Felting alpaca fleece, organic eggs and a name to call home

Felted Alpaca slippers

So much going on in the past few days!


 

Tuesday I went to my felting class at the Aardwolf Alpacas http://www.aardwolfalpacas.com/index.html ranch and made some adorable slippers out of felted alpaca fleece. Warm and cute. A few months back we traded several gallons of goats milk for the class. Phyllis and Mike were feeding two crias (baby alpacas) due to the death of one mom and another disowning her baby. They needed organic, raw milk and we had so much goats milk in our freezer, and bags of llama fleece in the closet, that it was the perfect trade. I needed to learn how to felt and process my llama wool and they needed milk. I have big plans for felting and the wonderful things I can make.

Aardwolf Alpacas...some of the girls

It is absolutely astonishing to me to watch this whispy fuzz of fluff turn into a pretty hearty material that can be made into slippers, hats, vests and more. I love it. My day was long, somewhat tedious and definitely labor intensive, but well worth the knowledge and the finished warm slippers that will keep my normally cold feet warm all winter long. I had a great time at the ranch and enjoyed a complimentary lunch of ham and cheese and apple cinnamon crepes, not to mention plenty of conversation about camelids and living more sustainably. I would recommend the class to anyone interested in learning to felt, which is invaluable to llama and alpaca owners. Thank you Phyllis and Mike. (They raise and sell alpacas, teach felting and have a B&B at their ranch near the Royal Gorge in Canon City.)

Wouldn't it be a wonderful thing if more people got involved in a bartering economy. Think of how much information and local goods could change hands. I really believe that systems of reciprocity that involve direct exchange of goods, including knowledge and labor, will be a big part of our future economy here in the good old USA. Bartering builds community and allows us to invent our own system of "money" while the US dollar continues to lose value. Besides, for those of us who have limited funds, and that is quite a few of us these days, trading gives us the opportunities that might otherwise be lost to us. I could never justify the expense, right now, of taking a felting class, but I can justify a good trade, and all parties involved ended up happy with the arrangement.

We have to raise the price of our eggs. We started buying organic chicken layer food, which is expensive, and the only way I can see how to make it work is to charge more for the eggs. But now, the eggs truly are organic, although the feed we bought before was supposed to be "natural." Until recently organic chicken food was very difficult to find, and it is still expensive, but I'm happy we can now find it locally. The eggs will be even better, and if getting an organic, cage free, hormone free egg is worth it to people they will pay the price. There is no profit here. A bag of feed is about $20. That lasts about one week for my twenty chickens. That's $80 per month to feed my hens, which means I have to sell 16 dozen eggs at $5 per dozen to break even. I hate that it becomes so costly. The alternative is to grow our own grains, but then with all of the old, little, local mills gone, where would we get our grains processed? The alternative for the consumer is to raise their own chickens (in Colorado Springs you can have ten hens) or buy the questionable eggs for cheap at the grocery store, which we have to stop doing if we want our food to change and become healthy. If we stop participating in agribusiness, they have to change their unhealthy practices to get consumers to come back, right? Take back our food!!!

I hope our customers will continue to support us and continue to buy our farm fresh eggs. I'm raising my price to $4 per dozen for a while to lesson the shock. Any donations above and beyond are welcome, since we are buffering the loss out of our own pocket, which is not doable for long. I don't want to go back to the Genetically Modified corn that is most likely a part of the feed, natural or not. Big farms can only grow GM corn, bullied into no choices by big companies like Monsanto, and perhaps the other grains are tainted as well. No, organic is the way to go, and if someone wants to open a local mill, I'd grow the grains, including my own flour grains and bring it to someone local to get processed. You bet I would. Local all the way.

And on a side note, I'm looking for local Bio diesel fuel if anyone is producing or knows someone who is. We bought our diesel farm truck in the hopes of converting it to bio, but all of the bio fuel stations have gone out of business. Let's try again people! There is a need and interest in Bio diesel fuel.

We finally landed on a name for our little farm here in the Southwest that Richard and I can both agree on and be happy with. It is what we hope to achieve--a green oasis in this high desert arid land, and a message about what we are trying to do--farm in ecologically responsible ways that will provide for us and heal the Earth. The new name of the farm is Green Desert Eco-Farm and a web site will be coming soon. I will continue to blog here and detail my story of trying to be sustainable and change the world, and Richard may start his own farm blog, which I'm sure will be interesting in its own right.

