This morning Ken went off to work (Boo Hoo — I liked having him home last week!) Ge’mar and I slept in and didn’t go out to feed until around 8 am.  The animals were standing around waiting for us, wondering what had happened to their usually-much-earlier-breakfast! 

After feeding, we ran over to Eagle Hardware Farm & Ranch in Royce City and picked up some fence supplies and a few other things that I discovered I needed as I strolled around the store eating the Christmas cookies Mary had put out.  Eagle Hardware is owned by Shawn & Mary Risinger, and they are some of the nicest people I’ve ever met.  They carry the Stay-Tuff fencing materials that we use for our goat fences. Shawn is very knowledgeable about the product and eager to help. It’s always a pleasure to shop there even if it is a 50 mile round trip!

Next we went into town to Farmersville Feed & Grain to get sheep & goat feed (160 pounds), dog food (80 pounds), and a little calf manna to mix into the rabbit food to raise the protein level.  That ought to last a couple of weeks! If the weather isn’t too nasty tomorrow afternoon, we’ll stop back by Farmersville Feed to pick up the mineral blocks we ordered.

After getting all the errand running out of the way, it was time to get serious about putting Rock the sock machine back together.  The Welder had kindly brought me some 0000 steel wool (thank you, Little Brother), so I gathered up the rags and sat down to get oily.

The pieces had soaked all night in Marvel Mystery Oil. MMO is actually an oil and gas additive that was originally designed to clean all the gunk out of car engines when the fuel was not as refined as it is today.  Nevertheless, even with our newer “high tech” engines, it remains popular. Every time someone would ask the owner what was in the concoction, he would reply, “It’s a mystery!” and that’s how it got its name.

It is a deep red oil that has a very interesting sickly sweet smell, and it does a great job of cleaning all the gunk off of sock machines!  The first time I had to clean up a machine, Ken said that I was making the house smell like an automotive garage! I thought it actually smelled pretty good. The best way to describe the smell, I guess, is to say it smells like very strong Pepto Bismol.

The sock machine consists of a bunch of pieces, quite a few of which have little groves or channels that get clogged up with oil and lint from the yarn traveling in and around them. In my case, there may also be a little rabbit fur mixed in there! I cleaned each and every groove with steel wool and a toothpick, and sanded (?) every flat surface with the steel wool pads. Fun, huh!?

Then all those little pieces-parts have to be put back together with each screw in its proper place and holding on its proper piece.  The screws really do have to go back into the holes they came out of because very few of them are the same size.

In additin to screws, there are little pointers and adjusters and pins that need to be placed ever so.  When The Welder got finished with the fence (pictures soon!), he came in and helped me out. This was a good thing; he has almost a “sixth sense” about this sort of stuff AND he doesn’t mind the smell!

In the end, it was once more, a sock machine! It was too late to crank some yarn through it and adjust all the dials that make the needles go in and out, and up and down, at precisely the right time to catch the yarn that is being carried around in the yarn carrier at just the right height.  All that will have to wait until tomorrow.

Meanwhile, Molli says, “Thanks, Mom, for putting this dishcloth here so that I can lay on it!

Molli is our oldest cat. She came with Ken when he graduated from law school and moved to Texas full time. She had been given to him by a fellow sailor who had found an abandoned litter, nearly dead and covered in fleas.  Ken took her to the vet, got her cleaned up and moved her into his apartment. It was many days before she ever came out of the bathroom. 

That wasn’t Molli’s only emergency trip to the vet. Some time later, she swallowed a carpet tack which had to be surgically removed.

Since that time, her life has been pretty easy, and she’s gotten older, grumpier, and more insistent about what she wants.  She likes fresh running water, so she caterwauls and rubs the sink faucet until one of us turns it on just to get her to shut up.  We don’t dare leave our laptops open because she walks on them, curls up on them, and sleeps on them. The next morning there are 12 programs open and all you can do is wonder how she did it! She is absolutely rabid about people food. Her favorite is pasta sauce, and she’ll also knock you over for some canned dog food (although she turns her nose up at canned cat food).

