Here Comes The Fall

The leaves are changing, and we've had our first good storm opening the door for all the rest and leaving us with nice wet ground for future burn days. That was the first thing I did after the storm was get rid of the back burn pile. The front one will take a little more effort. It has grown large enough over the summer that I will need to use the skid-loader to pull it apart into smaller bits.

The colder weather has turned everyone's thoughts to keeping warm and the requests for alpaca socks and gloves have started. I must disappoint because I have neither. I have hats, and shawls but no gloves and no socks. I can tell you where to get them!

On the same line with keeping warm is the need for fire wood. The storm spurred everyone into action on the hill and I hear chainsaws around every bend. We are no exception. A good friend loaned us a log splitter and after one intense weekend all the logs that my dad had spent time bucking up were turned into about 6 cords of wood, both oak and pine with extra for next year as well. When they logged, down the hill from us, the logging company brought us all kinds of lovely oak. That was last year and so this year we are truly blessed and it will continue to bless us into next year as well.
Stormy weather? Bring it on!

Last weekend was also the last farmers market in Garden Valley till next year. I will miss all the people that comprise the market and the regular community that congregates there. This last week I brought two alpacas to visit as well. I was surprised at how many of the regular people that I had talked to numerous times seemed to see me in a new light with the critters there. Suddenly my spinning took on whole new meaning. I came away with three new orders. A nice way to end the summer. It is actually what brought me back to the computer to update the blog, my fingers needed to do something different after knitting all day. The boys I brought were very well behaved and both kids and adults were enamored with them.

Some weeks ago a new alpaca came to live with us. "Danarious" or just Danny. He is a young rose gray Suri and I am in love. He is very well handled and easily approachable. His coloring is something special and next springs shearing just cannot come soon enough as far as my spinning wheel is concerned. He fits in nicely with the rest of the herd.

The rest of the goings on here are very standard for this time of year. It's time to wind down the garden, clean up the summer things in preparation for snow, time to think about snow tires and stock up on gas for the generator. This year I'm going to try a cover crop over the garden. I have some winter cereal rye that is supposed to do well in cold climates and help create an insulation layer when it snows to promote good bacteria growth for good soil in the spring. I've never done this before so it will be an interesting experiment. I'm not sure when to start it or if I'm already too late. There are still things to be harvested from the garden and even then I want the chickens to come through and clean up before I put down new seed. For now it has warmed up a bit and I will continue to pull zucchini and tomatoes out until they give up as well. It is probably only a matter of weeks before the first frost. Stay tuned and I'll tell you how it's working. If all goes well, I will have rye for my chickens to snack on. Healthy for them, healthy eggs for me.

Home school that makes sense

Today is our first day of school. That is that our home school teacher from the charter school that we use made us her first stop and we talked about what the kids will be doing this learning period and some where in there we talked about M's missing teeth, riding bikes, how to avoid the bureaucracy of the school system while still satisfying the needs of the monster. Then we talked about gardens and dogs and alpacas followed with ducks and plumbing. Yes. Plumbing. Because she is just all that kinds of cool. She also spins fire and hoops and she's the most wonderful 58 year old any home-schooler could wish for.

While all that was going on C was still in bed, E was out helping Daddy lay rock and pour cement for our soon to be chicken coop while the chickens and ducks looked on with approval. Ms. M rode around on her bike displaying her not so new to her but new to Teacher ability to ride on two wheels. A good first day if I do say so myself. We top the day off with our usual Tuesday ritual of gymnastics and karate.

All three of them will test for their next belts on the 17th.

Before all that I found myself with a chicken in my lap while I doctored it's foot. No I don't know why it has that swollen bump on it's foot. It could be a bug that burrowed from the top, but it could just be bumble foot because our current roosts are square and not round. This will be remedied with the New and Improved Coop

Yes, tomorrow we will dig in and use books and get back to our regularly scheduled program. E will have to get up with his daddy and get his chores done before leaving for a writing class and then the little's and I will get reacquainted with their reading, rit'n and rithmatic. We'll also watch Magic School Bus and pick squash out of the garden.

I don't really want to start school. It's still too warm to think about school.

I have started a new shawl. This one is with the "herd blend" that New Era sent back to me and it's going to be very light weight and open. Me, being me and only able to hold my attention to three things at a time, will probably also start a nice winter hat with some of the black from the mill as well.

Next! I must learn to use a lathe! My shawls need pins and it would be fun if I made those as well. Must dust off lathe.

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.