T-shirts and gifts for Seed Savers

I was messing around with an eraser carving in PhotoImpact and came up with this.

You can read a bit more about it at Ikki-Pokki Arts or click on it and you'll see how it looks on the items in the shop.

So much squash!

For my mum who has no idea what I'm talking about when I mention squash. Well, this is it. We planted it around the dog pen to give her bit more shade.

It's prolific to say the least. You have to pick it everyday and it ends up piled up all over the kitchen. It's good fried up with onions but there's only so much you can eat before you get sick of it. My mother in law says it doesn't freeze well but I'm going to give it a try. You can buy it frozen at the supermarket so there must be a way.

This is yellow squash and some zucchini I found growing in with it. I didn't plant zucchini! It must have somehow got mixed in with the squash seed at the nursery. I made a couple of loaves of zucchini bread with it. Ken's calling it "choke bread" because it came out a bit dry.

A view of the house from the creek

Our house form a different angle. The creek bank here is constantly eroding and large chunks break away and fall into the stream. The dark layer is clay. Josh collected some of it to try his hand at making pots. It seems to be good clay with no debris in it. I thought we might try pit firing our creations as an experiment.

Our New Herdsire!

As some of you may remember we lost our lovely big buck Jeremiah just before we were about to bring him up here in May 2005. It really set us back since no daddy goat = no baby goats = no milk!

So, this spring we went looking for a new herd sire. We finally found him along with many more absolutely beautiful nubian kids not too far away at Faithful Farm.

That's him on the right. His name is Jaquemo and that's his -fixed- little brother Pepper on the left. Pepper should grow much larger and heavier due to being castrated. I'm going to train him to be a pack and harness goat. He'll be able to pull a cart or carry a few neccessary items like bottled water and rain gear when we go out for a hike.

For anyone looking to buy nubian dairy goats in south west Virginia please take a look at the Faithful Farm website. The Coordes family LOVE their goats and it shows!

I think Jaquemo is going to produce some wonderful kids for us next spring. Not to mention I won't need to run 5 miles to the store just for milk anymore!

Where are the Eraser Carvings!?!

I know I haven't posted pictures of any eraser carvings for a long long time. There's been so much to do around the farm and I wanted family and friends to be able to follow our progress. The Inky Spinnery has morphed into more of a farming and homesteading blog and I've been feeling very guilty about it.

Well, now that Ken's home full time I'm not the sole animal waitress, poop picker-uper, we now have the animal waiter! So, I finally have time to create.

I've been really wanting to do something with my eraser carvings and wanted to get them out there for people to enjoy. Some I mounted as rubber stamps with fancy handles ready to list on eBay but I love them so much I can't let them go!

Well, I found the solution...

Check out The Official Inky Spinnery Shop Ikki-Pokki Arts! There you'll be able to see the new designs I've been working on and even purchase them on t-shirts, caps, mugs and other gift items.

And please leave a comment over there. I'm looking for lots of feed back, ideas and suggestions.

The Flood

Potato Patch Island.

That's a deer with her twin fawns. The little fawns were having a great time splashing around and running in circles.

Well, as you can see we've been having a bit of excitement here over the last week or so. We got over 11 inches of rain in 24 hours! I looked out of the kitchen window just as the creek burst it's banks and a new creek was heading down the farm yard! Within a few minutes the water was up to the back steps. It washed out one side of the driveway leaving some 3ft holes. The potato patch was completely surounded but we didn't lose any plants thank goodness.

Crystal's Home!

And that means we are officially completely moved into our new farm!

We had to leave her at the boarding stables in North Carolina until Ken got out of the military and had time to work on building a corral. We are still working on her corral and shelter. She has a stall in the barn for now but Ken wants to get her out of there so that he can begin the major repairs that need doing.

I didn't think Crystal would remember us since she hadn't seen us for almost 2 years but she's settled right in. She follows me around her little paddock and has to stand next to us all the time we are working on the fence. She even stood quite calmly and watched as Ken ran the chainsaw to cut notches in the fence posts! But I think it's thanks to the work of Ashley, the trainer who worked with her for the past month in order to prepare her for the big move. I can't say enough about the great job she did! Crystal's like a different pony. In fact she was so calm when she arrived - after 5 hours in the horse trailer and arriving in the pitch dark at midnight- that I asked Ken if they'd given her a sedative for the trip! She's like a different horse. So if anyone reading this is looking for a good trainer in North Carolina call North Star Equine in Parkton and ask for Ashley Thomas!

Now I need to find a good riding instructor for me! 

Fishing

This picture was taken from just off the side of our driveway.
Ken asked Josh -jokingly- if he wanted to go fishing in the "big deep hole". He wasn't expecting to actually catch anything! They caught six fish within a half hour!

 

Here's the lumber all stacked with spacers between the boards to let the air circulate. 

Sawing Logs

Remember the two big white pines we had felled last year? Well, Mr. S. brought his portable sawmill this week and cut them into boards for us!

The job has been put off so many times because of Ken not being able to take time off or Mr S. being tied up with other jobs. It's best to mill the logs as soon as possible after cutting because they get infested by beetles very quickly. We thought we may have waited too long as we could hear a lot of munching going on whenever we stood next to them! Anyway, we were able to get quite a lot of nice planks and boards out of them and some that are not so nice but still useable.

Altogether we got 1300 brd ft of lumber. One board foot is a piece of lumber that is 1 foot wide, 1 foot long and 1 inch thick. We have enough to re-side most of the barn plus some 6" boards for patching up the old store. Also twelve 12ft. 2x4's and three 12 ft 4x4's. The not so nice boards will be used for a three sided run in shed for the pony and a small goat shelter.

It's been a busy 3 days and we still don't have all of it stacked properly yet but we're glad the sawings done and we didn't have to resort to cutting up the logs for firewood!