Hello Spring

Winter on the Open Prairie - A sea of sienna.

Winter came and went on the ranch.  I have to say, that after last year's nightmare of a winter, this one was a breeze.  We had our cold snaps, but they didn't last.  We had snow, but it was never a lot, and it didn't stay around long.  (I think I spent more time on the tractor moving alpaca manure than moving snow.)We had ice and fog as thick as a down blanket. We had a lot of wind, which made the cold even colder. But here we are, March 1st. 

Oh, I'm sure it's going to still snow, but again, it won't last.  The sun is high.  Even the thick ice on the 1800 acre lake below us is gone.  Only the thin ice that forms each night on the still water greets each morning, but is gone by noon.

The flocks migrating snow geese fill the skies like a cloud of smoke when disturbed from the lake or when coming in to roost on the water at night, and when leaving by the thousands each morning.  The sound is alien, but joyous.

I've been busy on the ranch this winter doing all the little things that don't need to be done outside.  Things that you can manage inside as to not waste a lovely day outdoors. My shop on etsy.com, GnomeGnomeOnTheRange, is up and running.  It has some antiques, some weaving, lovely pillowcases, and soon will have wonderful gardening aprons and what I call Orphan Barrel Dresses for Toddlers, and of course, an array of alpaca yarns.  Which are going fast, so don't wait too long to get yours.  For my spinning and fiber art friends, I also have bags of cleaned and washed alpaca fleece.

I gutted and remodeled another bathroom. Yes, the ugly urine yellow one on the lower level has been brought into the 21st century and is now a lovely shade of stormy sea blue, and the floor is cherry.

We decided to add another 10 trees to the orchard and the irrigation that goes along with them.  The trees are all heritage grafts, to include one from a certified Johnny Appleseed (Chapman) tree.  How cool is that?  The trees should be here at the end of the month.

I built a small animal chute, which will hopefully help with alpaca toenail spa day. (Now, I just need to catch a victim, em ...volunteer.)

I built a second Top Bar Hive.  This one went much faster than the first, due mostly to the fact that I'd done it before.  It has a few changes from lessons learned last time around and is painted a lovely glowing blue shade of Hydrangea/Lilac/Wisteria.

I earned my State Teaching Certification, which required me to take a modern Human Resources College course to update. It was an 8 week course that I took as a full time job, and finished it in 10 days- 24 essays and papers.  I thought my brain was going to explode and my fingers were going to fall off.

I earned my State Food Handler's permit so that I can now sell baked goods at my friend's floral shop along with the honey and eggs.

I earned my CHP certification, and was awarded this year's Swiss and Royal Canadian Mounted Certifications.

I created a custom Tartan design for the Ranch and it was accepted into the Scottish Register. (I'll share it when the official paperwork gets here.)  I'll be getting it warped onto the loom this week and hopefully have the sash done for my DAR convention at the end of March.  OH....

I was accepted into DAR, Daughters of the American Revolution, and have continued to do research to add to my long list of patriot ancestors.  It is time consuming, but fascinating.  I had a fellow etsy.com artist design me a custom wardrobe and it is gorgeous.  LOL.  On a day you feel like a giantess, I suggest you put on a 18th century bumroll, and all 3 petticoats and jacket, and see how slimming your 21st century clothes make you feel.  Although I am perfectly comfortable in my period costumes and wish I could wear them all day long, all the time like my fellow online blogger Thea ,but it's just not practical here.  She's an inspiration.

My friend Kelsey, had her re-Grand Opening of her new shop in Stromsburg, Spindle Shuttle and Needle.  In celebration of that event, I made her a large 4 foot square Dala horse of her very own for outside the shop.  Shops all over downtown have them in support of the town being the Swede Capital of the State.

We've been playing with making our own Farmer's cheese and we're hooked.  We especially like plain with cinnamon and honey, but garlic-onion-black pepper is our hands down favorite.

I've taken to grinding my own wheat in a KtichenAid Grain mill which turned out to be total garbage.  I had to grind it 6 times to get it to the quality of flour and it almost killed my machine, and I have a professional machine! 
I switched to the NutriMill Plus Mill which takes all of 2 minutes to grind two weeks worth of fine flour from high quality red wheat berries. Those I order from Minnesota, and have come up with a delicious 100% whole wheat sandwich bread.  I've been making it once a week. 
It freezes well and makes a great toast, which is high on my 'must' list for a bread.



I found an enormous, antique, bread dough trough that was brought here by homesteaders in the 1880s.  I scrubbed it down, dried it, and rewaxed it.  It is now ready for use, but I almost don't dare.  I might break it in this week or next.  She's almost too pretty to use.

The seeds for this year are on order.  The sweet potatoes are in jars on the window sill sprouting starts for me.

The chickens and alpacas are doing their best to entertain us all while they themselves are going stir crazy.

Twill Place Mats fresh off the loom.

So here's to the last day of a productive Winter, and to a busy Spring!

I'm Still Here!

