I have finished the leg, heel flap, turned the heel, picked up and decreased the gussets and now on the foot of the first sock of this pair. It is going really fast and looks great. I'm hoping to get sock one done and the second sock on the needles this week. I REALLY need this pair as the leg is longer than my other socks and the weather is getting chilly in the mornings.

I'm still working on washing up Frio's fleece, there is a lot of it and it is VERY dirty, mainly dirt and some VM. It is taking up to 4 washes to get all the dirt out, so this is going to be a long process. I'll be glad when it is all washed, then I can decide what to do with it. I know Bob wants a pair of socks out of the mohair, but with about 6 pounds between the two wethers, I should have enough to make the socks plus something else.

The goats are working their way to the back fence, I get a kick out of watching them browse on the weeds. They nibble here, then nibble there, then back to the first spot for a bit, then they come up by the house to lay down and chew their cud. The backyard should be cleared out by Christmas at the rate they are eating. Then will come the fun of getting fencing so that I can move them to a new area to browse. We still have the whole north lot to fence, so they can have it to clear.

Billy and I have just about finished the first side of the driveway and will start back at the southend on the other side, this week. At least we can get into and out of the driveway now, back when I started on it, there was barely enough room for a SMALL car to drive on it and no place to get out of the car! Two of the flower beds are weeded and I'm working on the area where my lilacs are. I lost two of the ones in front and still can't find the one in the backyard, so probably lost that one too. :( They were my Mother's Day gift from Bob and the kids.

When we start working on the southeast side of the driveway, we will also be working on finding the third big flower bed. The fourth one is still pretty clear, and we are still working on filling it up with dirt, humus, peat moss and gypsum (to soften the ground). We have one end filled up and planted two Purple Fountian Grasses in it. I'm hoping the grasses survive the winter, this will be our second time trying it, but we were told what to do to help it survive.

I finished Bob's sock finally! Now I have one cast on for me out of Briggs & Little Durasport yarn. This is a Canadian yarn and I love it. This will be my second pair out of it. I'm using a pattern called Basket Weave Ribbing out of "Sensational Socks." The yarn is a medium gray with darker and lighter spots and is turning out really nice. I have 4" done already and need to try it on, to check length and fit around my leg.

I started washing up Frio's fiber the other day. I weighed it before I started and had 3 pounds of raw, unwashed fiber. I'll see how much I have when I'm done washing it. His fiber is dirtier than his brother's was. So it is taking more to get it clean. I was planning on washing more today, but it is damp and rainy, so probalby won't get any done.

I have 71 snowflakes done! I was originally planning on doing 4 a day, but life just wouldn't let me do that. I'm hoping to at least get 99 done before Christmas. I have done 3 bells and have to make more of them, plus make some snowflakes out of yarn instead of thread for hanging on the light fixtures. I finished the Christmas stocking out of Holly yarn, it turned out nice.

Let's see, I have been so busy this past week, that I haven't had time to update my blog. I got Frio sheared on Tuesday, about 3 pounds of raw fiber. I'll work on washing it this week, as I didn't get time to last week. Didn't do much crafting this past week or weekend. I did get some Red Heart Holly yarn to make a Christmas stocking with and got it cast on and two rows done, while we were driving to Las Cruces.

Bob brought home fencing, but no posts and we wanted a gate for the new fence. It is around our grapes and I need to be able to take care of them. We went to Las Cruces to look for a weld wire gate kit, this is a tublar frame for you to attach welded wire to and comes with hinges and a latch that are designed to fasten to metal T-posts. The one place that carried them was out :( So for now I'm using a sheet of particle board across the opening to the grapes. With them fenced in, we moved the cross fence back to where we had it originally at the back of the yard, to protect the pine trees we have back there. The fenced in area is about 60' wide x 105' long, so the goats have a lot more space and weeds to eat.

Bob got the supplies and made me a mineral feeder for the goats out of pvc pipe. It works great and the goats seem to prefer the loose minerals over the block we started out with. We attached it to the outer fence near their water tank. We picked up the feeding trough this weekend and put it in the same general area of the yard. The trough will hold a flake of hay, that has been fluffed up, so they are wasting a lot less hay with it.

We found a local farmer who grows hay, a blend of alfalfa and Bermuda grass. They had equipment break down while haying and had some field where the hay grew taller than normally allowed. They call that hay "mature hay" and were selling it for $3/bale compared to $5/bale for regular hay in the field or $6/bale for hay in the barn. We bought 30 bales of the mature hay. That should get me through most of the winter. Bob was just going to get 4 bales of hay from the feed store, but they wanted $14/bale! I'll see what the goats think of the new hay when I'm almost finished with the two bales of pure alfalfa that I got when we bought the goats.