All Handmade Show coming up!

Well I'm jumping in with both feet and Tim's feet too! We are going in Vicki's very awesome craft show which has become more and more successful every year. The rules are you can only sell the things that we created ourselves. I'm going to take my hats, Tim's concrete sculpture, and my latest venture... dat dat dat daaaa... all natural scented soy candles!!! We are going into production work to create scented candles that don't dirty the air with nasty chemicals like those paraffin wax ones. I love scented candles and the paraffin ones are now starting to bother me and my asthma. I also want to get creative again and have something that we can sell that is "County made" and then offer the candles at a wholesale level to other stores so we can have a business that will keep us going all year round. The shop is great but it's only open seasonally and it's too quiet for us on the shoulder seasons so we need a business to keep us going financially and fill in those gaps when the shop is quiet. Tim was offered a job back in the city of Toronto that would be for about 14 months and we made the commitment to turn it down. This is very scary since it would have made a very nice financial cushion to see us through for a while. It is really hard on all of us when Tim is gone all week and exhausted on weekends. Not to mention us missing him and him missing out on everything the kids are up to and of course all the drama that happens in a normal school week!

So decision was made to say no and find work here for Tim. He is going out and shopping around his unique style of Graphic Design, and Illustration work and hoping that will bring him some jobs and he is vamping up our website and ads to show that he can do that kind of work. He always takes unique approaches to design and everyone he has worked for and created ads, logos, business cards and such have been thrilled with his concepts and he is an incredibly talented artist. He makes some wickedly funny character drawings and comic style illustrations.

Of course these types of jobs are all found through word of mouth so pass around the word and thanks to the joys of the internet long distance creations are completely possible! Tim is currently working on our very funny family Yule card. He did a caricature of all of us and we printed it on cars to mail out last year. This was last year's version. He managed to add in all our individual quirky bits that makes it so perfect for us. I can't wait to see what this year's will look like, hee hee!

Our Baby Goats Are Here!

We finally went to visit Little Blessings Farm, a short drive from us, where Tricia Daley raises her pygora goats. Pygora goats are a cross breed of a small pygmy goat with an angora goat with the long curly coats that can be spun and turned into mohair yarn.

These two sisters have a pygmy mom and an angora dad and were born this past spring. We will hopefully get their birth date from Tricia soon so we can celebrate it when it comes around.

Right now they are super timid and nervous since we brought them home in the dark last night. It was only 6 pm but it was completely black outside. The poor girls stood on the ramp most of the night so I imagine they are pretty tired today. This is the first time they have been separated from their mom and the rest of the herd.
We brought food out this morning and with some coaxing only one would eat from our hands. As soon as we left the pen to get the kids on the bus they started naa-ing out for us to come back. They sound oddly like a child crying right now. The one girl seems to have more of the angora coat with lots of curls and length while the other one is a bit shorter and less curl more like the pygmy's coat.
They need names and we are all a bit stuck so we are giving them some time to get used to the place and for us to get to know them and see their personalities. I kind of like the idea of coming up with something very girly for them. I like the idea that it has something to do with the colour white or the moon and so far Luna is the only thing I can come up with I sort of like.

Names are so tricky at first and then the name seems to just be taken on by the animal and you can't imagine it being any other name. Our cat Baxter, a big black and white boy was named Pixie at the humane society but it seemed so wrong for him. Now he could only be a Baxter or Bax for short and it suits him to a tee. I'm liking the names Cora, Holly, Molly, Lu-lu, and of course the kids don't like those at all and want Frizzy and Fluffy! Short names work better with animals or at least ones that can have a short nickname so you can call them easily.

I really hope these girls are less timid and will be able to be good pets for us to play with, walk and have customers visit. We were spoiled by Coco, Smore and Nana Aggie since they were so easy to have around and had no problem being fussed over and petted. Really they were more like demanding the attention than anything.

I moved 2 cords of wood in our barn a week or more ago on my own so that we can create an indoor pen area for the girls. Goats don't like the rain and with the snow not far away we need to give them a better shelter from the wind and snow. We've got all the things we need to make the pen, Tim just needs some time to nail the thing together. We might even have chickens this spring to live with the goats, we'll see how it goes this winter. I just hope the coyotes don't discover our baby girls. I don't think they could get into the pen but they sure will scare the goats and us! Not to mention once they know they are there they will return over and over to work on the problem of getting into the pen. This year we have a higher number of coyotes in the County and you can hear them most nights and they come pretty close from the sounds of them. Once the river freezes they use that as their main route to move around. Those paw prints are pretty big on those things. Apparently we have hybrid coyotes that have mixed bred with wolves so they can get pretty big. We live very close to McMann Bluff where a few packs live since it is all heavily wooded and a large acreage where they can live undisturbed by people. I need to get one of those crazy horns that they blow at sports games since I don't want to ever own a gun so if the coyotes show up I can run out there making a hell of a wracket so they will be scared off. Or I'll have to start practicing with a slingshot and stones!!