Nearing the End of Barn Building & a New Puppy!

You know the old saying, "A watched pot never boils." Well the same holds true for a barn. It hasn't been that long, really, since building began on the new barn. But watching the progress every day sure makes it feel like it will never get done.

But good news! The doors are going on.

The inside is almost complete.

And the front & back are nearly complete. Folks, it looks like we might get us a barn by Christmas after all!

Which is good news because Farmer Gal went out and got herself a new puppy.

This is Dewey. Miss Dewey is a Great Pyrenees. I personally think she's a Great Ball of Fluff, but they don't seem to have an AKC registration for that. This picture was taken in July, when Dewey was a mere baby. Our young lady is now a whopping 70 lbs. She is living with her mother and a dozen or so alpacas, learning the whole guardian animal business. She will move to the farm next month when some of the alpacas move in.

Everyone is very excited about her arrival. Well, almost everyone.

Moose isn't sure. He'll get back to us with his opinion of her.

A Big Work Day at That'll Do Farm

Yesterday was a big building day at the farm

Many, many, many people like to work when the sun is shining, it's warm out and the days are long. Some would say those are the smart people.

Those people are obviously not my peeps. No, by golly, we work when it's 20 degrees, the wind is blowing and the day ends by 5 p.m. so you have to cram a lot of work into a short amount of time.

Some would say we are crazy and I would tend to agree with them. But I guess when you are trying to get a barn done so animals can move in by January, you go a little crazy.

Yesterday, in the front pasture, they put down drain pipe from the barn to the ditch, then back filled it and covered it over. The pasture will have to be reseeded in the spring. With our wonderful clay soil, these pastures retain a lot of water (I feel their pain!) and are very slow to drain. These drain pipes will save much aggravation down the road when the animals come. We'll have less mud resulting in somewhat cleaner fleeces.

The barn builders were also at the farm, putting up the sides.

It's beginning to look like a real barn! The front and back go up next, then the doors and all the "do-dads" (a very technical term, don't you think. You can see why the barn builders just love me!).

They are also digging the trenches to bury the electrical and water lines. Now we wait for the inspector to give us his official o.k. Please, please, please let him be a nice inspector!

Meanwhile, Farmer Gal oversaw the arrival of metal fencing we'll use in the barn to separate alpaca stalls.

As soon as the barn is complete, these will move in and we'll have fun arranging them. It will be like playing with life-size legos.

The Barn is Crawling Along

Late Fall, early Winter = slow going in the building department.

The barn is progressing, but slowly. Snow, rain, wind and well below zero wind chill all combined to make what we thought was going to be a three-week project turn into the barn-that-never-ends project. We're hoping for sides on the barn today. Today it's only slightly rainy and in the 30s -- not bad barn-building weather. Keep your fingers crossed!

Much of the extra soil (I use that term loosely. In this part of Ohio, soil really means clay.) is being piled up into small hills for the goats to climb on. Sometimes I climb on it. When you're only 5'2", you use any opportunity to get your head above others!

Last week's high winds blew down the outhouse-looking shed. We'll have to rethink it's location out in the wide open or it's not going to make it.

The rugs have arrived for the knitting/rug hooking studio. More furniture will move in this week. There is still much to do, but we are progressing.

Yarn Shopping in North Carolina

On our recent trip to Florida/North Carolina, I did what every fiber-loving lunatic in the world would do. I googled all the local yarn stores in the places we were staying and then mapped out a detailed yarn shopping strategy. I've done this for every business trip and/or vacation I've taken in the past 10 years.

My family learned to adapt to this quirk, this oddity. Oh sure, over the years, the kids may have moaned and groaned while waiting in the car as I ran into a store "just to look" for "a quick minute," but they always brought along books or video games to amuse themselves. They accepted the fact that their mom just might be a nut job that will do a full fledged u-turn in the middle of traffic if an interesting looking yarn store is spotted.

This past week, I may have found my all-time favorite local yarn store. It's called Spin a Yarn in West Jefferson, N.C.(http://www.foxfireholler.com/).

The woman I talked with (wish I would have gotten her name. I believe she was the owner, but I can't be sure.) was the definition of customer service. Warm, genuinely caring about me as a customer, helpful, knowledgeable. You know how sometimes you walk into a store and it feels like you're bothering the workers. This shop was 100 percent the opposite.

The entire town of West Jefferson was charming, like you stepped back into the 50's or 60's.

Here's "Main Street."

