What A Busy Weekend

This was a weekend to be proud of.  Friday I came home with the new flooring and between Teapot and I... mostly me... we got about half of the sunroom finished. Then yesterday after I got home from the NPSW meeting Teapot finished the job and I swept and cleaned up. Saturday was a really warm day... lovely summery weather and perfect for a community garage sale which Teapot was heavily involved in helping out with... there was a pancake breakfast in the morning and he helped put away tables and chair afterwards... busy busy busy. Meanwhile I had planned to take the ladies from my guild out to one of the HH members house for the day. Stupid forgot her camera though, so no pictures. (Actually, I Anyway we had a lovely day out there and I sort of got a sun burn... but not a bad one. We never got home till almost 5 p.m. The food was great and the ladies were great too. Today we planned to shear the alpacas.... well at least one. More than one a day is just too hard on the back. I wanted to get Mishka done since she is breeding we hope and I wanted to make sure that she was done early enough that we wouldn't stress her or her baby. We caught her, led her to the table, rolled her on her side, and got to it. Teapot sheared and I trimmed with scissors all around her head and eyes and ears. Then we did her shots and trimmed her teeth and toenails. It was a tough job and it was starting to get hot by the time we finished.  She looked great with her sparkling white wool showing. We let her out into her summer paddock and then watched as she promptly went to the dirtiest part of the paddock and lay down and rolled in the dirt! Ergg! I'll try to take pictures tomorrow.

After the shearing was done and we had had some lunch it was time to tackle putting the furniture back into the sun room.   Well as usual whenever there is furniture moving to be done... it turns into a big fiasco. Finally Teapot went for a bike ride and I moved everything around the way I want it... What I have decided means some structural changes.

When we built the sun room I was convinced by the contractor to put a door in the sun room... I have fought with it ever since.  Some how I just haven't been able to fit the furniture into this room with the door there... tonight Teapot and I made a decision to make a few changes.  He's not happy with the damn door either and so we have decided to put a garden door into the dining room instead and take out the door at the end of the sun room and put in a window there instead. I don't think we can afford to do it till the fall at the earliest and maybe not till next spring. But we will do it... in the meantime that means that the dog run will have to have a few changes made.... not a lot though. We will have to put a light weight gate on the front verandah and fence it too and use the front door to access the dog run until we can put in the garden door.

It's too dark to take pictures of what I mean until tomorrow but I promise to write a better post about it all tomorrow. In the end I got most of the furniture placed but I will have to do the finishing touches tomorrow.

Until then I bushed and I stink so I'm off for a nice soothing bath before bed.... see ya!

Chuck It All For A Quickie

I know what you are all thinking... no not a nooner kind of quickie... god you lot sure have your minds in the gutter.

No the title of this post is that because I chucked everything this morning for a quick trip to town... and why did I head off to town.. Oh yeah! I went and got the new flooring. Oh yeah! Like how long has that been in the offing.

I actually have enough flooring to do the whole downstairs. (I don't need to do the upstairs since that has nice pine flooring and because there's no serious traffic going over it I find that the flooring up there can stay just the way it is. Downstairs however... sucks. Teapot and I decided to get rid of the cream coloured Berber carpet when we got Tootsie back in 2005. We've lived with the floor as subfloor style plywood ever since.... which let me tell you is gross, nasty and any other like adjectives that you can think of.  I went so far as to paint it red a few years ago and even that has worn off and looks blah. So a few weeks ago I went into Windsor Plywood in FSJ for a couple of sheets of plywood for the wood burned tiles I am making for the ceiling in the sun room. While I was there I had a quick look at the flooring.... and so I fell in love. There before my eyes was a laminate (not wood) flooring that suited exactly what I wanted to do in our house... and nicest of all was that the price was right. It is a vinyl/recycled rubber stuff that looks gorgeous. Really! I know most people will go, "Vinyl!... Yuck!" But really what they can do these days with that stuff is amazing and for us with dogs that barf periodically and cats that hork up fur balls and they all leave deposits occasionally. (Jiggs generally doesn't and Narmie's pretty good but piss Bailey or the cats off and they get mad mad mad and leave a lovely little package smelly beyond belief.) And the amount of mud and dirt would just ruin wood flooring over time not to mention their toe nails. So vinyl is our best option. And what's best is this stuff is awesome to lay... you need a rubber mallet and a saw. Like, that's it. If I was capable of cutting the darn furnace vents out I'd have the sun room done this afternoon. Really! Me. By myself.... it's that easy.