In any event, at this point in Molli’s life, there’s nothing to do but let her have her way.
I mean, doesn’t everybody knit with a cat laying on top of them?

I had intended to get a lot more done today than I actually did.  That’s something I say frequently, I’m afraid. My husband likes to tell me that I always plan to do more than is humanly possible or, putting it another way, he’ll remind me that I’m not 22 any more! Thank goodness! In any event, one of the reasons I love the Winter Break from work is because I have a reasonable block of time to at least attempt to catch up. And I did actually make some progress!

First, I made a quiche for breakfast.  For most people, this would be no big deal. For me, it was a bit of a big deal because I had to find the cookware (which had been unpacked and put away but not used since) and figure out how to turn on the oven. I never did find a chopping board although I know we own 4 of them; I guess those are packed away in one of the boxes in storage.

Next I did some knitting.  Can’t say exactly what I’m making because it will be a gift in a week or so except to say that it involves triangles and the Homespun yarn pictured.  I’m almost halfway through with it. At the moment my biggest issue is where to hide it so our old grumpy cat won’t sleep all over it!

Most of my day, however, was spent out in the Bunny Barn where I tried to bring order to the stacks and piles and bags and baskets out there! I put away yarn, swept the floor, unpacked my new coffee pot and coffee supplies (although I never did actually try it out), put a few FO’s (finished objects) out on display, and “retired” the giant fan that keeps the bunnies cool during the summer into itswinter resting storage spot.

I also finished Mercy’s haircut and let her run free down on the floor for a while, finished plucking out both King George and Queen Anne, and gave Cassie a good combing and health “once over”.  Cassie also enjoyed her time roaming free in the building, and when she was tired of roaming, she tore open a plastic bag of Suri alpaca fiber and made herself a little bed. I’m sure she thought that’s why all those big bags of fiber are piled up in the building — for her to play in!

Tomorrow: I’ll run into The Colony to pick up Gemar who will play the role of “farm hand” for a few days, clean rabbit cages, finish unpacking my fiber craft books and putting them up on the bookshelf and, most importantly, disassemble-clean-and-reassemble “Rock,” my main Circular Sock Machine!  I have many pairs of socks still waiting to be knit, and Rock has been giving me fits.  As Stephen Covey says, sometimes you have to stop sawing long enough to sharpen your saw! Or at least clean it and oil it!

Maybe I’ll even try out the new coffee maker!

It’s wet. It’s Wintery. And the work must go on at the Farm!

Tuesday, Cindy T. and I took a road trip to Alvarado to buy chickens.  The six Rhode Island Reds I bought were already pretty big, so they went into the barn with the other chickens.  However, I *love* Ameracaunas, and only had the brown speckled variety, so I was thrilled when I saw that Daniel, the chicken vendor, had solid white and white with black fleck Ameracaunas and had to bring two of each home.  I also feel fondly about Barred Rocks, so I bought 3 of those also, for a total of 13 chickens.

The Barred Rock and Ameracauna chicks were only 7 weeks old, so they were too small to go in with the big chickens where they would have been pecked unmercifully.  Besides that, they need a different food, starter crumbles. Since it was getting late by the time I made it home, and Ken and I were both tired, we opted to put the chicks in a rabbit cage for the night.

By Wednesday, however, Ken and his goat helpers had cleaned out a section of the barn to be the chicks’ new home.  We have to protect them from the weather, so we moved our A-frame chicken coop into the barn, set it on a nice bed of straw and shavings, hooked up a light, and moved in the chicks.  Even in this cold, wet, weather, they are safe and snug.

And the rains came!  Wednesday night about 11:00ish it started raining. And it rained hard. Continuously!  Miniature lakes lakes have sprung up all around us!

In the meantime, my crazy brother, The Welder, has been out here working on my fence. 

