So Much

Hmmm... I'm not sure where to begin.

I've been having a look at all the horrible pictures of the devastation in Newfoundland from hurricane Igor. It's just awful. And even though we hear the news coming from there we have no idea of what those poor people are going through.

My Grandfather Coles  (who I called Gangpop) lived in a house in Elliston, Nfld, all his married life. And when I came along, I thought of his house as my house. I never really grew up there, but I really grew up there. I know that sounds weird but 10 months of the year I went to school and lived in Mount Pearl and when summer came or Easter break came we always headed off to my grandfather's house. I spent only a little time there but it was the best time in my life, and I spent it visiting my grandparents and getting to know their world. They were awesome folks, real salt of the earth people. I can tell you how many steps it was from the door step to the wood shed. I can tell you how my grandfather's work shop smelled (like freshly shaved wood and old paint brushes). I can tell you how much fun it was to lie in the tall grass on the top of his root cellar. I can tell you how the thorny bits on the gooseberry bush by the cellar door felt if you happened to brush against it. I can tell you how the wash stand stood in the porch long after everyone had stopped using it. I can tell you how many rungs were on the ladder that hung from the 45 degree angle roof. I can tell you how the white roses smelled on the rose tree in the front yard. I can tell you how many posts were on the gate that Gangpop would yell at me to stop swinging on. I can tell you how many steps there were to get to my bedroom. I can tell you how much breath I had to hold in order to get enough strength to push open the bathroom window when it would stick after a week of fog. I can tell you how good it felt to giggle with my older sister as we sat in the bathroom listen through the grate, to the adults talking in the kitchen below, (we used to lower things down on strings too sometimes just to scare the person sitting directly below). I can tell you exactly where my grandmother's Blue Willow jewelry dish stood on her dresser. I can tell you how freshly baked bread and freshly fried trout tasted for breakfast after being cooked on the big wood stove. I can tell you how many old hats were in the trunk in the cupboard under the roof of my parents bedroom. I can tell you how long it took to ride a bicycle over to Crawler's Hill. I can tell you how long it took to walk to Sandy Cove taking the Trickem's Rd. I can tell you how much I loved that place.

It's all gone now.  My Grandfather's house was purchased after his death by some unknown buyer who let the place go to wreck and ruin, and then 10 years ago my Uncle bought the house back and had it torn down because it had become such an eye sore. But 2 of the 5 poplar trees that I used to play "Go In And Out The Window" under are still there. So when I saw the brook that I used to go troutin' in as a raging river that had taken out a good 30 feet of road in front of my where my Grandfather's house used to stand, I knew that that small town would never be the same again.

It is funny how Canadians pull together and withing weeks of some disaster, dig down in their pockets and give generously to the victims of tsunami's in the Indian Ocean or to the victims of Earth quakes in Haiti.  But when it is in our own back yard .... nothing. Perhaps it is because nothing like this has ever happened here before. Though if you think back a few years ago when the Red River burst its banks in Manitoba there was a lot of outreach to those victims.  Still, perhaps Newfoundland is so far away that we just don't think about it. I'll be honest.... I'm the first one to admit that it just doesn't seem real. Newfoundland is such a peaceful spot... nothing out of the ordinary could really happen there.... at least that is what I felt until I started to do a little research on the effects of Igor. Newfoundland is hurting.... at least the area where I GREW UP. In Elliston on the Bonavista peninsula there are few roads left and infrastructure has broken down in a way we can only imagine. The Red Cross are taking donations for the victims of Hurricane Igor.... and I intend to donate. I will ask you to do the same. You can go here to find out more information about donating.

Now on a lighter note:
I went to FSJ today. My back is certainly on the semi-mend I think. And what a day it was.  It does the heart good to feel orange.... and that is certainly what happened as the sun hit the beautiful autumnal colours of the trees along the highway.... it was perfectly spectacular! Submersion a la orange! After threes weeks of the walls of my house it was nice to get a different view. And friends.... such dear friends.... there's nothing like being in the company of friends to make you feel, it's all good.

A little show and tell:

What I've been working on this last week.

A 3 ply Skein or Bison, Cashmere, Silk, and Merino that feels oh sooo nice!

Sock Yarn that I spun from black wool from my sheep, and some BFL rovings I dyed at the summer retreat.

Somme more of those little distaff bags.... that need embellishments and handles.

And a scarf that looks pretty plane Jane until.....

You turn it and look at it from this direction.

The scarf is from a book called Shadow Knitting. I think it is so cool because you can look at it straight on and never see the pattern until you turn it sideways and then, there it is in all it perfection.... a zig zag design.... hmmm.

So there you have it.... a gem of a day..... though I did have to give up Knit Night due to Teapot needing the truck..... Oh well the rest made up for that one small snafu....

I knew I had so much to tell y'all..... : )

A Long Walk Ahead

I am missing my long walks down through the forest. Ever since the trip down river back at the end of August, I have been dealing with a terrifically bad back. (I think I might have mentioned that). The disk at the bottom of my spine is still acting up and has been for six weeks, now. I'm not sure why this time it is not going away with medication but it's not. As a result walking has become next to impossible. I've been pretty much house bound for five weeks. This week I am able to sit up for about three hours before my back get excruciating and I have to go lie down again. It hasn't made life conducive to walks in the bush as normally I do at this time of the year. As I told you a few posts back that surgery seems implicit. I knew that eventually I would need another surgery on my back, I just hoped that I could put it off until much later than this. Yesterday I made my decision to go forward with the process. I called the clinic here in town and made an appointment to see the GP and get the ball rolling. It means facing that MRI, but I'm not going to think about that yet. (should I be saying "fiddledy dee")!! With Murphy's Law on my side, maybe my back will get better now that I've got an appointment with a doctor....

Teapot came home yesterday from a trip to FSJ with photos taken on the trip there. They are awesome... and I'm missing all those beautiful colours.

Now, if those don't make you wish you were out in the wilds of Northern BC... well, I'm sure you live somewhere just as nice....

I'm missing being outside though... a lot! Today I'm going to give walking a small way, (probably just around the yard), a try and see if my back will hold up.

Either way with surgery ahead I guess I have a long walk.... (I sure hope this doesn't affect getting level 4 done)!

A Little Gift

My guild is sister guild to the Pembrokeshire Guild of Spinners, Weavers, and Dyers. Every alternate year we choose something and everybody in our guild makes that item as a Christmas gift for the members of their guild. I know that is confusing but they do the same thing for us.  My last gift was a bag for my tools which I hang on my spinning wheel.  This year is our guild's turn to make and send a gift to them. We chose distaff bags that are used when spindling. It is a small bag that hangs off your wrist and you put fibre in it and then hold then end of the fibre between your fingers as you spin on your drop or support spindle. They are great handy little things because it keeps your fibre source from getting tangled in the fibre that you are actually spinning.

We have known that we needed to make these since last winter but as usual I put it out of my mind with the thought that I had lots of time to make a few. Our due date was the third week of September and we needed to make more than one each since their guild is larger than ours. So in a mad panic at the beginning of September I rushed to make a few. My first one was woven and I wasn't really happy with it. So instead of carrying on with woven distaff bags I decided to try felting one. The orange one was my first one.