I'm also selling marigold seeds at $2 for 1/2 ounce. These are the seeds from the plants I have grown from seeds collected every year for oh, about twenty years now, I guess. I've been carrying my marigolds around with me from place to place, state to state, leaving a little bit behind, that will hopefully reseed. Every year I go out and collect the dried flower heads because that is where the seeds live, then I lay them out to make sure they are good and dry before I store them in Mason jars for next years garden.  I'd like to try this with more flowers. This year I've also collected Bachelor's Buttons and yucca seeds.

Besides being nice to look at, marigolds help deter insects, and the flowers can be used in herbal ointments and lotions to sooth sunburn, rashes, minor cuts and scrapes, or fresh flower petals can be crushed and rubbed directly onto insect bites to relieve the sting. Marigolds also have positive protective energy when planted around the house. The flower petals can be used in cooking, as garnishes, in teas as a detoxifier (anti-fungal, anti-bacterial, anti-viral) and to make dyes. Marigolds...a flower of many uses. But isn't that true of so many of our flowers and "weeds," which if we took the time to educate ourselves, we would discover an amazing array of helpful plants that we may normally overlook.

Every garden should contain herbs, and here at our farm, it is one of my goals to plant an extensive herb garden for medicinal and culinary use. I hope to also have herb starts of some variety each Spring, but for now, you can start your garden  by ordering a few marigold seeds from Green Desert Eco-Farm. (Doesn't that sound nice?) You can save the seeds until Spring, or scatter them around now wherever you'd like to add a few colorful orange blossoms to your yard or garden. They are pretty when they take over a space, like a fire orange small hedge, that makes you suck in your breath when you turn a corner and happen upon the vibrant display by surprise.

Beautify the Earth and plant a few flowers. Plant something that will help take some of the poison out of our air. Every little bit helps. Every little step in the right direction paves the road for a better planet for us and our children and their children. Be the change--always.

Collecting seeds, organic feed, and time for Halloween

Bucket o' seeds

While Richard worked on moving the guinea/chicken house planter into a sunny location, I watered some plants and collected marigold seeds. I have enough seeds now to plant a field of marigolds.  It was a remarkably nice day. Very warm. The kids ran amok in the grass, playing on their little fort, screaming and yelling and being wild children. Nothing beats a warm Fall day.


We went into town for a minute to get chicken food from one of our local feed stores that now stocks organic feed. Hurray for organic feed!!! We ordered grains for the goats and llamas, food for the cats, for the dogs, and for the chickens. Unfortunately it is expensive, but I think if we can, we should buy it, sending the message to organic producers that we are interested and to all the rest that we aren't going to buy their poison laden feed for our animals any more.

The Cottonwood trees down by the river are turning gold. Against the backdrop of the mountains and the dark water flowing in the Arkansas river, it is a beautiful sight. The farmhouses all have pumpkins on their porches, kids are running through corn mazes, and the smell of woodsmoke fills the chilly evening air. The leaves are starting to collect on the ground and soon it will be time for us to cruise the neighborhoods, collecting bags of unwanted leaves from suburban yards to make into compost for our gardens.

Something about Fall makes me feel all warm and cozy, like finally coming home. I'm not sure how a season could make me feel so at peace or like I completely belong, but the Autumn does that to me, no matter where I am. All of a sudden, I want to make cookies and watch movies and snuggle with my kids. I get urges to run through leaves and take walks along the river, and sip hot cocoa in the company of a good friend while we share our dreams for the next year.

Tomorrow is Halloween. We are planning on taking the kids to a party one of the Canon City Co-op members is having, and then into town for merchant trick-or-treating. It'll be our first celebrated Halloween in this small farming community and I can't wait to see how it goes. We found costumes for the little ones at the Goodwill--a cow and an elephant--just their sizes, and quite a bargain for the quality. I love thrift stores.

Box o' cans

This week, Richard thought of using our tin cans, the ones we get canned food in, as planters for our vegetable starts next Spring. Great idea! Recycle and re-use.Sometimes we have an aha moment, when a brilliant idea seems to float into our heads, and then are astounded that so many people are already doing what we just thought of.

Last year we bought hundreds of plastic disposable cups, which we saved, of course, but many have just broken down from the sun and from age, I guess. The plastic seed starter "pots" are hard to work with,  fall apart over time, and are too expensive for this farmer. Tin cans will last until they rust, but the positive is that we will be recycling the cans, which we normally do anyway, taking them to the recycle bin in town, but when you can really re-use something that would otherwise be trash, it is a wonderful feeling indeed. I also think they will look adorable with little baby tomato and pepper plants in them.

