I am now able to think again. It cooled off over night quite nicely but I have a feeling that this coolness is going to be short lived. Even though it is overcast this morning there is no rain in the forecast and there is no let up of these horribly high temperatures. Teapot and I have decided to buy a swim pass to our local pool since I think that is going to be the only reprieve from this heat. I never went to bed last night until 12:30 and Teapot and I ate supper around 11:00 p.m. It was just too flippin' hot to eat before that. The girls had had watermelon milkshakes, popcorn, and tuna for their supper (yes that is an interesting combination but then I'm only a Mom and I know nothing about teenage diets) earlier in the evening. Teapot and I were sitting out on the deck with my parents and there were storm clouds all around us with lightning and thunder but none of it hit our house and so we wait still for rain. It is so dry here, the grasshoppers are starting to take hold..... they love this heat and thrive on it so what grass that doesn't die fro lack of water will get nipped by the dirty little grasshoppers... then Teapot went to our local hay supplier yesterday to see if he could pick up a bail and our guy was in the middle of haying and he is not too optimistic that there will be a good supply of hay. That is not good since it will mean that we are going to have to pay top dollar for hay again. So once again I will have to downsize our flock. Teapot and I have made a list of the sheep we are going to keep and it is not a good feeling to line up the sheep and think about who will hit the chopping block but the decision has to be made. I will not be keeping any of the lambs from this year and Red and Kracker and Krunch will get x'ed. I think Sal is going to have to go.... she just eats too much and Palmer and Ipwitch will go. That will leave us with the two rams, Oscar and Xavier.... Greig the wither, Lulu who is a Cotswold/merino x, Fanny who is a Shetland/merino x, Nellie who has an awesome fleece and is Cotswold/merino x and Winnie who is an I don't know what but has a fading gene. 7 sheep. That's enough when hay is so expensive. I can't afford to keep a big flock when hay has doubled in price.
So these are the decisions that have to be made. I feel like crap when some of those sheep have become friends.
I managed to finish two of my t.p.i. questions along with my novelty yarns, yesterday. That made me very happy. The 4 t.p.i. is my natural default yarn that I spin for relaxation so it was not a hard sample to do but I was so tired after I finished it that I couldn't get the write up for it done. I will finish that this morning and go on to the next question. I also want to spin fibre for the dye retreat that will be held here in a couple of weeks. I always have a dye retreat for the ladies from my guild and we sit out on the deck and we get crock pots and rice steamers and baggies in the microwave and hotplates going and the deck is a mass of cooking dye. It always happens the second last weekend in July.... let me tell you it is awesome. There's colour everywhere and the ladies have big bright smiles on their faces as we set to and lose all caution to the dyeing mania. I really want to do my 25 shades of Logwood which is similar to the Madder dyeing that I did in my level 3. I also have to redo the percentage dying that I had to do in level 4. I will need 51 skeins of wool in all. I must be nuts to think that I might get that done in that short amount of time, but I'm going to try. Meanwhile I will do a crowded pot of dye with fleece and I already have the fleece washed and ready to go. I will probably dye a little silk while I am at it and I might even dye some cocoons.... we'll see.... that is a pretty aggressive schedule for a weekend of dyeing but then where's the fun if you don't go for it.
So while it is cool I'm off to do a write up on the 4 t.p.i. skein and spin an skein at 8 t.p.i. I'll post pictures tomorrow of what I get done.
No comments:
Post a Comment