I took a chunk of roving and wrapped it around my hand and with a felting needle started to felt it slightly. (Yes, I did poke my finger quite a few times, thank you very much). Once I had it so that it would hold together, I took another chunk of roving and pushed it down into the bottom... then I felted that with the felting needle.  I then patched any holes that there were and thickened up any thin areas with small amounts of roving.

After I was finished with needle felting so that it would all hold together. I got a tennis ball and covered it with Seran Wrap, and poked the ball down in the bag. I then sewed the top closed with a needle and thread, and submerged the whole thing in hot soapy water. Then I put the thing in the dryer for about 45 minutes. When it came out it was a well felted ball. I removed the thread from the mouth of the bag and trimmed the top of the bag to make it more even and less ragged looking. Then I stretched the neck of the bag to get the tennis ball out and turned the whole bag inside out.  Then I picked from my stash of hand spun yarns a yarn that was close in colour to the bag and chose some embellishments to decorate it. The yarn was twisted into a cable to make the handle and then was sewn on to the bag.

I made the green one at the same time as the orange one and then they sat there.  A couple of weekends ago, when we were supposed to bring them to the guild, I had forgotten mine at home. There were 27 little distaff bags to be shown that day which wasn't near enough for the Pembrokeshire Guild as they have well over 40 members.  I came home and thought about the ugly woven bag I had made early on. It just wasn't good enough to send but I needed more than the two that I had originally made. So two days ago I got at it, and made the blue one and the white one.

The orange one is Merino and silk felted, with autumn leaves as embellishments. The green one is Merino and silk also felted with a white woolly handle and sheep buttons as embellishments. The white one is plain wool and I'm not sure what kind, with gold cherubs and hearts, and roses as embellishments. The blue one is Corriedale, and Mohair and silk blended with the same in the handle and a ships wheel, an anchor, and a lighthouse as embellishments.

Teapot took all four of them and headed off to FSJ today and will get them to the person who is going to wrap them and prep them for their overseas trip.  I was very pleased that they turned out so nicely..... as a matter of a fact, I liked them so much that I think I'm going to make a couple for myself.

Sorry the picture is not brighter.....

See ya....

What A View

Northern Lights Over Prelude Lake, Nunavut

Thundery sky over Spain.

Every few days I check all my favorite blogs and websites.  A few years ago a friend led me to APOTD.

I just love that site.... if you can't find anything to read or see on the internet that one will always have something cool...

I can't imagine anything more awesome than the sky.....

These two pictures from APOTD are a celebration of what I like best about that site.....

Cool eh?!!!!

Eye Opener

Now here's a scary thought. Today is the 26th of September..... 3 months from now we will have had our turkey and the gifts will be opened..... it will be boxing day. Gak! There's only 6 paychecks till Christmas. (Argh!)

Indian Summer

With the leaves mostly gone from the trees, I think everyone is starting to prepare for winter. Already one flu has swept through most of this family. Daughter #1 got it first, then moi, now Daughter #2 is looking like she is the next one since she is going off to school with congestion and a sore throat. Teapot for some reason seems to be able to fight it.... so far.

Our yard looks odd with 1400 lb bales of hay standing sentinel. Teapot is heading off for a sleep over with the JCRs this evening and will be taking Daughter #1. They will be sleeping in tents and doing the usual challenge course where they repel, climb trees using arms only and 6 inch pegs, shoot, cross over a small pond using a rope and nothing else, hit specific targets with balls, tight rope walk across an 8 ft span, and other fun things too. They have lovely weather for it since in the last few days the weather has turned soft again. Indian summer...

It is a perfect time to take advantage of natural dyeing.... while my back is not better (not by any stretch of the imagination) it is good enough to be getting around a little more. I can move around the kitchen for a few short minutes before I have to go and sit down again. With my back feeling a little better, I am hoping that today I can do a little logwood dyeing. I have been planning a project for quite some time using Gems Fingering Weight Yarn by Louet. I will be using it and dyeing 25 shades of Logwood which was a question that I did in my level 3 course, only I did it with Madder.... I'm sure you remember those pictures of the vest I made with the dyed skeins.... So today will make a good day to do that... if I can get my back to cooperate. I can't imagine letting this lovely fall weather pass without taking advantage of it and doing something special.

The few leaves that are left on the trees are gently rustling in a small breeze.... the autumn day is calling...

Creativity

What a sunrise this morning. This is what I see as I sit here writing.  This is the kind of view that would inspire anyone.... and of course, the picture is nothing to the real thing.  It looks like the whole sky is on fire. I've never seen such an intense orange. Awesome!


Daughter #2 has been taking Art class this year, which for our school is great. Because our school is so small, there are not so many electives that they are able to offer. Mostly they offer the core classes that are needed for kids to go on to further their education. Electives are a luxury.  This year Daughter #2 is able to take Art class.... when she came home the first week I asked her how it was going and she was quite dismayed that they were drawing squiggles. So I told her that she needed to draw the best squiggles that she could and to put some imagination into her squiggles. But I had to admit that it wasn't the best start for Art class. Daughter #2 is very artistic. She has been drawing since she was 4 years old and by the time she was 6 she was able to draw a pretty good rendition of my spinning wheel.... my saxony.... By the time she was 10 she was drawing very recognizable portraits.... by the time she was 12 she was drawing monsters and relatively scary creatures as well as other magical creatures. Her ability to draw from her imagination is awesome. She's way better than I was at that age... and then last spring she won an award for art and creativity in school. I missed her getting it because I was in Olds. Still, I was very proud of her.

But as I was saying... squiggles... were not what she was hoping for from an Art class.  High school you see, in a small town does not always have teachers with the right credentials to teach the electives.... so they make do.  I have more artistic know-how in my big toe than does the art teacher.... but they have curriculum.... This week was better for Daughter #2. She came home yesterday afternoon with a smile on her face.... "guess what Mom, we have to draw monsters and give them a personality!"  Well considering that she has been drawing monsters for two years, this was great. She has drawn some acid spewing, bat winged, fanged, weird thing..... and she is in her hay day!  I wish she was drawing portraits..... but then monsters are not my thing.... but she's in to it... ever since she watched Lord Of The Rings. (She liked the Ents too.) But obviously she's enjoying Art a little more.

It's funny how creativity is different for everyone. One person's idea of a creative outlet is different for someone else. Daughter #2 is into monsters and magical/mythical beings... I love to paint and draw birds, flowers and trees. Daughter #1 likes to draw squiggles and small repetitive patterns. Teapot couldn't be bothered to create anything.... he's quite content with his world the way it is. (Though he does like to photograph the world around him.)  As a matter of a fact, he hates when I ask him to do anything involving creating something... especially wood. He groans quite often! Mind you he does kind of enjoy tying flies.. for fishing...too.. I guess he does do some create things.

I get such a feeling of accomplishment when I finish creating something. I feel tickled when I finish a poem, or when I have a yarn that's just plain awesome.. or if I finish a painting and look at it with pride.

