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Ugh….it’s Monday morning. Monday is always a jolt to my system - a giant lurch back into reality. Ah! What did I do this weekend? For starters I cleaned out the studio. It’s amazing how messy I can be within merely a month’s time. I shoved the poor, naked floor loom (really, I WILL get it warped this year) into the corner and put the table loom in the “sand room” next door. The sand room is the other half of what used to be our little barn. It has a sand floor and is my current hay storage room. Oh, and while I was doing all of this, the two crockpots and one turkey roaster were cranking out dyed wool and Pygora fiber. Then I realized I was getting nowhere, moving piles around. So back to town for more of those split-top containers.
Why the big cleaning party? Because I needed to make room for the card table and free up the other table (was a sewing machine table in it’s former life)…because Susan and I are having a “carding party” next Saturday! We’ve been cleaning, dyeing and carding up a ton of Merino, Cormo, and Pygora fibers for our little shop. So next Saturday we’ll do blending and packaging.
What else did I do? Some housework (not as much as I should have) and gasp! Saturday I took a NAP! I rarely take naps!! And why does it seem so darned sinful???? It seems like I go zipping through life at 90 miles an hours and feel like I shouldn’t waste one hour not being productive. Why is that?
Well, off to feed the goaties this morning…..and from the sounds of things, I’ll need my ark to get to the barn.
Terry
(This is coming from Susan, keeper of 26 goats and 1 hayburning guard llama.)
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My normal winter attire for working around my animals is old jeans or sweats (usually with holes in them from getting caught on gates and fences), work gloves, an old and quite ugly knit hat, and I usually have my rubber Birkenstock garden shoes on. I can slog through the mud in these shoes without getting wet feet despite the fact that they are clogs, and they hose out beautifully, and are easily kicked off to be left at the back door of the house. I always hope that no one just drops by unannounced and catches me in my high fashion fat farmer clothes because I really don’t want to scare anyone.
I’m usually smart enough to ALWAYS change into my “barn clothes” before doing my morning or evening chores but occasionally, in the morning rush to get critters fed and watered prior to leaving for work, I’ve been known to dash down to the barn in my bathrobe, jacket, and my rubber Birkies. I simply believed that I could zip into the barn, fling a few flakes of hay into the feeders and dash back to the house for my shower without much ado. If I had been smart enough to design my barn so that I could feed my goats without actually entering into their area, wearing my robe once in a while probably wouldn’t have caused any problems. But with my arms full of hay, I must then enter into the open barn area to access the feeders and RUN THE GAUNTLET.
There I am, sashaying across the barn floor with an armload of very expensive eastern Oregon grown orchard grass hay, ($10.99 a bale!!?!) dodging goats left and right. The goats absolutely LOVE this hay! They’ll do just about anything to get it. Normally this isn’t a problem because they’re not mean or anything like that, but they are exuberant! And they’re also very smart and sometimes think that one of their buddies might get some hay first. Heaven forbid that someone else might get a mouthful of hay first! Goats are very nimble creatures and standing on their hind legs is very easy for them. (In fact, goats and deer, which are closely related, are about the only creatures that can stand on their hind legs and browse from low hanging trees.)
Normally I can dance around enough to avoid any unfortunate entanglements, however early one morning, while wearing my favorite red bathrobe (which has nice big side seam pockets), disaster struck! One of my big red does stood on her hind legs, trying to reach the hay in my arms. While pawing with her front feet, she managed to get her right front foot in my left pocket. Man-o-man, I couldn’t drop all that expensive hay on the floor for the goats to trundle over! Goats won’t eat poopy hay! I tried to get closer to the feeder so I could unload my arms to free them up to extricate that dang goat. But fate was not with me that morning. As the other goats crowded around me and my attached goat, one of them (or maybe even more than that!) stepped on the open back of my Birkenstock garden clog and essentially tied me to the ground. I couldn’t MOVE! I was trapped and surrounded by 25 hungry goats! Things quickly went from bad to worse as I finally got knocked down to the barn floor (read that as GOAT TOILET), expensive hay flung all over and the goats happily starting their breakfast!
I made a decision then and there to NEVER wear my robe to the barn again and I have advised Terry, who recently confessed that she occasionally did the same thing, to not do it either!
But I never expected that I could have a similar problem with my new pair of sweat pants. Hmmm…my other sweat pants never had pockets in them. My new sweat pants, with their usual elastic waist (us fat farmers love elastic waists!), are a bit too big and while doing another morning dance with a goat, they ended up around my ankles. That must have been some sight!
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I took my camera up to Guemes, but failed to take any photos. Well, ahem, I DID take one photo…. but before I show it to you, I need to explain! Picture yourself getting to pack for a weeklong fiber retreat up on an island. I don’t know about you, but I worry and fret over packing all my spinning stuff long before worry about anything as mundane as the clothes I need to pack. Heck, one year, one of the gals actually FORGOT to bring her clothes!!! Good thing she’s a tiny thing and was able to borrow from the local gals.
