I'm knitting a chain. I'm going to make three lengths of knit chain and make a silly scarf out of them. I may knit an anchor or padlock to go on the end too, haha!!
I decided to take pictures to show step by step what I am doing. Not that i expect anyone else to actually want to do something this silly, but if they do I have shared... lol...
Step 1: Long tail cast on, 32 st, size 9 needles, gauge totally and completely unimportant.
Step 2: put onto double pointed needles (circulars would work just as well, but since next weekend is our annual rendezvous and i will probably be working on this I need to only use tools historically accurate to pre-1840 fur trade era.)
Step 3: Slip previous link on from the end away from the tail of your cast on, and slide up next to your tail.
Step 4: join, being careful not to twist. Knit 4 rows moving the finished link around to keep it out of your way as required.
Step 5: Bind off.
Step 6: cut or break yarn.
Step 7: using some sort of needle finish bind off in whatever way you like.
Step 8: weave end into smooth side of knitting, doesn't need to be neat just needs to not show on rough side of knitting.
Step 9: after weaving in both ends turn inside out with edges facing the center of the link.
Step 10: enjoy your success and prepare for next link.
I tried knitting single rings then knitting connecting rings to hook them all together but on this scale trying to knit a link with two finished on the needles is just too much of a hassle.
and this is what you end up with:
I'll be making a length of chain in a muted green, and one in black, I think, and sort of braiding them together into the scarf. I thought this might be cute for a Halloween costume if you were going to be a ghost or maybe one of the pirates cursed to be on the Flying Dutchman or Black Pearl.
yeah, pretty much everything in the title. Thanks to jen's suggestion of dogbane and a link provided by a facebook friend (and looking through about 300 pictures on that link) I found it was Indian Hemp, depending on the site you read it is either the same thing as dogbane OR is a close relative of dogbane. Anyway, Tsu saw the suggestion that it might be dogbane, looked it up and saw that it is toxic, and is now ready to go directly out there and destroy every sign of it. I did point out that it is a good source of cordage fiber, but i don't think he cares.
So, anyway, runny butt goat.... today Sage got a baking soda/molasses/yogurt mix and some water squirted directly into her mouth. She seems a little down, unlike how she was acting a few days ago. Temp is normal (man was that fun... NOT), colour of the inside of her eyelids is nice and red, she has enough spunk to fight me when I try to dose her with anything. I did a pinch test for hydration and she seems plenty hydrated. Her mouth was full of molasses so I didn't check her gums for capillary refill rates. I'll be picking her up some pepto and making sure she isn't low on fluids and letting her do her thing. All the other goats seem fine.
here is where I am torn... do I pull her out and keep her alone or do i risk the other goats by leaving her with them? The problem is that she FREAKS OUT if she is apart from ANY of the other goats, and I have no place to keep her away from them but close enough for her to not freak out. I fear that the stress of being separated from them would make her worse. I don't want to jump through hoops and breed myself a herd of goats with weak health, but i also don't want to do anything to make it worse for her. For now she is staying with the herd. i will re-evaluate frequently but I kinda feel like if she IS contagious they already have been exposed so I'll just keep a close eye on everyone and go from there.
This whole livestock thing isn't new to me, I raised rabbits many years ago to eat and was pretty brutal in my culling at that point, too. But it feels a little different when the animals are larger. Not sure why. Maybe because I have more money invested so the loss of even one of my foundation stock animals is a huge blow. maybe just because I like goats a lot better than I like rabbits.
Tsu was out dragging the path out back with his quad and the harrow and i went back to see how it was looking. It will make taking the herd of goats out back much nicer, no more being filled with burrs because I can stay on the path while they explore. Anyway, I was on top of one of the hills and to one side I noticed these long skinny seed pods on this plant. I'd never seen anything like it before. The seed pods are very skinny and long and most are attached at the end. They had some kind of bugs on the ends of some branches. I found three of these plants then walked a good portion of the rest of trail and didn't find any more.
So, does anyone know what these are? Or have an idea of who I could ask to find out? I am super curious to find out.
First, this song always brightens my day. This specific version. I loved this guy's voice and the ukulele... makes me want to steal back Tiff's ukulele and get back to learning to play it myself, even though i totally can't tune the thing properly (I never seem to be able to get it tuned right, it is always off, and that is likely because it is a cheap uku).
Now that I am teary eyed and smiling... (and now listening to more Hawaiian music by the late great IZ)
I almost got a cow. Not recently, I mean when I got the goats I had originally considered a small cow instead. Someone had Dexter cows (I.E. "pony" cows... like, little cows) and had a bred female for $600.
