More new lambs

Our other ewe had two lambs sometime early this morning. They were both black like the last two lambs. By the time I discovered them they were already up and running around so I am not sure what sex they are.

Homemade Laundry Soap

I made up a batch of laundry soap this morning. It is a simple recipe:

4 cups Baking Soda
3 cups Borax
2 cups soap, grated (such as Castile or homemade soap)
1 tbsp essential oil of choice (lavender, citrus, vanilla, etc.)

Mix all ingredients together and store in an air tight container. To use, add 2 tbsp per normal sized laundry load.

And the babies keep coming....

Our alpaca Gritona gave birth to a tiny light fawn female this morning.

Our first cria of the year!

Celtie, my favorite alapa, gave birth to a handsome medium brown boy this morning.

Look what I found this morning....

A little black calf.

It looks like our Dexter cow, Cherry Blossom, gave birth to a this little heifer while we were in Las Vegas.  We got back from the airport really late last night and I didn't go down to the barn.  I was a bit surprised to find the calf this morning as I wasn't expecting Cherry Blossom to calve for another 4-6 weeks.  She looks healthy and is nursing fine but I really wouldn't expect any different as Cherry Blossom loves being a mom and takes great care of her calves.

We're headed to Vegas!

We are leaving in a bit for a quick trip to Las Vegas!

Chinese Dragon Boat Festival

The Dragon Boat Festival is a traditional Chinese festival held on the fifth day of the fifth month of the Chinese lunar calendar (varying from late May to June on the modern Gregorian calendar). Commonly known as “Duan Wu” in Chinese, this unique occasion is grandly celebrated everywhere in China and also observed in various other parts of East Asia as "Double Fifth Day". In the West, it is popularly known as “Dragon Boat Festival” and is typically celebrated during the summer months with dragon boat races and competitions being the focus of the activities.  Dragon Boats are painted traditionally green, red, yellow, white, and black. Dragons are powerful of full of good luck, so the Dragon boat races spread good luck.

Here is a great coloring page of a Dragon Boat (here).
Crayola shows how to make Dragon Boat Puppets (here).
I printed out two Dragon Boat cut outs for the kids to color, assemble and race (find it here).

Children on that day wear bracelets of five different colors to protect against Evil, they are called the Five Poison or Wu Du charms.  It is the favorite decoration of this festival. According to Chinese custom, the "double fifth" is the hottest day of the month, when all the poisonous vapors are in the air, so every attempt is made to harmonize yin and yang so that danger and disease can be avoided. The Five Poison Charm is made up of a snake, centipede, scorpion, lizard, toad and sometimes spider. It was thought that the strength of the 4 poisons would counteract the poison of one. It is embroidered on clothing, stamped on cakes, engraved on charms, and used for decorations.  You can read more about the Five Poisons here and print a a Five Posions coloring sheet here.