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Sabbatical
Sep. 9th, 2015 06:45 amAnother blog sabbatical, of sorts, all based on a 'convenience' factor and feeling excessively busy. Busy with what? Life, the Universe, and Everything.
Ranch is in some ways beginning to feel overwhelming, which may be a Summer thing. With the heat and humidity of North Central Baja Jorja summers, work always wants to become Routine Chores Only. This summer didn't allow that. Combination of we received a lot of needed rain (though so far, not much in the way of tropical storms... not claiming we won't, saying not yet), and Cows and Goats stressed fences which needed maintenance.
Goats, well, their fence is one of the first ones we put up here on the Ranch, so 25 plus years old. That they started blowing holes in old rusted wire is unsurprising. Frankly, we gave up on trying to mend most of it, at least those portions that divide within, and simply started letting the Goats wander through the Park and the Horse Paddock. They've been eating back a lot of the brushy growth which thrived on the Summer Monsoon.
Cows, on the other hand, we couldn't ignore so placidly as a couple two-three took to going over (or through) the fence onto the road. Two things happened from that. A lot of fence maintenance involving pulling wire fabric back up, re-attaching separated segments and twisting those connections tighter, re-stapling to posts, then adding stays which isn't hard yet is time consuming. And, the prime offender experienced his Change of Occupation from beef stored on hoof to beef stored in the freezer.
KP Ranch is not a petting zoo. If you aren't comfortable with that part, skip over it.
Because of all the needed maintenance, and because the high summer months see a bit of a slow-down at Farmers Markets we vend through, we scheduled a Modified Summer. That plan involved setting up at one market every other weekend, and doing milk delivery only on the opposite weekends. The second market on Monday evening slowed down so much, and all the vendors so busy getting gardens and other aspects ready for Autumn, that the market as a whole simply closed for two months. We'll re-open in a couple more weeks. Meanwhile, Herself is still doing the milk delivery to the regular customers (takes about an hour and a half).
I did mention the Monsoon, right? Well, that turned the Saturday Market (At Haile Town Centre) into mostly an every week milk delivery only. We are back to every week there, now, and beef sales went well (take that, Recalcitrant Youngster Bovine who disregarded fences!) along with our other usual sales of goats milk, goat cheese, and free-range eggs.
But not a huge amount of Art accomplished. Some. Working on a series concept titled Special Snowflakes. Finished up a Really Big Piece, and decided on a title for that following an older suggestion, re-spelled. Need to mat and frame that piece, then mat the smaller print (at least mat, maybe frame) and decide how many more prints to do. This one is designed as a Big Piece, so a small print of this one falls into the 27 centimetre long size. And I might decide that's too small, which makes a small print more like 35-40 centimetres long. The 'small' print of the two sizes I've got now is 50 cm long.
Then again, I've always been partial to big prints.
The Autumn Show Season is coming up, reason to get the bit of backlog needing mats done, as well as the current prints needing framing, and then planning on more prints to replace inventory that's getting low. Or sold out. Stuff like that.
Houdini BorderCollieBro is now into his elder years, and frequently referred to as the Elder Statesdog. We adopted a pup last year, and I'm so infrequently posting here that likely haven't mentioned her. She's now a month plus a year, still puppy, and growing. She's slightly bigger than Houdini. We kept the name the Humane Society gave her when delivered to their doorstep as an hours old pup whose dam refused to care for her, the only surviving pup from a litter of six. So, meet Velvet.
Velvet is already starring in a few greeting card art pieces, and will no doubt continue to do so. Houdini and Squrrl are, of course, also featured in some of the greeting card art pieces. All of which need to be printed and added to inventory. To that end, I've been shopping for papers and will try some from a company called Red River Paper. One portion of their product line is photographic paper stock designed to be folded into greeting cards easily. Fairly good results on the test pieces.
And on that note, it's about time to get moving and take care of the Ranch...
Ranch is in some ways beginning to feel overwhelming, which may be a Summer thing. With the heat and humidity of North Central Baja Jorja summers, work always wants to become Routine Chores Only. This summer didn't allow that. Combination of we received a lot of needed rain (though so far, not much in the way of tropical storms... not claiming we won't, saying not yet), and Cows and Goats stressed fences which needed maintenance.
Goats, well, their fence is one of the first ones we put up here on the Ranch, so 25 plus years old. That they started blowing holes in old rusted wire is unsurprising. Frankly, we gave up on trying to mend most of it, at least those portions that divide within, and simply started letting the Goats wander through the Park and the Horse Paddock. They've been eating back a lot of the brushy growth which thrived on the Summer Monsoon.
Cows, on the other hand, we couldn't ignore so placidly as a couple two-three took to going over (or through) the fence onto the road. Two things happened from that. A lot of fence maintenance involving pulling wire fabric back up, re-attaching separated segments and twisting those connections tighter, re-stapling to posts, then adding stays which isn't hard yet is time consuming. And, the prime offender experienced his Change of Occupation from beef stored on hoof to beef stored in the freezer.
KP Ranch is not a petting zoo. If you aren't comfortable with that part, skip over it.
Because of all the needed maintenance, and because the high summer months see a bit of a slow-down at Farmers Markets we vend through, we scheduled a Modified Summer. That plan involved setting up at one market every other weekend, and doing milk delivery only on the opposite weekends. The second market on Monday evening slowed down so much, and all the vendors so busy getting gardens and other aspects ready for Autumn, that the market as a whole simply closed for two months. We'll re-open in a couple more weeks. Meanwhile, Herself is still doing the milk delivery to the regular customers (takes about an hour and a half).
I did mention the Monsoon, right? Well, that turned the Saturday Market (At Haile Town Centre) into mostly an every week milk delivery only. We are back to every week there, now, and beef sales went well (take that, Recalcitrant Youngster Bovine who disregarded fences!) along with our other usual sales of goats milk, goat cheese, and free-range eggs.
But not a huge amount of Art accomplished. Some. Working on a series concept titled Special Snowflakes. Finished up a Really Big Piece, and decided on a title for that following an older suggestion, re-spelled. Need to mat and frame that piece, then mat the smaller print (at least mat, maybe frame) and decide how many more prints to do. This one is designed as a Big Piece, so a small print of this one falls into the 27 centimetre long size. And I might decide that's too small, which makes a small print more like 35-40 centimetres long. The 'small' print of the two sizes I've got now is 50 cm long.
Then again, I've always been partial to big prints.
The Autumn Show Season is coming up, reason to get the bit of backlog needing mats done, as well as the current prints needing framing, and then planning on more prints to replace inventory that's getting low. Or sold out. Stuff like that.
Houdini BorderCollieBro is now into his elder years, and frequently referred to as the Elder Statesdog. We adopted a pup last year, and I'm so infrequently posting here that likely haven't mentioned her. She's now a month plus a year, still puppy, and growing. She's slightly bigger than Houdini. We kept the name the Humane Society gave her when delivered to their doorstep as an hours old pup whose dam refused to care for her, the only surviving pup from a litter of six. So, meet Velvet.
Velvet is already starring in a few greeting card art pieces, and will no doubt continue to do so. Houdini and Squrrl are, of course, also featured in some of the greeting card art pieces. All of which need to be printed and added to inventory. To that end, I've been shopping for papers and will try some from a company called Red River Paper. One portion of their product line is photographic paper stock designed to be folded into greeting cards easily. Fairly good results on the test pieces.
And on that note, it's about time to get moving and take care of the Ranch...
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