round. As I’ve said many times, thank goodness for friends, especially those with shearing stands and super-sharp shears!

Fall is coming I suppose

As I was walking out to the car in the cool morning gale force wind, it occurred to me for the first time that fall is coming. Actually, maybe it’s already here; in Texas it’s kind of hard to tell unless you are a calendar watcher and happen to see the obligatory “First day of fall [autumn]” note printed on your calendar.

I’m not a calendar watcher. Instead, this morning I noticed, for the first time, the leaves changing colors on the oak (?) tree in our front yard.  The tree looks a little schizophrenic, as if it can’t decide whether fall is here either. Or maybe it’s just hedging its bet in case summer isn’t really over.  The leaves on the east side (house side) of the tree are a lovely shade of red that reminds me of some hand-dyed yarn sitting in my workshop waiting for me to do something with it.  The leaves on the west side (road side) are still green.  Maybe they are holding out, soaking up the warmth and light of the hot setting sun, not yet ready to change and fall.  They are in cahoots with the grass (weeds), I suppose, as it is as green as ever, each encouraging the other with silent cries of, “No! No! Not yet!”  It all just leaves me confused. What are we all supposed to think when it’s in the 50’s when you leave for work in the morning and in the 70’s when you come in at bedtime.?!

Still, thinking of fall, and then inevitably winter (even if doesn’t really ever get here until January) makes me wonder what sort of surprises we will encounter as the months roll along.  This is our first winter here. We both need warmer clothing, Ken especially, since he shoulders the burden of the early morning feeding and has, ahem, outgrown the one piece padded jumpsuit thingy I bought him for his birthday last year from Tractor Supply. [Note to those of you who think it's unfair for Ken to feed all by himself in the morning:  I've told him several times that I will help him, but only if he lets me sleep until at least 5:00 a.m.  As of yet, he has persisted in going out to feed at 4:30 a.m., so I just let him!  Maybe when it gets cold, he'll change his mind.]  We both need sturdy leather boots.  So far, we’ve been getting by with only rubber boots.  Actually, with the amount of rain we’ve had and will have again tonight, rubber boots have been appropriate!  I need a new pair of gloves, and if Ken keeps leaving his where the LGD’s can get them, he’ll need some, too. The next concerns will be the integrity of the animal shelters, the pipes, and heat for the workroom where the bunnies share my space.  Even Angora rabbits don’t like to be colder than about 40 degrees!

But how can we even think of those things when it’s 70 degrees outside!  The animals were grazing today, and I was glad to see it.  Tonight or tomorrow morning early when the gully-washer hits, they’ll be stuck in their shelters. I’m sure they will be wishing at least as hard as I will be that the rain would move on out.  Eventually, brother dearest will be out here building a new animal shelter on higher ground.  I know the bigger herd of sheep and goats will be pleased to make use of it.

Even the housecats are enjoying the warmth of the sun.  We don’t get much company out here (which is just as well because if we did, I would have to clean), so the housecats have taken over the guest room.  As long as I remember to wash the cat fur off the linens before my mom or Ge’mar or the grandgirls come, I can leave them alone.  Better they stay in the house instead of running around outside where some varmit unknown to the common city cat could get them. Permanently.

Still, all things considered, I still love it here. I wish a lot of things were different; someday they will be. I wish we could build a little house that is not shaped as a long rectangle; someday we will. Do I miss my house in the suburbs? Not on even the worst day. I do miss my friends from my old school. If I could fold time (a la Dune) I’d still be teaching in C-FB.  But I can’t, so oh well. 

Fall is coming, or maybe it’s already here. Frankly I don’t have a clue.  Doesn’t really matter much, I suppose.  We’ll take it as it comes, with the support-advice-help of dear friends and family, and marvel at it all!

Nighttime with the animals!

If you were to skulk around unnoticed behind our house (like such a thing is even possible!) around 11:00 at night on a pretty (definition: not raining) night, this is what you would see:

Our goats and sheep like to be outside at night, in the light, and primarily lying around on the concrete slab that serves very little purpose other than to give them a place to lay.  They spread out a bit, but the ones who really have the coveted spot are on the slab.  In the light.

The dogs are right there amongst them, of course.  Don’t animals like to sleep in the dark?  Apparently ours don’t!!  This is the view from my bedroom window or, more accurately, from when I remove the screen and stick my head out the bedroom window to take a picture.  Strange animals are we all.

I don’t mind the light all that much when I sleep. In fact I like to have some sort of light so I don’t trip on things (such as house dogs that are, for all practical purposes, dead to the world when they sleep).  Not Ken! He likes to sleep in the pitch dark can’t-see-your-hand-in-front-of-your-face night.  We’ve had many a discussion about it.  I saw a pattern for a knitted eye cover thing on some website I was visiting a while back.  When I have time (yeah, right), I’m going to knit him one.  That way I can sleep with all the lights that I please on burning brightly and he’ll never know the difference.