Have a look and see for yourself...

Now is that not pretty real looking?

Yesterday I finally got a day to sit out in this beautiful sunshine... well in between thunder storms... I even got a bit of a tan. Nice! While sitting on the deck I had the opportunity to watch a swallow. They have been hanging around and usually each year, they find a way to nest somewhere in the eves of the house... sure enough while I was sitting there a wee barn swallow came and disappeared in under the eves of the house. Somewhere in the roof there are a bunch of nestlings being hatched into the world. Then today I had the opportunity to watch a pair of geese try to lead their goslings across the highway... they got scared and headed back the way they came because of the traffic.  But it was so cute watching that long line of little goslings innocently following their mom and dad.

When I went to town last week to celebrate my friend's birthday, I noticed that she had a wee canary in a cage in the kitchen. I asked her about it and she said it was to brighten her life in the depths of winter... I suppose she has a point. The sweet little thing was flying around and chirping like crazy. Bird song is always a pick-me-up don't you think? Still, I felt bad for it since it looked so caged... so unfree. Birds are supposed to zip through the air aren't they? I'm just saying... I'm not sure I could cage something that needs so much space to fly just for my own gratification. I don't mean to be judgemental... I'm sure there are lots of people who love their birds.... (there you go back in the gutter again: ) but I think I can safely say that I am not one for caged birds as pets.

At the time we were discussing her canary she told us how it was not good to give it tap water... I asked why and she said that it was because of the chlorination. Evidently the guy she bought her canary from fed one of his breeding pairs tap water and they died because of the chlorination in the water. This in and of itself is disturbing since we drink that stuff... but then I got to thinking about it once I was home and I began to worry about all the times I've made hummingbird food from tap water.... I mean how many hummingbirds have I inadvertently killed over the years.  So from now on it is distilled water all the way in my hummingbird feeders.

So there you have it a little bit about chucking it all for a quickie and some more about everyone's favorite thing.... birds..... now you're all back in the gutter again ... aren't you?!

Well I can't be resting on my laurels today... I have flooring to get to... see ya later...

Thunder And Lightning... The Way You Love Me Is Frightning.....

Knock knock knock on wood oh baby you've got to knock knock knock on wood.

Today I find myself at odds... with what I don't know. But there was a thunder storm that just drifted past... but it was just a little one.... there were only a couple of light showers. All in all rather a pathetic display. But I did notice that it moved from East to West and that generally is significant because when they go from east to West, which is against the norm, that means that they are part of a greater storm system and that also means that nasty weather is on the way. I say harumph! I have had two days off to enjoy but I haven't really enjoyed them because I'm waiting for nice weather to go on my scout about for orchids. I tried to settle this morning to some spinning but that virtually impossible since I have to blend fibre in order to spin, and I feel like blending about as much as I want to run a marathon... which basically is nil.

Bailey the 'F' up dog ran away this morning. Most of the time I keep the dogs in the dog run but here lately they have taken to lift an edge of the fence and going off their merry way. We've patched the fence and put rocks where there might be a chance of them getting their nose under but to no avail. Narmie is not so bad because for the most part he stay close to home. But when Bailey gets out she goes for a run about the neighbourhood. It's terrible because the dog catcher lives about half a block away from us. Sometimes she is gone for two and three hours. This morning while the sun was shining I thought I would take my spinning outside and because I was out there the dogs would stay close by. The phone rang and it was my Dad asking about something I needed a book to answer so I went inside in search of said book. I was in for maybe three minutes and I left the door open behind me so that they could follow me. One dog went to the water dish to get a drink... I don't know which one though because I was busy looking for the book.. Then I found the book and went back out on the deck, Jiggs was there and the cat was there. That's it... I called out to Narmie and he came back as soon as he heard me call. He had been up by the hay bales probably looking for mice. Bailey was nowhere to be seen. I called and called and called. I sat and waited for her to return... I sat and sat and sat. An hour past and then the thunder storm rolled in.... I stayed out waiting for the dog right till the heaviest rain began to fall and then I took the other two dogs and went into the house. All the time I was inside I waited to hear Bailey running across the deck or some sort of noise to indicate that she was back. But no such luck. She was gone and gone really good. The storm passed by and I went out again to sit on the veranda... this time with my lunch... still no sign of Bailey. There was still rumbling thunder off to the West and every so often Narmie would give a little growl and maybe a wee bark.... till finally he started to bark in earnest. That's when I saw Bailey coming.... she had been down beyond the horse paddock and most likely out on the highway..... I've been wishing evil things on her ever since. She is now hooked to a leash and the clothes line..... oh happy day she's there for good!

