Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Summertime and the Living is Easy ?

Here we are at the, just about, mid-point of summer. The first cut of hay just got stacked in the barn. Now we wait a few weeks and start on the second cutting. The nanny goats have weaned their kids. The lambs are beginning to be weaned. It's sort of like the seventh inning stretch for us and our farm.
In between the exhausting haying work, we've been re-doing many of our fences and catch pen areas so our animal maintenance work will be easier. We still have a few to go, and nows the time to do it.
Our first born group of kid goats is just about 6 months old. It is always amazing how fast they grow and how quickly the year progresses. We'll be shearing some of them for the first time tomorrow, harvesting coveted kid mohair -- the first clip of fiber from the goat. Kid mohair is a special fiber. It is the softest, finest hair the goat will produce in its lifetime. It is also the ONLY
fiber from the animal with one cut end ( cut ends can add to the "itch" factor). Kid mohair describes a "grade" of fiber less than 30 microns and can be obtained from any age angora goat.
First Clip Kid Mohair, is a special fiber only obtained once in the goats life.
This is the fiber we use in our custom line of knitting yarns.
Over the next month or so, we'll shear all the goats and get them ready for breeding season.
We'll then have all that fiber to look forward to processing during the fall and winter !

Summer Sheep