Country living

Out here, in the middle of almost nowhere, we have some very odd utilities. I’m so very happy that we have treated water piped to us rather than having to deal with a well, but our rural water district has some very odd habits.

For one, we have to read our own meters each month – do the math with a chart they give us, and figure out how much we owe them and then write them a check – no online foolishness out here!!

Once yearly, they send a guy out to read the meters to check our work, so to say. Every year, this causes me great stress because the guy who checks the meters is scared of dogs, especially livestock guardian dogs, and he threatens them with a stick or a board, and that makes me fear that someday, my LGDs, will indeed take a bit out of this asshole.

We have asked them to just give us a call before they come out – it’s only once a year – but he is adamant. He asked me if he was supposed to call all 560 customers before he comes to check the meters – I said, “No, just us, and the probably 300 other customers who have dogs”.

Anyway, today, while I was busy doing one thing or another, they apparently came and changed out our meter.

No knock on the door. No phone call – just a Post-It Note on the garage door – with the reading from the old meter and letting us know we have a new meter.

What if that note had blown away in our Kansas winds?

It’s crazy.

But still way better than living in town!

Just Kidding

Well, here I thought I had done everything possible to prevent goat kids this spring. As our 8th kid was born today, I must admit that I failed in having a kid-free spring.

We have three bottle babies – born on Feb. 27th and 28th – two very cold days. They are adorable, and I need to take some photos or even videos of them. They have their own pen outside for daytime, and at night, they have a large pen in our sunroom, where I can be sure they are warm and dry. They are down to 4 bottles a day, and they are nibbling on hay and goat chow.

Today’s new kid is a pretty, blue buckling. Son of Aran – a beautiful blue, Navajo-type doe with wavy mohair Aran is a bit of a pushy doe, though, and I struggle with her twice a year when it is time for shearing – and it is about time for shearing again! She is as strong as an ox and as stubborn as a mule. She is one of perhaps 10 does that I need help with when I’m shearing – the rest are mostly pretty good about being on the grooming stand.

I do need to sell these babies – I honestly have enough goats at this point, and I can hardly keep up with getting them all sheared as often as they should – and then, I’m not getting close to prepping all that mohair for sale.

This is a business, and I need to remember that every day.

I’m working on making some hay feeders that will keep the goats from just throwing all their hay on the ground and stomping on it and then wasting it. If it ever stops raining, I’ll try to finish some and post some photos of those. They won’t be very pretty, but I hope they will help the goats from just wasting their food as they do now.

I’m also adding another paddock or maybe two.

Small Miracle

One of the kids born last week is a precious little blue doeling. She is staying with her mama, as I really don’t want to have any more bottle babies than I have to have.

Her mother, though, is not the most attentive mom, and often just tucks her kid into a hollow beneath a red cedar and then trots off with the other goats.

Well, that leaves the little kid with 80 acres to get lost in, quite distressing for me.

The first time she did this, I happened to see the mama goat walk away from her baby, so I jumped in the truck and drove down the lane, close to where the wee goatling was. I thought I’d just scoop up the little kid and bring her back to the house until Mama returned.

However, as soon as I came within a couple of feet, the little one jumped up and took off. I followed her around the big pasture for 45 minutes, and then she disappeared.

By then, I was in tears, because I was afraid that bad things, like the local coyotes, or the eagle flying overhead would get her. I sat down on a fallen log, and prayed that I could find her, then I hiked back to the truck, and started to get in.

But then, I saw a fluffy bit of something pushed right up next to the front left tire. I looked more closely, and that little goat had fallen asleep right where I could find her. I picked her up, and drove her back to the house, where her idiot mother was wailing for her.

And of course, the wee doeling’s name is Miracle.

God does answer prayers. I’m praying a lot that we can all be rescued from this fascist hell we are currently stuck in.

January 1, 2021

Seems like a good day to try blogging again. Spent this afternoon trying to fix up a small goat shelter I built that was flipped over by the wind a couple of weeks ago. John realized we could not flip it back over without help from a friend or two, so we put a temporary roof on what was the bottom and is now the top.

We used scrap lumber to build a frame for a very heavy duty tarp, so the five little goats will have some shelter until the snow clears up and it gets a wee bit warmer, then I’ll roof it like I did before.

We also bought corner anchors for it, so that once it is in place, it won’t get flipped again!

Last year, or course, was awful. We lost our old horse, Willy (he was about 38 years old), Molly, one of our Livestock Guardian Dogs, and Stewart, The Housegoat of Argghhh (Our herd sire). And then, on top of all that, this stupid Covid 19 thing stopped everyone’s life.

No art fairs or craft festivals, no Ren Fest, and more. Ugh. I hope those will return this year, because I really need places where I can demonstrate my crafts, spinning, felting, etc., and sell them!

Online is very difficult for me. The costs of selling on Etsy.com are horrible, and they have ridiculous rules, and if you are successful, they will automatically push your etsy shop on google, etc, and, of course, you have to pay extra for that, even if you did not choose that route for advertising. I have used artfire.com in the past, also, but to get your items showing up in their damned search engine, you have to pay a lot extra.

I was pretty successful at selling on Facebook, but Facebook has turned into a woke establishment and kept telling me that my posts were against their community standards. So I got off of Facebook.

I am on mewe.com, and I’m trying to decide if I should open a page for Castle Argghhh there. There is a small monthly cost, but if I see enough potential customers there for my stuff, I’ll pay it.

In the meantime, I guess I need to figure out how to sell things through WordPress.

Cats of Argghhh!

We have an interesting bunch of cats here at Castle Argghhh! Farm. Our most recent addition is Callie.

Where Callie spends the majority of her day – on a chair in the kitchen.

