They've arrived!  The first two babies for fostering by my daughter.  She is the one that does all the feeding, loving, playing and cleaning of these little beings, along with lots of help from my niece.  The shelter likes our foster babies because they are usually so people friendly.  How could they not be, with three of us always kissing, touching and holding them.

These two are just 24-hours old.  They arrived Tuesday evening still wet from being born, and one even had the after-birth still attached.  They will live here with all the rest of the ones (to come) and at about 12 weeks be returned to Priest River Animal Rescue shelter to be adopted by some very lucky family.

There is no word yet on Dolly.  I can't give up looking for her.  New flyers to be hung on every post and pole around.  Now I'm resorting to driving up to farms and houses asking if anyone has seen her.  That's a lot of territory to cover, but like I said, I can't give up.

I've been dyeing alpaca roving this week.  I dyed some brown alpaca with indigo in spots.  Very interesting and I think I need to card it to distribute the colors throughout.  Then I put white alpaca roving in the nearly-spent dye pot and it came out a very light blue denim.  We'll see.  Pix when I get them spun up.

This is true love in action.  Bella and my niece certainly love each other and spend every waking hour together.  They are so cute.  And niece keeps Bella on her toes.

Bella is doing her best at being a livestock guard dog these days.  No word yet on Dolly, but I got a phone call today there was an ad on Craigslist about a big white fluffy dog.  I emailed the craigslist address and we went to where the dog had been seen. 

We didn't see any white dogs but talked to a Sheriff and possibly he can pass the word on Dolly.  When I got home there was an email response from the person that put the ad in.  She said a large white dog had walked through their back yard today but she was unable to catch her.  After sending her pictures she thought it had been Dolly! 

Tomorrow we will go back up there and hang flyers on everything we can with Dolly's picture on it.  Hopefully someone will remember seeing her and give us a call.

Our spinning group is still going.  We are meeting twice a month at the Community Center.  Had a call from someome today that may join our group.  Last Saturday we went to the spin-in that is a once a year event.  Its so much fun to see other spinners and weavers, knitters and of course the vendors who have all the 'must have' things for this wonderful art.

I'm currently spinning a blend of black and brown alpaca from my own herd.  Its mostly black with brown highlights and is being spun thick and thin in a somewhat modified woolen type yarn.  Its dark and rich looking, sightly fuzzy and very interesting.  It looks to me like mink or something rich.  Pix when I get a chance.

This morning I have added a YouTube video my daughter did of our beautiful, funny alpacas.  The four white ones are Harley (the little one), Wasabi, Apollo and Diego who was my first one along with our black alpaca Oso Negro, who has the most beautiful black fiber.  Very soft!  The brown two aren't in there much but are named Coop and Raulito.

She even got the pygoras in there.  Snowball is a sweet little female and has horns.  The other two are wethers, LoverBoy with the red collar and Toby, his twin brother.  We call them the 'naughty boys' because they are!

All these animals have incredibly soft, fine fiber.  Right now I'm blending some brown into Diego's white fiber making really nice, soft, light tan batts for spinning.  These are undyed and all natural.  Unlike wool, which many people are allergic to, these won't cause any discomfort to most folks.  A dream to spin.  These will go on my Etsy shop for sale.  I have the shop set up but nothing for sale yet.  The link will be posted when the shop is ready to go.

No further word on Dolly, our Great Pyrenees.  I am still praying she will find her way home.

10:00 a.m. Update ... Sorry, it wasn't Dolly.  It was a beautiful white and brown short hair dog ... probably some sort of pit bull mix.  Very large, but not Dolly.  We will keep putting up flyers and praying for her return.

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 A very short post this morning.  Last night someone called to say he thought Dolly has been caught!  THEY MAY HAVE HER!!!  We are so excited.  We are heading up to the water treatment plant in Newport this morning.  Apparently they have a place there where they keep found dogs, and have a contract with the Sheriff's office.  They can only keep them for three days then they turn them over to the main shelter to be euthanized.   You all will be the first to know if its her.

I've no idea what fiber this yarn is made from.  Its fairly soft, looks possibly handspun, but not really sure.  There are short guard hairs in it, but it makes such an interesting yarn.  Not scratchy.  It was inherited with the cormo and the rest of the things when I purchased the Mighty Wolf loom from some friends.  The skeins were such a mess I didn't really know what or how much was there so ended up using my swift and ball winder to help straighten it out.  Guess I better show it to a friend who knows much more than I do.

I've dyed up the rest of the cormo yarn this week.  The new dyes work so beautifully!  Since I wanted to see what they all looked like these yarns are multi-colored but I think as a winter hat or scarf they would be great. 

My Etsy shop is nearly ready to open.  Now that the shop design and payment options are ready I just need to price some fiber batts and yarns ... that's the hard part.  Never knowing what to charge for something I love so much.  I can give them to friends and family but sell ??  Well, empty nest syndrome and all that I guess.

Dolly is still gone.  This week we are making up new flyers with a different picture of her and hanging them all the way up and down the highway where she's been spotted quite a few times.  We still pray she will come home of her own accord, that God will show her the way back.

We've been having a blizzard since last night.  The wind is so strong.  We all thought just maybe(?) winter was over.  The last couple weeks have ranged between 40's and even 50's one day.  Oh well, -12 degrees F isn't as bad as it could be.

The alpacas love it, Bella seems not to mind it ... she was lying out in the pasture near the gate watching for any sign of life in the house this morning.  The goats seem fine, although Snoball, in the pen by herself, was shaking a little this morning when the girls went to feed.  My daughter put in more hay but I think that shed may be too drafty.  We will have to put a tarp of something around the outside when the wind dies down.  She was eating and drinking alright and not crying so I think she's ok for now.  The cashmeres used to shake a lot but never got sick.

