On Friday, Marc and I went out to do the morning feeding and discovered that a coyote had gotten into the main goat area and killed a silver buck. The coyote could not get it out of the fence, so it ate half of the goat right there among the rest of the goats and left what it did not want. We have had goats and sheep wandering the open area for 7 years and never had a problem. Since the buck, that was killed, is the one I was planning on using as a herd sire next year, I am especially sick.
I am playing around with textures on my loom. I had mentioned finding Jane Patrick's book on ideas for weavers. This
was my first experiment. Very time consuming to actually make a rug that way, but a very cool effect for a small project. This will probably be a small bag.
This is a variation on Brook's bouquet. I am half done weaving a scarf using this pattern. Yarn size makes a huge difference when you are weaving funky patterns.
Friday was spent putting all of
the goats and sheep into pens. I was planning to put a lot of them in pens on Saturday for breeding, but all are now in pens after the coyote incident. The picture of the hole in the top photo is of one of the three holes that a coyote dug during Friday night. We do not think it actually got in, since this hole was the largest and nowhere near as large as the hole from the day before. We have gone around and reinforced all of the fences and the llamas and alpacas are now spending the night inside the area to keep predators out. I am letting the llamas and alpacas out during the day - as long as they come in willing at evening feeding.
The common goat area is very bleak looking with all of the animals penned up. I sheared five sheep this weekend who will be sent to the
UA meat lab on the 12
th of October. If anyone is interested in lamb/sheep, please let me know at
jmarckathy@aol.com, 520-572-3758. There are too many animals in the pens, which I consider unhealthy, so I am scaling back.
I received a special order for spinning and creating something from Eskimo dog hair on Friday. The dog hair is a lot like llama in that it has a short under coat and guard hairs. There was only enough fiber to
knit a scarf. It turned out rather nice and can be worn next to the skin, if the person is not sensitive. If you look closely, you can see that it is going to shed for a while.
On Friday, Marc and I went out to do the morning feeding and discovered that a coyote had gotten into the main goat area and killed a silver buck. The coyote could not get it out of the fence, so it ate half of the goat right there among the rest of the goats and left what it did not want. We have had goats and sheep wandering the open area for 7 years and never had a problem. Since the buck, that was killed, is the one I was planning on using as a herd sire next year, I am especially sick.
I am playing around with textures on my loom. I had mentioned finding Jane Patrick's book on ideas for weavers. This was my first experiment. Very time consuming to actually make a rug that way, but a very cool effect for a small project. This will probably be a small bag.
This is a variation on Brook's bouquet. I am half done weaving a scarf using this pattern. Yarn size makes a huge difference when you are weaving funky patterns.
Friday was spent putting all of the goats and sheep into pens. I was planning to put a lot of them in pens on Saturday for breeding, but all are now in pens after the coyote incident. The picture of the hole in the top photo is of one of the three holes that a coyote dug during Friday night. We do not think it actually got in, since this hole was the largest and nowhere near as large as the hole from the day before. We have gone around and reinforced all of the fences and the llamas and alpacas are now spending the night inside the area to keep predators out. I am letting the llamas and alpacas out during the day - as long as they come in willing at evening feeding.
The common goat area is very bleak looking with all of the animals penned up. I sheared five sheep this weekend who will be sent to the UA meat lab on the 12th of October. If anyone is interested in lamb/sheep, please let me know at jmarckathy@aol.com, 520-572-3758. There are too many animals in the pens, which I consider unhealthy, so I am scaling back.
I received a special order for spinning and creating something from Eskimo dog hair on Friday. The dog hair is a lot like llama in that it has a short under coat and guard hairs. There was only enough fiber to knit a scarf. It turned out rather nice and can be worn next to the skin, if the person is not sensitive. If you look closely, you can see that it is going to shed for a while.
1 comment:
Kathy, so sorry about your goat. Our Anatolian Shepherds have proven to be great livestock guardians and keep the coyotes away from our herd.
Do you have a pattern for the scarf you made from the Eskimo fur? It looks like nice open stitches and not too complicated. I'm still struggling with the knitting. I'd much rather spin!
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