Hi everyone. And welcome. I am Kim Biegler, the owner of Youthful Fiber Farm and Mill, and I'm sitting here at home. recording my first audio podcast as we get ready to head out of town. I'm leaving for a week. Mitch is just leaving for a couple of nights with me. And I thought I would just talk. It got me to thinking kind of about what goes into leaving when you have a farm and all these animals and different businesses. So I thought I would just talk a little behind the scenes with you all.
If you are new, I am so glad you have found the podcast. Welcome. I generally talk a lot about wool, hand spinning, owning a wool mill, farm life, all of those things. And if you're coming back to me, thank you. I'll probably be doing a few more audio podcasts than I do the video vlogs because this is a little easier for me to jump on. So welcome, welcome. And lest I forget. I do have a Patreon community.
So if you are enjoying what I'm doing and you want to support what the time and effort and all of those wonderful things that go into the content I make pop over there, there is a link in the show notes and there's different levels from just helping a little bit out with the tip jar to being part of the social meetups to even getting Fiverr in the mail. So. Head over there. If you're interested, you can also find a link to ask questions, which this is new of me in the show notes.
So you can go and it'll pop you through to a Google doc where you can ask questions. I can actually hear from my audio listeners, which is awesome. It's kind of a weird world out there on the audio podcast where you just don't quite know who's listening and what's going on. So ask away, ask away. Okay, so let's talk a minute about leaving the farm, which we don't do very often. And when we do, it tends to be for shorter little bursts, a night or two here and there, sometimes three nights.
Generally, we have all of, or we take some of our animals with us to make it easier for our sitter. But this time we are driving And it's going to be warm where we're going. And it just doesn't make sense to have small dogs with us or the big dogs for that matter. So our sitter has all the animals. And we, for those of you that are new, we have got dogs. We have got cats. We have got every animal you can think of for the farm.
I have a flock of Shetland sheep, which I keep for their wool and for their beauty and entertainment. We also have a rescue pony named June. Who's a very old senior lady. Getting into trouble right before we leave as always, we have got quite a few hens everywhere you look there's a hen generally or a rooster running around. We have Cuddlebug, the pygore goat, so he is a fiber goat.
We have four alpaca and last but not least, two coonie coonie pigs who are pet pigs to us that we rescued a couple years ago. They were pets there so they came to us as pets and they're basically our other dogs. So when somebody comes in and takes care of our farm, there's a lot of just random animals.
And we try, our number one goal is just to simplify it as much as possible because there's so many idiosyncrasies and things that we know about the animals and about where the things are, like where are all the secret places the hens are laying their eggs because our hens are all just free range pasture hens. And so sometimes they come up with new ways. ways to lay and places to lay eggs.
So we try to make it as easy as possible so that whoever is staying here and in this case, our our, my mother in law and father in law are helping out during the day. So we just try to make it easy. The number one goal, and this is like Mitch's keeps, keeps him up at night sometimes is keeping all the animals on the property. This is first and foremost, and he is the king of fencing and he's been working on a big fencing project right now. He's just kind of at the tail end of it.
Everything is up and extra safe for the animals, but that is key. We don't want anybody to have to be chasing our animals down the road. Goodness gracious. That includes the dogs too. But the sheep are kind of our number one potential for maybe squeezing through a fence here and there. So keeping everybody on the farm is key and then keeping everybody alive as best as everybody can. You know, things happen. These are farm animals, most of them.
So Life takes its course sometimes, but we try to make it easy as far as feeding them. Lots of them, especially this time of year, we have such beautiful lush grass that a lot of the animals do just fine without any extra food. It's mainly the cats and dogs and June, the horse. So keeping the animals in, making sure it makes sense who you're feeding, how much you're feeding, when you're feeding lots of notes. And then Yeah, just making sure our sitter is comfortable too, right?
Like, then she's staying in our house, or they're staying in our house, and so we want them to be comfortable, and not have the house be a total stye, and not have the animals taking over. So, it's all these different levels of things, just here on the farm, to get us out of town. Notice I haven't mentioned us. We're usually packing at like 1 in the morning, and just ready to go. So I think we're doing ahead this time. I think we're a little ahead of the game this time, which is exciting.
Anyway, that's kind of what we go for here. Then we have the grass seed farm, which is Mitch's form of employment. Him and his dad are grass seed farmers. And so leaving that, luckily we've had really mild weather and we've had rain off and on. So they're not having to do as much irrigating and other things. So this is the first time in a very long time that we are leaving together. In the same, like, at the end of May. This is crazy, crazy. So, he won't be gone quite as long as me.
He'll just make it a quick trip, but it's still exciting. So getting that ready so that his dad is not left to have high anxiety while he's gone, that is the goal for Wade to be gone. not miss him too, too much, but, but just enough weight. If you're listening, just enough. I have the mill to shut down, which includes wish the farm, the milk hat. So she went to board today at her favorite place, which she just literally walks out. Rolls in, finds her spot. Bam. She's there.
She's such a great cat. So, she's boarding, making sure that everything's kind of powered down as much as possible. Things are tidied up. Nobody wants to come back to a messy workspace, right? So, just getting all of that set up and making sure the building's locked down. And so, but, you know, it goes into, I have to shut myself down from Making more. Like, Saturday I was like, you get to card this one thing, and even though you're not leaving until midweek, you cannot start any new projects.
