Tangerine tree

Finally put up the bird light for the Tangerine tree, I bought last Fall. 
It needed a bit more light than it was getting.  Light is not pretty but it is doing the trick.  
Hopefully, I will have tangerine fruit by mid spring.

Baby its cold outstide~~

 
-11* early this morning....  all the water troughs and buckets frozen solid... except the one we have cobbled together in this pasture..... it has a heater.

So, I decided to move all the animals into this pasture, as it would be easier on the humans.

Photos taken at 4pm,, once it got up to 20* not including the wind chill. Was tool cold to take time to aim. LOL

This morning, the wether goats and sheep were spending more time butting heads than eating... they haven't been in together for a long time.
The boys finally settled down hours later.

Then  Syd and the Old ewe decided to go at it... and are still going at it. This kind'a surprised me... I guess Syd decided he didn't want to take orders from an Elder and well... the Elder out masses him over a 100lbs.

The Holidays ~

Ended up with two new games, courtesy of my Sister and my Niece. Thank you both! 

First one is the game called Pente.... which is a lot of fun. The other one is big Boggle. 

This is the way cool Cookie Jar my DS bought me. 

Over all, a nice low key holiday. 

First Snow!

First snow of the year. Ended up with about an inch of snow, not much.  Nice powdery snow, would be great if it did not have an 1/2" of Ice underneath.

Cold that morning -11*, with the wind, it was bitter.....   today it was up to 40* for about an hour this afternoon, but the rest of the week it is supposed to be in the single digits.

DS managed to get the Turkeys into the Hen house.  This batch of chickens have been around the turkeys long enough, they all seem to, for the most part, to get along.

Took my old Olympus camera out the other day~~

Photo of the sheep.
 Sheared Adda a couple of months ago, so she looks a little scruffy. 
The other sheep are hair sheep.

Dyfra of course, what you don't see is Adda tugging at my jacket and my camera ended up moving, so I cut Dyfra's muzzle off a bit. LOL

Maggie looking as cute as ever.

Was originally trying for action shots but when you do this yourself, the most one tends to get is backside shots.
This is Stjarna doing a very nice Tolt.

New Gotland Roving

The Gotland yarn above was from the Fleece I bought from a breeder in NZ.  Super soft lamb fleece, very curly and a light heathered grey.
However, I do not have enough to finish out a full bobbin.

So I searched the web on the off chance I would find some more online. I came across some Gotland from Paradise fibers.
It is soft, but not as soft as my original Gotland lamb, also a lot more dark.
Spins a lot different too, was having a hard time spinning it as thin as the original.
Only thing common between the two, is you have to over spin a bit, other wise it will blow out when I ply.
Is incredible how different these two batches of Gotland are.

Haven't decided if I am going to ply the two types together or not at this point.
Might have enough for a scarf but not a sweater I was hoping for.

President James Madison Montpelier

Back of the Mansion.
Surprisingly, the inside of the house isn't that big, rooms are quite small. While the outside looks impressive and large, it really isn't.

The Front.
Part of the house was for Jame's family and the other side, for his parents. If they wanted to talk, they had to walk out their front door.

They have quite a pretty brick wall Garden.

Yes, yes you see hills. Was very pleased to see those, as they are the one of the things I very much miss since moving here.They also have a steeple chase course and lots of horse stables on the plantation.

DS and DH by a life sided statue of President James Madison.