Conversations Again

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Left Toes: SnooooOOOooore..... Snork! Hmmm....! I could have sworn I heard someone calling to me.

Right Toes: You did you dip stick. Wake up.... it's spring... it's time to come out of hibernation.

Left Toes: I can't hear you.... I... just a minute..... ah, that's better. I couldn't hear you very well inside my slipper.

Right Toes: I know... since Christmas when she got the slippers I've been feeling awfully lonely. All I do is sleep. Usually I shiver my way through winter but not this year. It's been lovely and warm and she never wore socks at all. I love slippers. I've never slept so good in all my life!

Left Toes: SHUT UP... now you've done it you said the S word. She doesn't know yet does she?!!!

Right Toes: Nope, I don't think so.

Brain: I seem to hear you guys talking about S---- again! What the heck are you guys on about now? Are you complaining? Of course you are. You always complain. Well, I'm not wearing socks... you've got new slippers so that should keep you warm.

Feet: Noooo, we're not complaining....

Left Toes: As a matter of a fact I was just saying how lovely and cozy I've been this winter.... please, please, please, keep the slippers.

Brain: Ahh you like the slippers eh?  I thought you might.

Feet: Yeah, it's been a very luxurious winter. I haven't been cold at all.

Brain: Hey! Do you guys hear that.... what is that sound?

Feet: Oh that...

Left Toes: I told you to keep your mouth shut.

Right Toes: Well, should we tell her?

Left Toes: We have no choice really and she'll just find out anyway.

Brain: What are you two muttering about?

Feet: That noise you hear?..... that's the socks on strike!

My Blog = Blah

I have come to the conclusion that my blog is boring me to death.... it needs another face lift... hmmm not sure what to do.

I still like the content, though, sometimes I wonder why on earth anyone would want to read this stuff... for me it is journalling. My life and my family and mostly my work gets documented here and it is fun to go back and have a look at stuff that we've done in the past and projects I've completed. Yet, when I see other blogs with 500+ followers I kind of scratch my head and wonder why I've been writing for almost two and a half years and my followers are so low... is my life that boring? Must be.

Of course, I keep saying that I am not doing this as a popularity contest... I'm doing this for me. And so I carry on.

But a face lift from time to time doesn't hurt... and I'm ready for another one... something warmer I think.
Hmm... I'm off to have a go at it. And some breakfast.

There..... now that's a change... and it's in keeping with the fact that I can't choose which colours to use!

Day Is Done

I have been picking cashmere. Last night it took me three hours to pick 30 grams of cashmere. I know you are wondering what in the world is she picking cashmere for... you're probably wondering if I mean to pick out cashmere as in a special type of cashmere... or to pluck at it. Well, in this instance I mean to pluck at it... as in plucking all of the hair out of it.  You see, cashmere in the raw state can have a lot of hair in it... so it needs to be plucked out before it can be spun. Also known as dehairing. So tuft by tuft the hair is pulled from the fibre and then it is ready for blending in this case and then spinning and so on... This plucking job is being calculated as part of my level 4 150 hour project.  It has to be done and though I have not finished all of the other questions I thought I would start working on my 150 hour project a little in between doing some of the other questions.

I decided to stuff sandwich bags with the fibre to be blended, 5 gms of merino, followed by 2 gms of silk and then 3 gms of cashmere (plucked) to give me a 50/30/20% split. After I have done up 10 bags I will blend them and spin them... and then I will make up another 10 bags... and so on.  But suffice it to say that my 150 hour project has begun.

The darn hair is dastardly to pluck out of the cashmere fibre. I sit with my legs stretched out on the couch with my bag of cashmere in my lap, the folding table with my weigh scales by my side and some paper towel to catch the hair from landing in my lap and making me look like a Sasquatch. I surprisingly don't really mind it too much... I started last night while the Daughters were watching a movie, and I carried on with it again tonight. My shoulders do ache after a while.

Meanwhile Teapot and the Daughters are off to bed because this is the last day of March break...It's back to school tomorrow for them. This past week has been lovely and mild and we have been barbecuing dinner ever since the turkey a few days ago. The girls have been spending inordinate amounts of time out of doors and the sunshine would cheer the worst mope these last few days. (And believe me, we have needed cheering since last weekend... after Tootsie died).  It is funny how we have pulled together over this last week... it's like family first and everything else can come later.

