Sunday, October 23, 2011

Going Forward Into Fall

If there is anyone out there who is still following this blog - well, thank you for hanging in there. No excuse really, although I like to say that I have been busy.

We have survived the hot summer weather and are now enjoying the cooler, and sometimes rainy, fall days. Today the temperature was fine - almost 60 - but we had some rain. We have three young Nigora goats who sometimes graze our backyard and today, when it rained, they took shelter in the most convenient spot they could find. The picture is a bit blurry, as I have a new camera and forget to adjust the settings, but Billy found shelter in an old rabbit cage that we have under an overhang off the back deck -

I must say, that while I love my sheep, goats certainly are entertaining!


The summer wrapped up for us with a couple of fiber festivals. Yet another picture of one of our booths - this one at Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival in Jefferson, WI - the show was a success and we can't wait until next year!



This is what our barn looked like before the festival began:


And this is what it looked like the rest of the weekend:


My favorite weekend of the year! This was our first year vending - and while it was loads of fun and financially rewarding, I did miss spending the weekend with our sheep in the Hall of Breeds, talking with festival-goers about the pros and cons of the different sheep breeds, seeing old friends and meeting new ones.



And speaking of the sheep, we are downsizing a bit this year, as we switch our focus to the fiber end of the industry. We are already booked into several shows for next year and I am finally getting some work done on getting an Etsy site set up (since I can't seem to master Zen Cart for our web site). Tonight I was finalizing the choreography for getting the sheep/goats all moved around to their respective breeding groups. The plan for this year is three Shetland breeding groups, one non-Shetland group, one goat group, a bachelor boys group and a group of lambs/kids who are not ready yet to be bred. I'm sure the rams are ready - at least it seems that Gallifrey is saying "Let's get this show on the road, already - I could go for a little female companionship!"

3 comments:

Voni said...

Love the pic of the little Nigora. Have you spun up any of their fiber yet. I have 3 nigora does now and just recently got a F2 nigora buck to breed. Glad your festival time went well.

Lael said...

No, I haven't spun up any of the fiber yet. I'm assuming they "shed" in the spring - at least my plan is to brush them at that time and hope to get some fiber off of them!

Christine said...

Glad this show was good for you! The show I just got back from, Arkansas Fiber Extravaganza was not so good for me this year. Last year at a different location I did really well so I was really shocked by this years' result (it wasn't the economy).

It was in Hot Springs this year so at least we got to enjoy the hot water!