Today, in the rain, he hung the gate and twisted wire.  When the rain turned to ice and snow, he (finally) called it quits!  All that’s left to do now is to stretch the wire, and the remedial fence project will be over!  Then it will be time to plan the cross fence that will divide the big pasture into two pieces!

In the meantime, the sheep and goats have the good sense to come in out of the rain. 
Chicken watching:  The latest in goat entertainment.  Who knew???

(With apologies to my Facebook friends who have heard at least part of this story already.)
Monday started around 2:00 a.m. when Ken heard the horn of a car and looked out to see our pretty Rosebud laying dead in the street.  Her collar was 3 feet away.  She must have been hit pretty hard. 2 a.m., cars roaring down our street so fast that even with the moonlight they don’t see a white dog? Too much fun at the VFW maybe. Ken got her out of the street.  No sense her being run over, or carried off by a coyote.  Rosebud has always been our little escapee, but this was the first time she ever dug out at night. Frankly, 2 dogs in one week, we’re just numb.

At 6:30 we were loading Buddha and MudBud into the car to carry them up to Cause for Paws to get their manhood removed. They were a little bit better about getting into the back of the Suburban this time, but not much! We dropped them off and came home. Ken started digging  a grave for Rosebud up on the berm by the pond where she liked to lay and survey her domain.

No sooner had we gotten back from Greenville that we got a return call from Astrid T. telling us that it was okay to take Bear to be neutered also. I left Ken digging, and ran over to Merit to pick up Bear, drop him off at Cause for Paws, then headed home again.  Thankfully, Ken let me take a little nap.

After my nap, it was time to cover the trailer up with tarps to keep the rain off our newly purchased hay! We didn’t have the time (nor the strength) to move it into the barn, and the mud had not dried yet. Rain was forecasted for Tuesday.  The wind was whipping wildly, but we managed to get it covered.  By that time, it was time to get the dogs home.

Bless their hearts.  They were still pretty loop-legged, and not liking their big hard plastic collars at all!  We put them inside the shelters, but they wouldn’t stay! The poor goats and sheep were scared to death of the dogs.  Their collars made them pretty strange looking!

Once the animals were settled, I talked to Astrid T on the phone. Based on our conversation, I decided that, since the dogs would not voluntarily stay in the shelters, I needed to bring them inside.  It seems there is a possibility that the anesthesia will interfere with their ability to regulate their body temperature. I certainly didn’t want them to be cold in this critical time when their 80+ pound bodies were recovering from surgery!

So, I went outside (by now it’s probably 11pm), got the dogs (one by one), put them in the backyard, and tried to get them into the house.  I had moved all the inside dogs into the bedroom with Ken, and asked him to give me my pillow — the guard dogs and I were going to spend the night in the living room.  I have to tell you, I’ve never SEEN dogs so reluctant to come inside!  They did NOT want to come in this house!  From their point of view, this must have been pretty frightening! It took a little cajoling and a little tugging, but I got them all inside and into our postage stamp size living room

Does this mean they actually went to sleep??? Not on your life!  They panted in my face (while I pretended to be asleep). They wandered around the kitchen. At least MudBud ate a little bit of food.  They were up. Then down. Then up. Then down. When Ken had to let the inside dogs out at 2ish, that got everybody stirred up again!  Buddha had managed to get his head, plastic and all, caught underneath our baker’s rack.  It was pure comedy!  About the time I’d fall asleep, Bear would stick his big snout underneath my arm to get me to pet him. 

At 5, Ken got up for the last time. By then, we figured nobody was going to expire from some unexpected side effect of the anesthesia, and I begged him to put the dogs back out in the pasture.  Thankfully, he did, and I staggered into the bedroom and slept for another 3 hours.

Dogs are commonly referred to as “Man’s best friend.” I don’t know about you, gentle reader, and your experience with dogs, but our dogs are valued members of our family, even the dogs that live in the pasture and work to keep our animals safe. If our teeny-tiny house smells doggy when you come to visit, it’s probably because we haven’t noticed.  Point it out if it offends you, and I’ll get out the Febreze. We can’t help it. We love them.

