Merry Christmas from Indiana….

It’s Christmas eve and it’s very quiet in the convent. The other two interns left on Friday to spend time with their families. Linda was hoping to come out here right after Christmas to spend some time with me but couldn’t find anyone to watch Boomer. It’s tough enough to be apart for the holidays but now she is sick with something that resembles the flu. She has body aches, a high temperature, and a sore throat but decided to go to her son’s house anyway so she can spend time with them over Christmas. It would really suck to be home for the first time in the seven years, that we’ve been on the road full-timing, and not be able to spend it with family. Should make her feel better.
I work with Ann in the morning, on alpaca duty, so it will help her get out of here sooner. I’m on alpaca close all week (takes me about an hour each afternoon at 3 p.m.) and watering the new seedlings in the greenhouse. Somehow all of these critters and plants don’t understand that it’s a holiday for people….they just know that they need to eat and be taken care of and those activities don’t take a day off. Tomorrow, after I do the close routine, I’ll go to Sister Maureen’s house to have dinner with her and Sister PB.
Last week we moved thirteen alpacas to their new home, about 30 minutes from here. It wasn’t too bad to halter that many animals and load them up. Two of the thirteen were put in the mini van for the ride to their new home and the rest were loaded into a horse trailer. There is a large lake near their new pasture. When we got them into the new area, they took off for the fence and just stood there looking at the frozen lake. I don’t think they’ve ever seen a body of water like that before. I don’t know if it was either the smell or sight of it that intrigued them so much but they thought it was the coolest thing. There are several more crias to be moved but they won’t go until they’ve been weaned from their moms. Peanut is one of the crias that will go to a new owner. That will be a sad day….I’m hoping that it will be after I’ve left in February.
Yesterday I finished skirting the last blanket of fleeces from our alpacas. Wahoo ! Sister Mo thinks that this is the earliest that they’ve ever finished with the skirting. Now we will start in on some of the fiber that another alpaca farmer gave us from his farm. The goal always is to get each year’s fiber processed before it’s time to shear again. The fiber that has been skirted can now be shipped to the New England Alpaca Fiber Pool to get processed into hats, gloves, scarves, boot inserts, etc. for our store in the White Violet Center. I’m still hoping to learn how to spin and weave before I leave here in eight weeks. There are some workshops coming up in January and February that I should be able to take that will teach me those things.
I’m putting the finishing touches on my project for my internship. Each intern is required to do a project while they are here. My project is on how the dining units can benefit more from the produce raised in the gardens here as it ties into the land ethic that the sisters have created. It’s a twenty page report that I’ve been working on for the last three months so it will be great to see that done and turned in.
It was really cold here this morning. With the wind chill, it was –5 degrees. Once the sun comes out, the temps in the greenhouse really heat up. When I went to water the seedlings at 3, it was 80 degrees in there. Everything is covered in the high tunnel….nice and comfy. The thing that we have to watch is that when the sun comes out, it can create a lot of condensation on the roof of the high tunnel.

If it gets too drippy in there, the plants will start to rot so that is when we need to open the sides or ends to ventilate it and get the condensation out of there. We haven’t had to do that in quite a while because it’s either been really cloudy or cold. We keep an eye on it though.
Guess that’s all that’s going on here. We’ve missed some of the recent snow and ice storms, which is fine by me. Hoping everyone has a blessed Christmas and a prosperous New Year. Until next year, be safe and have fun with friends and family this holiday season.