That's why I look at a sunrise like the one I viewed this morning and I simply just have to say Wow!
I'm so glad to live in a world where creativity is such a freeing act. I wish I could be God.... just for an hour and create something like a sunrise....

Pat on the back?!!!... yeah you bet...

Makes my wool look like crap.....

Hay Day

5 bales in and more on the way. All that worry during the summer and here we are almost ready for winter with a good supply of hay arriving Tomorrow will see the rest of the hay arrive.

Ipwitch the non-ram has been enjoying getting his jollies off with the old ewe who suffered a nasty case of fly strike last spring. I really didn't mean for her to be bred.... she's really too old... but then I'm not sure she is since Ipwitch, we're pretty sure, doesn't have the equipment to enjoy her hind quarters even though he is trying..... although I have to admit that I've never seen a non-ram lift the skirts of a femme fetale and have at her. We bought Ipwitch as a ram and then Teapot discovered that he didn't have the equipment to do the job... we contacted the breeder and told her she had sold us a dud... she gave us another ram to replace Ipwitch, but now we're wondering if Ipwitch was hiding his equipment when we flipped him on his butt for a looksee... We were going to slaughter both of those sheep.... now we may have to keep them. I don't want to slaughter a sheep that might have a lamb. And I don't want to slaughter a perfectly good ram. Sheep! argh!!

The horse will soon be heading back to the arena where we board her for the winter, that way Daughter #1 can ride after school in the arena which is heated. The horse will also have shelter which she wouldn't have here... we didn't build her a barn when we built her the paddock she is in.

It is funny how we set goals for ourselves here on the farm but they never seem to be met. Teapot intended on putting in the new steps to our veranda on the front of the house. But that didn't happen. He thought he would get the roof on the electrical shed.... but that didn't happen, he thought he would finish the fencing for the three new paddocks.... and only one paddock got finished... the other two are only partially done.  But then I have to wonder what we did all summer long. I was going to help him when he got to the work on the roof but he never got to it so I couldn't help him.... and I sure couldn't do it myself.

So with September winding down and summer at an end.... with freezing temperatures starting to set in... well.... we will have to wait for next summer to get some more of these jobs done.

I have finished the level 3 homework and it has gone in the mail.  I have paid the marking fee and now I wait. I have been looking at my level 4 books and starting to think about what is next.  For level 4 I will be starting to spin more exotic fibres.  Bison is the first one.  I spun the other night on my charka about 15 gm of bison fibre which turned out nicely except it was underspun in some areas.... so the plied yarn is not satisfactory for a sample for my books. It was all the bison fibre that I had so now I am scouting websites that sell bison roving.... if you know of a source then please by all means do leave the contact info. in the comments.

Well 6:30 has come and gone and Teapot has unloaded the hay so I had better go too....

I'm really hoping my back will be a little better today....

Wee Kitty

For the last week I've had a wee kitty living here. Teapot was out doing stuff in the yard for the end of summer... you know putting away chairs and fixing up the deck so that there were no flower pots to freeze etc.. he happened to go out to the road where he had left our garbage bin for the garbage man to pick up, and while he was out there he noticed a wee grey kitty all alone on the side of the road. Not wanting to leave it for owl fodder he brought it into the house.

Unfortunately, I am allergic to cats.... not all cats, just to the females. People always look at me funny when I say that. But ever since Teapot and I have been married we have had a male cat as part of our family. Never a female. I don't know how we figured out that I was allergic to females only... I think we just figured it out.

Teapot, as a child always had cats in his home and it didn't take me very long to realize that every time I went to his parent's home I would have a severe allergic reaction... Eyes watering and sinus congestion and so forth... to the point that I was miserable no matter how hard Teapot's mom would clean... I felt really bad that she would work so hard to make her home livable for me and still I would have a horrible reaction.  Teapot missed having cats around and I think he really felt that he was a cat person more than a dog person.

When we moved to Ontario first when we were married, there was a great orange cat who followed us home one day.... (actually it followed our dog ,, but that is a really long story). We started feeding the cat out doors and it would come to our home regularly for food. Winter came and the temperatures would be oh so cold and I started to feel sorry for the poor thing.... I would let it in to feed it and then let it back out again. Well soon it was in all the time.... except at night.... I definitely couldn't do a litter so he was pretty good about letting us know when he needed to go out to do his business.  He lived with us for 6 years until we moved to BC.... then he disappeared.

By this time we had children and they were devastated when the cat went missing especially Daughter #1 who adores cats. So we got another cat.... but we made sure it was a male. also, by this time, I knew that I could handle having a male cat around me for limited amounts of time and with limited handling.
Females still posed a problem.

Our second cat was white and went by the name of Mister O'Malley.  Mister O'Malley didn't last long since he got sick and bloated and died withing a day of us realizing that there was something wrong. We decided to wait a while but it wasn't long before our big black cat Midnight came along when Teapot was talking to a lady in town who was looking for homes for kittens. He's black and he's short haired and he is still with us after ten long years. I do not have a problem with him.  Then two years ago came along Oozle the cat.... also known as Pinecone.... he disappeared last month and we were all really upset that he disappeared.... we think we know what happened to him though.

Lately, we have been seeing a great grey owl hanging around, and then Teapot discovered that there is a nest of grey owls in a copse of trees not far from our house.  We have seen owls and eagles lift full grown cats off the ground and then let go in order to kill the cats. Then they lift them up and take them to their young to be eaten.... it is a horrible sight. We think Pinecone/Oozle departed this world via the owls.

Now that I have told you the long rambling story of our cats, I'll get back to telling you about what I started to tell you all about..... so Teapot brings home the stray kitty.... Of course the first thing we did was put out a public service announcement to our community, to let people know we had found a wee grey kitty and that if someone had lost their cat they could come pick it up whenever they wanted. This got no response... zip... zero... nadda!

It is a female so we cannot keep it. Already she has made my eyes water. Daughter #1 is upset that she can't keep the wee thing but she has asked her best friend to take the kitten... (she lost her cat a year ago). The problem is that her friend is away for the next week and so we won't know if she can take the kitten for another while yet.... and so we take care of the kitten while I try not to have reactions and Daughter #1 and #2 and Teapot (and if truth be told, me too) grows fonder and fonder of the little wee cutie. She is a very nice natured cat and she's already got the dogs liking her......  it's hard not to like her.

But she has to go....

I hate dilemmas.....

Drugs, Drugs, And More Drugs.

O.k... I'm really sorry for not making a whole lot of sense in the previous post but I'm on painkillers and anti-inflammatories, thus my head seems to want to float around, about two feet above my neck!  I'm not really sure what I was trying to say this morning when I wrote that, except that wpi doesn't always work as a reliable measurement for gauge in knitting. Why anyone would want to use wpi for knitting instead of knitting a swatch and checking the gauge is beyond me anyway.....But I'm on so many drugs for my cold and bad back which doesn't seem to be getting better, that I'm really in quite a bit of a fog. So if you read the previous post and went,  "Huh?!" then I don't blame you. I did too.