Since writing here the storm has passed off and is just a few white clouds on the horizon.... the sun is shining and I am thinking that it might be time to try my hand at hitting the deck again... maybe with knitting instead of spinning... I can't seem to make up my mind on the spinning....still floundering around on whether I should spin for level 3 or level 6 or fun or what. I even broke out a tank top for the sun... but I really hope no one comes to visit this afternoon since it is an embarrassing thing to have someone see me with a wee tank top on... not the most flattering fashion statement in the world...

I'm off to enjoy the afternoon... I wonder if there will be any more thunder.

Foggy Morning Dew

I woke up about an hour ago to water dripping from the eves. It has rained again overnight which for some reason pleases the heck out of me. The house is surrounded in the quiet but impeccable blanket of fog reminding me of what it is like to be rolled in a blanket of wool. Somehow on days like this, sound seems impenetrable and everything has a little bit of a distant feeling to it. There is a quiet muffled quality to everything I do.

The leaves are fully out now and more and more I am seeing trees beginning to bloom. The choke cherry trees are unfolding their blooms and sprinkles of wild strawberry blossoms are everywhere throughout the lawn. And the horse and alpacas are beginning to take an interest in their green surroundings.

Sometimes I look at our animals and think thank God we have survived another winter. Last night I took some food out to Pouff (the angora bunny) and she tipped the whole lot out onto the mesh screen that covers the bottom of her cage. Even she had decided that enough was enough. When I came back to the cage with great handfuls of picked grass I discovered the food lying on the ground and the bunny waiting patiently for her more delightful dinner in my hands. I think she was mad that I had even deigned to give her those stupid pellets.

Generally speaking spring is a time for all things green. That is why it feels so strange this morning to wake to this grey cotton wool day. With level 5 done and out of the way I am feeling the urge for a spring adventure... but I find the weather to be a discouragement. Yesterday my expectation of a walk in the woods in search of those elusive orchids did not come to pass. I might try again today if it is not too wet. But there is nothing worse than a walk in the woods to come home with your pants wet to the knee. Oh for a pair of new rubber boots. Perhaps I should take the truck and go boot hunting. A cozy Aran sweater and a pair of plaid rubber boots is something I can see wearing as I trudge through the forest in its wet drippiness. Still the mushrooms don't care what I wear as I pick them and even the orchids will not complain when I stop to shoot a quick snapshot.

The dogs bound around the yard each time I go out oblivious to the wet that surrounds them. All they care about is the opportunity to sniff the ground on or off the trail as they crash through the woods in search of squirrels or other equally stimulating rodents. Narmin came in last night like a mud wrestler. I popped him into the tub and watched as the tub turned brown in response to the pound of dirt dropping out of his fur. I daren't think about the two big dogs and how much mud they had hidden beneath their downy exteriors. But because Narmin is low to the ground and the smallest of the lot he keeps getting tipped onto his back in the mud as the other roll him around a wrestle with him. With the mud of the vegetable garden still requiring transfer from their pen...

This is what is left of our old veggie garden which we use for the dogs now.

well you can see why the little fellow takes the brunt of the mess.

Well it looks like the fog is going to burn away after all... but still the rain stays and the wet ground remind me of the wet spring days of good old Newfy...perhaps later it will clear enough for my walk with the dogs.... and those orchids.... well, they are elusive as I said.... so wish me luck.

Here's to enjoying the spring moisture....

