Here’s what is going on this week on the Farm. Feel free to come on out if you’d like to participate in the goings-on out here!

Monday November 1st

• Farm store OPEN.
• Set up breeding groups for another week of “see what happens.”
• Shear the remaining bunnies.
• Crock pot dyeing for batts.
• Heart worm medicine for the LGDs.
• Set up the tent over the rabbits in anticipation of Tuesday’s rain.

Tuesday November 2nd

• Farm store CLOSED.
• Road trip to Cleveland, Texas, to visit the Bluebonnet Spinning Wheel production facilities! Look for details on the blog when I return.

Wednesday November 3rd

• Farm store CLOSED.
• Mary’s day off (after feeding, of course) to spin with her friends

Thursday November 4th

• Farm store CLOSED.
• Running errands in Dallas.
• Then over to spinning friend Liz’s house for private knitting lessons – learning something new!

Friday November 5th

• Farm Store OPEN.
• Focus on fiber! Lots of batt making. Working the carder like crazy!

Saturday November 6th

• Last DYE DAY of the year! Come on out and join in the fun!
• Ken will be working on creating new garden beds.

I just love it when neat stuff shows up in the mail! This morning I picked up the mail from the last couple of days and found I had two packages. Yippee!

First was a group of stamps that I had custom carved by Heather, owner of the winemakerssister shop on Etsy.com. Not only were the stamps exactly what I had asked for, it was fun just to open the little packages! Some people have such flair!  And who doesn’t like to open a box that has candies in it!

The second package was a book that friend Linda had purchased for me when she ran across it at a book store. We’ve both been so busy that I guess she finally gave up on us ever seeing each other face-to-face, and she was thoughtful enough to mail it!  I’m always looking for something other than clothes to give friends who have babies because clothes are so quickly grown out of. The book is full of wonderful patterns for toys that can be precious room decorations until the baby grows up enough to play with them! Thanks, Linda.

In other news, this is the current status of our poor sick tractor.  Yes, it is completely taken apart down the middle while the bell housing is being slowly and meticulously welded back together.  Sad, huh.

Finally, a P.S. to my post from yesterday about our 3 month old bunny Hercules. A few of our newer blog readers were asking about how we selected this name. Herc was the sole surviving baby of a litter of 9, so we knew he had to be a super strong bunny! It’s a bonus that he’s also gorgeous!

My first thought this morning was, “C’mon! Really?” It’s March. In Texas. And Everything is covered in SNOW.  What is this all about?

Not only had it snowed overnight, but it was our own special type of snow: Horizontal snow. The kind you get when the wind is blowing. This was bad news for the animals because it meant that snow had blown into their usually dry shelters. This is also bad news for us because it means we’re going to have a wet mucky mess INSIDE the buildings as well as outside.  Ugh! Wish I had gotten those doors built for the barns!! Oh, well.

Of course the Big White Dogs didn’t mind the snow, nor did the alpacas (who still have their coats). We were more worried about the sheep and goats who had given up their fiber coats about a week ago.  They seemed nonplussed, however.  One of our little doelings insisted upon jogging out to the far loafing shed. I trudged out after her, picked her up, and carried her back to the near loafing shed where all her goat and sheep brethren were trying to stay dry.  Not five minutes later, she and her sister doeling were skipping back across the snow!  Whatever.

Of course the bunnies were nice and dry, but we were surprised to find the front door of the Bunny Barn blown wide open!  We had a devil of a time getting it closed, and ended up setting something heavy against it to keep it from blowing open again.  What’s up with that?  Don’t know, and it’s too cold to fiddle with it now!  Most all the bunnies are fur-less now, too, so we cranked up the heat for them.

The baby bunnies continue to grow and flourish, including our one hearty survivor from the January litter, Hercules. The little guys are almost a month old now. They are eating hay, and stealing food out of Mama Bunny’s feeder!  They are too cute for words as they dogpile and climb on one another, or stretch-stretch-stretch on their hind legs to get up to the feeder.  I think Mama would just as soon they went somewhere else!

Today will be another luscious fibery day as I put Big Tom (the electric carder) into action, and/or start knitting on a mohair wool scarf, and/or start spinning from a mohair cloud, and/or knit those cute little toys I bought patterns for. It may be cold and snowy outside, but in here its wooly warm!

Crazy knitters, spinners, and crocheters are sitting in their houses making beautiful things in whichever fiber craft catches their fancy while watching the Vancouver Olympics (or not). Those who are hooked in to the Ravelry social network are entering their finished goods in the Ravelympics and receiving virtual medals for their efforts.

This is my entry in the Hat Halfpipe competition. It is called “Aaron’s Hat” not because I made it for some guy named Aaron, but because that’s the pattern name! It’s actually going into inventory as I prepare for next fall’s round of craft fairs and art shows.

What’s next? The matching cowl neckscarf, of course!

A good many of the people reading this note (including DD#2) will disagree with the title. For those people, knitting gives them a headache. 

But not for me. For me, it’s the perfect headache remedy, one that I took full advantage of this evening. 

I came home from work with a monstrous headache, that all-over-but-particularly-in-the-back-of-my-neck throb that I clearly recognized stems from tension.  One too many days of The Odyssey. One too many days of trying to get high school freshman to learn a style of formulaic writing that will serve no purpose in their lives other than to help them pass the state assessment in one month’s time. One too many parent emails telling me all the special things that I need to be doing for their little darling to help him pass 9th grade, yet completely failing to mention that their child has any role or responsibility in the matter whatsoever.  (My girls graduated from high school, thank you very much, and it wasn’t because I asked their teachers to raise them for me.) 

In any event, there is only one treatment for headaches like this: Dr. Pepper, an undisclosed amount of ibuprofen, and knitting.  

For a person who has knit as long as I have, the motions are second nature. The repetition quiets the noise in my brain. My fingers move in and around, backwards and forwards, unbidden by conscious thought. The process is slow, deliberate, rhythmic, yet still fulfills my somewhat compulsive desire to accomplish something with every moment of my day. 

My super-bulky oatmeal colored yarn was as soft on the eyes as it was easy to use. Large needles let me relax my fingers and slow down the pace. An easy pattern shown in the semi-darkness off my computer screen. The pattern was something I was already familiar with; I knit guided more by intuition than by instruction. 

A broken needle and a slipped cable required that I find the super glue, but by then I felt better, so it didn’t bother me much. 

The room was quiet — no television allowed. The only noise was the sound of Bear’s deep barking from the far edge of the pasture fence and the hum of the refrigerator. 

In a few hours I finished my piece.  A cabled cowl. It matches the hat I made last night.  

My headache gone, and the tension mostly worked out of my neck and shoulders, it’s time to call it a night. 

But not without a couple of totally gratuitous baby bunny pictures! 

Breakfast time!

Hercules discovers hay