I think I'll go blow my nose and have a bit of a lie down now...... : /

For Those Who Like To Spin

I'll say sorry now to those of you who read this blog and are not spinners or knitters, because this post is all about a topic which has confounded me for a very long time.

Each morning I wake up and after having gotten breakfast for everyone I sit down at the computer and read the news, the weather, and then Knitting Daily which is an e-newsletter that I subscribe to. Sometimes it's really not interesting and sometimes it is. This morning was one of those mornings that was really interesting. They were talking about w.p.i. (which, for those of you who insist on reading this even though you are not a spinner, is wraps per inch).  Not many knitters use wpi but this morning there was quite and enlightening article about w.p.i.  Basically the gist of the story was that a lady who was confounded by wpi decided to test how reliable it was. She made wpi measures out of firm paper printed with a graph of 1/4 inch grid. Then she gave them to several fellow knitters. She handed each of her subjects a length of yarn and had them wrap the yarn around 2 inches. She was careful to tell them not to wrap too tightly and not too loosely. The strand had to be touching but not squeezed or squashed. Then she did this with several different strands of yarn. Each time her subjects were given the same kind of yarn. The wpi measurements that they got were very different, and none of them were consistently high or consistently low. Nope, their wpi measurements were all over the board.

I have always felt that w.p.i. was an unacceptable measurement. I wouldn't mind trying this experiment myself. I would like to test these results.  For a knitter following w.p.i. it can be a really big problem when using a different yarn from what is being used in the actual pattern.

In the last few days, while I have been nursing my back and trying to rid myself of phlegm, (yes, the first cold of the season) I have been looking at a lot of knitting patterns, especially in Vogue Knitting, which I have subscribed to many years. Vogue knitting has one problem.... that is that they are printed and published in New York and they seem to think that nobody lives outside of New York and that we can all run out and buy the type of yarn specified for the project with ease. Now all of us who live in the North, in rural setting know how laughable this is. But as I was perusing the pattern yesterday I thought, wouldn't it be nice if I could spin that yarn.

For spinners w.p.i. as well as t.p.i. and a.o.t. are absolute musts. Angle of twist will determine how the yarn handles, w.p.i. will give the right guage. Without them you're shooting in the dark.

My wish is that all knitting publications including Vogue Knitting and Interweave Knits, the two knitting giants of the world, would publish all patterns with yarn resources.... and that include t.p.i., w.p.i., and a.o.t. They way it is easier to duplicate the yarn. It might be good to include the number of plies (which usually is on the label though I have come across some labels that don't include the number of plies) and the type of yarn and percentage of any blends in the yarn wouldn't hurt either.

So w.p.i. well it might not be a reliable way of knowing whether or not it will work in a pattern but it sure is important if you're going to duplicate a yarn.... besides if you measured your w.p.i. now and got one thing and then measured the same yarn later in the day and got something else then you would have to worry!

How To Figure Out When Summer Is Over

1a. Daughter #1 comes home from school with a cold.

1b. Mother (that's moi) catches the cold and gets really congested.

2. Teapot goes off into the bush on the weekends with a gun.... looking for moose or elk.

3a. The bedroom windows remain closed...... even at night.

3b. The spider webs around the outside of the above window are visible because of morning frost.

4. The bright morning light does not wake us anymore.

5a. I begin to think about slippers and s---ks!

5b. I begin looking at thousands of s--k patterns  online and picking out all the favorites that I will never knit.

6. Going outdoors means looking through the closet for something to put on over your regular clothes.

7. Knitting is a pleasure and not a hot sticky pass time.

8. The Sears Christmas catalogue shows up and you actually feel like looking at it.

9.  You have to turn on the lights around supper time.

10 a. The grass turns green.

10 b. It snows...... waaaah! All the mountains are white in the back country.... we've been watching the mountains now for over a week and they turned white three nights ago and now the forecast is calling for snow here today.....

Best Laid Plans

Right well my work was supposed to go in the mail today. It is still sitting on the coffee table as I have put in the worst 24hrs with a really bad back.... at least I am hoping that is what is going on. Since the trip down the river in late August I have been carefully nursing what was up to that point a back that would only give problems occasionally but lately (since the trip) it has done a complete nose dive and is giving me trouble like never before... and even medication is doing nothing. For 4 days after the trip I could barely walk with a bad case of sciatica that stemmed from a prolapsed disk in my lower spine which I have known about for years. It seemed to clear up and then yesterday evening it came back.  But this time along with the sciatica came a really bad case of spastic muscles in my lower left leg calf. My leg does not want to hold me up. My muscles in that area are permanently contracted and they will not ease up. I have tried the new bath and it feels lovely while I am in the tub...but the minute I lift myself out... I am back to square one. Going up steps has become a lesson in patience as my left leg will not work.... basically what is happening is the nerves that exit my spinal cord at the site of the prolapsed disk are being squeezed. They are being slowly and inexorably damaged. I have seen a specialist about this problem and he has told me two things which will affect any decision I make regarding my future back issues...

1. I have had already three surgeries in this area. This means there is an abundance of scar tissue. Scar tissue for a surgeon is like a mine field. The specialist will not even contemplate corrective surgery, which involves a spinal fusion, without an MRI..... I am seriously claustrophobic. I tried to do an MRI a few years ago and I made it in to my nose.... then panicked.... I couldn't breath... I didn't stop running until I got to the great outdoors. (I'm not kidding!) If ever I try to go back in that machine again I will need serious drugs to get me through.... like, knock me out drugs. I also have a fear that an MRI (magnetic resonance imager) will turn me into a human magnet since I have a 15 inch steel rod in my back. Going into my back for the surgeon, without an MRI is like traveling through a mine field blind folded and I could be left in a wheel chair.... this scares the $h!t out of me!!!

2. I was advised that since I already have 15 spinal fusions for spinal scoliosis that having another spinal fusion would mean a lot more limited movement in my back. Already my spine has limited movement and adding the one at the bottom would mean that I might not be able to turn... swivel.... you get my drift. To turn around I would have to turn my complete body. Also I would be that much more ramrod straight..... there would only be 4 discs left absorbing shocks and that would seriously alter my lifestyle so basically I want to seriously think about this surgery before going through with it.... the doctor said that I really need to postpone it as long as I can.

It has been 8 years since the last surgery.... but with my leg now starting to go spastic I'm thinking that surgery is definitely in my future and probably nearer than I think.... that is if I can face the dark minuscule hole that is the MRI machine.

So the plan is to drug myself for the next few days with serious quantities of anti-inflammatories, muscle relaxants, and pain killers, hope that this pain goes away soon and stays away, for at least 6 months. I will also try really hard to get a decent night's sleep so that I can function. Then I will get my books in the mail to my instructor as soon as I can get to the post office... which will happen before the weekend since I will call in the help of Teapot or Fadder if I have to.

Amen to best laid plans.

Tee Hee Dingle Dork!!!!!

I think I am a little punch drunk... it is 10:04 p.m. and I'm done. Tee Hee... giggle giggle!

