Christi Killien and her husband, who she refers to as the Bearded One, have been developing what they call a farmlet on their property in Washington State, learning about sustainable living. A fiction writer who suspended story projects for many years, Christi found her interest in writing rekindled from the couple’s ongoing projects on the tiny amount of acreage they love. She began a blog to keep herself recording the events, relationships and new knowledge she was enjoying. The Bearded One started contributing charming stick figure drawings of the goings-on at the farmlet. On her blog, Christi regularly includes wonderful photos of the grounds, animals and plants. On the  recent one-year anniversary of her weekly blogging, Christi felt she had a book manuscript. She has sent her manuscript to both a small independent press and an agent. I think you’ll like this sample essay that knits together neighbors, longings, livestock, and stretching oneself into one’s dreams.  For more farmlet essays, visit Christi’s blog.

For years I have talked of learning to knit. And then 3 weeks ago on the Winter Solstice, a neighbor gave me a Learn To Knit Kit for Christmas, got herself one as well, and said that a third neighbor, a long-time knitter, would help us if we had trouble.

No trouble here. For 2 weeks the Kit — 2 fat needles; 2 balls of soft, thick wheat-colored yarn; instructions to make a hat or scarf — lay in the living room, stirring up my energy, but somehow, not for knitting.

“You are a Contemplator of Knitting,” says the Bearded One. “You want mental yarn.”

This would be an insult if it weren’t so obviously true. “My problem is I can’t envision an end product that I want,” I say. Then I ask him: “Do you want a hat?” No. “A scarf?” No.

 What I want, I realize, is goats. Maybe I’m just a pretender on that front, too, I think. A talker not a doer. A mere Contemplator of Goats. The Bearded One is quick to point out that a lot more than contemplation has been afoot regarding goats. More like preparation.

I start checking Craigslist for Pygora goats, the goats I’ve contemplated for years. I tell the yarn and needles what I’m up to every time I walk by.

There are 3 categories of goats — milk goats, meat goats, and fleece goats. On Craigslist there are lots of Nubians (milk goats) and brush-eating mixed-breed goats, and some meat goats, but there are never any Pygoras, the Pygmy/Angora mix that was first bred in the late 1980s by a lady in Oregon. She wanted a small, “homesteading” goat good for milking and meat if need be, but fantastic for fleece. I love long hair. I love soft things, and I want to shepherd a little herd.

“Have you cast on?” our son asks, eyeing the untouched Knitting Kit.

I am shocked that he knows this phrase. He’s known it since 8th grade, he says, when knitting was part of an art class. I feel sheepish. Goatish.

I tell him I saw the neighbor who gave me the kit on the road and she has already cast on and knitted a foot-long thing. She had lost some stitches along the way, she admitted. Still, she started. And she vouched for the quality of instruction in the booklet. She’d checked out other instructions and even videos on-line.

“I don’t know what my problem is,” I say. Our son is amused. I retreat to my computer.

And then on Sunday night, January 8, a full moon, I cast on. Our son is gone, the Bearded One is watching TV, and I sit in my rocker with the beautiful yarn ball clamped between my knees, the instruction booklet propped against it, a tree limb-sized needle in each hand, and every brain cell I possess focused on the words and drawings.

I work for a couple of hours. I cast on eight foundational stitches, knit the row, and then switch hands and knit another row. This is a gauge square, the booklet explains. Knit it first, then go on to the actual scarf. Or hat.

But I never get there. I knit 4 rows and then go to check Craigslist. And there they are. Three little 4-year-old Pygoras on Vashon Island, a ten-minute ferry ride from us! Impossible but true. They are perfect. Two wethers — castrated males — and one un-fixed female. One black, one white, one light brown. The white one is the girl, the ad says. $200 OBO.

The Bearded One comes up the stairs and I shriek and read the ad out loud to him. He thinks they’re great. The energy coursing through my body is over the full moon, I type out a letter of interest and receive a response within fifteen minutes. They are still available!

The next day both the Bearded One and I talk on the phone with the delightful owner and learn all we can. She has a pregnant cow and pregnant Nubian goat and will have too many goats. She won’t charge us anything, she says, if we promise they will be pets and fleece goats, not meat. At least for several years. And we have to transport them. Deal, we say.

Their names are Pearl, LaLa and Sage. Pearl is the girl and the boss, LaLa is black and a boy and named because he has a loud voice, and Sage is Pearl’s brown brother, named for his Brahma-like facial markings.

We’ll rent a trailer. We’ll buy some straw and orchard hay, a 50 pound bag of “dry cob”, feeding bowls and watering troughs. Then we’ll pick up the herd THIS Friday.

The Bearded One comes in from clearing out the animal end of the barn and notices my tiny knitted gauge strip with the rest of the Kit, untouched since Sunday night. “Now that’s just what I need,” he says. “A pinky ring!”

I laugh and wonder how I’ll ever cast the pinky ring off of the needles.  Goats are bound to be easier than knitting.