band your head...

for sale! headbands adorned with crocheted flowers made from hand-carded hand-spun yarn. all fiber compliments of the lovely animals at provenance farm. $15/each

right now i've got them in red/orange, blueberry, espresso, and teal/pink. will take custom orders if you want a different color.

blueberry

espresso

teal/pink

what do billy goats love?

cars

chairs

& trees

the fence, the fence!

never thought i'd see the day. but it came. and there is peace in the belgrade valley. goat, pig, black mouth cur, all getting along and enjoying the fine front field (aka our former front yard). yes, we are officially hillbillies.

the hog & the hogdog

who needs a tractor when you got samson?

842 approval

the ringer.

patrik

patrik is almost a year old (his birthday is the same day as mine, st patty's day). we were hoping he would be breeding our females by now but angora goats mature slowly. and with his previous illness, he just isn't up to speed. since we are really counting on some baby goats this year, we decided to bring in a ringer. we needed a tried and true buck. someone with experience...

meet herschel

herschel came from herbal maid fiber farm in rosebud, missouri. we picked him up saturday evening. what a handsome buck he is! he's only been here for two days and he's already made a lady friend, marla. of course, we were hoping he would fancy one of our angora does, bernadett or bianka. but instead, he took a liking to our big mean ol' boer goat. oh well, who can explain true love. i'm sure they will produce some lovely bogora kids.

herschel & marla

deficient dogs, braying burros, and one cured chicken.

our GLOPs have been bad. well, actually only one GLOP, lil'ann. she's going through a very destructive adolescent phase. you know the dogs that pull all the stuffing out of toys and scatter it across the lawn... well, imagine if they had a furry goat to play with instead. i believe she learned this horrible habit when patrik was sick and his hair was falling out. just recently, she started doing it with our healthy goats. regular scolding has not helped. neither has a tea tree no-bite bitter spray. it is very stressful on the goats, obviously. and very stressful on jeliza-rose (her sister) who finds this behaviour very upsetting. i have been able to salvage most of the hair but we are afraid one of the goats will get seriously hurt. so drastic times, seek drastic measures. a shock collar and a video camera have been obtained. i've been spying on her for the past few days from the comfort of my living room. so far, she has been absolutely perfect. maybe she figured it out. maybe her phase ended. maybe it was the full moon. regardless, i'm waiting here inside with my remote control just in case.

meanwhile, cripple creek needs a new name. she is doing brilliantly. and has grown most of the feathers back on her head. the weather has been exceptionally warm so she has been enjoying being out and about.

and stella loves to holler. especially when there is the possibility of food involved. today's surprise afternoon carrot snack was loudly received.

out for a stroll with cripple creek

oh my god! carrots!

bernadett hat for sale!

i have my first hand spun and crocheted creation available for sale! check out my new etsy store for more items coming soon.

yes, there is a billy goat living in my basement cellar.

our herd sire, our king, our stud, has been sick. well, he was sick. as a result from the stress of illness, his beautiful long red locks are falling out. in clumps. all over. everywhere. and if that weren't bad enough, the temperature dropped. he wouldn't leave the barn to eat even after porkchop donated his blue argyle sweater. last weekend we were faced with a decision. a very difficult decision... to move patrik, a very cute and lovable yet stinky billy goat into our home for the duration of the winter. luckily our home is equipped with an underground concrete well-insulated basement cellar which is accessible through a trap-door in our bed-room. i know, sounds spooky scary! but you get used to it. i had dreamed of making this room into a wine cellar or a cheese-aging room. and perhaps it will be someday. but for the next 4 or 5 months, it will be home to our beloved patrik.

we were afraid he would get lonely. so, we tried moving gretta the milk goat down there for a day. but it didn't go well. he wouldn't let her eat. he butted and pushed and acted like a true billy goat. gretta spent the day standing in the corner, blair witch style. so patrik will be by himself. but he really doesn't seem to mind. he gets all the food he wants. he doesn't have to brave the cold. he has his own apartment which he likes to decorate with straw and corn. and he's been talking about putting up his own christmas tree. meanwhile, i'm going to need a lot of incense and scented candles!

moving day

patrik's visits happy joe's

from goat to yarn.

i'm still in the learning stages of transforming lovely locks into mohair wool. it's awkward and foreign and tedious. but it's a tediousness that is strangely appealing to me. i'm not exactly sure how or why it all works, but i will and it does. here's a short sweet synopsis of the process:

first, you must obtain an angora goat....

bianka says, "pick me!"

bianka is a kid (baby goat). she had her first shear or "first clilp" back in may. first clips are more valuable because kid fleece is super fine. after we sheared her, i placed the fleece in a paper bag and stored it in the closet awaiting the next step... washing.

washing can ruin a fleece. if it is done wrong, it will turn to felt. you can't spin felt. you can maybe make christmas ornaments. being my paranoid self, i kept the bag in the closet for months. came up with all sorts of excuses why it wasn't a good time to wash. pregnant donkey. del ray training. hornworms. all were valid distractions but the truth was simple... i didn't trust me. finally got up the nerve with a little help from jason and i washed and dried fleece with success! sorry folks, no felt christmas ornaments this year.

i then proceeded to the next step.... carding. this stage is perhaps the most unatural to me. i bought books, studied articles, watched online videos. just didn't make sense. you take these cute little curly shiny locks and rake them through two metal brushes attached to big heavy wooden paddles. seems like a horrible idea. first time i tried, it looked like crap. but i practiced and got better. and formed a loose section of wool called a rolag.

final step.... spinning. i'm not going to spell it all out. cause i'm an amateur. but somehow you magically attach the rolag to the drop spindle, you hook, and twist and spin and pinch and pray that it all turns out ok. and eventually the spindle gets full and you can either make a skein (those cute little figure-eight-type packages storebought yarn comes in which seems way too complicated for me and is usally made with an instrument called a "niddy noddy" which i can barely type no less say without laughing) or you can roll it into a ball. i chose the ball.

cards, rolags, washed locks, and spindle

ball o'yarn

meet bernadett & bianka.

yesterday was a busy day on the farm. it marked the arrival of our two female angora goats, bernadett & bianka (mother & daughter). it also marked the opening of our newly built barnyard. if only the rain would stop. still raining today.

comments from the peanut gallery