Level 3 that is!   I just packaged it up for the mail...... It goes in the mail tomorrow...... : ) a bigger grin you could not see.... I think I'm smiling so much that I'm lighting up the night with the sheen from my teeth..... been at it all day today and got a nice 2ply and then on my first try I got my 3 ply..... it's not perfect but I'm happy with it... the tpi is bang on even if the grist is off.

Now I just have to wait for my mark.... argh!

I think I'll go take a bath....... except I'm so tired I might drown..... maybe I'll get Teapot to hold me up.... hee hee hee hee ha ha haha ha! See I told you I was punchy.....!

Enough About That....

Level 3.... I'm really ready to jump!

Still on that first commercial yarn...I can't get the grist right. Argh! I am now on the sixth try.  If I get the grist right then I get the tpi wrong... if I get the tpi right then I get a lot of inconsistencies... Oh I am sooo tired of it. Today I will try a different yarn for my 2 ply commercial yarn...either that or I will give the two ply a break and try the 3 ply. I wanted this in the mail today.... well, you can see how successful I was at that..... so enough about that!

It is raining again today after another full day of rain.... I've never seen such weird weather. What we are getting is what we usually get in the spring. Weird!  We even lost the power on Saturday night.... very strange weather. Enough about that....

I have been wanting to say welcome to the two new followers on my follower list. Every so often I will go looking for blogs that I enjoy and I hope you find things here that you enjoy too.....

Dinner at the parents place last evening was interesting....(and the fact that I am mentioning it here must mean that it was superlative)... I gave the parents an overview of what I had written on my blog yesterday.... To show you all how the world has turned up-side-down, my parents in a complete switch from their normal habit, agreed with each other and said that I was completely wrong!  I was terribly happy because I gave them something to be united about and that is rare. : ) I came away from their house with (almost) a smile on my face...... it was worth baring my soul to the world on a topic that is so controversial just to see them as a united front.  It was also good to get a different perspective. Interesting how their generation sees things so differently... the gist of their argument was that they both valued the ditch digger as much as the lawyer.... (actually when I thought about it I couldn't disagree with them but then lawyers are such bottom dwellers not given a whole lot of respect either... and they do have their own jokes!) Anyway maybe it is a generation thing.... Mudder said that when she was young women who went to work were not given any respect or value... women were expected to stay home with their children so it has turned around just in one generation... interesting! Still though a little liberal arts can't hurt really.  Maybe it will make us all a little more open to our fellow people.... Enough about that....

Hi ho hi ho I'm off to try those commercial yarns again.... it is a good day for it... rain, rain, rain, dull, dull, dull, spin, spin, spin... maybe I should drink some wine, it might make my spinning better!.... too bad I'm allergic to it..... : ( ... well enough about this..... I'm off...

Liberal Arts vs The New World

I'm listening to CBC radio this morning... a past time that takes a lot of my time since Teapot and I do not have a hook up to television channels. Michael Enright is having an interesting interview with a Professor of Liberal arts, Martha Nussbaum... as an aside she is an American, not that that has any real significance other than requirements in American Universities may be different than in Canadian.... If you have read my Background Information then you know that I studied the liberal arts in university some twenty years ago. Philosophy was my major area of study and even though I received honours in my degree and a lovely little scholarship, even though it was one of the most exciting times of my life, - one of the most important seasons of growth and openness to new ideas for me, it did not provide me with the tools to go out in the world to get a job. And jobs are significant to our intrinsic value... at least that is the way the world acts.

Begin rant:
I have had a difficult time all through my adult life with maintaining value in the world of modern day society. I, as an unemployed, housewife (which to me is a derogatory term) have little or no value. I do not work so I DO nothing other than raise my children... which for all intents and purposes does not hold  value.  It irritates me no end when people say, "but you are raising your children.... and that is of value", and then act like you haven't a brain in your head. The person who works in a high powered job with a 6 digit salary is of much more value to society than I am. They too, raise children but maintain a high powered job while I sit on my derierre at home sweeping floors and cleaning toilets..... They hire a maid.

But that doesn't mean that I don't have significantly deep thoughts... that doesn't mean that my life is directionless or purposeless. I fear our society has entered a new age of darkness where we place value more on survival than on any other directive in our lives.

 I do realize that we need money to survive and that the more money we have the more likely is our ability to survive.... at least in this day and age where food, shelter and clothing are attained via money.... ahhh, we come down to it... don't we... and I know this is going to make me sound like an anti-capitalist.....but I'm not. I do believe in chasing after your dreams and if that includes making $600,000.00 a year then go for it.... but what we have done is changed our society so that it is no longer free.... it is mandatory that we seek the highest amount of money that we can, in order for our lives to be important. If we do not then we are passed over as "less than" not "more than".  Unfortunately we look up to those who have big houses, fast cars, big screen TVs , and three week vacations in exotic locations, as our foremost thinkers, leaders,.... and they, and only they, are successful at life.

Yin yang reigns supreme right now.... to be honest.... there is a part of me that believes too that survival through accumulation is a most important goal.... I have been steeped in that philosophy so it is difficult to think otherwise and perhaps we are wired as, primarily, animals to survive at all costs.  There are moments when I set aside the fact that quads permeate the air with pollution, and covet terribly the joy of those people speeding by my house on sunny Sunday afternoons down the trails laughing boisterously as they speed through the forest on those very fun vehicles... (that's just one small example of what I covet) but what it comes down to is a differentiation between need and want.... between  self-centered-ness and social conscience.  I don't need a quad, I can't afford a quad, and would I want one if I could?  I hope not.... they are vehicles that, though use low amounts of gasoline to get someone from one place to another, are terrible polluters of the air due to lack of emissions control, and have been known to decimate terrain over which they travel.

I am not a socialist, though I do believe that we are all a part of a global family and that caring for those around us is important..... and that includes recognizing the intrinsic value of all human beings.  I choose not to work.... therefore I have landed in the pool of snakes that makes me a "less than"!

So, to talk about Martha Nussbaum's philosophy,... she believes that the liberal arts are an important part of a university education. That studying Socrates, and Plato, and ethics,.... Heideger, and Kant, and lagalism will make better societies..... I'm not so sure it will.  Value is not placed on these ideas until we come to them of our own accord.

I would like to see education and consciousness of social liberalism start prior to University. Young men and women should be talking about their feelings of fitting into the society of their schools long before they reach the age of majority. For starters it would help to lessen bullying. We begin at such an early age to marginalize our youth.... we force on them the inhibitions that we hold ourselves and  in so doing give them the tools for a life of doing the same to others. Girls are taught at such a young age to bare their skin in an effort to appeal to the opposite sex..... boys are taught that showing emotion is wrong.... and all in the name of value.  We value less the girl who wears blouses that cover their throat that wear big glasses... that has acne... We value less the boy that cries at movies.... that is ashamed that they are not sports oriented.

We are all different.... and we should be taught from the earliest consciousness to accept the differences among us. No one is less valued for the Fisher Price toy they own.... no one one is less valued because they pee in their pants.... (yes it goes as far back as that).

Will it change? Perfection is not possible.  Can we be better? Absolutely. The next time you meet someone who has different ideals think, "Are they so different from me....?"

