no Farm for this gal

of course i didn't actually have the guts to ask dennis for a sheep. This is not my first time down the barnyard pet road. and let me tell you no one is ever on my side.... well amanda usually is.



About a year or so ago I was positive I needed a cow. seriously I needed a cow. when I say I like to do things myself i'm talking everything.. the cow started actually with amanda telling me I should read the little house on the prairie books. yeah sounds juvenile i know but man are they interesting. Well during the story it descrbes how "ma" makes cheese, get this....gag.. with the stomach of a milk fed calf. I had never thought of cheese being a home made thing before. Sooo I totally got into looking up how to make cheese and where to get supplies from and get this I ordered special plant based enzymes for curding up the cheese. Yay not killing baby cows at this house! So I can hardly wait to make some cheese as soon as my stuff arrives I get down to making some mozzarella.



mmmmm. It is good. wow and easy. So I make a few more bathches. mozza is easy its a fresh cheese ... no aging. But around my forth batch something goes wrong my curds look like crappy tiny flakes of feta. and it wont melt to mozzarella. a waste. my next batch same thing.



Of course i go to my trusty computer and find out its the over sterilation of the milk companies messing with my curd. Well I cant just call up island farms and tell them to turn it down a notch so i put a facebook call out for anybody with some home pasterized milk. haha what a joke.. im the most granola out of anyone i know..... I would be the one to have a cow and milk it. Yeah I should have a cow and milk it. What a great idea. I mean Dennis is always talking about getting acrerage. Why have land if your not going to use it. So i run it by my trusty always on board hubby.. he says great idea.

woohoo butter time!

then he says " don't cows make the most milk in summer." "yeah" i say. "well we're never home in the summer"

hmmm he is right. were chronic summertime vacationers. may to sept im not around. but i mean im talking a glorious farm with chickens cows ponds and whatever else you put on a hobby farm, oh yeah and a duck definetly want a duck. who needs to vacation when you have a wicked farm. plus the farms im looking at cost a pretty penny so we totally wont have money to vacation, or buy cheese. so it will be a good thing that i can make my own!!!

so now in the present time, months later I dont live on a farm.. no cow no chickens no pond no flipping duck. As it turns out i kind of like having a bit of cash and it was a high price to pay to make a little cheese at home...

so not to put me through the whole excitement of getting a farm to the reality that it just wont happen I put the sheep out of my head pretty quickly... besides im a crappy knitter!

can i have a sheep dennis

So in the 50's wool "longies" or shorties" were soakers. pants shorts or diaper wraps to cover your babies cloth diapers. well now is the new age of wool. apparently wool is the all time bulletproof diaper cover.

Now those of you who know me know im totally into making my own stuff. Im not about to spen fifty dollars on a diaper cover.

So i research wool..... wikihow is amazing...how-to is not bad.... its dinner time my kids r hungry and im glued to the computer screen figuring out ways to make wool diaper covers. den says the kids r hungry and i say make some kd. I hear bria say not again no i dont want kraft dinner. You know you've being serving to much KD when a six year old refuses!!!

I get up ...reluctantly... and scan my cupboard and freezers. poor dennis he is craving red meat and i 've being serving chicken for a week. I decide i could make bacon mushroom carbonara and a apple fig salad and be back to the computer in no time.... I admit it I have a Problem.

Sitting down for dinner... rule at my house we always sit together for dinner.... this rule is so fricking lame i could be researching the best way to use recycled material to make diaper covers instead im watching my six year old make lettuce wraps with carbonara. gag.

I shovel food down super fast. Im done, when your done you can leave the table. aaaaahhhh back at my computer..... all the imformation i could possibly need with a few strokes of my fingertips.

So research tells me how to make wool longies out of old sweaters...... I have ridiculous size closet... ive worked in a clothing store for ten years I ve actually made my husband convert a bedroom into a walk in closet. So of course i must have some old wool sweaters buried in there. I start going through the labels.... can you believe it the only sweater i have that has any wool in it is a vest and its only 13 percent. i have litterally spent thousands of dollars on clothes made out of viscose and acrylic..... I should read labels when i buy more often.

haha an idea strikes me.... the hospital auxillary....our towns version of a thrift store. Of course i can find old wool sweaters there. It will be rich resource for my diaper needs! So i have the great idea of going with three kids in tow. when i say great idea i mean the total opposite. the store is full of crabby people searching for bargains... who knew this place was such a happening place. I go to a rack of womans sweaters.... nothing... nothing...100 % cashmere wool... hmm pink... im gonna try....nothin nothing nothing nothin....HOLY I seriously can't believe i cant find one lambs wool sweater. this blows.... mens section ... not even a sweater section... well thats fine i want girly things anyways.... plus size oooh whats this yup its a totally ugly boiled lambs wool swearter. i dont care im gonna make it work. i bring my two pitiful finds up to the casheer she says fifteen dollars. HUh fifteen dollars for two used sweaters. I dont say this out loud but i think it.. i also think crap i have to cut sew and make mistakes 30 more dollars i could have had someone make them for me.


I make them and they blow. uber ugly. oh well... time and money not well wasted.

So im at the fall fair. lots of cute things. but this one station really catches my eyes three ladies... sheep skins, bags of dirty wool, those spinning machines ,"like from sleeping beauty", ladies knitting. I can knit. i've knitted before not well but i'd get better.

Now this is how my brain works.

I dont think of buying the wool already spun. I dont think about buying the unspun wool. i think i should buy a sheep. harvest my own wool... ive done it on farmville...looked easy enough to me. spin it dye it and knit it into soaker. of course i can do this... now one problem occurs to me.

how do i ask my husband..."can i have a sheep dennis"