I did look online to try to find out if the tin would be hazardous to the plants, but I can't find anything at all about tin cans (aluminum will leach) and many people use a variety of small and large cans, some with memorable labels, to make interesting container gardens. What a great idea. I am just so excited by this concept. I could paint the cans if I had a moment of creative inspiration, and some people even use the tin can planter idea as a craft project for kids. I wonder if my little ones would like to decorate some cans? Painting the cans will extend their lives against rust, but then you do have to be careful with the paint and/or sealers...what do they leach into the soil?


Happy Halloween everyone! May your Fall days be filled with inspiration and love, hot cocoa, or better yet, organic herbal tea, good company and good ideas for the coming months ahead.

Greenhouse plastic and a chicken coop planter

greenhouse plastic goes on

We've had a pretty strong, constant wind for about four days, which makes our greenhouse project more interesting, but with the colder temps, it has to be done, sooner rather than later. Richard and I began putting the recently ordered and quickly received real greenhouse plastic on our tiny greenhouse yesterday. In spite of our efforts to cover the few plants inside the structure, last night the freezing temperatures proved too much for our drop cloth and blanket freeze protector, and I'm afraid we lost most of the pepper plants that were hanging on. The leeks may be okay.

Inadequate plant protection

Also working on placing the little chicken coop in some spot in the yard where we can create a guinea and eventual chicken run. The idea here is to build a base for the little house that will become a raised planter in a season or so. We cover the floor of the house (which is really bare earth) with wood shavings and the birds cover it with poop. We continue to refill litter as needed, building a deep litter bed that will compost in place and become next year's garden plot. How about that? And then we move the chicken coop and run to another prepared "bed" and do it again, rotating our birds through the garden, one vegetable bed at a time.

Planter bed chicken coop. The boards at bottom of house form vegetable planter, and the foundation of the coop, which keeps the wooden house out of the snow and rain, prolonging the life of the wood that much longer.

We bought our "chicken barn" from an online retailer and had it shipped. It was pretty pricey. I don't see why a guy, or a gal, couldn't build a simpler model to do the same thing. This way the wastes from the birds become fertilizer for the garden in a few less steps, saving the farmer time and money. I love it. Eco-farming at work.

Unfortunately the first place we built a bed turned out to be constantly in shade, which for the winter and live critters, is a downright bad idea. I was hoping to protect the coop and the yard from the horrid wind we get in the fall, which, nestled in among the junipers, it is indeed hidden from the noxious wind, but without solar gain, I'm afraid my little birds will freeze to death. Tomorrow we are going to get some more boards to build another planter for the coop---in the sun.

Injured guinea is doing well. He has a healthy appetite and is still healing. His buddy is still in the room with him, and his constant chirping and singing to his sick friend makes me smile. Also in the bird infirmary is egg bound hen (who is no longer egg bound), who never transitioned back to the flock well, so I brought her back in. She's not eating enough for me to notice, or be confident with, but I did open my office this afternoon to find she'd dislodged her grill covering and hopped out of her "bed" and was standing under my desk, looking like a chicken who belonged there. What a site. The Red Star chicks are unruly and try to fly out of their playpen every time I change the food and water. Also healthy guinea made a break for it yesterday and ran across the room, looking so proud of himself, but when I herded him back to his kennel, he reluctantly entered, as there was no other place to go. Injured guinea, who is still hanging in the air, just watches in silence at the antics of his roommates and caregiver. Silent Bob.

Life on the farm.

We are still trying to come up with a farm name that fits and will stick; a name that isn't being used in some way by someone else. One Little Farm is being used, although not in Colorado. Thinking of other names, so don't be surprised if the title of this blog changes again. We'd like to happily rest upon a great name and start building our business around it, including a web site.

Healing

It was terribly cold last night (low 20's), and yesterday was blustery and chilly, and I swear I even saw a few snowflakes fall around dinner time. Was our fall so short that now we've progressed directly into winter. I won't have it.

Injured guinea is doing remarkably well. I can't help but wonder if there is another lesson in this. We thought for sure he was going to die...with a huge hole in his side showing his entrails, how could he not? But not having the heart to kill him, we did the only thing we could, we bandaged him up and tried to make him as comfortable as possible, making sure his food and water needs are met several times a day. Every now and then we bring in his guinea buddy to keep him company because I read that the best thing for recovery is a friend. The healthy guinea sings or purrs to the injured guinea when I put his kennel next to his sick buddy. The injured guinea seems to perk right up, eating and drinking a little more when his partner is near him. Guineas mate for life. I know these two are males, but their relationship seems to be built around a very strong bond. Maybe they are heterosexual life partners (like Jay and Silent Bob---would those be good names for the guineas?), or bff's, or whatever. The reality is that the company seems to make a positive impact, along with the body's natural ability to heal itself. The injured guinea's wound is visibly shrinking. And that's a miracle in process.

