Whorling Around

Unfortunately every so often I have this wonderful (yeah!) problem in the form of dizziness. Not just your run of the mill dizziness but down right holy-cr-p-stop-the- world-going-around-dizziness. Sometimes it lasts a day and sometimes it lasts a few days. I generally stay in bed and get up only to crawl to the bathroom. This morning I woke up and went to go through the normal morning routine and woosh the room started moving at about 90 km an hour. I was back on the pillow in a nanosecond. After an hour of trying to get this under control I managed to get my carcass out of bed and downstairs.... here I am sitting in front of the computer and I am not ripping my head around a lot at all... and I have a headache. Argh!

Thing is, this really ticks me off. Well of course you say. But I live with this problem so it doesn't usually bother me too much as I like to use a day like this to just rest and catch up on sleep, but last night I started working on my level 3 homework and I was looking forward to continuing that today. A little time on the computer and then back to bed. So no spinning today. : (

Yes... I started on my level 3 homework and I love when I see good progress. Since I still don't have my cotton cards and don't expect to tet them for 6 weeks, I thought I would have a look at my level 3 books and see what other question would interest me right now. I decided to have a go at the support spindle, and so I gathered some silk /merino blend and tried out my new Navajo spindle. It didn't take very long before I realized that my new one has not got enough weight to make it a good spindle. So out came the guild Navajo spindle and away I went. I have to spin a 10 Metre skein and it can be singles, but I was having so much fun that I decided, to heck with that I will do 10 metres of plied yarn. It's fun.

Meanwhile Tootsie is enjoying his chicken... we call the chicken Bob.

Well now that I've caught you up on my doings... I'm off back to bed, and while I'm whorling around...... my spindle is not!!!

Time Management... Not!

Hubby and I are not the best at time management. Here, it is cold... real cold. I look out my window in our office where I'm sitting, and there's nary a leaf to be seen. They all turned yellow and then orange last week and overnight they fell to the ground and just like that it was winter. Hubby and I were up quite late the other night with guests for dinner and when our guests left a 3 a.m. it was -14 degrees C. I think that is an anomaly and that we will get warmer temperatures again, but then in the North, you never know. As a result of this quick decent into winter, Hubby and I have been caught with our pants around our knees. (Not literally!) We should have had everything ready for winter but somehow here we are and nothing is ready for the inevitable cold and snow. The tent trailer is still standing in the yard. It's up and not cleaned out. The trampoline has not been put away, some of the house supplies are still outside, and we are far from ready for snow. Yeesh! How did that happen?

Today, Hubby is butchering the chickens. We have had it with the bu--ers since they are the worse chickens we have ever had! They lay their eggs and then promptly eat them. Once a chickens starts doing that it's hats off for them, or I mean, heads off for them. We've tried catching the bu--ers in the midst of their egg eating habit, but they are just too quick. Out comes an egg and they're on it like a bunch of starving Ethiopians at a Thanksgiving buffet. So with the price of chicken feed as high as it is, it is just not worth it to keep them.... besides, they always looked like they were trying to place bombs under the house anyway!!!

Everything has a light dusting of snow and so begins the dark days of winter. I dread it. I went outside a little while ago and just about froze my buns off, but the great thing is that I found a lovely picture. So I went back in again and grabbed the camera in an effort to capture the image in digital form.

Later I was cleaning up some things that had been in the shed for the last few months because I didn't want to leave them out there over the winter months and in the box was a stuffed chicken that someone had felted for me. I think it was supposed to be a pin cushion but I never used it as such. I thought, "I bet Tootsie would like to play with this, now that he won't have chickens to herd anymore". And sure enough he loves it and takes it everywhere with him.

Saturday was a good day for renovation doings too. Hubby got my closet done to the point where I can hang up clothes and so I have been putting clothes away all yesterday and today with a little time out for Turkey with the parents and some time on the tri-loom yesterday. I started a small shawl last week as an experiment and so far it is looking good.

Meanwhile the things that we need to do linger and languor. I sure hope this weather is an anomaly because I'm really starting to wonder if it is. One thing is for sure, I'm starting to think that I need to work on my time management!

Hope you all had a good Thanksgiving...

Thanksgiving Pizza????

I'm sure glad I'm not a Turkey this weekend. Happy Thanksgiving to one and all. I'm sure there are many households that have turkeys thawing on the counter in readiness for cooking on Sunday.

We're having Pizza. Actually we are headed out to a friend's house for Thanksgiving this year but we decided that we would have our own Thanksgiving meal at home too. There is no school today as the independent republic of HH where we live has a K-12 school and because of bussing issues and timing there is no school today for our school. Yee haw!! As a result our household is having Thanksgiving dinner tonight. We are having Pizza. And let me tell you we are as thankful for pizza as we would be for a turkey.

I started making pizza a few years ago with a twist to it. I don't use sauce and I don't use pepperoni or any meat for that matter. I know, I know, what's left?

My pizza started out as a vegetarian pizza and has progressed to become what it is today. I use lots of vegetables and tons of cheese and it is delicious. My kids love it. You just have to be willing to try something a little different.

