small goat/sheep farm in Northern Colorado: Cabin fever? Not!.

It was 56 degrees today in Greeley Colorado. The same as at our place, and the sun was shining. We drove near the college in Greeley, on our way to do our shopping and noted that most of the college students were not wearing jackets. We pondered on this for awhile, recalling that when we grew up in Crookston, Mn, we were so happy when it hit 60 degrees outside, for then they would open up the swimming pool for the summer. I sheepishly lowered the zipper on my fleece jacket, and then we continued onward. Dennis had just called his parents this morning, and they said that this has been a very cold and snowy winter for them up in Crookston. They have a 9 foot snowbank in their front yard. Sure glad that we live in a milder climate. I don't think that I will go swimming just yet however.
I decided to take advantage of this beautiful day and skirted the 3 fleeces that I have waiting to be sent to Texas,to be made into rugs. Can't wait to see the finished product. This is a picture of my skirting table, that I made. Skirting is taking out the vegetable matter, and anything else undesirable that you would find in a fleece. There was some hay, but too small to get out.

If you want to see the rug making process from raw alpaca fiber you can google Ingrid's Handwoven Rugs, based in Texas. The color of my rugs will be white, fawn, and reddish brown.

My Koi fish were moving about today, we hope to get our pond set up this spring. Just too much to get done last fall, but they have survived nicely in the garage in a water tank. I use these galvanized troughs for livestock for raising chicks in the spring, and they have proved useful for my fish this winter. Always watching for a good deal on them. Only a few days has there been ice over their tank. You can see the 5 of them.

The turkeys, chickens and guineas are all out and about, strutting their stuff.

Here is little Tudie(short for Atitude, as she has such a good one) the fawn colored alpaca and the white little guy is Gitgo(since he was up and running from the gitgo). There Dennis, now you know the names of the two little alpacas.These are the only two alpaca babies that I had in 2010.

Their head shots as they sniff their daddy. You can also see Emma in the background.

None of my girls are pregnant, due to the economy, folks don't need luxury items like alpacas at this time. So I am focusing on the fleece, as it should be. Here is a braided rug that I have started, and hope to finish soon. I started out with roving seen here, roving is fiber that is in alignment, and then sometimes rolled into balls as seen here.

and braided it.

I need to put it in a pillow case, and then in the washing machine to felt it, then stitch it together. The felting makes it all the stronger. It should look like this when done, if it does not fall apart with the felting process.