Today I begin to weave.... today I begin to get nervous... The big j.c. looms ahead (no pun intended). I have two looms out today. I am using a Rigid Heddle loom for the lower portion of the body and I am using an eight harness table loom for the arms/shoulders. I had to go to FSJ on Monday to pick up Gertrude.... Gertrude is the eight harness loom. You see I name my looms.
The eight harness loom that I just picked up is Gertrude. My big Rigid Heddle loom is Gerty and my small Rigid Heddle loom is called Trudy. I have a number of pin looms too and I have named them as well. There's big Mert, which is a 7' tri loom, Merty the 3' tri loom, (he's a boy) and the babies Insy, Winsy, Tinsy, all Hazel Rose Looms in various shapes and sizes, and lastly there are my two Weavettes, Mini and Maxi. I have also named my spinning wheels... I have several. My Little Gem is called... what else.... Gem and sometimes Gemma. My old saxony style wheel is called Gene (after my Grandmother whose name was Genevra and a very old fashioned name it is like the wheel). And then my black wheel is called Aunt Jemima even though she is funky with poetry painted on her and lady bugs glued to her. Then last year I bought a Charkha which I promptly named Ghandi.
Anyway, I am using Gertrude and Trudy for the big j.c. Yesterday was a day of interruptions so I am not as far along with the big j.c. as I had hoped but today is "the day" ! Da, da, da, da! So a day of work ahead...
I want to write more but really I shouldn't spare time... so seeing how I do today, then maybe I can post some pics tomorrow.
I'm off to ply some weft and then weave, weave, weave.....
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Blog Interference
Due to ongoing interference in the form of trips to the veterinarian, scrabbling to complete deadlines on the big j.c. (that's jacket commission not Jesus Christ), and finishing things for volunteer positions I hold (I may soon lose those positions if I don't catch up on the work soon)there will be no blog post today.
For your viewing pleasure ..... does anyone remember what these are?
For your viewing pleasure ..... does anyone remember what these are?
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Oozle The Knob
I’m sure you’re all wondering what in the world is Oozle the Knob. The Daughters and I, on the way to town yesterday for a day of shopping, were discussing “THE BLOG” and we all thought that a very good topic for a post would be Oozle the Knob. I’m sure you are aware that we, as a collective family, like animals and we have several that we care for, those in the barnyard and those which have a closer relationship with us.
Recently, that is, within the last two years, Daughter #1 who is a cat-lover-supreme decided the old fat cat named Midnight was not satisfying her cat needs anymore and so convinced/bamboozled her father and I into taking a kitten which her riding instructor’s cat had birthed under their barn. Said cat was quite wild and needing convincing to even come out from under the barn in the form of dishes of food strategically laid around the base of the barn. Eventually they were able to catch the kitten and called us to tell us that said Satan... I mean kitten was ready to be picked up. Daughter #1 and I drove over to collect said kitten and arrived to see the cutest kittens all hiding in the back of a kennel and said mother outside very anxious about what was happening to her babies.
The instructor pulled out the wee thing she had allotted for us and Daughter #1 fell in love. Well the wee thing looked rather pitiful and so I, in my wisdom, decided to bring it home as Daughter#1 would be dreadfully depressed now if I didn’t. So home came a very happy Daughter, a very tiny but obviously upset kitten, and a worried mom (that being me). You see we had never tamed a wild kitten before. All kittens that we had had previous to this one were well handled and therefore quite comfortable around humans. This one was not.
We brought it in the house as this would be its territory for the first few weeks until it became familiar with us. We felt we should make it familiar with our other pets and so a serious sniff fest was the result. The kitten, who is orangish, and had by now been named Pinecone, was not impressed with the sniff fest apparently, because when Daughter #1 finally put it on the floor to let it get familiar with the place it sought the nearest dark corner which happened to be behind the upright washer and dryer which at the time was in the bathroom.