Teapot managed to get two of my shelves in yesterday and and finished all the shelving in the pantry. He also got the table/island finished too.  We are finished with the kitchen... and it is a great job. There's one last shelf to put up but it is cut so all I need to do is buy the shelf brackets that will hold it and that won't happen until I get to the nearest hardware store. Tomorrow, I'm going to get going on our bedroom.... in between spinning and plucking. Yup, more spring cleaning... I think I'm on a bit of a roll.

I'm off to dream of plucking the hair out of cashmere. All is quiet and there's no longer any movement on the upper floor since all members of the household are now snoring peacefully. Day is done.... but there is always tomorrow.

More Spring Cleaning... (Or How Poop Can Affect Your Life)

What I want to know is how in the world did the spring cleaning turn into a mini renovation! In the process of switching around the food pantry and dishes pantry, we decided to install the new counter tops which have been sitting in the shed since our big renovation two years ago, fix the doors on the cabinets which will contain the food from here on in, make a new island, and prepare the dishes pantry for the new doors....  Two years ago, at the time of our big renovation, the kitchen repairs/renovation got put on hold because of flooring issues. (We couldn't decide which flooring to put down through the house.  We still can't and since the sunroom is far from finished we don't have to make that decision for a while yet.) Meanwhile, the kitchen was workable for "the time being".... but of course, "the time being" stretched into two years. Yesterday, I had a mini crack-up... (that's where you go slightly nuts) and decided that life was too short to live in a crap heap. (Of course the poop all over the yard helped me to come to the point of my mini crack- up and also with the living circumstances descriptive of "crap heap".) The dog was trotting across the kitchen with muddy, poopy feet.... Teapot was tramping through my kitchen with his poopy boots and the last straw was after Daughter #1 walked into the house with horse doo doo attached to her shoes. I looked around and saw the recycling overflowing, and potatoes rolling across the floor... and every surface littered with dirty dishes... that's when I snapped! In very short order I had the food pantry gutted (and low and behold in the back, on the floor, were some mouse turds from the damn rodent we caught just before Christmas which I thought I had gotten rid of.... which just added to the poop analogy... hopefully we don't have another rodent issue)! At eleven last night, I was not finished but there were some serious improvements. This morning, I got up and the kitchen was still in a ree raw... (Newfy term for a serious mess)!  So I had at it again... at some point, Teapot took pity on me and began helping me remove a shelf which we had been using "for the time being" as a counter and replace it with the new counter top... which turned into an all-day-effort.

The shelf with the toaster will be lowered to the light switch level and then a new shelf will be added above it. All the recycling bins underneath will be covered with a brown checkered set of curtains. Eventually this counter will be where the sink is placed.

Meanwhile, the shelves are waiting tomorrow's efforts since they will be raised and put into place fairly speedily. Then we just have to rebuild the island with a more permanent completion effort.... (that means that I have to paint the top and Teapot has to level it so that the boiled eggs don't fall on the floor every time we use it).

...but in the meantime here it stands leaning against the wall with the log which will hold it up... (but not level apparently)... standing next to it. The chair will be set under it so that we can eat there two. The old trolly (lower left corner) will be making a one way trip to the dump.

Later in the summer, we will move the plumbing to the new counter and install the new sink, and replace the counter on the other side of the kitchen where the sink is now. And the window (to the left) that overlooks the sunroom will be removed to make way for a pass through for the dining room.

Ugly counter top in the old part of the kitchen... this will have a new counter and the sink won't be there. Meanwhile the cabinets in the background are getting adjustments made to the doors to improve them and is the place where the food is now stored.

(We are doing this so that dirty dishes cannot be viewed from the living room and the new counter will act as a pass through for the dining room.) All that I have left to do is make the curtain to cover the recycling which is under the new counter.... (yes I want a curtain instead of cabinets... because it is more country style) and make a bread box since I lost mine to wool since it is not air tight.

