~ Monday hodgepodge...........

Life is fairly quiet here at the moment. That is a good thing. The weather has been pleasant and we have finished several small barn projects. Now we are in a holding pattern until spring arrives other than babies will be here soon. Everything is ready for the mama goats to give birth. I love babies :)

This is Ribbon and Lace. They are Pygora goats ( pygmy x angora) and are both bred to our caramel colored Angora, Amos. This combination gave us chocolate babies with caramel points last year. I'm hoping to get at least one light colored kid this year. I have one other white doe that is due as well. Baby goats are so curious right from the get go - it's one of my favorite times of the year.

I followed the recipe for no-knead artisan bread in the new Mary Janes Farm magazine. The first batch did not come out well. The bread was very heavy and did not rise as it should have. The second time I made sure I measured the flour and water that you add each day exactly for what was called for. The dough was much thinner and stickier. I used two cups of the "mother" on Saturday and added salt, honey and flour. Let it rise in a pan on my warming shelf all day and baked before dinner. It was yummy! It really takes only a minute or so each day to add the flour and water. I'm going to try again this week and add herbs and garlic. I like the fact it does not need yeast in order to rise, the recipe doesn't call for sugar and you do not have to knead the dough. That and I can add anything I like to the dough before I bake it. My family was so anxious to eat it that I couldn't get a photo before they cut it. It looked similar to the photo above. We had warm bread with home made, fresh butter. I can only do this once a week. None of us need any more bread than that!

I've been slowly working on the new shawl. I've decided to over dye some of the gray yarn an elderberry color. I'm going to use the elderberry with the natural gray to weave a shawl using the pattern in the shawl below that I made a couple of years ago. I think the colors will complement each other well. I hope to get the yarn dyed this coming weekend. I'm anxious to get started.

I dusted off my spinning wheel and found time twice this past weekend to do some spinning. I'm spinning up four ounces of Gotland lambswool. Gotland sheep come from the Swedish Island of Gotland. They have long, lustrous curly fiber and its a dream to spin. Gotland fiber only comes in shades of gray from light to dark. Gotland sheep are not imported into this country. The American Gotland Sheep Society was founded in 2008 by a group of people interested in Gotland sheep and they began an artificial insemination program, inseminating specific foundation ewes with Gotland Ram semen. When the association was formed, less than 50 crossbred Gotland sheep existed in this country. If your interested in learning more about these great sheep, go to http://www.americangotlandsheep.com/.

Gotland lambswool

Tyler has a one hour Karate class each week and I try to have a "pocket project" to take with me. This week it's magic stripe socks. I have the hardest time making socks for myself - the patterns are always too big. I have a Tylerfarm Simply sock pattern that a I sell with my finn yarn and I re-worked the number of stitches and started this pair. I was so anxious to get one done and surprisingly - it fits!! The second is about half done. Now I'm anxious to wear them. I don't normally like to knit with this fine sock yarn, I get impatient - but it was a gift and I love the colors. I'm finding as I knit more, I'm getting more proficient and projects aren't taking so long.

~Wishing you all a great week ~