We spent the next 48 hours trying to convince the kitten to come out.Finally after 48 hours of frantic worry on the part of Daughter #1 thinking it might die from starvation and thirst, we decided to pull out the washer and dryer which is no easy task I assure you. Hubby got to it and by the time he had the washer and dryer out there was no sign of the kitten. He had disappeared under the framing of the shower stall in which there was a hole just big enough for him to get into. Clearly this wasn’t going well. Another 24 hours and still no success. Hubby was threatening to let it die and Daughter #1 was on the verge of making herself sick with fear and trepidation.
And so it was that night time came, and finally peace descended on the house, and there I lay in my bed, awake, trying to figure out a way of luring the blighter out from under the shower. It was only after some time of lying that way that I heard stealthy movement from the lower portion of the house. Clearly something was on the move! It was then that Eureka hit in its fullness of bloom.
Pinecone was sneaking out at night and eating the dog food!
Well this would not do. Earlier in the night I had dropped a pile of laundry on the floor of the bathroom with the idea that perhaps the sound of the washing machine in the morning would scare the little blighter out from under the shower and out from behind the washer. This pile of laundry would become my saving grace.... and the kitten’s.
I headed downstairs and of course the kitten dove behind the washer as soon as he heard me, once again threatening to dive under the shower if needs be with my debut. So I boldly walked into the bathroom and sat down among the laundry and proceeded to bury myself in the pile. I draped dirty shirts over my head and piled damp towels over my lap and generally surrounded myself with smelly stinking laundry with only my eyes clear. And then I sat..... and waited.
Sure enough after about 15 minutes the little blighter stuck his nose out and sniffed the air with the thought of dog food on his mind. But I think he was kind of aware that something had changed. Hmmm... the pile of laundry was bigger than it had been. 15 more minutes of watching the kitten inch along the floor with ever suspicious glances at the pile of laundry, brought me to the point where he was past me but not out the door. It was only after he was out the door of the bathroom that I managed to withdraw an arm from the stinking moray I was in, swing the door shut, and stuff up the space between the wall and the washer and dryer to prevent the animal tucking back behind the washer again. The washer and dryer stayed like that for three months until he was too big to squeeze back in there again. For days, as a result of this drama, the kitten spent his time under the couch but finally started coming out occasionally for Daughter #1.
Since then Pinecone has become a fixture in this house. he sleeps on Daughter#1’s bed all day long
and lord only knows where he goes at night. We have taken to calling him Oozle too. He has developed some weird habits the weirdest of which is oozing out of your arms like limp silly putty when ever you pick him up. He is a terrible mouser and to my knowledge has never caught anything more difficult than a dust ball (though mine are quite fearsome) thus we call him a knob! He paws at the window each morning to get to his bowl of crunchies
and pees in my flower beds with the look of utmost pleasure. He is a mooch supreme but only for junk food like cheesies, (which he loves) chips, or popcorn. He likes to freak out the Alpacas by walking up to them at a sedate and quiet pace until he gets quite close and then streaks away from them like greased lightening in an effort to startle them to the point of submission.
The sheep love him and let him sleep in the barn with them and his favorite place to snooze outside the house or barn is in the old fowsty hay bails from last year. Daughter #1 is the only one who can pick him up without having to chase him all over the house first. And though I have never tried it, I expect catnip would send him to the moon.
Why do we keep him you ask? Because he is the cat with the most personality ever and because each day there is always something to watch him do..... besides I would never, without him, had the chance to act as a pile of laundry.... Mr. Bean... watchout!
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Making Plans
Trudge, trudge trudge. The tracks in the snow are quite distinct after two days of light snow flurries. I just got home from church and it was quite a peasant -10 degrees. The sun is shining and there are chickadees on the move. It is a nice reminder that at some point winter will be banished for another year. I love chickadees and think they are quite the nicest and cheekiest birds out there. Grey jays too are quite a fun bird to watch. This is a great time of the year to watch birds at the feeder. Coming soon to a forest near you Magpies, Crows, Red Polls, Snow Birds, more Chickadees, and Jays of all kinds. Then come the Sparrows and the Robins, later come the Warblers and all the air will be alive with song. A meriade of nature's music. It will sound like an orchestra tuning up for a concert. Living on a river is different from anywhere I've lived before. Our house is not far from the river but far enough that we actually don't hear the river/water birds but down in the river bottoms there are Pipers, Ducks and Geese, Kingfishers and any fish hunting bird that you might think of.