Dexter cattle (images shamelessly stolen from the internet):
Now that was only about $100 more than I had planned to spend on my goats (I paid a lot less, but it was what I had planned to spend originally), and if i wanted to start with a female calf instead I could have picked up a slightly over sized one for $200. Still smaller than a full sized cow, and easy to handle and house but just not small enough to be a good quality Dexter.
Cows are... well, for many people a milk cow of any size is a much much MUCH better choice than a goat. For one, I could keep it with my horses and use my existing fence. Cows have their moments but they are not like inviting pure unadulterated chaos into your life the way goats are.
You want to know what the number one reason was I decided against a Dexter cow? I absolutely hate, detest, ABHOR cow feces. I find the sight, smell, texture... everything about them gross. From the sound they make hitting the ground and the sight of slimy crap dribbling over the cows hocks to the way over time they dry into a roughly Frisbee-like brick of partially digested fiber I hate cow pies. It's like they always have the runs. ALWAYS. And the smell makes me gag. Driving by a cattle yard just grosses me out. I have to breath through my mouth and then it's like I can TASTE it, ugh. Don't get me wrong, I adore cows. They are very awesome animals. They are not as dumb as a lot of folks think they are and they have a lot more personality than folks think... but to own one I would have to deal with... cow pies. Given the choice... NO THANK YOU!!!
Cow Pie:
Now, for contrast... THIS is what comes out of a goat:
So, even had all things otherwise been equal (which they weren't, there were other reasons I preferred goats as well) I'd have selected goats on the form of their feces alone.
So imagine my delight when I went out three days ago to give the goats their dinner and was greeted by a reeking cowpie in the goat pen and Sage's butt covered in gross cow-pie-like doodoo. GAG!!! In a cow this would just be consider poop. In a goat... this... this is scours. And a goat dropping cowpies is a goat that is not, at that moment, a healthy goat. In a cow scours is something even more shocking and troubling because their already sloppy doo becomes... well... let's just say scours in a cow is a whole other lower level of animal husbandry hell.
Luckily Sage was acting normal, aside from her butt and tail being coated (and I mean COATED) in liquid feces she seemed normal. Perky, active, noisy, obnoxious, irritable, hungry and prone to climbing on things. I assumed that in the sled full of grass and weeds I had tossed into them that morning there had been something that didn't agree with her, but she had eaten it anyway. Regardless, she needed some TLC, and *gag* some clean up. So I brought her out of the pen, gently rinsed off what I could get off without scrubbing (she objected to the rinse but not nearly as much as she objected when I tried to scrub it off) then she got a dose of baking soda (to settle her tummy), a dose of lamb and kid paste (all full of nutrients and probiotics and blah blah blah), a dose of Goat Nutri-drench (jammed full of nutrients to give a sick or weak goat a boost) and just as a reward for being so compliant (IE fighting me tooth and nail but not actually trying to kill me) I filled her mouth with molasses.
I put her back in with her buddies so she would shut up. Everyone else was fine. And now the fun part started. The watching and waiting.
Sage, being a redneck weedwhacker:
See, I'm going to be a bit brutal with my culling of goats. I need tough, sturdy, healthy, worm resistant goats. A goat who gets sick easily, needs wormed once a month, and is a hard keeper and needs a lot of food to keep weight? Not gonna stay in my program and reproduce. Period. I've already got a watch on Rosemary because she doesn't hold weight like Thyme and Sage (I'll see how many and what quality babies I get out of Rosemary and how she milks before i decide... since I think she is my absolute prettiest goat, and pretty doesn't fill the freezer but it does make me smile) and if Sage is not going to be healthy on good basic care and is going to require a lot of veterinary intervention she has to go. Thing is I think she is going to be my best milk goat. She has nicely formed teats, and doesn't mind being handled (unless you are trying to trim her feet or medicate her) and there is just something about her that looks dairy more than my other does. And I REALLY would like a doe out of her with Parsley to keep back.
Parsley, hopefully ready to share some dairy genetics with Sage, and possibly some funky ear genetics, too:
Rosemary, being lovely with those gorgeous ears:
So, watching and waiting. Dreading cow pies. Every few hours for the last few days I am out there, watching, waiting to see if she will have more cowpies or give me delightful virtually odorless little goat berries. She responded to my meds within two hours by firming up a bit. THANK GOODNESS! Still gross as all heck, like dog crap, but not gag inducing cowpies. And at breakfast this morning she gave me perfectly normal goat berries!