A Day of Snow

Wow, this has been a really busy week. On Tuesday night we went to Robyn’s house to learn how to butcher (is that a nicer word than slaughter ?) two chickens. When you buy baby chicks, you don’t necessarily know what their sex is. There are actually professional “sex-ers” that can tell what the sex is of the little ones but apparently Robyn didn’t have that done to hers cause three of what she thought were hens were roosters. Darcy’s life was spared and came to live at White Violet Center and is doing wonderfully with his new harem. Since Robyn lives in the city, the other two roosters needed to take a trip to her freezer. She had sent us video links that we were required to watch before coming to her house. I did that and it all seemed to make sense but the actual killing didn’t go as smoothly as we all would have liked. I thanked each rooster for his service on earth before she took their lives and some valuable lessons were learned. First and foremost, your knives should be really sharp. I won’t go into any of the gory details on the whole process. If you want any specifics cause you have chicken butchering on this week’s to-do list, shoot me an e-mail. It was an educational day for sure.
Wednesday was CSA day (just one more week to go !) and my turn to hand out the bags to customers as they stopped in. Everything went super smooth and I was done an hour early. Wahoo !
Thursday night was our staff Christmas party. We started off with a number of different games. We played the card game “Blink” in groups of three and the winner from each group played each other in the playoff game to crown the champion. What a hoot that was ! It’s such a fast paced game and we were all hooting and hollering at the last three people…..I think they were all holding their breath trying to discard all of the cards in their hand. After all of the games and frivolity, we ate lots of yummy food. Sister Ruth brought apple pies, made from White Violet apples…so yummy ! Then we had the gift exchange and I got a beautiful piece of pottery made by a local artist. It was a super fun night with all of the White Violet staff.
On Friday I worked all day, wet felting bars of soap for orders that have come in. Sister Mo has been doing some awesome marketing of our wares cause she took orders for a total of 43 bars of soap. Holy Cow ! One lady wanted regular soap and home-made soap so I made a trip Thursday afternoon to pick up some Earth Drop soap, which is made in Bloomington, IN (I think). They make some amazing scents like Minty Swirl, Gently Rosemary, Sweet Olive, etc. We work in natural colors because they don’t dye any of the fiber here but when you mix different fibers, you get some beautiful combinations. I don’t consider myself a very artsy person, nor am I crafty but I can do this really well and I enjoy it. I started in at 9 Friday morning and worked till 3 (took time off for lunch) but didn’t get everything done. So I went in this morning and finished up. When I looked outside this morning I thought the weatherman goofed again with his prediction for 5-7 inches of snow but once I got outside, I could see that we had gotten a lot of snow. I tromped over to the center and got done with my project. I put the bars on a sweater drying rack so the air can get under the bars to get them dry. Sister Mo will wrap them in pretty ribbon and get them ready to be picked up. Another woman ordered 12 of the nesting cages, which are the suet cake holders packed full of alpaca fiber for the birds to use in building their nests. So cute and an inexpensive gift for someone !

This is my little work area, near the big sink in the back of White Violet Center. After two days of felting soap, I have the cleanest hands in Terre Haute (and have also used the most hand lotion in Terra Haute).
While I worked away out back, the annual Christmas open house was going on out front, in the center. It was just like Santa’s workshop…working behind the scenes. I have close to 50 bars done so Sister Mo can pack the order. She’s going to pick up some more soap and some more suet cages, cause there’s still 10 days till Christmas ! We have really gotten wiped out of a lot of things in the store. It’s been a busy Christmas season for alpaca items.
Oh, I forgot to tell you about going with Tracy to pick up a new alpaca last Sunday. She and I took the center’s mini van and drove to Effingham, Illinois to meet an alpaca owner at a Cracker Barrel. The deal went down in the RV parking area of Cracker Barrel. There were multiple alpaca farms there with horse trailers to pick up or trade animals with this woman. I bet customers were surprised to see alpacas all over the place in that end of the parking lot when they pulled in for blueberry pancakes that morning. Probably had to do a double take.
White Violet traded a couple of breedings from their sires for a young female alpaca, named Esperanza. Oh, what a cutie she is ! She is so sweet. She rode the whole way home, standing up (usually they cush (sit) while riding) but she was curious and looked out the window, poked her head up through the barrier to say hello to Tracy, etc. Once we arrived and she saw the horses, at the equestrian center, she started humming….she was excited to see other animals. Then we got her out and introduced her to the herd, through the fence. Everyone came over to sniff her and say hello. Then Tracy took her into the pasture and let her loose.

Within 15 minutes she was eating hay with everyone and was fitting right in. Yesterday Bree put a halter on her and she came up to the center to greet the guests coming to the open house. They all loved her and she was photographed and filmed for the 6:00 news. What a sweetie she is and a nice addition to the herd.
So that brings us to today….I finished up the soap and have been relaxing since then and enjoying the beauty of the snow. It’s starting to look a lot like Christmas around here…












Until next week….May the peace of the season fill your hearts with joy !

First Taste of Winter

Yesterday the remnants of a winter storm passed through Indiana, dumping varying amounts of snow. We lucked out here and only got a couple of inches where some areas, a little south of us, got as much as a foot of the white stuff.

Last night was Miracle on 7th Street, an annual event held outside in downtown Terre Haute. There are large tents and vendors have booths set up inside the tents. It ran until 10 p.m. Weather was super cold but there was a good turnout, considering that it was a little icy and stormy out. For anyone needing any roving or yarn for their favorite knitter in the family, White Violet has items for sale on their Etsy page. Just click on this link:
 http://www.etsy.com/shop/WhiteVioletAlpacas



Here are the felted soaps I made…they’re called Luffuzz…get it ?

