Peace of Mind

It's just a gate, right?

No, it is so much more.

This gate is peace of mind.

No more worrying that Mom would slip out of the house and into the night, or into one of the corn fields surrounding the house. I can actually sleep now.

Friends from my spinning group came and helped me put up fence all the way around my property, and installed the gate.

Have I mentioned how much I love the friends in my spinning group?

Llamas are curious

I was out doing chores yesterday, scrubbing water buckets and hauling water, when I noticed this rainbow like thingy next to the sun. I kept scrubbing and hauling, thinking, "Eh, how many pictures of the sun and snow do I need?" Apparently more, because I gave in and fetched the camera.

The rainbow like thingy.

Then Tieck had to come see what I was doing.

I moved to get Tieck out of the way,

when here comes Nikita.

"Hi!"

"Whatcha doin'?"

"No, really, whatcha doin'?"

"Oh, you're taking a picture of that? That's it? Just the stupid ol' sun?"

"Wouldn't you rather take a picture of me? This is my sexy, over the shoulder look. In profile, you can see my beautiful long lashes."

"If I hold my head just so, my ear will block the sun so it doesn't go in your eyes."

I also realized I have some nails to pound down in the spring.

Art of Alzheimer's

A coin flower.

Mom likes to always have coins in her pockets.

How I spent my Christmas vacation

A few finished items, and some works in progress.

Finished items first, ok?

Fingerless mitts called "A little twist". This was my first experience with cabling, and I used the cabling without a cable needle method. This is a lovely pattern, I just might make a pair for myself. This pair was made from leftover yarn from the shawl I showed in an earlier post, and was intended to go to the same recipient. The box containing that shawl, another 7 ft tri-shawl, two pairs of socks and a neckwarmer seems to have gone astray in the mail system. I insured it, but all that work...it about makes me cry. I hope that whoever has it needed the warmth it provides.

This is woven on an 18 inch tri-loom. It is just the right size to fit around the neck and tuck into the coat. This is one ply of brown alpaca (Wooly Bear) and one ply of a commercial yarn.

The fabric up close.

Here is another. This yarn is an alpaca/merino wool/silk/mohair blend that I called "Stormy sky". I think this will look great worn with a jean jacket.

This is the finished skein of the llama/wool/silk blend shown in an earlier post. It may decide to become an Irish Walking Scarf.

Some dyeing has been done too.

Mohair locks from a friend's flock of angora goats. She always has a booth at Shepherd's Harvest, (a wool/fiber festival held in the spring) and has invited me to join her this year. I may take her up on that.

This is a blend of alpaca/wool/silk/nylon that I got back from the mill recently. It is intended as a sock yarn blend.

Here it is being spun up.

Here it is in my favorite blues/purples colorway. I never seem to tire of this combination.

Self-portrait, "A Christmas Carol" style

This is Mom with her great granddaughter Alex.

I see my Ghosts of Christmas Future and of Christmas Past in this photo. I looked uncannily like Alex 39 years ago. Will I look like Mom 36 years from now? I look into their eyes, and somehow see myself.

On a lighter note.

Literally seconds after the above photo, and you can sort of see the start of it in her expression above, Mom thumbed her nose at me. This one makes me laugh.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from Maple Corners.

This was the sky just a couple of minutes ago.

Fiber porn

Peach Boy, my one true love.

Aries, my other true love. (Natural rose gray)

Elvis, my true love! Your dark beauty astounds me. (Bay black) Yes, I am fickle, I love them all.

Ely, you remind me of butterscotch pudding!

Wooly Bear, you match the middle of your namesake!

An experiment gone terribly right! Natural gray llama (Stewie and Kiwi) carded together with blues and purples merino/silk, (app 50% llama, 25% merino, 25% silk)

A bit of this spun up.

I'm off to spin some more!

Here comes the sun, do n do do, here comes the sun

These are sundogs (left and right), actually, but you get the point. Happy Winter Solstice.

On a fiber forum I frequent, a poster got squished for remarking that working with a good fleece is orgasmic. Actually, I think all the fiber people on the forum agreed, it was the administrator that deleted/edited the post.

But this is my blog, and I'll say whatever I want to. Working with a good fleece is orgasmic. There. (Think of the google hits that one might conjure up.)