Hubby and I had a wonderful vacation a couple of years ago. I might have already talked about it some... (but with my memory it is hard to remember what I have written about with over 250 posts)... anyway, that trip was by far one of the most idyllic trips I've ever enjoyed. Our intention was to spend three days on the river paddling some 80 kilometres. The first day was spent enjoying the part of the river that Hubby and I canoe regularly, but after that it was a marvel. New sights and pleasures at every bend and turn. I see the river every day of my life as I drive into town but to see it from the river is to know it intimately. I watched fish below the surface sliding stealthily into crevices in rocks and boulders, and I saw herds of deer sipping their daily quota of water with velvet lips in the late pinks and golds of the sinking sun. Curious beaver would enter the river with a splash from holes in the banks of the river as they chased along beside our canoe in an effort to figure out what we were doing.... we even had one steal our milk one evening when we placed the bottle in the cold river water to chill it. There were banks of the river I never knew were there because the view from the highway is never as revealing as the view from the water itself. In the evenings after we had set up camp on one of the islands, Hubby would go fishing while I sat on the beach by the fire and spun yarn on my drop spindle. Idyllic actually doesn't begin to describe those few days of my life.
Tentatively Hubby and I will be making the trip again this summer. We are planning, toward the end of July, a trip down the river again with the hopes of going farther than we went last time. Up until now it has only been an idea in the back of our heads but we have finally concluded that if we don't go our lives will pass us by and it will only lead to disappointment so we will pack the canoe and head off for sure this summer. I'm excited.
Now a little news on the spinning front. I have finished all wool for the Jacket commission and have only to spin the alpaca. I have finished the silk sample for level 3 homework and to my dismay have discovered that the direction of my twist is not good for the actual woven sample so I have spent the weekend working on another sample with the direction of the twist going the other direction and it is working. I should have that finished today and then I will begin to warp the loom for the jacket commission. All goes well, and I am hoping to make great strides in the jacket commission this week.... we shall see.
In the meantime have a lovely Sunday afternoon filled with what you love best. Isn't that what Sunday afternoons should be about.... a day of thankfulness and ease....
Hubby and I had a wonderful vacation a couple of years ago. I might have already talked about it some... (but with my memory it is hard to remember what I have written about with over 250 posts)... anyway, that trip was by far one of the most idyllic trips I've ever enjoyed. Our intention was to spend three days on the river paddling some 80 kilometres. The first day was spent enjoying the part of the river that Hubby and I canoe regularly, but after that it was a marvel. New sights and pleasures at every bend and turn. I see the river every day of my life as I drive into town but to see it from the river is to know it intimately. I watched fish below the surface sliding stealthily into crevices in rocks and boulders, and I saw herds of deer sipping their daily quota of water with velvet lips in the late pinks and golds of the sinking sun. Curious beaver would enter the river with a splash from holes in the banks of the river as they chased along beside our canoe in an effort to figure out what we were doing.... we even had one steal our milk one evening when we placed the bottle in the cold river water to chill it. There were banks of the river I never knew were there because the view from the highway is never as revealing as the view from the water itself. In the evenings after we had set up camp on one of the islands, Hubby would go fishing while I sat on the beach by the fire and spun yarn on my drop spindle. Idyllic actually doesn't begin to describe those few days of my life.
Tentatively Hubby and I will be making the trip again this summer. We are planning, toward the end of July, a trip down the river again with the hopes of going farther than we went last time. Up until now it has only been an idea in the back of our heads but we have finally concluded that if we don't go our lives will pass us by and it will only lead to disappointment so we will pack the canoe and head off for sure this summer. I'm excited.