Here's the recipe....
Frankie's Thanksgiving Pizza

Pizza Dough
lg batch (makes 2 pizzas)
1 1/2 c water
2tbsp. olive oil (you can substitute veggie oil)
2tsp. salt
2tsp. sugar
4 c. unbleached or all purpose flour (I prefer unbleached)
2tsp. Quick-rise yeast

Mix all above ingredients together in usual manner and set aside in a warm place to rise.

Toppings
Grate lots of Cheddar cheese at least 2 cups
Grate lots of mozzarella cheese at least 3 cups
1 - 1 liter container of ricotta cheese
Parmesan cheese as much as you want
1 chopped onion
2 sticks of finely chopped celery
5 large-ish ripe tomatoes
lots of sliced fresh mushrooms
chopped red and green and yellow peppers (1 each)
1 smallish grocery store sized zucchini sliced thinly

Kneed dough and split the dough in half and oil a pizza stone or pan. Spread dough over pan and layer toppings in this manner, keeping half the toppings for each pizza....
Ricotta cheese (helps to absorb juice from tomatoes)
celery and onion
sliced tomatoes
sliced zucchini
sliced mushrooms
red and green and yellow peppers
cover all in first Cheddar cheese
then Mozzarella cheese
then Parmesan cheese

If you have it, some spice with sun dried tomatoes to put on top helps to make it just divine. I use a Greek spice mix.

Bake till cheese is drippy and starting to brown and crust edges are browning....

When you try this pizza, I guarantee you will be thankful. Now aren't you glad that you are not a turkey!

What's Red And Green And White All Over

That's not some stupid joke you know.

Let's start with White.....
I looked out my window this morning and "My Deck" is white. Yes.... first snowfall... (gag)! I had to dig out my winter jacket.... (but I still refuse to wear the sox.. Hahahahaha!)That's my toe poking out there!!!...
A few years ago I wanted a really unique jacket so I bought a plain black heavy fleece jacket and decided to add a little flair. I got out my embellishments and here is the result of my creative juices. (Someone who loves Hollowe'en and follows this blog might think the spider and spider's web in the centre is neat!) I am not a big aficionado of Hollowe'en. Unfortunately when I moved to the country there was no longer any reason to decorate for the event. No one comes to my house because we just live too far away. We bring, or I should say, brought our girls into town to do some trick or treating and then we would go to the fireworks that our volunteer fire department puts off each year. So unfortunately I don't put out pumpkins and ghosts in my trees and other symbols of the season.... but I do wear my jacket.

Anyway when I got up this morning and discovered that there was a white coating over everything.... well, I just wanted to barf quite frankly. I carried on down stairs and thought about green trees in spring and the green of the leaves on my flowers and even how nice it is to walk through the woods when green surrounds you..... then I looked in my dye pot and was very happy to find green wool which had been sitting all night in an effort to exhaust the dye pot of yesterday. This should look very nice in a saddle pad I think.

After I made breakfast for all and had decided to brave the north winds to find my October jacket in the shed, I happened to look out the window and noticed the punk sheep in the paddock. Punk sheep???! you're thinking. Oh yes.... there is nothing ordinary about this day because we discovered that Greigg, who is always so placid and dignified, has decided to attract the ewes with a new doo. Have no fear this is not blood. It is just the paint from the red gate that Greigg has decided to rub his obviously very itchy head against.

Meanwhile in the next paddock over, there is Reece... lamb of lovely fleece.... and she's white too.
Sporting her own divine and very fashionable coat...

Aaah the oddities of this small little northern farm....
So what's red and green and white all over??? ..... everything around me!

To Dye For

OK so I have been experimenting. Yesterday I had a well earned day off.... so I couldn't just sit there I had to do something. Out came my dye pot.

First! A while ago when Daughter #1 started horse back riding lessons, her teacher and I were talking about saddle pads. She showed me a lovely woven one that she would like to have duplicated. Then we got talking about saddle pads in general. She told me about the different kinds of saddle pads on the market and I told her about a friend who made saddle pads by locker hooking and so the conversation went.

Next! So as you know I have been working with pins looms for the last year and I have been having a blast with them. I started out with a 2" x 6" Weavette and started making bookmarks with dog wool that I spun from my wolf/husky dog. Then I bought a 4"x 6" Weavette and have been weaving my Madder project for my level 3 challenge on that. Then I bought a 6"x6" Hazel Rose loom and loved it but found it quite different from the Weavette. It is fun too and I am working on a baby blanket for our foster child in Brazil. At the same time I bought a Tri loom and a diamond loom as a kit with the intention of making a blanket for a twin bed on that at some point in the future. Then we did the tri-loom workshop and I bought two tri looms. One is a three foot and the other is a seven foot. I have done my practice piece that I started in class on the three foot loom and now am working on the seven foot loom and will hopefully have enough yarn for a blanket or throw.

Put all that together and I have come up with the great idea that I can make saddle pads using a Weavette made to specific dimensions on a homemade pin loom. I just have to take the 7' tri loom pattern and make a rectangular loom that will work with rug warp and rovings with a slight twist to them.

If I want colour in the rovings then I need to know how to dye the rovings so that they don't felt too much. (A little felting wouldn't hurt I don't think.) And so back to yesterday.