The other day we made some fermented turnips. Really easy to make….just shred the turnips in the food processor and then sprinkle with coarse salt and massage into the turnips until they get juicy. Pack into jars and either put a turnip top in the top of the jar to hold the contents down (otherwise the amount that is exposed to the air will darken) or a weight of some sort to hold down. Candace did a great job of carving a large turnip to make a top for the jar. You cut the side, angled inward (like with jack ‘o lanterns), so it will stay lodged in the jar. In about two weeks, the contents will be ready. This is a great way to process turnips that got too large, before you found them to pick. The flavor isn’t strong at all when done this way. They will also keep a long time in the frig, when they are fermented.

On Thursday, we got a Rooster for our hen house. His name is Darcy and he is gorgeous and so quiet, for being a rooster. I haven’t heard him crow even once since he’s been here. He has feathers on his legs and pretty iridescent teal feathers on his back. Ann can’t resist cuddling the chickens when we go out to the coop. Darcy will help protect the girls from predators (hopefully but he’s awful meek and mild) and if we ever want to have new chicks, we can hatch out some of the fertilized eggs. He’s going to be a great addition to the farm. Currently he is locked in the hen house so that he knows he has to come inside to roost, as opposed to roosting in a tree overnight. Locking him inside will get his GPS oriented to “home” so he’ll come inside at night.
A quiet weekend on the farm. Hope you’re having a happy and peaceful weekend wherever you are.

Kicking off a new week….

Although our schedules have changed to 9-3 (down from 8-4), now we have evening and weekend tasks to do that makes up for the reduction in our schedule. They feel that the new schedule will more reflect what it’s really like to work on a farm with daily duties and closing up the different areas. This week (Sunday – Saturday) I am responsible for closing the alpacas. That means that I have to go around to the five different alpaca pastures and check that they are ok on water and hay at the end of the day. It’s also watching the animals’ behavior to make sure that none are getting sick or have gotten injured. Mariah, the one who is sickest with the meningeal worm type conditions (we’re still not convinced that is what they have) has to be brought in from the pasture and put in a stall and given grain, hay and water. We’ve started giving Peanut milk supplement again because her weight had plateaued. We can now give the bottle to her standing up which is so much easier than trying to get the little wiggle worm onto our lap. We weighed her yesterday and she’s 19.4 pounds.
Yesterday was my first day of daytime alpaca duty and I worked with Tracy in barn 1. All of the alpacas are due for their deworming medication, which is done by injection. You run your hand down their front shoulder blade and there is a valley there. You pull up on the skin and make a tent and inject the medicine inside that tent. On one of the shots, I must have went in one side of the tent and out the other, right into my left index fingertip. I hadn’t injected any of the medicine yet so was just a poke but it drew blood and was drippy. I joked with Tracy that now I could have all the slugs I wanted to eat cause I was protected. (This shot is the one that is supposed to protect them from the meningeal worm disease that comes from slugs). That was wound #1 for the day. Later on while trying to get a piece of thorn bush off one of the alpacas, I got kicked in the knee and in the elbow. Dang, they are quick. I need to practice my wax on – wax off…Karate kid quickness cause you don’t even see their kick coming. Whap ! Thank goodness it doesn’t hurt…it just gets your attention. Now that I’ve experienced it, I’m all ready to trim their hooves. There’s a whole lot of kicking that can go on with that procedure. We have a bunch of them that need that done soon.

Veggies are growing great. Look at them go in the new high tunnel ! We planted more seeds in pots in the greenhouse yesterday. Swiss chard and kale…Over the weekend the micro greens, peas and lettuce mix came up. It was really nice this weekend. Temps in the greenhouse were up to 90 cause it was so warm outside. Today it’s supposed to hit 57 and tomorrow it will be in the 60’s. We’ll enjoy in while we can cause Thursday it’s gonna snow and this weekend it won’t make it out of the 20’s. Freaky weather !




Here are the vegetable areas of the garden mulched with straw for the winter. This helps to keep the soil moist so it doesn’t get rock hard over the winter and will be easier to prep and plant in the spring.

This is one set of the new bee hives we got from the guy who works on campus. On the warm days, the bees can be seen outside the hive, probably doing their housekeeping chores…cleaning the inside of the hive.
Guess that brings you up to date. Getting ready to go in to start my shift for the day. Hope everyone has a Terrific Tuesday !