There really is something very sensual and tactile about working with fiber, whether that be as it slips through your fingers while spinning it into yarn, or having it magically turn into felt under your fingertips. That last is something that thrills me every single time.

Why do I bring this up? I don't know, really. I got an e-mail from the mill, my fiber is ready. If all goes well (weather) I'll be picking it up today on the way to my sister's for our Christmas potluck. The anticipation is like when your pulse quickens at the thought of your hot date tonight.

There might be some touching, and fondling going on at Maple Corners tonight.

If you're lucky, I'll take pictures.

My friends rock!

I've had the flu the past few days, no complications, just your run of the mill, make you feel like crap kind of flu.

My friend Mary Lou, (of sheep shearing in the kitchen fame) just happened to call today, and could tell from my voice that I was sick. She said that she had just started a big pot of chicken soup, and would bring some over for Mom and I, don't make supper!

She arrived tonight with the whole pot of soup. She also brought several bags of groceries, including a roast, ham steak, milk, apple juice, tp, lavender soap, chamomile tea, butter, a big basket of fruit, a tin of Christmas cookies, brownie mix, just add water soup mixes, bread, cough drops, a hot watter bottle, a cough syrup her family swears by that doesn't knock you out (since I can't risk not hearing Mom get up at night) and, to top it all off, an incredibly soft, cuddly throw.

We might be in for a storm this weekend depending on how it tracks, so she didn't want me to have to go out. I am the luckiest person in the world to have such friends.

It may be icy outside, but it sure is warm in my heart.

Garbage mittens

Last year I gave my then 4 year old nephew a pair of denim blue felted alpaca mittens for Christmas. When he opened the present, he took one look at them, sort of shook them, said "Stupid garbage mittens!" threw them down, and stormed off. He was so mad!

My sister was mortified, and kept apologizing for her "ungrateful" son. No big deal, I knew that mittens are not what a four year old wants for Christmas, they want toys. More and more toys! I knew he needed the mittens, though.

A couple weeks later, my sister called. She had discovered the reason for the outburst.

She was doing laundry, and was emptying the lint trap of her dryer. Her son was standing there, and said, "See, that's garbage, right Mom?" She said, "Well, yes, we'll put the lint in the garbage. " He ran and got his mittens, and stood there comparing them to the lint she had pulled out. "See, garbage mittens."

The poor kid thought his aunt had given him mittens made out of garbage! They wear a lot of jeans, so their lint is usually the exact color of the mittens I had made. My sister explained to him that I had made the mittens out of fiber from the animals I have especially for him. "They're not garbage?" No, honey, not garbage. He got a big smile on his face, immediately put them on, and now wears them all the time, in the house and out.

I just might be giving him a "garbage" hat for Christmas this year.

Pheasants are funny. Turkeys are too.

Pheasants in the distance running across a field look like little "v"s. It always reminds me of that commercial for some sleep aid where there are "z"s with legs running around.

When you come upon them on the road, if you slow down, they will just run along in front of you. Turkeys do this to. Hello! Get off the road! If there happens to be ice patches on the road, they might take a spill. It's kind of funny. I kind of enjoy watching turkeys fall down. Does that make me a bad person?

The other day, from inside the house, I was watching several pheasants near the road. I kept cringing because there were cars on the road, and I didn't want them to get hit.

One truck actually stopped. I thought maybe they had hit one. A man got out, dressed in an orange vest, went to the back of his truck, and pulled out a rifle. I immediately started yelling obscenities at him, perhaps casting aspersions on his mother and questioning his virility. The problem was, I was still in the house, and he was far away. He took a few steps away from his truck, and either the pheasants flew away, (likely) or he realized that he had no clear sight lines to shoot, he would have been aiming for my house or the neighbor's house. Since he was idiot enough to stop and get out his gun in the first place, I don't think not having a safe shot would have stopped him. As far as I know, it is illegal to shoot from a roadway in Minnesota. If he would have stepped onto my land, he certainly didn't have permission to hunt on it. Idiot!

I generally don't have a problem with the concept of hunting, as long as the person actually eats what he/she has hunted, is respectful of the animal, and is sportsmanlike in methods. Baiting, shining or spotlighting, or hunting from the road? No. Hunting purely for sport, for that trophy, I also have a problem with.