A while ago I got a phone call from a lady here in town who said she had some bags of wool for me if I was interested. I, being dubious because of being given wool before which turned out to be nasty moth infested messes that basically ended in the dump, was not sure what to say. To be polite I told her I would come and take a look at it. In the end I discovered that she had 7 (get that? 7) bags of carded batts from Carstairs mill in Alberta that she had picked up at and auction and didn't know what to do with it. She GAVE it all too me..... SCORE!!!!

I am tearing this fibre into strips and dyeing it to see if I can use it for my saddle pads. The first batch that I dyed, I used my hunk dyeing method where I combined three colours to get a varigated look. This is it....




Today I will dye some more but I will use one colour as I want my saddle pads to be sensible! (I know... it's not like me to do anything sensibly!!!) I am looking at green and black for the pattern.... we shall see.

Meanwhile here is my bowl finished.

Keep Your Politics Under Your Hat

Talking politics can lead to some very heated discussions. Where I live people are learning to keep their politics under their hats because revealing too much can make life miserable.

Yesterday, I discovered that there is a proposed gravel pit going to be developed pretty much bordering my property. I can't tell you how disgusted this makes me. Right now there is the nicest piece of crown land next to us, that is an excellent corridor for wildlife. Deer abound there and coyotes live there and bears bumble around in that forest as well as a world of insects and plants, that we take for granted because it is too small for us to really see. What pi--es me off is that some bureaucrat in southern B.C., who has never seen this area, will get to make the decision about whether or not to turn this lovely forest that so many people enjoy, into a wasteland. I hate the thought of walking out on my deck and having to listen to heavy equipment roaring around tearing up the pathways that I walk daily. Serenity of the individual is crap in the eyes of the government. Their idea is, lets rape and pillage whatever we can in the North because a few live there and they don't count. Their votes don't matter enough to worry.

It is infuriating to be faced with this mindset in our government and in society. What's sad is that not all of us choose to live in the concrete barrens of cities. I know that will shock all those who read this and who believe that Gucci bags and Ikea stores are the only fulfilling things on the face of the planet. But those of us who wake each morning to the sounds of birds and surrounded by green, who enjoy looking at hoar frost forming on branches of trees, those of us who cherish our waterways and gladly watch the fish swimming beneath the surface of the water, do not appreciate the continual disregard for our way of life. I am sick of threatened dams, threatened oil wells, threatened gravel pits, and spoiled nature. There is nowhere left for those of us who want a simpler life.

The worse thing is that anyone who tries to fight back can't have a say without looking like a s--t disturber. I actually think that the poor fellow who is bombing the pipelines over around Dawson Creek is a sad case of a voice with no sound. I can only imagine the frustration that person is feeling to bring him to the point where he had no other choice but to take such drastic action. Having said that paranoia abounds. I wonder who will read this and think, ah ha, she's a sympathizer. But do you know what. I am!

Most people around here are tired of fighting for a little peace. We don't want these horrible nature destroyers in our back yards. HH is a small town and there is plenty of room for gravel pits and the like without bumping right up against people's dwellings. Home is supposed to be a haven. But heavy equipment ruins it and that is what Hubby and I face. Keep your politics under your hat? Not this time. No way!

Ooooh The Magpie Me

I love sparkly things.... I love glossy things. Put those together and oh me oh my.... not good!

I just got in the mail a lovely catalogue full of lovely knitty things. I hate to open the pages because I know, just know, that there will be something I want. So there the catalogue sits calling to me, tempting me. I want to throw the catalogue in the recycling bin but I can't quite get my hands to do it.

It is the season for glossy pages of interesting things to come to my post box for a haunting. I hate it!!!!

I want one of this and one of that and one of something else and oooohhhh let's see, maybe I could get several of those......

On it goes, day in, day out, haunting me with those lovely images of things to make you look good, and things to make you feel good, and things that just simply look good themselves. Catalogues of all sorts are in abundance at my post box. The ultimate is when a glossy catalogue arrives full of lovely knitty things and you glimps images of knitting needles that will make your knitting perfect, guaranteed! And then there are the books with patterns that are simply devine with images of gifts for people for Christmas that they will love more than life and fall down on their knees with love in their eyes for the wonders that you have brought to life on your needles. They will thank you over and over and applaud you for your perfect gift that they really can't believe you actually made with your own two hands. You just have to buy those books of patterns or your Christmas will not be complete. And then there are all those sumptuous yarns for knitting and weaving and fibres for spinning...... mmmmmm!


See if I didn't have a sense of reality and know that I don't possibly have enough time to knit gifts for Christmas and glossy knitty catalogues should be thrown into the recycling at the post office before it ever makes it home.... that way you won't have to launder bibs because you needed them while you were perusing the said glossy knitty catalogue, I would be coming totally unglued right now.

Who needs jewelry when there are shiny new knitting needles, and lovely cushy rovings, in those spanky new colours..... oh yeah right sorry..... I'm going to go throw out that catalogue right now! But.... just look at those lovely mittens wouldn't they be just right for..... RIGHT! Recycling here I come.