Failing the success of that plan, my next plan is to buy a cot and a sleeping bag and go sleep outside on the concrete pad with the sheep and the goats, at least when it’s not raining.  I always did like tent camping.  [Note to Mandy & Jamie: You do NOT have to tell everyone that I usually took an electric blanket and a coffee pot with me on our Girl Scout campouts. I won't have to do that here on the concrete pad behind the house. I'll just cuddle up to the goat that will no doubt jump up on the cot with me, and wait for Ken to bring me a cup of coffee in the morning.]

One more animal sheared…

Yes, I went to Huffhines today. Yes, it was a lovely day (until this afternoon when it hit about 80 degrees — hard for customers to think about wool when it’s 80 degrees). Laurie and Cindy had done has fabulous job setting up the booth. My contribution was to stay out of the way!  I’ll be willing to bet you can read all about the craft fair on Cindy’s blog, with pictures, later this evening.

I, however, had a few other things on my mind and — to everyone’s great surprise — left early and headed home.  I’ve been dreadfully worried about some of our new animals who had missed the shearer at least once, and most probably twice.  I’ve made several phone calls this week trying to find a professional shearer who could come out and shear the whole lot of them, with no luck. [Note to self: consider becoming a professional sheep shearer; they are in short supply!]

With this weighing on my mind, and with an 80 degree afternoon, I left the booth in most capable hands, called Ken to warn him I was headed his way, and trucked on home.  Using food as a lure (always works on goats!) we managed to get the one in the worst shape away from the herd and up on the shearing stand.

The first thing I noticed were his hooves.  Goat hooves are not supposed to be growing out and curling up. No wonder he had been limping!  I cut them back, but to tell you the truth, hooves are not my strong suit.  Now I’m doubly sure that I need a professional shearer!  I feel relatively sure that another inch could come off the bottom of those hooves before I ever got down to the pink part, but I’m wary of making such drastic cuts without professional supervision!

There was a mountain of matted fiber that had to come off also, and the poor goat was none too happy about it.  The worse part was down on his legs which resembled elephant legs more than goat legs!  With Ken wrangling (the goat wanted to lie down) and me shearing as fast as I could, we finally got his fiber off.  Not the best shearing job I’ve ever done, but the goat is a lot happier I’m sure!

If you know a sheep/goat shearer who might be willing to come to Farmersville, please send his/her name and number my way.  Until then, I’ll keep working on them one at a time!

Huffhines Art Trails, here we come!

Tomorrow is “set up” day at Huffhines Park in Richardson where the city will once again put on its annual Art Trails event.  Fancy Fibers is once again excited to have a booth, and even more excited that there has been some crisp cool weather lately!  Maybe everyone will be thinking about nice warm socks!

As with years past, I am pleased to share the booth with Cindy (Jacob’s Reward) and Laurie (Laurie’s Handz) and their beautiful hand knit, hand spun, and hand felted hats, scarves, purses, shawls, and other luscious items.  Between the three of us, we aim to cover all the bases for your cold weather comfort!

Can I get down yet?

Tonight, though, was all about getting ready, after I went down a few rabbit trails.  Unlike most people, however, my rabbit trails involve real rabbits.  Caramel and Coffee are beginning to blow their coats, so it was time for their second round of plucking.  After they spend 20 minutes or so on the grooming table, they get to run around loose in my workshop, at least until they start trying to dominate one another.  At that point, it’s time to scoop them up and put them back in their cages.

While they were running around, I was packing up my sock machine.  Ken had most everything else already in the back of the Suburban. I’ll head to Richardson right after high school lets out tomorrow, and Cindy, Laurie, and I will get the booth set up, hopefully before dark!  Then we’ll be back Saturday morning for the fun!  Hope you will join us!

Epiphany!

Sometimes it takes me a while to come to a conclusion that was probably blatantly obvious to everyone else.  Today I had such a forehead-slapping moment, an epiphany, a why-didn’t-I-think-of-that-earlier idea about the animals and the pastures.

Originally, the plan was to create three pastures. The alpacas could be alone on one, and the goats could be separated into the other two.  Because some of the male goats are still “intact,” [the commonly accepted parlance for still able to be dangerous around does, as in 1+1=3], they, at least, had to be in a separate pasture from the numerous does.  Add that to the nobody-likes-to-be-alone nature of goats, and the some-are-smaller-than-others reality check, and you have our original idea to split the goatsand sheep more or less evenly between two pastures.

Driving home this afternoon, however, I decided we were doing things the hard way.  [Note: I have plenty of time to think when I'm driving home because I never drive straight home. There's always somewhere to stop "on the way." "On the way" at our house means "not totally in the opposite direction."  So today, "on the way" meant driving from Allen to Poole Feed in Wylie, then up Hwy 78 to WW Feed, then over by Lake Lavon to pick up a Craigslist score - an 8 foot hay feeder made especially for goats -- then on into Farmersville. It's amazing what you can get in the back of a Suburban!]

