The Time Has Come

For Cabbages and Kings. And it's time to start blogging about all the little things that happen here at Haven Ridge.

It's the end of summer and it still feels like we are just beginning. With the late winter weather occurring in June we are just starting to see our tomato's ripen, and our squash come in. As we follow the on going domestic terror of the FDA and the USDA raiding small farms I grow prouder and more clingy to our own front yard veggies and I'm starting to look around to see what else we are capable, both physically and finacially, of doing to secure our food source. It's an on going internal and external conversation I have with myself and those around me. Some of my surrounding loved ones are wondering if I will ever change the subject but it's not likely. It's a wonder that while our founding fathers were doing things like securing our freedoms of religion that they didn't see food as something to protect as well. But then, they didn't have Monsanto.

Today, Labor day, I did my favorite kind of labor--I knit. I pulled out a chair with the alpacas and giggled when they came up to sniff my shawl in progress. I could just see them wondering to themselves, "do I know this fiber?" Well, yes, they do. The black part at least. This yarn was some that I created with Reignee's fluff and plied with a multi jewel tone silk. Pretty to look at. I finished the shawl today but I'm not sure it will be the favorite thing I planned for it. I spun the black loosely and the silk is a thin strand wanting the effect of the black being soft and dominant but the silk to peak out in bits of color. The problem with this is that it means the black is shedding. Not spun tight enough to hold it all together. I also wish I had used larger needles. It's still pretty. Just not what I saw in my head. It's o.k. Relatively speaking I'm still very new to this business and I do see every attempt not a failure but the time where I learn to do it better next time.

Elsewhere on the ranch my DH and Fabulous Father (hence forth FF) were making great preparations for pouring the foundation of what will be our new and improved, bear proof, chicken and duck house. this will be our first attempt at a straw bale building. Still a stick frame but insulated with straw bale. This will be interesting eh? Well, we cannot afford the time or materials it takes every time a passing bear decides it's chicken for dinner. Or duck as the case may be.

So this is the beginnings of my new blog and the end of this post. For my next trick I will try to make a more explanatory front page of what and who we are. More importantly who the alpacas are and how they run my life.