We had a busy weekend here on the farm. Poor Ken has to go to work tomorrow to get some rest!  Here are the hightlights, with pictures!

Took Buddha and MudBud to the vets to get heartworm tested and shots. No picture for this adventure. They had never been off the farm before, and they were scared to death! It worked out okay, though. They got what they needed and we brought them home.  Public Service Announcement:  If you live anywhere near Greenville, please support Cause for Paws, a low cost cat and dog vaccination and spay/neuter clinic.  They are FANTASTIC! Moving on….

Stacked the Sudan hay that had been sitting in the livestock trailer into the barn.

Got the Suburban stuck in the mud.  Both ways.

Drove to Celeste and bought 30 more bales of hay.  Went to the feed store and bought straw (for bedding), sheep & goat feed, puppy food, and pallets to stack the additional hay on. Decided against trying to drive the Suburban/trailer back through the mud to unload the hay. Hope to have some sand delivered on Monday that, when spread, will help with the mud.

Drove to Merit to meet “Bear” at our friend Astrid T’s house.  Astrid operates a rescue home for livestock guard dogs, donkies, and who knows what else.  She also has a nice looking herd of angora goats, some horses, and about a million chickens, roosters, and guineas.  She has 50 acres, a lovely place, so we enjoy going to see her.  Bear is a recent rescue acquisition, and she’s willing to let him come live with us as soon as he has had his shots, is heartworm tested, and is fixed.  He’s so very sweet. He will be Buddha’s new companion in the big pasture.

Okay — I think that was it for Saturday, except I also cleaned some rabbit cages. (Use your imagination. I don’t think you really need a picture.)

Sunday, we started out with more cleaning up. Swept and raked the main barn. Cleaned more rabbit cages. Thought we should tidy up because……….. we were having company! Hank and Ty were coming to visit (sons of DeDe who is a former teaching colleague, and a friend of Stephanie’s who is also a good friend and former colleague of mine and who came with.)

Hank held a bunny, and petted some of the others.

Then Hank gathered eggs.

Then Hank petted the sheep. He petted some goats also, but he liked the sheep best.

The sheep also really liked Hank!

Ty was not in a very good mood except when he was chasing the chickens (we had to spoil his fun with that), so there are no pictures of Ty.

After our visitors left, we drove into McKinney, did a little shopping [not Christmas shopping, I'm afraid - vacumn cleaner and screen door shopping], ate a little supper, went to the grocery store, and got home just in time to feed.

Then it was time to start Mercy’s haircut. Why cut this poor rabbit’s hair in the winter, you ask? Well, rabbits groom themselves by licking their fur (like cats). When their fur is long, and loose, they ingest it. Unfortunately, rabbits can’t hack up a furball like cats can (gross, huh), so fur the the rabbits ingest can actually cause a blockage in their digestive system, and death. Mercy was showing me signs that she was ingesting too much of her fur, so rather than let her keep her winter coat, I took it! No worries, though. Mercy lives inside and will not get cold, and I have very special plans for her fur coat.

Last, but not least, I sat down to spin.  I’m spinning a very special yarn that I will knit into a luscious scarf — something I’ve been commissioned to do by a customer who needs it to give as a Christmas present.  No pictures here! I wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise! On that note, I better get back to it!

Today we had to say goodbye to Belle, sister of Buddha, and faithful guardian to a host of sheep and goats. Today we learned a valuable lesson: Sometimes bad things happen, and there isn’t anything you can do about it.

Belle was an Anatolian/Pyrenees mix, just about 8 months old, still a puppy. When she wasn’t chasing one of the little goats (a playful puppy activity that we were trying really hard to break her of), she guarded the big pasture with Buddha. She kept the 8 sheep and 7 goats that live in that pasture safe from predators. Despite her puppy playfulness, she did her job. The coyotes that surround us on 3 sides — and we know this because we hear them most every night — never came into our pasture, never got near the herd that Buddha and Belle guarded.

