Bosque Farms Fair

In case you're wondering, the 'Stache was in peril, but the new badge photo is done and the 'Stache is still with us.

We've had a little monsoon weather in July which has kept the temperatures down and the scenery spectacular.


The garden continues to grow. Chiles are nearly ready to harvest. We are still seeing interesting (or icky) wildlife:

George spotted this cicada just after it emerged from it's shell. It's about 2-1/2 inches long.

This weekend was the Bosque Farms Fair. The first night of the fair was the animal judging. Angora goats had their own class for the first time. Our judge was Deb from the East Mountains. I took 2 goats: Lola, the red one, and Chance, the calm one.

I haven’t transported these goats since I brought them home 2 years ago and at that time all 4 goats fit into the big dog cage in the back of the Explorer. The goats are MUCH bigger now and ornery too. But I loaded both goats into the Explorer+cage with very little problem. Once we got to the fairgrounds, they unloaded fine and behaved beautifully on leash. There is no real place to contain the animals at the Bosque Farms Rodeo Grounds, so each goat got tied to a post “out back”. Luckily there was enough shade for all. I was a little surprised at how well my goats did. There were lots of little children running around, and whenever they got too near my goats, the goats were very nervous and panicky. But when I stood with them, they were fine. I guess they felt safer with “mom” near. All the other goats were pretty young (except for one handsome buck; I saw Lola batting her eyelashes at him, what a match they would be!) and were very calm.

There were 3 classes: Does, Wethers, and Bucks. We had five entries in the Doe class. Lola won 2nd place. The first place winner was obviously chosen for her youth and lustrous fleece over Lola’s age and wisdom. Lola was favored somewhat by the judge (who was trying to be very impartial) because of her color and probable lineage to Deb’s herd. In the Wether class, Chance took 2nd place to a much younger, softer little goat. Note, Chance did NOT take last place, being 2nd of only 2 entries, he was clearly a fine, healthy (read fat) goat. Chance was judged to be “very good for blending with wool for rug yarn”, which just reinforces my desire to learn Navajo weaving!



This was my first time ever showing an animal and I have no plans on taking my goats to County Fair. I might be tempted to do this again next year though. The informal environment was fun and a great learning experience. Judge Deb was very knowledgeable and informative.

I also entered 2 knitted items in the Fair. You are only allowed one entry per category, so the lace shawl went in the "clothing" category and the Hemlock Ring scarf went in "other". Hemlock Ring won 2nd place. Here's the lace shawl:


So overall I did pretty well. Now I'm inspired to do more for next year.

Dread Pirate 'Stache

Good night, Westley. Good work. Sleep well. I'll most likely shave you off in the morning.

Oh, The Humidity of It All

It's been a rainy week, even down here on the farmlet. We had .25" yesterday and another .1" last night. The clouds pile up over the mountains in the morning and bring the rain in the late afternoon or during the night.


It sure is making everything green and saves me all the work of watering the garden.


The chiles are setting. I have bell peppers this year. Yum!

and tomatoes in their new location in the "big" garden

The flowers are blooming.


Critters are hatching.


The tweetie birds have flown the nest. I was too late to get a picture of the nest stuffed with baby birds so big their birdy-behinds were hanging out over the entry way!


Since we got the stucco redone, we decided to try to keep some of the moisture off the areas that had the most damage so George bought a couple of rain barrels. This one's full already just from last night's tenth of an inch.


With the attached garden hose we can direct the water away from the house. But teh barrels seem to fill up faster than they empty out.


All the clouds and all the rain have raised the humidity level very high. During the warm humid nights with the swamp cooler going, everything feels damp. This was taken early this morning. Yesterday afternoon it was 78 degrees and felt like 102; I wonder what the humidity reading was then?

Predator!

This hideous wing-ed creature was circling around overhead threatening the herd. You can tell it would like to eat tasty goats.


But our wonderful and ferocious guard dog, Miranda, chased it off.

The herd is safe once again with Miranda on duty.

Happy Independence Day!

Sorry I'm a little late. Let's call it Independence Week!

Before Gardening

I had to make a few repairs.

Cotton Flying

The cottonwood trees in bloom and a slight breeze give us this.



That's the best I can do to get a photo. It looks like snow and it piles up on the sides of the roads like snow.

NYC Apartment Locking System

This is what is required to keep the goats out of the garden:

- First, we have the classic baling twine, twisted to make it as tight as I can get it and have it still slide over the top of the post.
- Second is the regular garden gate latch. The little monsters can open that. In fact, Lola tried yesterday.
- Third, the goatie monsters are foiled from opening the gate latch by the clip that keeps the latch closed.
- Fourth, a chain with snap-hook lower down prevents undue pressure (goat leaning on gate) from moving the post enough to disengage the gate latch even though it is locked.

Whew! They haven't broken in in a while, thank goodness. Now that the corn, squash, onions, and tomatoes are sprouted, I hope this system holds up. Lola is cagey and the "boys" are hefty and persistent when it comes to getting at the greener stuff on the other side of the fence.

Since we've been dyeing with natural and plant dyes, I noticed this weed in the garden. Is it Woad?

It sure looks like this. If so, should I let it grow and use it for dyeing?

New Stucco

Stucco day finally arrived. We've been waiting at least 3 months to get this all done. The vagaries of New Mexico weather make things drag out (or maybe it's just part of the "no hurry" NM culture). You can't do stucco if it's raing or too windy. Well, we did have a bit of rain in May, and spring is normally windy, so now that it's hot and the mosquitos are out, the contractor finally showed up to put on the final coat (while we were at work in our air conditioned offices). Here is the "after" picture. I think it looks pretty good.


The old stucco was crumbling off on the tops of the parapets and on the wall in the garden. The new stucco should last a long time, which in NM may not be as long as we'd like, but it will be waterproof for a few years. Here's what it looked like "before":


The new color has more yellow in it, the old color was very pink. When you see the colors on little 1" chips, they appear quite different. I was having a hard time picking a new color. I just knew I didn't want pink. So we drove around and looked at some houses with the candidate colors and didn't like them either. Finally, I got some 8"x8" samples from the supply company, looked at them in various lighting, looked at them next to the house, and just picked one. The result is a very nice color but on the house it doesn't look a lot different than the old color. That's probably a good thing.

Oh, yeah, and you can tell by the tree shadow how long it really took. From late-winter-no-leaves to full summer leafage, March to June, almost 4 months.