If you ask someone what they want out of life.... I'll bet you, they'll say something like this.... People who care about me.... enough to be comfortable..... a happy and healthy life... respect and trust..... and a feeling of intrinsic worth.

Not so different now are we.

Random Thoughts On A Finer Marnin' You Couldn't Have

6:00 a.m.

Coyotes on the horizon.... they're yipping in the freezing morning air. There was a frost last night... but a mild one.  The sun will be up soon and the sky looks as if it will be blue. A flock of geese are flying low, calling to each other in their V.  They must be looking for freshly threshed grain in the fields....whether they find it or not depends on if the rain of the last few weeks has spoiled the oats that the farmers around here planted last spring for their cattle.  Did I mention before, that this is cattle/bison country? Lots of ranches raising cattle/bison.... so what's a shepherd doing in the midst of all this?

7:00 a.m.

Calm... there's not a breath of wind. What a perfect morning to go canoeing.... wish I were on the river now. Coffee and cinnamon toast smells marvelous. The dew on the deck is sparkling brilliantly in the morning sunshine. Not a cloud in the sky. Trip to FSJ later this morning... will be shedding my duties as secretary for the NPSW. That will be good.... I don't think I made a really reliable secretary.... live too far away and winter snows aggravate driving.... shan't miss it.

8:00 a.m.

Dogs stirring... must need to go out. There is nothing more pleasant than seeing a happy dog go streaking out the door first thing in the morning to chase birds and the black cat and then stand with it nose to the air catching scent of what might have been around in the night.... all is right with the world. Ducks go by not too far away I can hear them but I cannot see them they must be headed south. Winter is coming.... I can feel it. Here comes the cat purring around my feet must be looking for his crunchies.... miss Oozle.... I hope he had a good death.

8:30 a.m.

Drip... drip.... drip.... the dew dripping from the roof is sparkling in the sunshine.  There are spiders in several spots outside the window... large.... quiet... they wait for their next meal to fly unbidden into their invisible webs. Soon they will hibernate for the winter.  The horse is nibbling.... soft lips moving over the ground.... looking for the newly greened grass. Chestnut flanks ripple in the sunshine... no wonder people think horses beautiful.... they are.

8:49 a.m.

Farm life is worth it.... but must go and prepare for the day.... AGM minutes to photocopy. All is quiet in this small house in the north country. But soon it will be bustling with life.... soon it will be filled with the mayhem that is my family. It is good to be surrounded by life.....

Weather, Dreams And On Goes The Year

Well, I have to say that the weather around here has been totally screwy. The grass is turning green and the leaves have turned yellow, orange, and red. Normally we got long lovely days in the fall where you can sit out and dye yarn in the bright sunshine on the deck but this year the weather has just been gross. For about a month now it has been cool, and wet... I begged all summer for a little rain but it just didn't happen. Now I'm wishing for sunshine. Does that make me a dissatisfied old shrew or is it just that the weather patterns are changing.  I have not had my head up my butt for the last ten years and do realize that global warming is a real threat. It makes me anxious just thinking about it. (But don't worry I'm not going to go on an environmental rant right now.)

Teapot took his class yesterday off to the local outdoor centre where they are learning canoe skills as part of their gym curriculum. How lucky is that. Teapot makes an awesome teacher.... I mean I never got to learn canoeing skills when I was in school!

I miss Teapot when he is not around. Last night I put in a terrible night. Thinking that I would be cold without the warmth of his body next to me, I threw on an extra blanket. This was not a good idea. I always have bad dreams when I am too warm at night. And so it came to pass, that all night long I was dreaming about the end of the world and wraiths sucking out the souls of the people who were fleeing before them in terror. I knew I was warm and I had this weird sense that I was dreaming and that it was not real but I couldn't wake myself up long enough to throw off the extra blanket. It was very disturbing.  As a result, this morning I am feeling quite off.... I'm not sure my brain and body are on the same page.  I just wish it were sunny, that would cheer me up, but it is not, and I look out on the grey skies and the dull sheep and horse and wonder what happened to the lovely days of fall that I was sooo looking forward to.

Last night was Thursday, and we began knit nights again after a four month hiatus. I finally finished those lace gloves that I was working on all of last year. And what's more is, I took back the thumb. (I don't have a thumb on my right hand... and was born that way, for those of you who are new here). So now the gloves are mine. I rarely, if ever knit anything for myself, and all last year I would look at the gloves as they were progressing and positively covet them.... and finally last night I made the big decision to keep them for me.

I don't have the camera, (Teapot took it with him) so this picture of the one glove, taken a while back will have to suffice. They were knit with a yarn that I spun a few years ago and then dyed with Avocado pits. This picture doesn't really do them justice. But it gives you an idea of what they look like..... very Jane Eyre don't you think?

With the temperatures dipping and there being so much rain I am beginning to think of knitting projects. I began knitting two years ago a shawl out of a hand spun yarn from Karaoke rovings.... which is a blend of soy silk and Merino wool. It looked awesome but then I ran out of yarn and so I thought well I'll just order some more rovings and spin it up. Off and on during the winter last year I would sit at one of my secondary wheels and spin yarn for that project. So, now that I have the lace gloves finished I am going to get out that shawl and continue on because I have a great honking ball of Karaoke finished and waiting to be knitted.

Yesterday, the sun shone for just a little while and I stepped out on the deck for a nice breath of fresh air. It was then that I noticed a leaf had fallen on the deck and had a great drop of water pooled in the centre.... I had to take a picture....

I looked around me and saw great water droplets on many of the plants that adorn my deck.... I'll leave you today with a couple of those pictures....

Hope you have a fine day....

Of Mice And Men

Phone rings!
Ding a linga ling....

Me: Hello?!

Friend: Blah blah blah blah blah. (conversation ensues but I won't bore you with our chit chat.....)

After a while....

Me: Oh yeah I wrote a blog post the other day regarding that very same topic.... if you want to know my views you should read it and I'd love your comments....

Friend: Well how do you leave comments?

Me: You click on the word comments at the end of the post and you just follow the instructions. It's very easy.

Friend: Ok

Me: Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.  ( I won't bore you with the remainder of that conversation...)

It was after that, that I noticed a comment on one of my blog posts, but, I must admit, it wasn't what I was anticipating...

Someone has serious issues with...

I sweated for a few days wondering who it could be because it couldn't be my friend.... I looked on the stat counter and found out that the person leaving those "rude" remarks was from Kamloops...... I thought who in the world has mouse issues....

Now, I'll be honest, pictures of mice and the real thing running around your house are two very different things. Regularly my old black cat, who is a great mouser deposits mice on my doorstep as an offering.... or I should say parts of mice..... It's quite gruesome...

But at Christmas time I love my Christmas mice decorations. And pictures of them are quite alright.... Those little whiskery noses are cute.... (the paws are disgusting though)!

Mice do have their place in nature. There are many animals that survive only because they eat mice. Many hawks and birds of prey exist mainly on a diet of mice. Coyotes, though the farmers around here won't admit it.... love mice and eat thousands of them. So in a way we really need mice.   It is a good thing that they breed so quickly because all those animals in the wild that eat them would starve.

