Hello hello family, friends, et al.
The last week at Mountain Hollow Farm has been pretty quiet, but eventful in a way.
Two days ago I accidentally ran over one of the goats! Oh no! I know what you’re thinking…”Kelly, you’re horrible.” I know. It was horrible, but he’s ok! Miracle. Limping a bit, but surprisingly I don’t think anything was broken. Must have just been his hoof.
How it went down: I had left some feed in the back of the truck (meant for the goats in the lower pastures) and walked away. First mistake. When I returned, the goats (from the upper pasture) had knocked it over and were frantically eating it. Eleos was slow to move out of the way as I backed up the truck and…”G’dunk.” Shit. Sheisse. I see him slinking away, leg straight and dragging. That’s how it happened. We quickly gave him a shot of Banamine, a pain killer, checked him for breaks, and let him rest for the day in the pasture with Fiona, the orphaned baby cashmere goat, his friend. Anyway, a little about that poor goat…
Of course it had to be Eleos, the Angora goat. He’s a special one. See what I mean?
Castrated, scraggly, docile, and sweet–that’s Eleos, named after the Greek Goddess of Mercy and Compassion, which is fitting (if he forgives me). The fiber that comes from Angora goats is called Mohair. Here is a photo of some yarn made with mohair…real soft and fuzzy…
Alright, moving on…
The week started with a real “Hay Day,” where we went with some local boys to pick up freshly baled hay from a nearby farmer.
The farmer, an 80 something year old man, is retired and has a pretty interesting gig buying cows in the spring when they’re babies, letting them graze on his large fields of grass, mates them, and sells them before winter so he doesn’t have to buy feed. A pretty clever gig and use of resources if you ask me.
Here’s a photo of his pretty cows.
The final adventure of the week involved Poke Berries.
I attempted to dye a shirt of mine that had some stains that I wanted to cover up. So I picked a bunch of ripe poke berries…
…mashed them up, heated them in a pot NOT used for food (because poke berries are poisonous), and soaked my shirt (which had been pre-soaked in a mordant bath of vinegar).
See…
But, it turns out my shirt wasn’t 100% cotton like I had thought…because as soon as I rinsed it, all the color went out…blast…all that work for nothing.
Did have success with dying yarn though. It was 100% wool and turned out like this:
That’s all for now.
Hope everyone is having a good week and enjoying the shift from Summer to Autumn.
All the best,
Kelly
Junebugbayer 