Now a little news on the spinning front. I have finished all wool for the Jacket commission and have only to spin the alpaca. I have finished the silk sample for level 3 homework and to my dismay have discovered that the direction of my twist is not good for the actual woven sample so I have spent the weekend working on another sample with the direction of the twist going the other direction and it is working. I should have that finished today and then I will begin to warp the loom for the jacket commission. All goes well, and I am hoping to make great strides in the jacket commission this week.... we shall see.
In the meantime have a lovely Sunday afternoon filled with what you love best. Isn't that what Sunday afternoons should be about.... a day of thankfulness and ease....
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Lightly Snowing
It is -9 this morning and Hubby just left on an adventure of his own. His Rangers are going off for a weekend of winter camping and skiing by the full moon and he did find his boot. After tearing the shed apart yesterday he came in last night with a grin on his face and two boots in his hands. I asked him who was bringing the tent and he said they weren't bringing one!!!! I thought they would at least have some nylon between them and the elements. But no, the idea is to learn survival skills. As a result, they are off to the bush today, I think there are 7 of them, and they are going to ski to the area they want to camp in... which is a small lake in the back of beyond, they are going to dig ditches and fill them with bows and then shove saplings into the snow at a slight angle and cover it with more bows so the the bows covering the saplings will be their roof. Then they are going to throw their mummy style sleeping bags in the ditch, on top of the bows and that will be their shelter. I am quite happy to sleep on my $2000.00 dollar memory foam bed with plenty of blankets to keep me warm while Hubby proves his manliness with all the other weirdos... uh sadistic fools.... uh boyos.... well you get my drift.....
I've always felt that I was lucky to not have a man in my life that had to spend every waking hour staring at a bunch of men chasing on a set of blades, a small black disk, while taking every opportunity to punch each other in the helmet thereby breaking knuckles at every opportunity. There's something neanderthal (wow those neanderthals are really getting a bum rap from me this week!! I really don't have anything against the neanderthals...) about hockey and while Hubby is not unmanly for not watching this dumb (did I say that??) sport he does get his gronk times by pushing his wilderness skills to the extreme. Actually, I feel they have taken every precaution to make sure this weekend will be experienced safely and pleasurably. I hope he enjoys it.
So I will be filling those 9 wheel barrow loads of hay for the alpacas and sheep we care for and I will be heading off with Daughter #1 to see that Dreamer (the horse) has enough food and water for the day. Meanwhile it is snowing lightly and I am back to spinning for the jacket commission. Last night I finally finished all of the black wool and today I will carry on with the black alpaca. But tonight I will crawl into bed and think of Hubby in his cold bow bed and wish for a warm hand to hold as I know he will be thinking the same.
I've always felt that I was lucky to not have a man in my life that had to spend every waking hour staring at a bunch of men chasing on a set of blades, a small black disk, while taking every opportunity to punch each other in the helmet thereby breaking knuckles at every opportunity. There's something neanderthal (wow those neanderthals are really getting a bum rap from me this week!! I really don't have anything against the neanderthals...) about hockey and while Hubby is not unmanly for not watching this dumb (did I say that??) sport he does get his gronk times by pushing his wilderness skills to the extreme. Actually, I feel they have taken every precaution to make sure this weekend will be experienced safely and pleasurably. I hope he enjoys it.
So I will be filling those 9 wheel barrow loads of hay for the alpacas and sheep we care for and I will be heading off with Daughter #1 to see that Dreamer (the horse) has enough food and water for the day. Meanwhile it is snowing lightly and I am back to spinning for the jacket commission. Last night I finally finished all of the black wool and today I will carry on with the black alpaca. But tonight I will crawl into bed and think of Hubby in his cold bow bed and wish for a warm hand to hold as I know he will be thinking the same.
Friday, January 29, 2010
Around The Farm
When we moved out of town and came to the country we were so happy to have all this land around us with nothing other than a scattered deer drifting through the bush. We were in seventh heaven not having to hear our neighbour's dog bark, or the shrieks of the kids down the road, or the thump, thump, thump, of the newest teenager with his driver's license going by at 12:30 a.m. It really was like we had bought in to our own little slice of heaven.