Anyway, I kept thinking about the person who had left rodent remarks. She even told me to get my EYES CHECKED when I said they were cute!!!! Hmmm.... : (

I began to stew, and Teapot kept telling me to get over it.....he reminded me that not everybody is going to be positive about everything I say..... and he had a point.

Yesterday, I was looking at the stat counter again and I noticed that the Kamloops commenter was coming back regularly and it was then that it dawned on me that the unexpected comment came just after the phone conversation that you read above..... well, being the "awesome sleuth" (smirk) that I am, I started to think about the person from Kamloops..... hmmm... my server says that I come from Calgary,and Red Deer most often..... but occasionally from Edmonton and I am nowhere near that..... so possibly the Kamloops person was not really from Kamloops, maybe it was just her server routing her through there...... hmmm!

Phone rings......
Ding a linga ling.....

Me: Hello?!

Friend: Yadda yadda yadda yadda  (further conversations ensue.....).

After a while I get the guts up to ask.....

Me: Did you ever leave comments on my blog.....

Friend: Yes?!!! Sure you answered them....

Me: (dawning light coming on in my head) Ohhhh! That was you!!!!

Friend: Yeah! I figured you had to know...

Me: (with relief in my voice) Right! You're the one with rodent issues!

Friend: Well you know I hate mice....

Me: But you're coming up as someone from Kamloops....

Friend: I am...?!!!!  I'm the lady from Kamloops... ha ha ha ha ha...

Me: You gave me quite a turn.

I must say that I got off the phone and had a good laugh over the whole misunderstanding.....

So to my friend who has rodent issues....

You can knit 'em!

You can eat 'em!

You can laugh at 'em!

You can have coffee with 'em!

You can go to church with 'em!

You can even get drunk with 'em!

But never, ever, ever, tease your friends about them..... ; )

I know... I know..... "I'm such a brat!" : )

I Think I'm Going To Miss It

Level 3.....

I have only one sample left to spin. Boom chakalakalaka boom chakalakalaka boom chakalakalaka boom!

While I'm really excited to be able to say this, it has been a very demanding year and I'm not sure how I'm going to feel.... I think I am going to miss all that work..... (what am I talking about... I still have level 4!!!)

Level 3 has certainly been a challenge.  Level 1 was work and I learned lots, that's for sure, but it wasn't really all that strenuous. Level 2 was a bit more of a challenge but still it wasn't all that difficult. But Level 3?! Oh my, I have never had to do and redo and then do it some more. I've never had to say, this sample sucks!  I do have to say to all the Level 3 students who are not finished their work yet and are reading this blog.... don't do what I did and leave the tpi questions till last.... get them done early and get them over with... it will make the rest of the book a whole lot easier and believe me it will make your spinning technique a whole lot better.

I can't believe I'm saying this but I am not looking forward to tomorrow at which time I will finish my homework... no indeed, I think I am going to feel a serious sense of loss.  I will finish my last sample, I will do the write up, I will do my bibliography, and then I will pack up my books and send them off to my instructor.... after that I will wait with baited breath for the fateful day when I get my marks back.... (Oh my!!! i wish that butterfly in my belly would just lie down for a snooze!)

The last few weeks have been exhausting.... not physically but mentally as I tried to jump the hoops to remember the math and formulas I learned just over a year ago. Yesterday when I sat down to figure out the Bradford count, the TEX count and the NM count (well the NM was simple enough) I thought my head would explode with trying to keep it all straight. But I did it and when I was about half way through I thought..... hmmm, I think I could get into this..... weird!

Well, I'm off to analyse a 3 ply yarn and do some more math so that tomorrow when I get up in the morning I can try to duplicate it.

All's well that ends well!

Back To School

It is 7:43 a.m. We've had breakfast and now the Daughters are putting on make-up and Teapot is having his tea (me too). In about 20 minutes we will take some pictures to remember this day. Daughter #2 is heading off to high school today and it is her first day. She's worried about two things.  She has to take shop (that industrial arts.... you know where you have to learn to saw, & hammer wood, and put small engines together).  She is terrified. I'll be honest I'm a little worried too. She is not the most graceful gal on the planet and tends to get hurt in freakish accidents. She's worried she will cut off a finger with some of those power tools. I'm worried that she will be so nervous that she will cut off a finger too. The other thing she is worried about is monkey locking her locker.... evidently she has done this before but when she was in the elementary school end she had lots of help. Now that she is in the high school end she is worried that she will do this and get detention for being late to class. I keep thinking I should just buy her a regular lock with a key and then we don't have to worry about it.  Either way we are going to have to cope with another year of assignments and studying.

Daughter #1 is an old hand at high school this year and doesn't appear to be nervous at all. She is looking forward to seeing her group of friends. (I just wish she would stop wearing those stupid shoes... they have a great ruddy crack in the bottom... I guess I will have to sneakily throw them in the garbage...). She does not have to do shop (industrial arts) this year which was the bane of her existence last year... this year she gets to choose her electives and I think she is feeling very grown up because she can determine her own choices.... (well, with a little help from Teapot and moi!) Meanwhile she has discovered the joys of science and is quite disappointed that her favorite teacher who taught her science last year is not going to be at the school this year. She will have to be prepared to learn from a new science teacher.

Teapot is embarking on his own new adventure. When he first started teaching, he was teaching grades 7 and 8. Then we moved here, and he started teaching high school. He had a few difficult years where it seemed like he was constantly changing curriculum so when the opportunity arose to teach in the elementary end of the school, he jumped at it and for the last 11 years he has taught a combination of 3, 4 and 5. This year, they asked him if he would be interested in teaching different grades.... so he is back to teaching 6 and 7. For the last few weeks, in the evenings, he has been learning the curriculum for these new-to-him grades. It has been long hours of working, and reading and some nights he works well past midnight. 

What's really weird, though, is that they are all really excited to go back to school. I think it is because the summer was not the best that we have had. Our camping vacation was too short and wet after a summer too hot to do anything. Also the Daughters have been missing out on the social aspect of school and seeing their friends every day. To be honest I'm really on the fence.  I will miss sleeping in and the lazy days of summer... but I am also looking forward to long days with no distractions and getting lots of work done. The only thing that really bothers me is that both Daughters are now in high school and they seem to be growing away from me. They go off and turn their backs to me and giggle about who knows what (probably boys) but there are definitely secrets.  If I wasn't so sure of them as well adjusted young ladies, I would be worried.  But I'm not. Teapot and I did a good job bringing these two lovely, and smart young ladies up, so I know they will be alright.

And so it begins..... again!

Later:

Good Lord! I'm the shortest! How did they grow up so fast?

End Of Summer

Well, folks this is the last day of holidays before Teapot and the Daughters head back to school.  The weather has definitely turned... there's lots of rain. The funny thing is that the grass is finally starting to grow and turn green.

