Then There Was Sun and Hand Crafted Goat Milk Soap Double Giveaway!

"Yes Virginia there is a sun."  We have been in the most southern line of fire of the "let it snow" in measures of feet not inches here in True Northern California*. Which means in the last two weeks we have had rain, snow, ice , wind and even a dash of fog for good measure. We have had temperatures freezing or below creating not only several hard freezes but ice rinks after days of rain. We have had huge volumes of water running through our seasonal creeks. The only thing we have avoided is flood. And this is because we are about 1000 feet elevation in the most southern Cascades and the water that comes down from higher elevations keeps running down to the mighty Sacramento river on the valley floor. The photo above shows today sun, temps in the mid 50's , calm. But don't be fooled in 48 hours it will be status quo again rain, ice and perhaps according to some forecast maps a bit of snow at our level. It is certainly an old time winter here in the golden state!

Allow me a moment to to first apologize for my photos. My laptop is steadfastly refusing to let me edit my photos. So rather wait another day or more to get back to this neglected blog I am plowing forward. Secondly the asterisk above True Northern California ah yes. You see in the last 15 years or so there has been a great misconception that Northern California begins  at the Bay area aka San Fransisco. Nope sorry there are still many miles of  California after that. And those of us who are in spitting distance of Oregon take great offense to this misconception. So when someone from Lodi tells you they are from Nor Cal not even close. And just for the record Lodi which is in Central California is a lovely fast growing city. No offense intended.

So what to do on a real day of sun and temps which leave me in shirt sleeves for only about the second time since before Christmas? I know lets groom Sherman the boy dog of my pair of livestock guardians.

Sherman pictured her with Tubby Tabby aka Tabby Cat gets a good flicker brushing every two weeks if I can manage it. Sherman is a registered AKC Great Pyrenees and has a "typical" Pyr coat. There is a joke about Pyrs and shedding. They only shed twice a year. January to June and July to December. And he was looking a bit tacky around his edges as we began. I groom my working dogs on the milk stand. You know *that* old joke " where do you groom a 120 pound dog? Any where he will fit. "

 Making progress it seems. I don't usually get him done in one sitting. Partially because he is a good patient boy but even good patient dogs need a break. And then there is my back and other body parts that I know well enough to know that if I am to live to groom another day a break for me is needed also. Especially on a day when I got giddy and decided not only to groom up Sherm but trim some goat feet also. So Sherman and Yarrow got a cookie and yes loosing some of that hair helped to make his butt not look so big!

After trimming feet on Libbie and KC , once again the don't over do because there are ten other sets of hooves to be done . I made the executive decision (it is my farm after all) to take a coffee break and knit. Working on number two of some nice lace patterned fingerless mitts. See the green bag behind the mitts and coffee? First person to correctly comment with what organization this came from and I will happily send you a sample bar of my three hand crafted goat milk soaps.

 OPPS. In my attempt to get this post up and out I failed to finish the thought I had in my head. Therefore I need to apolgize. Any  person to correctly comment with what organization this green tote bag came from will be entered in a drawing on Friday January 20th.  I will announce the winner on Saturday January 21st . Due to my unintentional wording I will make amends by offering a prize to two winners. Yup you heard right two sets of three goat-milk soap with organic essential oils and products in the scents of Ylang Ylang , Wild Hungarian Lavender and Eucalyptus Lemon Fusion will be delivered to the post boxes of two lucky folks. So comment away and see if you are the lucky winner.  In addition to this issue while trying to correct it this morning after the fog (in my head) cleared I managed to totally loose this post but finally found it. Upon which I also learned that the photo editing mentioned above was a technical difficulty due to oh this is embarrassing, dead mouse batteries!   Oh my maybe I should hibernate until Spring 😱

 I am on a roll now and will be back with more photos and tales of Sherman, Yarrow and the  goats soon. Plus a sneak peek of the newest quilt in progress and another scarf on the loom.

And just in case you think that grooming a Pyr is a small job here is today's  contribution and that is from just a quick going over.