Because it just is a whole new mess to clean up, and it always slows me down, even when I think it's going to be fast. So, I was really good this time, you all. So the mill is shut down, the grass seed farm is where it's at, and finally, after all of these things are done, the plants are getting watered. Because the Of course I had to get flowers into the ground right before we were leaving, just timed out that way. So it's like getting all the waterings set up, all the things, all the things.
Luckily as I said, it's been really mild here so everything should do just fine. Animals, house, everything. All the things are doing good. So then it comes down to what am I taking to make you all because we're all makers, right? That's why we're all here listening to this. So who I have been really good about trying to take some extra time to not be hustling too much because we all as makers like. I'll be gone a week. I will take enough projects for the next three weeks.
And let's face it, if I had wandered past the yarn shop, I would, I would wander in there and get something cause you just never know. So I'm trying to be super focused, make sure my project bags have scissors and stitch markers and all of the things, because we've been on the road before and I'm like, ah, there's a Michaels. I don't have the right size needle. So I'm trying to avoid that, trying to avoid that. So what am I working on? Here's what I've decided to take.
So I have my breakwater beach vest, which you have all seen I've been working on. I made it like six inches in, ripped it all out, and we're starting scratch. So I've only got like two inches of the back ribbing done. So that's great, right? That's a great car knit. It is like knit and purl and then join in the round and then just knit your little heart out. So there's nothing better than that on a trip because I will be at a graduation too and that.
Beautiful thing will be sitting in my lap while I am listening to names get called out. What else am I taking? So this is a fun one for those of you that have been watching the vlog. I have my first skeins of hand spun cotton yarn. They have, they are skeined up. One of them's caked up. I boiled them, which is crazy. But that's what you do. You can steam cotton or you can boil it. And I chose to boil it because why the heck not? I'm already spinning cotton. Let's go for it. And it was it's fine.
It's just fine. It did have some shrinkage. I'm going to say it shrunk about four inch. Well, I didn't measure it before. So I'm saying coming off my knitty knotty, it probably shrank two inches to three inches in like, so. But it's cotton, right? It's going to shrink in hot water. That's what it does. So better to have it shrink before I knit something than after. So that's caked up. I did some swatches. I spent so much time on Ravelry, you all.
Picking a pattern, changing my mind, picking a pattern, changing my mind. Finally picked a pattern, did the swatch. Nope. Not gonna happen. Not gonna happen. So, what I decided on, let me click on so I can remember. So, this is, it's about a fingering ish weight, I really thought it was heavier, but it's about a fingering weight yarn, which makes sense because you tend to, cotton, it's very easy to spin a thin, thin cotton. So, it's a two ply, so I am doing the classic camisole.
It is by Darling I Adore. On Ravelry, Darling I Adore. Oh, sorry, Darling J'adore, but I adore is cute too, Darling J'adore J A D O R E, and I'm very excited about it, I did my research, I did a swatch, I think we're ready, I only have just over 500 yards, so I wanted something that I could wear during the summer. This is cotton. Maybe wear underneath dresses or some other shirts, things like that, things that need a little camisole under there.
And I did the swatch and I was so excited because it's really beautiful. I thought my spinning is pretty wonky because I'm new to spinning cotton. So but it was knitting up beautifully and I'm excited to cast that on. On the road, of course, with the needles in the bag, I am ready to go. So I'll have those two knitting projects. I also am taking a pair of socks that are not the right size for me. And I'm hoping that one of the friends I see along the way, that they will fit her.
And then I can finish those socks for her. Not on this trip, but it's the other option is just to rip them out. And make something else with that yarn. So, we'll see. Spinning. You know I'm not going to leave home without spinning. So I am taking my Nano 2, my teeny tiny Nano, and I am taking supported spindles. I believe that's what I'm taking. I was just sitting here thinking as I'm saying it, why aren't I taking the Daedalus?
Cause I have the whole case for the Daedalus with the little wheel rollers. So it's just like, we'll roll right into a hotel and I think I'm not taking it. I'm halfway through a spin and I want to do another spin on my Nano. So that's partially why. And it'll take up a lot less room in that little case. So I can stick all my support spindle stuff in there. I can stick my fiber in there and nobody will ever know as I wheel through.
Anyway, you later, the hotel, that I am a crazy, crazy handspinner. That had to take all of this handspinning with her. But, a week without handspinning, there's no way. There's no way. So, that's what I'll have. Two knitting projects, and we'll say two things to spin. Two things to spin, so that should keep me plenty busy. Plus, all the family, and the friends, and all the lovely other things I will be doing. So anyway.
I thought I would just check in with everybody, let y'all know I'm here, but I'm leaving, but it's, you know, there's a lot that goes into when you have a farm, regardless of what size if you have animals, especially, there's just so much that goes into prepping and you're kind of last on the list, which is okay. I suppose it's the same. I don't have kids, but if you have kids, right, you're going to pack all the stuff for your kids and then you'll throw in like three things for yourself.
So same idea. Okay. Well, I think that's all I've got for this week. I will have a few link in the links in the show notes to my Patreon to ask me questions. I don't know if there's anything else, but thank you so much for joining me. I hope you enjoy this audio. My first audio. I hope the audio speaking of is good. We'll find out. And until next time, be kind to everybody around you. Stay healthy and make so many pretty things. Okay. Thank you so much. See you soon. Talk to you soon.