All Things Possible.... Now That I'm Done

Maybe now I can start writing here more regularly.... and then maybe the great outdoors will be calling me out more.... either way I won't have to worry about that pesky level 5 homework..... it's gone... it in the mail... it's no longer in my house.... in other words... it's DONE!!!!!! :D

You have no idea how much of a relief it is to be done. Sunday and Monday were spent with my head down and my arse up getting the finishing touches on my 50 hour project, the bibliography and the classroom presentation that I did last year which had to be typed up since no one in their right mind would try to read my writing. I finished it just at supper time last night and Pops came out to my house and helped me pack up a huge box with 3 fat binders. It's gone... I took it to the post office first thing this morning.

I promptly came home and put my feet up because I haven't had a day to myself with absolutely nothing to do for ages. Then I got bored.... so I had to do something.... I started a new knitting project... it may not be done til 2015 but there it is... there's new knitting on the go.

Socks....
They looked like this in the end....

Yup I am pretty pleased over all.  They do look pretty smashing. I can't figure out what all the fuss was about... why was I so scared of turning heals?  If I can knit these suckers... hell, I can knit any socks! But that's it for the level 5 50 hour project....

So what project did I start today you ask?
Well it all began when I didn't like a shawl that I started to knit last year with this stuff...

Do you remember this stuff... It's called Optim. It is a highly processed merino wool that feels like and looks like silk. Mine has a little Tencel in it too.... very pretty.  When I finished spinning it, I started knitting a shawl with a pattern that I had never tried before... it didn't work. Actually that's not true... it did work... but it just didn't look right. Somehow the delicate little fans that were part of the pattern disappeared into oblivion. So in frustration I raveled the whole thing out and set it aside for a rainy day (it's a rainy day) when I had nothing to do (I was twiddling my thumb). I pulled out my patterns and got a bloody brilliant idea. But I'm not telling you.... I can hear the anticipation in you all now! Suffice it to say that it is a shawl....and it is for me..... by the way the socks are for my mother for Christmas..... I think.  I think she was hinting that she liked them... Anyway, the shawl... I'm looking forward to getting it done... well at least more done.

Now that I have time again I am thinking of the thousands of things to do.... there's the garden... the bedding plants and the vegetables. There's house work... like cleaning the steps which would turn your stomach... and deciding what to do about the flooring... and then there are the wood burned ceiling tiles in the sun room of which I need to do some more. Then I need to put away all the piles of level 5 fibres that are kicking around all over the place. Of course there's weaving to do for the Shadow weave project.... but we won't go there right now... that's a scarey one. The deck needs to be cleaned off....and at the rate the grass is growing I expect before too long I will be pushing a mower around.  There are alpacas to shear if it would only stop raining.... and poop to shovel in the barn yard. (Shoveling the poop you will notice is the last thing on the list... that's because somehow that doesn't excite me too much!)

The sky's the limit when you have your work done..... or I could just get back to the level 3 right away.... hmm...

Signing off for tonight... to go and watch the rain drip from the eves... cause if there's one thing I'm not going to do tonight it's work....

Under The Weather

I've had two days of illness over this May long weekend. While everyone and their great aunt is out camping, barbecuing, or picnicking I've been stuck home feeling like a raygo roller ran over me. Saturday was spent sleeping. Yesterday I worked on level 5 write ups. All my dye saples are now in my book. So I will finish today and my books will go in the mail as soon as the post office opens tomorrow morning. I'm excited to be almost finished. I'll write more about level 5 later. Right now I'm lying in bed listening to the quiet. There were birds chirping a little while ago, but now all is silent. It feels like it is going to rain frankly. That would suit me just fine since a day of computer work means that I can't enjoy the outdoors. Teapot has been busy working in the yard. He has planter 30 strawberry plant in the old sheep feeding boxes. They have been neatly placed under the eaves of the house with chicken wire over them to keep the robins away and the cats from digging. I just wish we had four more of those boxes to plant in. He is supposed to till the potato bed today. All the time he's working I sit working at the computer, just green with jealousy. I have to remember that in 24 hours I will be free too.

Daughter # 2

So lying in bed may not be the best posture for posting to the blog but it sure beats going downstairs this morning while there is still a chill in the air. Teapot is lightly snoring next to me and Narmin has cuddled up by my feet. It is quite peaceful, and so it is a perfect time for a post.

Yesterday was Daughter #2's birthday, so she got to ditch school and go shopping with me. We do this every year since I really find that we talk like at no other time. It is a kind of mother/daughter healthy relationship day.