Yet, the trees are turning gold, and around my yard (which, for some reason is a little different from other areas in this valley) the leaves are actually falling off the trees. It's been a strange year for weather indeed. On our way to town the other day, I was amazed by the colour of the Fireweed. It has turned a brilliant red and gives the sides of the road beautiful depth as other bushes turn gold and melon. Many of the Pine trees have died again this year and so there are tons of brown trees in the forest as well. While most people are harvesting their gardens I am not... and I miss the harvest.  I had great hopes that this would be the year that I would get the animals out of the garden and get the vegetables back in but that didn't happen and so now I have to wait till next year for the garden and shop at the grocery store for my veggies.

The electrical shed, on which should be a new roof, will have to wait. I am still hoping that some fine weekend this Autumn, Teapot will get this project done. I am not sure the roof that is there will stand up to any big dumps of snow. The cedar shakes that are on there have rotted now to the point where you can see daylight in lots of places.  I worry that the Hydro lady who comes to check the meter, will report us and we will have no choice but to replace the roof in the middle of a -40 degree cold snap. So I am hoping that Teapot will find the time somewhere, somehow and get that new roof on the shed before the snow falls.

Teapot thought I looked particularly studious in this picture. Basically I couldn't see the yarn to count tpi... thus the headlight and magnifying glasses. I guess I'm getting old!

I have been working away at the level 3 homework, which, I am happy to say I am just about finished. I have now caught up everything and gotten all the write ups done for all the samples finished to this point.  This means I am again able to go back to spinning. I have spun enough singles to try my 12 tpi question for the 80th time!!!! (well that is a slight exaggeration. But I certainly have tried that one a lot... argh!) Then I just have to finish the two commercial yarns, and if the 12 tpi sample doesn't work then I'm going to give it up for a really bad job and work on the commercial yarns while I wait for my sanity to return.  That's it then.... I just have to send in the books to my instructor for marking, during which time, I will relax with some fun spinning and wait for my marks to come back. The beginning of October is the date I'm giving myself to start the level 4 homework.

In the meantime I have been playing off and on with my Takli which is a small support spindle for cotton and I am getting quite good at spinning with it.  I have decided that I love cotton spinning and now am going to attempt to grow some cotton in my house this year.  Yes, I do realize that I live in the great white north and that there are many days throughout the year where daylight is not very long, but I will use full spectrum light to see if the seeds will grow into something usable. Meanwhile all my sample and practice cotton that I am spinning will be used in the single form for place mats, napkins and table runners.

All the old timers around here are predicting a hard and early winter.  I don't know how much I can trust the old guys, especially since people don't work in the woods like they used to. There are no trappers around here and the loggers have gone the way of the Dodo bird.  But if it is a hard winter then I'm not looking forward to it. We've already had a hard frost.

I thought I would include here a little rant, so if you are not into rants then you may want to stop reading.....

I hate reading blogs where the husband is referred to as DH.  I realize the DH stands for dear husband but every time I see DH I think, how rude!.... because I see DH as di-k head..... does anybody else get that out there in computer land?  Or is it just me? I've been thinking about starting a protest group.... The Stop Calling Your Spouse DH Society.... I mean how many of us would want our husbands calling us the old bag..... (ha! I bet you thought I was going to say the old bat!!!) I mean there is BH for better half.... or OH for the other half, TBK might work if you are looking for something a little on the funny side, TBK for the big knob,.... there's TS for the spouse... and MH for my husband... DB for dear boy or DM for dear man.... DH just is mean....  If you love him call him something nice..... : )

I think that's the end of my rant....

Hmm maybe I should come up with something better for the Daughters...... any suggestions?

Well I'm off to spend the last day of summer vacation with the family..... maybe some laundry, maybe some helping Daughter with clothes... for school.... maybe a little spinning.... we'll see.

Tomorrow is the first time I will use our new tub... everyone else has used the new tub, but I've been saving the wonderful experience for the first day of school.... can't wait!

How Close We Come

Teapot and I took the girls to town for a little shopping, yesterday... We didn't go far and we didn't buy clothes as we had planned. That will come later in September.  We just got them their paper, binders, and pens and stuff.  We had a lovely afternoon driving along in the fall sunshine. When we got to town though we noticed some pretty dark cloud rolling in over the mountains so we knew that the sun would be short lived.  Of course, that was no deterrent from our shopping. After the girls were happy with their purchases we decided to pop into the grocery store for a barbeque chicken and some salads, that way neither Teapot nor I would have to cook when we got home.  Little did we know that it would be really late when we finally got our supper. We left town around 5:15 p.m. and the drive home would take about fifty minutes. By now those ominous clouds were pretty much right overhead and we knew that they were carrying rain. We headed out of town chatting a gabbing and generally enjoying ourselves.

The road that takes us home from that particular community skirts the rocky mountains and takes a generally northward direction. It was just as we were coming up the hill that leads out of town that it started to rain. 25 minutes later we had passed through one of the most torrential rains that I have ever, in my life, driven through. The visibility was next to nothing and it was like someone had opened a tap and we were under it.

We slowed down on the road because there was so much water on the road that driving conditions were difficult at best. Meanwhile other vehicles were passing us as though we were Grandma and Grandpa Mose. Just as we were getting back to our own community I happened to look in a ditch on my side of the road. It was quite a deep ditch and there were no guard rails. There in the ditch was a beige coloured car with very little glass left in it, with dents all over it, and a man dangling out the passenger side window.  Obviously there had been an accident.

Nobody else in the traffic ahead had even seen the car, let alone pulled over to help.... we were the last vehicle in a line of about 5 or 6 vehicles and I knew that nobody else had seen the results of the accident. Telling Teapot to pull over because I had just seen a car in the ditch, didn't take me long and Teapot pulled over and turned around to go back. We weren't sure what we were going to see.  Teapot jumped out and disappeared over the edge of the bank and by the time I got to the edge of the road the man who had been dangling from the passenger side window wasn't there and I couldn't see Teapot for all the brush that was in the way, but I could hear voices. I called out to see if everyone was ok and if I needed to call 911.

Teapot yelled out that there were two people but they were walking and ok. I stayed where I was because by now the Daughters were wondering what was to be done.... I let them know that their dad had things under control and that it looked like nobody was seriously hurt.

By the time Teapot and the two people climbed up out of the ditch several more cars had passed along and had stopped to see if I needed assistance.... among them was one of the local police guys who lives in our community.  He walked down to them and met them coming up a much less steep  way of getting out of the ditch.  Apparently the fellow who was driving was driving his Auntie home from our community to the community where Teapot and I had just been shopping. The accident occurred because his vehicle hit a patch of water on the road and hydroplaned. They went over the edge of the embankment and rolled once and landed right side up in the ditch. Both were wearing seat belts and neither one was seriously hurt. The lady had multiple cuts and scrapes from broken glass and both were badly bruised but they were ok. When I had first seen the man dangling from the passenger side window he had been trying to get the insurance papers out of the glove compartment. The police took our names so that they could call us if they had any questions and then when we left the two people were being taken back to town by the police.

Teapot and I have come very close a few time to being at the scene of very bad accidents and it never ceases to stir me and make me grateful that I am alive.  I know those two people in that accident yesterday are very lucky they are alive. The vehicle was completely destroyed. How they weren't killed is beyond me....

I am so glad it wasn't us.

There but for the grace of God go I.....