People started asking us what we were going to do with all that land, and Hubby and I would look at each other and shrug. When Daughter #1 came home from school the year she finished grade 1 with her teacher looking for homes for chickens that her class had hatched from an incubator, Hubby and I got the brilliant idea that we would raise chickens for our own eggs.... along with the chickens came a batch of ducks as well. That was the beginning of turning this 8 acre piece of land into something more than a chunk of land with paradise written on it.
We have raised many chickens since that time and while we have none at this moment in time, I expect it won't be the last chicken we raise. We have since that time, become true farmers in every sense of the word.
We shovel sh-- in the summer into piles so that it can compost for our non-existent garden. (I will be addressing the garden situation this summer.) We give needles to animals so that they don't get nasty diseases and die. We shear wool for processing into delightful items of luxury. (And what is life without a little luxury?) We buy hay at $60 a bail right now which is twice the rate we paid last year due to drought at the wrong time and rain at the wrong time last summer during haying season. We cut and cure fence posts to be driven into the ground when the old ones rot. And then there are the daily chores of seeing to our animal's needs.
It takes Hubby about a half hour to fork hay into the wheelbarrow and roll it across to the animals three for each paddock and we have three paddocks... that's 9 wheelbarrow loads in all... not really an excessively difficult job. Once a month we haul in two 1500 lb bails in the back of our truck. And then we have to haul in all our water as we have not got a well on our land... (that is a future endeavour). It is a fulfilling life and we are grateful for it.
One thing we have noticed about farming though is that if you are not in it big you will never make a living off it. Hubby maintains a job in which he is successful and happy. Without it we could not meet the needs of our family.
We have decided that we do not want to have a big farm... we want to hobby farm and we do it for our own amusement. Each year we pick out several lambs that we butcher for eating. Lamb is nice if cooked properly and I know most people don't like lamb anymore but we like it and it is a nice change from deer and beef which are meats that are plentiful in our area. It also helps with keeping this farm small. My goal is to maintain a farm with less than 15 animals... right now we are at 18. Actually 10 animals would be better still... especially with hay at premium price.
Hubby has been investigating a new venture. We are seriously considering a Christmas tree farm. This is still in the exploratory stages though. Meanwhile I am anxious to get my mill working. There is a market out there for woolen products for spinners and my animals are the means to that end.
So Hubby and I will carry on with decisions for our farm and take pleasure in each sunrise knowing that we are happy on our little northern farm. Who knew back before we came here how satisfying life could be right here in the country. I'm glad we made the decision and came.
People started asking us what we were going to do with all that land, and Hubby and I would look at each other and shrug. When Daughter #1 came home from school the year she finished grade 1 with her teacher looking for homes for chickens that her class had hatched from an incubator, Hubby and I got the brilliant idea that we would raise chickens for our own eggs.... along with the chickens came a batch of ducks as well. That was the beginning of turning this 8 acre piece of land into something more than a chunk of land with paradise written on it.
We have raised many chickens since that time and while we have none at this moment in time, I expect it won't be the last chicken we raise. We have since that time, become true farmers in every sense of the word.
We shovel sh-- in the summer into piles so that it can compost for our non-existent garden. (I will be addressing the garden situation this summer.) We give needles to animals so that they don't get nasty diseases and die. We shear wool for processing into delightful items of luxury. (And what is life without a little luxury?) We buy hay at $60 a bail right now which is twice the rate we paid last year due to drought at the wrong time and rain at the wrong time last summer during haying season. We cut and cure fence posts to be driven into the ground when the old ones rot. And then there are the daily chores of seeing to our animal's needs.
It takes Hubby about a half hour to fork hay into the wheelbarrow and roll it across to the animals three for each paddock and we have three paddocks... that's 9 wheelbarrow loads in all... not really an excessively difficult job. Once a month we haul in two 1500 lb bails in the back of our truck. And then we have to haul in all our water as we have not got a well on our land... (that is a future endeavour). It is a fulfilling life and we are grateful for it.
One thing we have noticed about farming though is that if you are not in it big you will never make a living off it. Hubby maintains a job in which he is successful and happy. Without it we could not meet the needs of our family.