Daughter #2 can be rather difficult to read sometimes. She can be very-keep-to-herself if you know what I mean. I am glad we have a day where we actually make an effort to spend time together.

Over the years, Daughter #2 has had difficulties at school with being bullied and I have occasionally documented  that here. Sometimes I think it is because she is painfully self conscious. There are reasons for this since she is 5 ft 11(not that that is an issue as my dear friend who is over 6 ft tall would say), and is impossibly unathletic. Apparently these two thing should go together according to the school popularity rules out there in the ether. These two things make her stick out like a sore thumb in a school where being athletic counts.... I mean really counts.  On top of that, she is extremely bright, with a penchant for being sarcastic bordering on being caustic. This along with being artistic, sensitive about icky things like dissections in science class and receiving needles from the nurse when she arrives from the department of health, and being highly creative and imaginative, and slightly judgmental does not earn her brownie points. Lets just say that high esteem clearly are not on the horizon from her classmates and she certainly wouldn't win any popularity contests. As her mother, I try to look at her clearly and see her faults as well as her perfections. I am constantly amazed at how quick she is at being clear headed about things she sees and hears, sometimes picking up stuff way beyond her years and she does it faster than I can with all my years of experience. Her drawing, painting, and other art skills far surpass mine. She is quite remarkable really. Still that caustic side does not earn her friends and she can be dreadfully lazy and maybe a bit thoughtless at times. So it does not surprise me that she has this bullying problem.

 Recently the fellow who was sort of the ring leader of the bullying has been ostracized by the "popular" girls... (because he is a complete lame-o)... evidently the popular girls have recognized his over inflated ego/head and have made an effort to cut him out of the fold. Daughter #2, and a couple of other kids who are in the same boat as her, have been going to the quiet room to eat lunch and gab about whatever "unpopular" kids talk about (not smoking, or partying, or the opposite sex or any other superficial thing). They do their thing on their lap tops/iPads and generally hide out. Recently, said bully who has plummeted in the cool department, finds himself more and more with no one to hang with, and has resorted to joining the "uncool" kids. Daughter # 1 and I both think this is poetic justice! Daughter# 2 just puts her head down when he enters the quiet room, taps on her iPad and grins. In my mind I think I would be doing a little success dance and saying "What now! Sucker!" Evidently a slight competition in the marks department has sprung up between Daughter #2 and said bully.... only his math marks pown (I'm using her words... pown apparently means... this). She has been diligently trying to improve her math marks but he apparently is a math genius and can answer math questions in split seconds while others are still figuring out what the question was. Daughter #2 has always struggled with math and it is her low mark (it's still a pretty solid "B"). Still poetic justice reigns supreme and every time I hear of his fall from grace... I can't help feeling a little satisfaction... I know that is unChristian but there it is... I guess I'll have to ask forgiveness somewhere along the way.

Anyway, our day yesterday was fun. We shopped for material since she has decided that she wants to learn to sew. She ended up buying material for a sundress in a pale blue polly-cotton blend with wee ilets and lace. Then we went for lunch at Boston Pizza where the two biggest wankos sat with their children and reminded me how some women are not meant to ever have children. They spent the whole time talking about botox treaments answering texts and completely ignoring the three children they had with them. I felt sorry for the wee ones.... they will have to raise themselves and they certainly won't receive any kindness or touchy feely nurturing from their respective moms. As a result of that display Daughter #2 and I had a philosophical discussion of motherhood and I was told that I rock/pown. I am now blowing on my fingernails and rubbing them on my chest/puffing up my ego and giving the v for victory sign (And the crowds go wild!)

After that brief experience we went shopping for mattresses for both of the Daughters whose old mattresses are fit for the dumpster. Then poked about the stores looking for everything from nail polish to iPad cases. In general the day was sublime.... and after purchasing an ice cream cake from DQ late in the afternoon we headed home replete from our efforts. Sweatshirts had been purchased, fabric had been purchased, gnomes for the deck had been purchased, shoes had been purchased, abikini top had been purchased, purses had been purchased, hair clips had been purchased and best of all our relationship had been nurtured a little.

When asked if she had enjoyed her day,  I got a hug.... a rare commodity indeed.

PS.  I won't be at knit night tonight as Teapot needs the truck....