As I as saying, driving home I had this epiphany.  There were only 2 little goats that we had to keepreally had to be kept away from the others. So why not put those two little goats, plus a couple of playmates and the alpacas over on the small pasture, and move all of the rest of the goats over to the big pasture?  Ken concurred, so that’s what we did after I made it home.  Because there is a pen between the pastures with a gate on both sides, it was pretty easy to trap the selected goats and the alpacas in that pen while we opened another gate and drove the herd from the small pasture to the large pasture.  Once the small to large move was done, we opened the pen gate to make the large to small move.

This arrangement gives the large goat herd lots and lots of grass and lots of places to wander while still keeping the bucklings away from the does.  It also puts a more reasonable number of animals on the small pasture and, best of all, it saves me having to put up a 330 foot electric fence!

Tomorrow, we solve the problem of the 5 new-to-us chickens roosting on the rafters above the main corridor in the barn.  I’ve already used up my epiphany alottment for today!

Feeding the Super-Sized Herd

Our second day (first full day) with our new Super-Sized Herd has gone remarkably well.  I think it’s due to working through the hassles yesterday, thoughtful reflection and conversation (some of which, unfortunately, the neighbors heard an acre or two away as things got, um, tense), and planning.  Ken thinks it was a fluke.  I guess time will tell!

At least part of the successful feeding routine can be credited to the three long goat trough feeders we bought.  To tell the truth, I think we’re going to get WW Feed to get us a 4th one!  These things are great!  Just pour the food in from one end to the other and get outta the way! 

Another component of the successful feeding arrangement is habit.  Goats are easily trainable in some respects.  They form habits fairly quickly.  Wherever they were fed last, that’s where they are going to show up and wait to be fed again. It’s kind of like going to a fancy dinner party where they have those cute little name cards at each place showing you where to go (except without the table).

Over in the small pasture, the little sheep and goats eat separately with the small animals gathering in the small pen, and the bigger animals jostling for space in the big pen. Incredibly, they trot right through the open pen gates into their designated areas and eat.  Of course, there’s a reason the big guys are separated from the small guys which become abundantly clear as soon as the food is gone over in the big pen!

Over in the big pasture, things are somewhat more tentative.  The alpacas and the baby goat are temporarily sequestered in a pen so the goats don’t eat all the alpacas’ food.  The alpacas have their own smaller trough hanging on the wall, but there just isn’t a way to get it high enough that the goats can’t eat out of it!  The goats in the big pasture have two troughs, so that makes things go really quickly.

Next are the chickens who spend the night roosting in the barn.  A little food, scratch, and fresh water, and they’re ready to go.  Ken opens the door that lets them out into their outdoor enclosure, and they enjoy the fresh grass.  The chickens are his thing; I don’t fool with them at all.

Finally, it’s time for the rabbits.  Hay, feed, and water and a bunch of petting and they’re done.  Whew! Everybody outside is finished. 

Now it’s time for the inside animals: dogs, cats, and us!  By the time it’s all said and done, that’s 53 mouths fed twice a day.  It will definitely keep you busy!

A Wrinkle, er, Rift in Time

Okay, so it’s been a day or two, or 90ish since I’ve blogged.  Give me a break! I’ve been busy!  If you receive my newsletter, you already know all the details that are fit to print.  If you don’t receive my newsletter, sign up for it and you’ll get the last issue and all caught up!

Are we there yet?

Today we effectively doubled our pasture herd.  Yesterday we had 3 Shetland sheep,2 Suri alpacas, 1 Nigerian Dwarf goat, and 7 Angora goats.  Today we added 3 Shetland sheep, 2 Border Leceister sheep, 5 Angora goats, and 3 Nygora goats.  We do not do anything halfway here at the Fancy Fibers Farm!

We’ve made a few adjustments in the Bunny Barn as well!  Going to a new home tomorrow will be our two Satin angoras.  Recent arrivals include 3 English/Giant angoras, and Mercy, an angora mix who will likely be a pet.

Our new Angora goats and Shetland sheep need shearing.  I had the idea that I would use my last 4 remaining blades and combs and get that done this week.  I even had the idea that I would start today with the Shetlands!  We wrangled one of them up on

Taking it all off

the shearing stand and I started in on him.  Things were going great guns until I had to take the chain off his head to get his neck.  At that point, he decided he had had enough and took a flying leap off the shearing stand.  There was no catching him. 

Almost

At least he feels better than he did!  I got both sides done and almost all of his neck and chest.  His underside is a mess.  By that time I was exhausted anyway.  I’ll get a professional shearer in here this week to do the rest!

Once we got everyone separated out into the appropriate pastures, we came in to get a little rest.  I can see the does, ewes, and Shetland wethers as I’m typing this.  They’re munching away on the green grass.  The chickens are pecking away at the grass and bugs in their area. Ken’s first garden bed is prepped to winter over and be super rich in the spring. He’ll start layering the second bed soon. 

The grass is high on the other side of the fence where the rest of our property is not yet fenced.  Although it holds a lot of promise for the future, at the moment it is affording too much hiding space for the coyotes we hear at night.  Must get that mowed before long!  Crossing our fingers for a little more dry weather.

In the meantime, there is fiber to be processed and knitting to be done.  On a beautiful day like today, it just doesn’t get any better than this!