Hello blogland! I am extremely happy to report that our computer is now fixed! The monitor had gone out, and we wrestled with buying a new computer. I have been wanting a laptop. Since a new monitor is over $150, and laptops are only a little more (ok a lot more) we went back and forth on what to do. I scoured craigslist for cheap monitors, but didnt find anything...until last week. I bought a monitor for $25! That sealed the deal and I am glad to say I am back in the blog business!
We have been super busy here this week. If you remember, a while back I was given a huge (and I mean HUGE) alpaca fleece. To you non-fibery people this is the fur of the alpaca after they are shorn. I was happy to correct one of my coworkers, that I am not killing the alpaca for their fiber...they are shorn yearly. Anyways, on friday I picked up part of my order. Oh my goodness! I will be spinning alpaca for-ever....This alpaca fleece will provide me with hours upon hours of spinning and then knitting.
We have also been quite busy in the kitchen. I have recently been in a canning fix. It started with apples-applesauce, apples in water, apple butter... then it switched to tomatoes...then to salsa (to use up the ton of peppers from our garden)...and today its pumpkin. We went to the farm down the street to pick up some pumpkins. I had said we wanted to get 20 pie pumpkins. Since the pumpkins were still in the field, the farmer said to give him a $20 and drive to the field and take what we want. Talk about a nice farmer! Dont worry, we just took our 20, since thats still quite a steal and under $1 per pumpkin. We have been busy cleaning, gutting, baking, puree-ing and cooking the pumpkins.
Not everything has gone smoothly. I attempted to make yogurt with some of the goats milk. epic fail! I am not sure if I did it wrong, but it just stayed milk... I will try again tomorrow after work. Tonight the kitchen is devoted to pumpkins.
The animals are all doing well. The pigs graduated to the official pig pen and are loving it! The two new goats are in a pen that shares a wall with the other herd. They can socialize all day, but the original herd cant hurt the new girls. Normally after a period of introduction, we would merge the two groups. However since both the new girls are (hopefully) pregnant, we dont want them to lose the babies. So until they have their kids sometime in feb, they will be kept seperate. The chicken pen was enlarged today to almost double what it was before. The chickens were very excited about this and displayed their gratitude by immediately rushing the new area and clearing it of bugs. The turkeys are huge, and we are trying to plan how to butcher them. Any ideas? Our issue is finding something large enough to scald them in to loosen the feathers. We might have to use a metal trash can with a fire underneath.
On a very happy note, I am planning on putting in my two weeks notice at work tomorrow. Ill explain in a different post my reasonings, but in a nutshell the commute is just too long for the amount of money I make. We have calculated out that we have the opportunity to save more, and work on our homesteading goals with me staying home. More to come on that.
Well fellow bloglanders, I am signing off for the night. I have my alarm set for 2am so I can turn the crockpot off. My only consolation is that I will be able to go right back to sleep, and wake up to pumpkin-y goodness in the morning. Good night all!
glad to have you back! where did you have your fleece processed?
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