We have decided that we do not want to have a big farm... we want to hobby farm and we do it for our own amusement. Each year we pick out several lambs that we butcher for eating. Lamb is nice if cooked properly and I know most people don't like lamb anymore but we like it and it is a nice change from deer and beef which are meats that are plentiful in our area. It also helps with keeping this farm small. My goal is to maintain a farm with less than 15 animals... right now we are at 18. Actually 10 animals would be better still... especially with hay at premium price.
Hubby has been investigating a new venture. We are seriously considering a Christmas tree farm. This is still in the exploratory stages though. Meanwhile I am anxious to get my mill working. There is a market out there for woolen products for spinners and my animals are the means to that end.
So Hubby and I will carry on with decisions for our farm and take pleasure in each sunrise knowing that we are happy on our little northern farm. Who knew back before we came here how satisfying life could be right here in the country. I'm glad we made the decision and came.
Rats!
I had knit night tonight.... I really enjoyed chatting on the big comfy couch that our local library has seen fit to put in our knitting room. I was late getting there and so I entered the room where we have always had arm chairs, and low and behold two big comfy couches where the old arm chairs used to be.... cool!
My goal at knit night is to do one finger a night until I have finished these blasted lace gloves that seem to have been on my needles since Plato picked his nose. With glee, I finished the finger I was working on and started on the thumb. You would think that it would be easy to knit a thumb on a lace glove.... but I started knitting and soon realized that this is not so. The thumb that I knit tonight looks like a thumb for a pigmy while the thumb on the other glove looks like the thumb for a neanderthal. Clearly something is not right. I tried on the glove that I knit first, the one with the neanderthal thumb, and the thumb fits fine.... this is not to imply that I have neanderthal thumbs, however,.... I think that the glove with the pigmy thumb has such a small thumb that it just makes the other thumb look like a neanderthal thumb (did neanderthals even have thumbs?). So I raveled back the pigmy thumb and started again... finally I checked my progress after a number of rows, and it's not as pigmy sized as before but it is still quite pigmy sized.... so clearly I will have to ravel back the semi-pigmy thumb again and knit it once again to try and get a thumb equivalent to the neanderthal thumb... maybe then the two thumbs will look normal. Too bad they are not for me because I could have dispensed with the thumb altogether since I am neither neanderthal, pigmy (ha, not likely) nor normal. Relatively speaking, lace gloves should not be for neanderthals, pigmys or anything even remotely near the two. (and I am not discriminating against pigmys or neanderthals).
Next Thursday, once again I will take back the thumb and knit again. Just when you think you are making progress.... Rats!
My goal at knit night is to do one finger a night until I have finished these blasted lace gloves that seem to have been on my needles since Plato picked his nose. With glee, I finished the finger I was working on and started on the thumb. You would think that it would be easy to knit a thumb on a lace glove.... but I started knitting and soon realized that this is not so. The thumb that I knit tonight looks like a thumb for a pigmy while the thumb on the other glove looks like the thumb for a neanderthal. Clearly something is not right. I tried on the glove that I knit first, the one with the neanderthal thumb, and the thumb fits fine.... this is not to imply that I have neanderthal thumbs, however,.... I think that the glove with the pigmy thumb has such a small thumb that it just makes the other thumb look like a neanderthal thumb (did neanderthals even have thumbs?). So I raveled back the pigmy thumb and started again... finally I checked my progress after a number of rows, and it's not as pigmy sized as before but it is still quite pigmy sized.... so clearly I will have to ravel back the semi-pigmy thumb again and knit it once again to try and get a thumb equivalent to the neanderthal thumb... maybe then the two thumbs will look normal. Too bad they are not for me because I could have dispensed with the thumb altogether since I am neither neanderthal, pigmy (ha, not likely) nor normal. Relatively speaking, lace gloves should not be for neanderthals, pigmys or anything even remotely near the two. (and I am not discriminating against pigmys or neanderthals).
Next Thursday, once again I will take back the thumb and knit again. Just when you think you are making progress.... Rats!
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)