When she wasn’t working, she was either sleeping (I swear these dogs sleep all day!) or romping and tumbling with Buddha. They ran the fence line together, gnawed and wrestled and rolled over each other, and jumped all over me anytime I ventured out that way (another bad habit that we’re trying to break — it seems they recognize only Ken as the alpha dog — I’m just one of the pack). They pestered my brother when he was trying to work, and escaped every time they had the opportunity and he had the gate open.

But when Ken came home yesterday, Belle was listless and not moving.  A little investigation led us to the reason.  It seems Belle got hold of some string that was wound on a stick, and ate it. Who knows why. It was there. It was interesting. The stick was tasty. What goes through a dog’s mind when they make these decisions?

Our trash man, whom Belle and Buddha greet every Monday, and who pets them and talks to them with the utmost love and kindness, had noticed that Belle was vomiting and otherwise distressed, and had left us a note. This morning, xrays showed that there was nothing to be done.  Too much damage was spread over too large an area. No easy way to get it all cleaned out. No choice, really. Ken held her, talked to her, petted to her and said goodbye. The vet took care of the rest.

So Buddha watches the herd alone tonight, at least for a while.  I came home a little early, and Ken and I walked the pasture looking for anything else that might present a hazard to the animals. We didn’t find anything, really. Heck, we would not have recognized the string as a hazard had we seen it, particularly since it was tied up to a fencepost!  Who knew.  Who…knew…

Belle, sweet playful working dog with the one black ear, we’ll miss you, girl. We hope you didn’t suffer. We did the best we knew how to, and we loved you.

Rest in peace.

Tonight something positive happened:  I actually cranked out an entire pair of socks without even one curse word!!  Yes, finally, I’m back in the saddle again!  Socks have been made!  Socks will continue to be made!

Why the cursing, you ask?  Well you see <cue violin music> I’ve been traveling quite a bit lately with my main hard-working sock machine, nicknamed Rock.  Rock is the best machine to take anywhere because he’s so dependable.  He doesn’t look like much; he’s not been cosmetically restored and powder coated like so many of the machines nowadays, but he is rock-solid dependable and easy to use.

These last few months have been tough on both Rock and I.  We’ve been busy demonstrating at art festivals and craft fairs, and he’s been dragged all over creation.  Men LOVE to see Rock in action.  They are facinated by the mechanical aspects, and the fact that he’s over 100 years old!

His last trip was to Boerne.  He *really* got a workout there because, not only was he doing sock cranking demos all day, he made an appearance at one of the two classes I taught.  When Kid-n-Ewe was over, and Rock and his companion (who is all looks and no action, I’m afraid) were packed up in their Black & Decker tool box and loaded into the trailer, I’m sure he was happy for the rest.

And rest he did.  There was a little rain on the way home, and since I got home at midnight, he didn’t get unloaded right away. Then I had to go to work the next day, and school the next night, and he didn’t get unloaded that day either.  As I recall it rained again.  See where I’m going with this?  In the next few days his case got rolled out of the livestock trailer and into the Bunny Barn, but still, he sat.  Another crazy week or two of high school and university classes, moving houses, and yet another craft show came and went.

Finally, things slowed down long enough to unpack Rock from his box.  To my dismay, the box wasn’t water tight, and there was standing water inside.  My small tools were rusted beyond use. There was rust on my precious machine.  My heart sank.  I sat him on his stand, oiled him, scrubbed him as best I could, and hoped with all my heart that he would work.  After all, I had orders to fill from all those art festivals!

But he was angry.  (Can’t say I blame him.) He dropped stitches. He snagged other stitches.  His pieces parts didn’t fit quite right. A few screws worked their way out.  The first two days, I *know* I knit the same sock 4 times.  That’s about when the cursing started.  There was nothing to do but tinker, adjust, stomp my feet, drink (coffee), and curse. Eventually I finished the pair.