The yarn balls are the Cormo I dyed the other day.  I was just needing to see how it would look as a hat or pair of socks.  So soft and pretty.  I like the colors much better mixed together in the balls.  After the 'four-year sox' I finished last year I said I'd never make another pair.  Now I'm not so sure.  We'll see.

Dolly is still missing.  I still get an occasional phone call that someone has seen her.  I think everyone in this area is looking for her.  I just pray she is ok.

We had another cougar sighting yesterday on two of the roads leading up to our driveway.  Called F&W but they won't do anything until damage is done (what does That mean??).  Finally called a referral from that office and he indicated he'd come down if there was a problem.  Hopefully the lion will keep movin' on.

Dolly is nowhere to be found.  The last call from someone was last Sunday, and no sightings since then.  I am praying God will bring her home showing her the way.  Just like us, He shows us the way.  The choice is ours.

I dyed two skeins of the beautiful Cormo yarn I had.  There are several more (8?) to dye and I wanted to see how a new brand of dye worked.  What beautiful vivid colors.  I hand painted the skeins in five bright colors so it looks like something just right for a child or winter cap.  Next time I will be a little more subtle, which is how my dye jobs usually turn out.  These skeins are mill spun 165 yards each 2ply sport weight.  330 yards would certainly be enough for most projects.

Our new spinning group at the community center is getting off to a rather slow start but its fun and certainly worthwhile and I've met some very nice ladies.  We are planning a field trip to Paradise Fibers to check out what interesting fibery stuff they have.  I love that store!

If I didn't tell you before, my 11 year old niece got one B and the rest A's on her semester report card!  Such an improvement.  We are all so pleased with her progress.  A new cell phone for her was promised and received for the good work.

We continue to search for Dolly.  I had a man call last night who had seen her for the last two days in Blanchard.  We drove his road last night in the dark with flashlights, also today for several miles up the road but didn't find her.  We ended up at this person's house and he indicated she was spotted about three miles north of town also.

I'm beginning to think she just doesn't want to come home.  Everywhere she has been seen, she's had to pass somewhere near the farm.  Oh well.  We have done everything we can.

I was able today to work on my etsy shop.  I think I've got just about everything set up for the shop with the exception of something to sell!  There is some beautiful soft Cormo yarn ready for the dye pot so I'm hopeful I can get it in tonight, then let it sit until tomorrow when I can rinse it out.  You all will get the etsy address when its ready to go.

No news isn't necessarily good news, but at least its not bad news.  I've had two more people see Dolly, both in approxi- mately the same place as the first three.

So that lets us know that she is still out there somewhere.  We have had some cold weather but with her full fiber coat, I'm sure it feels pretty balmy to her.   I have talked with many people about her.  Everyone is so nice!  One lady has been praying for Dolly to return, and didn't know who we were.  I met her just by chance on the road tonight.

We have been stopping folks driving down the local roads near our farm and just asking them to please watch for her.  Then they want to know about her and we are off and talking!

Tonight we spent about an hour driving up to the crossroads where she's been spotted and dragging an old pillow case with some of our fragrant poopy goat hay in it.  We still have ice and snow on our roads up here but that stuff is so stinky I'm sure it will not be gone for quite some time.  Dolly is absolutely in love with one of our little wethers, LoverBoy, so I'm hoping it was his that I was able to scoop up and put in the bag.

Thanks to everyone who has been leaving me messages and comments.  I surely appreciate them.  It makes me feel so good to know there are nice people out there who care.  :->  Thank you everybody!

And this is an earlier picture of Dolly playing with Bella when Bella was a puppy.

Just an update ... we talked to a man yesterday after church at a gas station in Spirit Lake.  My daughter asked him if he'd seen Dolly and he said YES!  He had seen her Sat night heading up the big hill towards town.  That's about 7 miles from our house.

Tonight I just got a call from a lady that said she saw Dolly yesterday at about the same time in the very same place.  So my daughter went up there a while ago to sit and wait for Dolly.  I pray Dolly does the same thing for the third night.  And not too late, its just now 7pm.  C'mon Dolly.

I am heart broken tonight.  Our beautiful, faithful old Great Pyrenees Dolly has been missing since Friday Feb 4 around noon.  She escaped from the pasture and trotted down our little dirt road.  She has done this before but always comes back a few hours later.

We've called and called for her.  We hung posters on posts and poles around here and I even stopped at a few houses asking if anyone had seen her.  I called the sheriff in both counties around us, police depts in several neighboring cities.

Anyway, we've done as much as we can.  We have been praying ever since yesterday when she disappeared and prayed together tonight before dinner so we are all hopeful she will come home soon.  I love her so much!  And God is so faithful!  Thank you Jesus.

Our alpacas just love this snowy cold weather.  They will lay out in the pasture when its snowing instead of inside the sheds.  Here is a picture of Apollo, behind him is Diego (one of my first two) and one of the brown boys just behind him, but I can't see who it is. 

They are so sweet.  They're the ideal farm animal I think.  No, we don't eat them.  But we do harvest their beautiful fiber once a year usually in the early spring.  Then they are cool all summer and start getting some length on their coats towards fall. 

One of the things they really like in the summer time is when I get out the hose and squirt their feet and legs.  Sometimes one will get so happy he will stick his entire head in the stream of water, open his mouth and get a nice cold drink.  All I have to do is head towards the water faucet and they are there.

Their fiber is extremely soft and warm.  Some of the most beautiful yarns come from these guys.  Here's a picture of Wasabi's fiber when he was only about a year old.  It was dyed blue and green, spun and plied to about a sport weight yarn.  Haven't made anything out of this yet, but it would certainly make a soft scarf or socks.  It feels like butter.

I have some new ideas for this year as far as using the natural colors of my animals.  I hope they turn out as I imagine them.