When did we, as a people (and not all people have---many indigenous cultures continue to practice centuries old tribal, and natural, healing practices) give up our power to heal ourselves? When did we start to believe that the best advice for our bodies came from the doctors who didn't even know us and certainly could hardly know our bodies in their ten minute examinations. When did we stop listening to our own bodies?

As I watch the animals on my farm, who live only in the present moment, I learn. The guineas don't expect someone else to heal them, nor do any of the other animals. They either heal themselves, or they don't, giving up the ghost and moving on to greener pastures.

If we humans could forget for a minute how helpless and dependent on others we are, for everything, it seems, maybe we could take some initiative and responsibility for our own little selves. What do we need to do to heal ourselves? And certainly we have moved beyond the primitive thinking of a pea brained guinea, but maybe that's the problem, we over think and allow our decisions to be influenced by so called "experts." How can anyone know me like I know me? I live in this body twenty four seven, so I better listen to what it has to say to me. Right now it's telling me to get healthy, to lose the accumulated weight from pregnancies and inactivity, to eat right and stop poisoning myself with processed and hormone injected foods.

I hear the whispers of a voice telling me that my lifestyle and what I choose to put in my body has a direct correlation with how healthy and maybe even how happy I am. Can we know for sure if the myriad of chemicals we have been injecting and ingesting are not related to mental disorders and malfunctions? What about autism and ADD, which have been on a steady increase along with the increase in poisons in our air and foods. Are they related? I bet they are. I bet almost all of our diseases and ailments can be traced back to something in our environment. Even if it's a genetic mutation, I bet even that is a dysfunction due to some weird chemical imbalance somewhere.

Isn't it time we took back our health along with our food choices? Take back our health. Take back our food. Take back ourselves. Take responsibility for the choices you make. I choose to eat the Twinkie that has a shelf life of forever. Why would I do that? Have I been brainwashed by a commercial laden culture that tells me to eat this and wear that....it is sooooo good. What about the fine print that tells me that this product may cause chronic, irreversible damage to my life system. Where is the disclaimer? Oh, it's not there, except on some so called "medicines" that have so many negative side effects, you have to wonder, who in their right mind would take such "medicines."

It is time to wake up. Our culture doesn't care. As a whole, "they" are not interested in the health and well-being of the people. "They" are interested in the bottom line. It doesn't matter that the people are dying, that the earth is dying, "they" will tell you it isn't so and to keep on spending. Look around.

We need to wake up, stand up, man up and save ourselves and our planet. Every little thing you can do will help. It does matter. Recycle. Re-use. Buy local. Buy organic. Support and be active in your community.

Those little guineas don't care. They live in the NOW, eating, drinking, yelling, and healing. They live local and they certainly eat local, given the choice. It is what they do. They are in balance with nature and with themselves. They can go a long way toward healing themselves. No one ever told them they couldn't.

Giving up guineas...hard lessons learned

Today I sold my four lavender guineas to a lady who answered an ad I posted on craigslist yesterday.

The last few days have been crazy with the birds.

For a couple of days, we tried putting injured guinea in the chicken run with his uninjured guinea buddy. We would kennel the hurt one at night, but the other one would fly out of the chicken netted run and perch on the roof. Okay. We were keeping them separate from the chickens and other guineas, but then, somehow the chickens ended up in with the two guineas, but everything appeared to be okay. Until it wasn't.

I went down to catch injured guinea and put him in his kennel for the night, and noticed he had blood on his back. I took him into the house and yelled for Richard, who happened to be on his work break from his telecommuter job. With his help, we examined the bird and were horrified to discover he had been pecked so extremely that he had a bloody hole in his back. Richard immediately thought we should kill the bird, put it out of its misery. But there was no time...he had to go back to work and I had no idea where my camp hatchet was, and we didn't own an ax. Plus I still had two little kids to take care of and get ready for bed.

We bandaged up the bird with makeshift items, took off his splint (the poor thing was probably going to die anyway, one way or another) and stuck him in his kennel in my office. I gave him food and water as usual.

In addition to injured guinea, I had another hen who was acting "funny." We had brought her in the house earlier in the day and cleaned her dirty rump to find she had an egg stuck. Great. What do you do with that? Well, give the chicken a warm water bath, which Richard did, holding her hind end under the bathtub faucet. After she dried a bit, we put her back in the coop with the other hens. I noticed she had some plucked feathers too.