Tonight, however, Rock and I reached a detante. An uneasy truce of sorts. I bribed him with oil, and I plugged in a heater for him. And tonight, I actually made it through a second pair of socks without cursing.  Hope springs eternal that tomorrow I will be able to repeat this feat.  This is good.

My mother is part of a group at her church who make prayer shawls for people who are going through troubling times.  As I understand it, as you sit and knit or crochet on your shawl, you are supposed to say little prayers, or think healing thoughts, or some other such positive thing so that your hope and love and good vibes will travel into the shawl and on to the beneficiary, and be a blessing to him.  It’s sort of a karma thing, I guess.

If that’s the case, maybe I should burn that first pair of socks!

A few posts back, I ended my story with a tease — a picture of my brother, busy welding something, in the dark, by vapor light.  Since that time I haven’t gotten home before dark the see what all he had gotten done.  But now, he’s finished, and I actually made it home in time to catch enough light for a picture!

TA-DAH!  This is a picture of the south end of a run of fenceline that The Welder has rebuilt for me.  Unfortunately, the goats had damaged the previous fence to the point where it was no longer sturdy enough to separate the two groups.  The Welder, knowledgeable in these things and so much more, identified the problem as two-fold.  First, the posts had not been buried deep enough or with enough concrete around them, and second, the fence wasn’t straight.  Without a nice straight run, it is not possible to get a good tight stretch on the wire.

Well, I am here to tell you, that fence is straight now, and those posts are deeply embedded in nice big blocks of concrete!  He created a new L-shaped corner at the south end where before there had only been a terminating pipe post.  The new L-corner is braced not once, but twice (top and bottom).

The piece on the other side of the gate is also set very sturdily and double braced.   And, in a part that I did not capture in pixels, he has attached the fence to the pole with enough twisted metal rings to make sure it has NO give. I’m thinking this is going to be one fabulously sturdy fence.

Of course, this is the “short” run. Next up is the much longer piece that runs from east to west and includes moving a gate.

If you have any influence over the weather, please send us some sunshine to dry up the mud and standing water. 

In the meantime, I’ll be looking for a good price on sand.  By the truckload. With a quantity discount for multiple truckloads maybe.  Let’s hope it’s not all ice by morning!

As you may recall from Part 1, our Royal Rabbit Family includes 3 bunnies.  Today, I would like to introduce you to Queen Anne.

Wait… turn around!

No, there’s nothing back there but the wall.  Over here!

Okay, there she is!  Thank you for turning around! (Do you know how hard it is to take a picture of a rabbit once you let go of it??? They don’t take direction well!)

As with her brother, Earl Gray, Queen Anne is an English/Giant cross.  And, like her brother, she has very fine, very soft fur that wants to work itself into very nasty matts in the strangest places.  So if you’re wondering why her facial furnishings don’t look very English, it’s because I’ve been hacking on them with my fancy scissors (that are now getting a bit dull).  Bless her heart. She’s a sloppy drinker and gets her face all wet.  Then manages somehow to get dust of some sort in it (maybe from the air, maybe when she eats) and it makes a mighty fine mess.  We had to have a little “session” this evening where I trimmed away at that matt an itsy-bitsy-bit at a time so as to not cut her skin, for at least an hour.  Didn’t get it all, but I’m close!

She is a delightfully cuddly rabbit, and when she got tired of my futzing around with her face, she would crawl up on my chest and sit so I could pet her.  She’s wonderful to snuggle with.  You just can’t help but be calm when you’re holding her.

She has lovely fiber, also, and is in mid-molt, another reason she doesn’t look like the typical puff-ball English rabbit.  The longest part of her puff is in a Ziploc bag on my table!  She sat on my lap, this way and that, right-side up, and upside down, while I combed and teased and straightened her out all nice and pretty.

You’ll just never feel anything softer or hold anything sweeter than my Queen Anne!  And won’t that fur make a lovely soft warm something!