But I digress. Ok, what would YOU pack? Hmmmm, wheel with spare driveband, basket with all bobbins and flyers I own, and some fiber to spin on the first half-day before Judith begins teaching. Check. Ok, now what knitting project should I pack? Hmmm, a no-brainer project or the Pygora lace Flower Basket Shawl project - definately the no-brainer project. Check.
Ok, toss in some clothes. Now, remember, you will be up on this island with great fiber and great friends. What else DOES a girl bring, but a few bottles of wine! Nothin’ wrong with that. Ok, so us four Pygora gals are unpacking in the master suite upon arrival. The walk-in closet is large enough for all four of us to unpack at the same time. Imagine the major giggle fit when this appeared:
This was waaaay too funny! Jan grabbed her camera, and I did the same. Then my camera spent the rest of the week in the closet. Shame on me! Must’ve been all that WINE.
And now that Jessica has explained the Knitting Olympics to me, now I understand. Well, so I’m the last one to get it, and was also feeling bad that I hadn’t completed the marled yarn mess from LAST year….so…..aha! I could have my own little “spinning olympics” and force myself to finish that marling! Let’s just say it was soooo aggrevating that I forced myself to spin it last year for an entire day at the county fair (I didnt’ take any other fiber with me, just in case). So, I bring you marling photos from Sunday! I can now say that I’ve completed my marling homework! The singles are first, the plied stuff is below that. I still don’t like the colors. Whaaa! Now I suppose I should actually knit something up…..ack!
Terry
The sun came out yesterday!
Here’s some promised photos (thank goodness for natural lighting).
The Noro Silk Garden Scarf: (or as one shop owner had it on a sign in her shop : Scrafs - no kidding!
Warp is Noro Silk Garden. Weft is ?? some tan stuff from a guild clearance sale.
More photos later - gotta get my behind to work!
Terry
Ok, now that I’ve gotten the “cranky-butt” post out of the way, I can move on! I’ve not given my Guemes Island Retreat 2006 post! Not that anybody reads this thing (stay positive, girl!)
I took my camera and fiber notebook. Did I take any photos this year? NO. Did I take any notes? NO. What was WRONG with me, you ask? I was so wiped out from work, that by the time we got up to the island, I just wanted to veg and enjoy Judith’s calming instruction. Would I remember any of her helpful tips? Oh, at the time I didn’t really care….I was just darned happy to be there. Besides….dear Janny was taking fantastic notes!! This was her first “Judith Class”.
It was quite funny when Judith started putting out all the colorful balls of Ashland Bay top for us to play with…..I think Susan almost had a cow. I’m not positive, but I believe she was having nasty flash-backs from last year’s “marled yarn” nightmare. I know I was.
What did we do this year? Hmmmm….we made felted items (some of us made bags, others made very cool finger-less gloves). Then we spun our own embroidery thread. Oh yeah, that’s what I said, embroidery THREAD….out of that slippery top! Yikes! First our circle got very quiet while everyone was focused on their own thread experience. Then the muttering began. Then a few days later, some very cute embroidered, felted, fingerless gloves began to appear! Wow!
Next we did some dyeing of silk chiffon(?) and then felted wool to both sides of the silk. We’d done this before with another instructor. But this time <gasp!> we were allowed to apply wool/designs to BOTH sides of the scarf! Such extravagance!! Woo-hoo!
Then, the lesson I had waited EAGERLY for! Warp-weighted weaving. Sheesh! I think that’s what it’s called. It’s weaving without a loom (and it DID vaguely remind me of some 1970’s macrame owls at first….). First we spun some what I call “woo-woo yarns”. The novelty stuff that you’d NEVER get through a beater or heddles without shredding it. Secure the warp ends to a dowl or nice bit of driftwood with a half-hitch and then tie a nice, smooth beach rock to each warp end. Weighted warp! Then finger-weave your weft and beat upwards! Too cool! And to people like myself who dislike weaving because of the lack of spontaneity - this is THE way to go!!
‘Nuff for now - I think maybe I should go take a few photos of this stuff and post them. Blogs without photos are ho-hum!
So I may get labelled a cranky person - or even worse, I suppose. Maybe it’s insane jealousy? Yeah, that’s more like it!
What is with the Knitting Olympics, anyway????
Are these people who don’t work outside the home? Part-time jobs? Who has time to knit all day long? Not me - that’s fer sure!! So am I jealous? YOU BETCHA!
Oh sure, I could knit all day long Saturday or Sunday (except for the weekends I have to go to work). And yes, I have a wonderful DH that does the cooking and laundry (he’s retired man, I’m NOT).
The Truth? Ok, I’ll admit it. If I were retired, or didn’t have a more-than-fulltime-job, would I knit all day? No. You see, I’m one of these fiber arts type of people who consider a colorfully-blended & dyed batt or a skein of handspun yarn as a finished project.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it……………..