Callie was supposedly given up by a couple who went into assisted living and could not keep a pet. We have no idea how old she is, she had been declawed by her previous owners, and she has some rather odd habits.

We have had her for a little over a year, and she spent the first 10 months with us on our bed Getting out only to use the litter box or eat and drink. She is not fond of being held, but really likes scritches.

A few months ago, I picked her up and brought her into the living room. She stayed on a chair there for a few days and then moved to the chair she is sitting in above, in the kitchen next to my Hoosier cabinet, where I keep my laptop.

She has some strange potty habits, and we wonder if that is why she was taken to a shelter.

Callie will pee and poop on the towel on the chair. Then she gets off the chair and hides until I notice and put a fresh towel out for her while I clean the dirty one.

She also leaves the chair to get a drink of water from the bowl that is about 4 feet away from her.

And that’s it. That’s all she does. Except hate all the other cats and growl at them. She does purr constantly if John or I are sitting next to her, but gosh, weird, weird, weird.

It’s Amazing How Much Time We Have Without Facebook!

Both John and I have been making a lot of progress on the house since getting off Social Media. Yesterday, John replaced a floor vent in the living room which needed replacing for a really long time! The living room is actually in good enough shape that we won’t be embarrassed if someone came over unexpectedly.

And I pulled out my drum carder the other day and cleaned it all and reconfigured the licker-in and the drum, and then carded all of Carl’s mohair. I’m in the process of getting my Aura cleaned up (my poor wheel is very dusty) so I can spin it all up. I found a free pattern for crocheted mittens, and I may see if I can commission The Wandering Witchling to crochet them for me.

I used to crochet a lot. I even got to the point where I could use charts to crochet lace curtains with pretty patterns, but I have forgotten a lot and my fingers are not as nimble as they once were.

I also plan to do a lot of lock spinning – I have quite a few pounds of washed mohair locks that are at least 5 inches long or longer, and they will make great yarn for a lot of projects.

Etsy has become pretty pricey, so I don’t think I can sell there and make a profit, but I still have my old Artfire account – I was one of the first ones in, so I only pay $5.95 a month, they grandfathered us in. Artfire will not push my shop, though, so I may have to rejoin Faceboogers or Twitter to push sales to my artfire ship.

And I can probably set up something here on the blog to do the same, I’ll have to figure it out, once I get enough merchandise to sell.

And yes, I should be selling the mohair. Raw or cleaned, locks or carded into batts.

I went into my little fiber studio building yesterday, and I have so much mohair that is beautiful and in very salable condition.

Getting off of Facebook and Effexor may save my little business.

Here’s hoping.

Pre-election Blues

I cannot wait until the election is over. I feel in my heart that President Trump will win, but golly, the fraud from the Left is going to be epic. It all makes this old lady very nervous.

And then, there are those on the Left who actually want to overthrow President Trump – no matter what. They are even calling it a coup.

An article in The Federalist lists at least 7 distinct threats to citizens who do not agree with the progressive line. And they are very scary threats that some plan to follow through on no matter who wins the election.

So, I’m staying off of social media as much as possible. Today, I’m baking bread and spinning yarn from Carl’s beautiful first fleece.

Blogging is harder than I remember

When I had my She Who Must Be Obeyed blog, I found it easy to add several posts a day. And I did it for at least five years. And, I was working full time, traveling all over the place. I really need to get my blog juju back.

I cannot even figure out where I pick a category before I publish a post, and then I realize I have a zillion categories, what the hell was I thinking?

And I need to fix so many things, but if I spend time figuring all that out, I’ll never post anything.

And what if I decide I want to rant about the crazy people with TDS? Will that invite a bunch of trolls?

Today Was Different

Update – they caught him, and the two little girls are safe.

We locked up our farm earlier today, when the Amber Alert first went out, because our farm is right next door to Donny Jackson’s father’s land. His name is also Donny Jackson, but is of course the Senior.

At least one helicopter was overhead, and because there are a lot of wooded areas on our farm and on the Jackson land next to us, as well as the land to our south, which no one lives on, we loaded up the shotgun and a handgun, and actually locked every door to the house.

This is our sheriff, Andy Dedeke, being interviewed about a double homicide and kidnapping that occurred in our area today.

I hope they get this guy. He has a bit of a reputation so far as we are concerned because he set leg traps on a creek that goes down the property line, and trapped our dog, Gunner, years ago. We were lucky to find Gunner, as it was during a huge snowstorm.

Anyway, I was a nervous wreck until we learned that the man and his little girls were seen at the Oklahoma border some hours ago. I hope he is caught before he hurts them.

We Are Having Wonky Weather today!

Yesterday, the high was 44 degrees Fahrenheit. Today, it got up to 87 degrees. A cold front was forecast to come in this evening, and I was out with the goats when the winds suddenly changed from South, South West to North, North east. I looked up at the sky, and the front line was right overhead.

It is 56 degrees at the moment, and we should get some much needed rain from all this front activity. If you want to see our weather, you can go to https://www.wunderground.com/weather/KKSEASTO10 and see our particular weather stats from our weather station here.


When you live on a farm with a bunch of critters, the weather forecasts are really pretty important. It looks like we might get snow next week, so I was thrilled when our friend, Major, came by this afternoon to check on his deer blind. I asked him if he could move some of our giant hay bales to both the bucks pasture and to Willowheim. And, of course, he did.

Still need to spend a lot of time figuring out how to make a sales page here. I have been scouring some beautiful kid mohair that I sheared a couple of months ago, and as much as I would love to keep all of it for myself, I do need to make some money to keep my farm going!

I’ll work on getting some good photos tomorrow.