I have come to the conclusion that I have too much stuff in a small kitchen and so there are plenty of boxes to go to the Thrift store and the dump. Junk that has been sitting on shelves and not in use in far too long, belongs somewhere other than in my very nice clean kitchen. And let me tell you, that proper counters after years of wood laminate counters that have splits in them, (where crumbs and grunge gathers for a bacteria infested mess), is like night and day. There are a few bags of bulk grains that need to be placed in containers but otherwise that is it.... oh yeah and the pantry doors need to be cut and installed... but all in good time.

This is the old food pantry which now holds all my dishes... it just needs another shelf below and one above (which Teapot will cut for me today) and the two doors.

I need to finish level 4 so that I can take a week to do the wood burning on the front of the doors before they will be installed... but in the meantime it is starting to shape up.

Teapot seems to think that by the end of today we will have it finished... for now (that doesn't include the plumbing changes which hopefully will be done this summer). Meanwhile I still have to chase everyone around with a mop and bucket... and that won't change till the ground dries out a little more. In maybe a week? I sure hope so cause I'm just plain sick of poop... and crap heaps!!!

Spring Cleaning... Yuck

The kitchen pantry needed cleaning... it had never gotten a door.... well, actually that is not true. We tried putting a door on and it was really small so we decided that we would put a larger door on... that never happened so now I've decided to switch pantries. The cabinets that I was using for dishes will now be the pantry for food, while the pantry for food will now be utilized by the dishes... and electric thingamabobs, like the sandwich griller and the blender etc.  It's all very boring I assure you. But it is a perfect day for spring cleaning because the weather is changeable... one minute sun.... one minute rain. There's still snow on the ground but it is taking a really big cutting this week. The driveway is slush to the elbows and poop reigns supreme in my yard. Rubber boots seem to be the footwear of choice theses days. There's not much to do outside unless your happy to see soft gooy poop of every description and be wet to the knees.  A week of this and my house will be spotless!

Back To The Main Event.... Level 4

My Lopi samples are done and I'm happy with them and the first worsted sample is also finished but looks like crap... but I think that was the point of the exercise... We have to do worsted samples and woollen samples from different preparations and do a comparative study... So that's what I'm working on today.... that.... and turkey dinner.

The turkey is in the oven and the parents are coming for dinner.... that is a mid-day dinner.

It's our Christmas turkey that we never cooked.... we ate the parents turkey instead. March and Turkey dinner... how weird is that! It will probably be the last cooked dinner for a while.... from here on in it will be barbecue all the way!.... but then you never know maybe I'll cook turkey on the barbecue sometime over the summer... that wouldn't be unheard of.

So that's it for this very spring-like end-of-March-day.... just wish that snow would melt faster.

Our Little Guy

I think I can bring myself to talk about this now...

Yesterday was dreadful... the day before was dreadful too. We've known for a while that Tootsie was not himself... about a month ago Tootsie's breath began to stink... badly... and so I had a look in his mouth and discovered that his teeth were getting really bad. He needed work done on them before too long. I started to save money since usually it costs about $600.00 to get a dogs teeth cleaned. About two weeks later I had a look at his teeth again and I discovered that the gums were starting to rot. That was way faster than we expected. I started saving faster. Then he went off his food so I bought canned food thinking that his teeth were really bothering him and he loved it... for a few days...

In addition to all of this, Tootsie started to have violent shaking about 6 or 8 months ago and we just put it down to the fact that he was cold and so we let his fur grow out a little longer after all it was coming on for fall after a very hot summer.

Little did we know that something very bad was happening. Inside his wee body things were starting to get screwed up. It was because his Adrenal glans were no longer producing the hormones that made his little body function correctly.  It's called Addison's disease... over the weekend it was clear to us that Tootsie was not feeling well. We thought that it was because he had taken a flying leap off Daughter #2's bed and had hurt his back again... he has been on medication for jumping and hurting his back before. Saturday he was very listless... Sunday he stopped eating and Sunday night he stopped moving around much and whined every time he moved. We called the vet first thing on Monday. By Monday afternoon we knew the worst.... that there was not a whole lot that the vet could do and his chances of bringing Tootsie back from the brink was very slim indeed. So we made the horrible decision to end his pain which he was so very obviously in... a tough decision but one that had to be made.

We miss him terribly because he always followed us around and went where ever we went.

Two dogs in less than a year... it has been a hard year indeed. And we will keep our dear little friend in our hearts...