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We’ve all been waiting FOREVER for this up coming weekend to arrive!! Why, you ask??? Because it’s time for the “Wild Goat Women Winter Weekend” at the beach!!! I can’t wait! See the blog entries for last year here (I hope!): http://pygorablog.rainbowyarnsnw.com/?m=200701
There will be great food, plenty of wine and margaritas, walks on the beach, games (Cranium!), spinning wheels and fiber…..Just.Can’t.Wait!!!
See ya next week!!!
I’m sure you all think I’ve dropped off the face of the earth since I haven’t added to this blog for a long time. But the truth is I’ve just been overwhelmed at work and seem to have such limited hours to devote to the other things in my life.
Just wanted to make a quick comment about shearing as I’ve been faced with the same shearing challenges as Terry and Laura Ableman. This winter has been very difficult for fiber goats. They won’t stand out in the rain or snow (which is a good thing!) preferring to hang out in the barn and, although they stay somewhat drier and cleaner, they tend to get a bit cranky and push and shove each other around in an attempt to stave off boredom. This results in a lot of friction between bodies and, as any fiber person knows, friction plus a little bit of moisture equals FELT! Big, huge, hard, dirty balls and clumps of FELT. I have numerous feeding stations set up in an attempt to minimize the friction.
There are years where it is just about impossible to harvest a decent fleece off most of your animals and then there are years when every goats’ fleece looks wonderful. This is NOT one of those years. Every goat I’ve sheared thus far this month is having a really bad hair day. I only took off the good parts, leaving their bellies, legs, rear ends and chest area still covered to keep them a bit warmer. Yesterday, Sunday, one doe did look quite lovely so I removed all of her useable fleece. But wouldn’t you know it, last night it was clear and dang COLD – 26 degrees this morning when I walked down to the barn at 3:30am. Brrr.
Sure enough, Jasmine was laying in the corner shivering a little. I called her name and she came quickly, knowing I felt sorry for her and that she was going to get a bowl full of grain. While she was munching away in the stand, I located by box of goat coats and pulled out one that would fit her perfectly. I purchased my goat coats from Mary Lannen. Mary used to own Pygmy goats but more recently has had dairy breeds. She has a little home based business called “Gotcha Covered” and she makes the best darn goat coats, hay bags, collars and show leads, and she’ll ship them any where. Over the years I’ve ordered all of these products from her. Here’s a link to her business – I highly recommend her:
http://www.gotcha-covered.net/
Jasmine doesn’t mind having the coat on at all. In fact her shivering stopped almost immediately. So today she’s the best dressed goat out in the pasture in her fleece lined purple coat. In a pinch, if a goat get really cold, I put them in a stall thickly bedded with straw and may add a heat lamp. Yes, I know, heat lamps can be very dangerous and I do my best to be careful with how I set it up. Premier 1 Supplies has the best new heat lamp I’ve seen. It’s made in
http://www.premier1supplies.com/detail.php?prod_id=18266&criteria=heat+lamp
Susan
Festival season is rapidly approaching! Yikes! Our first show is March 15 at the Abernethy Grange in Oregon City. Our inventory took a big hit last year (not complaining, but holy cow does that put us behind!!). Need to update the website, too. I built a low-budget light box (nice words for what it really is!) and Hunter just loves it. I let both cats in the studio on the weekend with me - because last weekend they found a mouse! Eeek!! Here is Hunter enjoying my light box
Yuck! What a mess - guess they’ll be more time for cleaning up in a couple of weeks? Uh, the mouse was under the vacuum cleaner…..now you know how behind I truly am! Terry
Our poor blog has been sadly neglected - time for an update!
Chip’s winter 2007 fleece!
This is the first year since we’ve lived up on top of this hill (been here almost 20 yrs) that snow has covered the ground from Christmas until early February (still have tiny patches here and there). I walked outside Saturday morning to sunshine, birds chirping, and I could see my grass again! Gosh, it felt like spring and I surprised myself at how happy that truly made me feel.
Everyone has cabin fever - I opened up the electric pasture and the goats ran, full-on from one pasture to the other. They were quite fun to watch. Poor things had been cooped up in the barn for far too long. Yes, we all felt rather elated to be free of that wicked white snow.
With the weather forcasting 40’s and 50’s I knew it was time - time to shear the boys. I’ve NEVER sheared this late - ever. Many newer Pygora goat owners question the timing of when to shear. It’s difficult to call each year - you want to capture those fleeces before they’re ruined (they will felt right on the goat), but you don’t want the goats to freeze, either. I have some thrift store felted wool sweaters at the ready, should the temps dip too low after shearing.
Buckwheat’s winter 2007 fleece - yum!
This time of year I usually end up doing a two-stage shearing job. I’m not the best shearer and don’t want the animal to be tortured by my lack of skill and grace, so step 1 is a shear job that collects all the useable fleece. Then they get a pedicure (heh) and a nice dusting of lice powder. I leave much of the belly, leg, and hind quarter fleece on them - I will collect the hind quarter fleece if it’s nice, but that part seems to felt up earlier than the rest of the body. The following weekend, off comes the belly and leg fleece. In the summer, I shear all at once - and can sometimes do that in the winter. Not this year - we have a wonderful harvest of Pygora fiber - definately more fleece per goat. - maybe all that cold weather and snow was worth it?
Diamond’s winter 2007 fleece
Whew! What a Monday. I had a morning meeting and some controls vendors show up - our meeting, etc went long and could’ve went clear through lunch. I was hemming and hawing…
Boss: “Can you walk so-and-so around #11 machine”
Me: “uh, well I’d scheduled an appointment uptown today during lunch time”
Boss: “ok, well have Jeff do it”
Me: quickly escapes meeting room and heads back to office. Grabs purse and laughs…silly uncontrollable laughter. Ha! I wonder what they would think if I really shared the reason for my appointment and what was in my purse that I needed for said appointment…..
I looked down into my purse at the zip-lok baggie of goat berries nestled against my mp3 player that I was taking to the vet for a fecal analysis. Nothing like a modern-day goatherd!
The fecal was clear, I was just really worried about how thin a couple of my goats are - I sheared them all on Saturday - more on that in my next post!
Terry