In addition to my new favorite knitting store, the town has a great outdoor apparel store and a wonderful cheese shop selling locally made cheese (I highly recommend the extra sharp cheddar. Delicious!) -- all places that remind you it's not necessary to shop at the big box stores. Without fail, the sales people were helpful and friendly and took the time to talk with us -- what a nice change!

Spin a Yarn had beautiful hand spun yarn, locally produced. All of their wool was exceptional. In fact, nothing was ordinary. Most of the yarn was made in the area.

However, some unusual wool came from New Zealand -- I do believe she said it was a merino/possum blend. I don't know what you think, but around these parts, that's unusual!

North Carolina is not exactly around the corner from my home in Northern Ohio, but the next time I'm back in those beautiful mountains, I'm bringing a large truck to carry home some of this store's yarn!

A Short Vacation and Barn: Day Whatever?

The week after Thanksgiving has been unusually busy for me. No, not in the shop, wrap, cook kind-of-way, but in the lets-pile-in-the-car-and-head-for-Florida kind-of-way. The husband and I drove College Boy back to school in North Carolina the Sunday after Thanksgiving and then headed down to Orlando to see some friends.

This is Tim and Isobel. She, my friends, is a knitter. (I don't believe he is. I didn't ask. He and the husband were too busy talking guy stuff, you know, like football.) One of the best thing about visiting fellow knitters is they take you to their local yarn store. Isobel and I went to The Black Sheep Shop in Orlando (www.theblacksheepshop.com). Not a lot of yarn (I think it's mostly a needlepoint shop), but nice stuff none the less. I bought this needle felting kit. (www.lornaswool.com)

Soon I will have an entire flock of needle felted chickens -- and who doesn't need that! I will confess to buying the kit because I'm a sucker for cute packaging. After all, a chicken felting kit in an egg carton -- that's just too darn cute to pass up. I'll let you know how the chickens come out.

After Orlando, it was off to not-so-sunny Naples, way down south on the gulf coast.

My step mom (Farmer Gal Marilyn's mom) lives in Naples. Naples, I'm told, has the best weather in Florida. I personally can not vouch for that. Almost every time I go, it rains. Or a small hurricane comes ashore. But really, how can I complain when I was here

in early December, in shorts and a t-shirt, while Farmer Gal was back home in Ohio overseeing the barn raising. In the cold. And the snow.

Sun or no sun, I got the better end of this deal!

The barn roof is complete. The walls will go up tomorrow or the next day. Snow is coming this weekend. Let's see who wins this race: the barn builders or the weather. For their sake, I really want to put my money on the builders. I know I wouldn't want to be out there, hammering away, on a 20 degree day. I'd rather be inside, needle felting a chicken.

Barns, Chicken Coops & Alpacas: A Full Day

Today was Black Friday -- a day that either strikes joy or terror in your heart. To me, there could be nothing worse than getting up at three a.m. to be first through the doors of the local chain/discount/big box/electronics store. I think I'd rather pull my eyelashes out one by one than shop today. No, today was a day to work outside in the slush/snow/mud/cold/wind. Go ahead, call me crazy, but I really do prefer that to Black Friday shopping -- which , by the way, should be labeled a full-contact sport!

Today we stared building the chicken coop. But in order to build the chicken coop, we had to start tearing down the old barn. We're using the old barn siding for the coop. The old barn looks fairly good from this angle, but looks can be very deceiving.

This barn actually moves when you push on it. And it leans a bit to the left. Once the siding came off, the lean was much more obvious.

You really don't want to spend any time inside this barn. Luckily, two College Boys were home for the weekend and they got to spend the day pulling the siding off.

The Mikes got the job of attaching the siding to the run in shed, which they are turning into the chicken coop. They had power tools. They were happy.

Farmer Gal and I took a side trip to the farm where some of her alpacas are currently living while waiting for the barn to be finished.

It was an outright stampede when we arrived at the farm, with this young lady leading the charge. The next thing I knew, the camera had alpaca slobber all over it from an up-close-and-personal greeting! You gotta love a people-loving alpaca.

We are looking forward to early January when many of the alpacas will move to That'll Do Farm. Several of the girls are pregnant so we anticipate about six births this spring. The farm is going to be a very busy place! But it'll be a good kind of busy. Not the day-after-Thanksgiving-at-the-mall kind of busy.

Barn: Day 3

It's really beginning to look like a barn.

Or an ark. But I'm hoping it's a barn.

The weather, for the most part, has been cooperating.

The outside should be done in another week or so. Then inside barn work begins.

Several of the alpacas will move in by the beginning of January. The rest will move to the farm by mid-Spring, along with sheep and goats. It promises to be a very busy Winter and Spring at That'll Do Farm!