I suspected the lavender guineas, especially the two males, who ruthlessly attacked our poor rooster Charlie, on more than one occasion. I had seen the mean birds attacking some of the hens and even one of their own females. But the injury to the already hurt guinea was more than I could take.

That night, I grabbed my broom when I went to put the chickens to bed. When I closed up the coop for the night, I chased every one of those guineas out,  leaving them to fend for themselves until I could figure out what to do the next day. I knew they'd find a roost in one of the trees and be back in the morning. They were.

The next day, we bathed the egg stuck hen and I added her to the bird infirmary that was formally my office. And, that morning, the injured guinea looked at me with perky eyes, seemingly oblivious to his horrible injury.

This was when we decided to get rid of the guineas, for the safety of our chickens, who also had signs of being  plucked and pecked. Now that the game birds had the taste for blood, would they continue to terrorize the hens and rooster until they killed them? Not a chance we wanted to take. With a heavy heart, I put an ad on craigslist, knowing my dream of having wandering guineas to amuse me was all but over.

I found an old tank top I could turn into a bird sling and stitched the bottom closed and we went to find bandages. We talked to the guy at the feed store who said to put ointment on the wound and the bird would probably be alright. I was more interested in buying first aid than in buying an ax, and decided to give the poor bird a chance.

We bandaged the guinea (this guy needs a name), cut holes for his legs in my "chicken sling" and stuck him in, hanging the sling from a two by four balanced across the old baby corral. The idea is to keep him off of his injured foot, which I think is a broken foot and leg, by the swelling, and keep him from pecking at his wound.I put some food and water on a box in front of him, and he started to drink the electrolyte boosted water like crazy. Then he knocked it over.

 

When I went to put the chickens to bed, the other guinea was hiding in a corner. One of the hens went over and started  pecking at his back, where the feathers look like they have been worked on for a while. Crazy. I caught that guinea and took him inside too. The two female lavender guineas managed to work their way back into the chicken run by flying onto the bird netting until they fell through. I let them stay. The males were wandering back and forth outside the fence.

Later when I was reading the kids stories before bed, I heard the unmistakable sounds of unhappy guineas, and it sounded like it was coming from right outside the living room windows. I flipped on the porch light, and sure enough, one male guinea was standing there, looking so forlorn, squawking at me. "Mama, let me go in the house, " he said. The other guinea was "roosting" on the front step. They were so cute. Maybe I made a mistake. Maybe I should keep them. Someone was coming to get the four of them in the morning.

After I got the kids settled into bed, it was back to the hen with the hang up. I took the chicken into the bathroom, filled the tub with warm water and held her, making sure the water was covering her abdomen and egg vent. This was some advice I had found online. Keep her there for an hour, they said. Really? Who has that kind of time? I tried, massaging her vent and splashing water on her rear. She'd push so hard, letting out wails...just like a woman in birth, and I knew Richard and maybe his clients on the phone could her her in the room next door. It turns out she had a broken egg stuck in her and I had to help her get it out. After that, she went right to sleep back in the bird infirmary.

The next morning, we redressed the injured guinea, cleaned his bed and moved the healthy guinea into his own outdoor bird run, until we can figure out what to do with him. After much hullabaloo, we caught the four lavenders and put them in a kennel, where they waited until their new mama came to pick them up. I hope they can find happiness in their new home. There aren't any chickens on that farm, but they do have goats. I will miss the idea of them more than I will miss them.

I learned that you can't keep guineas with llamas (uncastrated males) or chickens, and that injured creatures must always be separated from the rest of the flock or herd or whatever.

These have been hard lessons this week and I'm not happy with any of the outcomes of this mess. I hope injured guinea gets better (he's eating seed today), but I'm not sure what his life will be like if he's crippled. Will his buddy pick on him too because he's the weak one? Do I now have a guinea as a house pet? I wonder if he'd get along with Luna, my Amazon parrot. They could live in the same room--in separate cages-- and yell at each other. Guineas kind of sound like parrots screaming.

I have to address my fear of killing the animals if they are suffering. If I'm going to be a real farmer with livestock, I'm going to have to face these situations, and be prepared for them. I have to find my ax. A responsible farmer would take care of the matter in the best way to ease the suffering. But I can't really tell if the guinea is suffering. You'd think he would be. But he's perky, alert, eating and just hanging out. Is it possible that his little pea brain has somehow disengaged from the pain? I know animals live purely in the present moment, regardless of what has occurred before. I can only hope the little guy is not in too much pain and that in a short time he will be back out raising trouble with his buddy.