Many Thanks to my imaginary internet friends Nancy and JJ, who poked me with very long sticks, one from Texas and the other from Australia, to see if I was still doing the blog and still around.

Yup, I sure am.  I've just been busier than ever.

Winter lingered well into April, and even though it wasn't snowy anymore, the cool temperature and insanely wet weather made the normal Spring routine around the ranch nearly impossible.

The weather did a number on all the started plants.  The far longer than normal wait to get into the ground killed almost 90% of the starts from the new greenhouse. The new garden is lovely though.  I had the guys on the next farm over dig holes for my fence posts and then spent a week getting that set up.  All dressed up and the wrong weather to do anything about it.

I normally plant the 3rd week of May.  Nope, it was FAR too cold.
We then had a major hailstorm that sat over us for an hour and 11 minutes.  Most of it was pea and dime sized, and while it spelled doom for any and all baby fruit and blossoms in the orchard, the garden was still empty and it didn't bother me.  Until the almost 2 inch hail started to fall.  It was a band of large hail that was only about 20 feet wide, but by looking at the line of damage, it hit the hay shed (missed the steel barn) went across the lower orchard, the garden then across the workshop roof, and then yup - the house.  It wasn't wind driven, so the siding and windows were fine, but the asphalt shingles were toast on both buildings.  I was on the phone with the roofing company while the hail storm was still in progress.  Getting a new roof and gutters is a pain in the wallet in hail country, now multiply that by two.  Deductibles and a roof upgrade to a more hail resistant and wind resistant roof cut my premiums by a crazy amount, but I was still down $10,000.  No one wants that.  Upside, my class IV roofs will now outlast us all.

4th week of May - still too cold
1st week of June the tomatoes go in - NOPE too cold
2nd week of June - this is ridiculous- TOO WET - darn it - you're gong in the ground anyway

Did I mention it was too wet?  We have several instances of 4-5-or even 6 inches of rain in ONE DAY. 

Then came the heat and the lack of rain.  I had the dry conditions covered with in-ground drip irrigation installed in the garden to every plant.  But the heat was out of my control.  Daytime temperatures were in the 90s and the lows in the lower 80s.  The humidity was off the charts causing heat indexes of 118 for two weeks. 

The plants were all stunted, and many died and had to be replaced.  They couldn't handle the stress of mother natures mood swings.  We JUST harvest our first tomato last week.  Usually I'd be canning some already. 

Speaking of canning - I'd normally be done with pickles by now. We are still waiting for our first cucumber.

So needless to say, I have nothing to enter into the fair this year.

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The weather was so crazy our bees even came later than expected by 6 weeks. Then they  were rushed to us to beat a late season snowstorm in California!

I picked them up in town, brought them home and installed them in their new hive with hopes my California bees wouldn't take one look at the weather hell Nebraska was, and start to fly towards home.

Let me tell you, there is NOTHING normal or natural about shaking a box of angry bees into another box.  If they could sense fear, they would have no problem sensing sheer terror.

I harvested the first of our honey three weeks ago, a second batch this past week, and this week I will check their process to see if we can rob one more time, or if they are slowing down and will need what they have for winter.  We don't want to take too much.



It is amazing, light, fruity, barely sweet, heaven in a jar.

I already plan to build a second Top Bar hive this winter.






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But what about the alpacas?!

They're still here!

They too had to wait for the weather.  Normally they are sheared at the beginning of May as it gets harder and harder to keep them cool.  When you're wearing a 6 inch thick vicuna coat in 80 degree heat, getting your legs and belly hosed off with well water only cools you down so much!

Before

Our shearing team is in Missouri and flooding and rains postponed their normal routes until the last day in May.

After

But came they did.  They boys all got their summer haircuts, pedicures, teeth trimmings, and a dose of wormer.  It was funny to watch them right after shearing.  They acted naked and embarrassed for about two hours.  They relished in the fact that they could feel a cool breeze after they played in the kiddie pools and rolled in the mud.

They have been an incredible source of entertainment.

Three weeks ago I delivered all the fleece to the mill 4 hours away in Kansas to be made into worsted 2ply yarns and fleece cloud under our yarn brand of Koselig Yarn.  100% pure alpaca yarn, no dyes, 5 colors, no blends.

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Other events that I'll go into more later:

2 Scandinavian festivals where I demonstrated Norwegian band weaving.



I was the sports director for a Cornhusker State Games sport pistol event.


I designed and built a floor inkle loom and a warping board.


On top of keeping up (or trying to) with writing, reading, language lessons, the house, the mowing, building, remodeling (the great bathroom saga), broody hens, not broody hens, chicks, more chicks, predators, mice-mice-and MORE mice, endless piles of manure, baby birds taking up residence in the weather station - IN the rain gauge, trying to build up inventory to finally stock my etsy.com shop (TheInspiredViking), all while keeping Doc and The Boy going in the right directions.

So until the next time I find a few minutes, or someone has to poke me again, thanks for visiting the ranch!