If you are in the least bit squeamish, do not read on!

You know what else makes me laugh? The label on some organic eggs stating that their chickens are fed an all-natural, vegetarian diet. Chickens are not vegetarians! Mine eat thousands of crickets and grasshoppers, and frogs, and toads, and even mice if they can catch them. I was cleaning out some old hay one day and uncovered a mouse nest full of babies. Those chickens were on it so fast, I couldn't have saved them.

I debated whether I should tell this next story. If you are squeamish, or a guy, or a squeamish guy, you definitely don't want to read this. Stop now, go back, save yourself!

Don't say I didn't warn you!

Ok, so one day I had the vet out to geld a few llamas. With llamas, this involves an actual operation, putting the llama under, and removing the testicles. We had three to do, so we finished with one, and moved on to the next. Once removing them, the vet had just put the, shall we say, nut sacks, in a little pile.

We were working on the next llama, when out of the corner of my eye, I see the chickens chasing each other. What the? One of chickens had a hold of the nut sack, the nut swinging to and fro under her beak, while the others would chase her. She would drop it, and another chicken would pick it up, and the chase would begin again. Chicken nutsack football, my friends! Who needs professional football when you have this kind of entertainment in the back yard! (Yes, the chickens eventually ate them.) The vet was probably wondering why I was crying. (Laughing so hard!)

So, when are you all coming over for breakfast? HAHAHAHAHA!

Dog Tired

I was going to try for an actual post, but doing chores just wiped me out. I'm sick, feverish, slightly dizzy (no comments that that is normal for me please), and if whoever is sitting on my lungs would get the hell off I would appreciate it. Whine whine whine.

I'm tired as Ursa up there. Going to head to the couch and hope that Mom doesn't get it, and will continue to do some coloring so I can rest.

Advice to spinners

Don't spin while listening to smokin' bluegrass. Unless you want a lot of overtwist.

Much more conducive to dyeing.

Turn it up!

Yeehaw!

P.S. This public service post brought to you by the colors Indigo and Silver Birch!

P.S.S. Dye fumes may have also contributed to this post.

Art of Alzheimer's-Christmas edition

Snapped this one last night. I have a cupboard for Mom, where I leave measured portions of her favorite snacks. (If I left the whole bag, the whole bag would be gone.) Her favorite is marshmallows. These are marshmallow stars. Big whup, right, a little pile of stars. Until you realize that they are carefully interconnected. And there are green evergreen tree marshmallows in the bag too, so if this were truly random, there would be little trees in the pile.

I lied before. If I were to send out Christmas cards, this would be the shot I'd use.

Soybean quilt

The last year my neighbor rented my front field, he used it as a soybean demonstration plot. You can see that each variety yielded a slightly different shade of golden brown. (Probably more visible if you click for big.) I wish I was better at quilting, because in my mind I envision a quilt wall hanging when I see this.

When the neighbor planted this that spring, he parked in my driveway to load the seed. Mom walked down the driveway to see what was going on, and talked to him for a bit. The neighbor hadn't met Mom before, so I walked down after her to explain that she had AD, so if whatever she had said didn't make sense (and it probably didn't), that was why. She continued on to the mailbox, checked it, and then walked back to the house.

I spoke to the neighbor for a bit. He said that he and his brothers had started to wonder (worry?) about their Mom. I implored him, rather emotionally, and passionately, and forcefully, I think, to please, please get it checked out. Don't be like my family and be in denial for so long and heaven forbid actually talk about it. That is one guilt I will carry with me all of my days.

Fast forward to late November. It was an abnormally warm day, and Mom was out walking to the mailbox, as usual. She usually walked to the mailbox, looked inside, and then walked back to the house. Sometimes she forgot to make the turn, and kept walking down the road, so I always watched from the yard to make sure she was coming back. This time, there was somebody pushing a stroller up the road, and Mom started walking with them. I assumed it was the neighbor girl (she had a small baby) that sat with Mom, because she just waved when she saw me in the yard. I figured, ok, she doesn't mind Mom tagging along, that's great. They walked up the road a bit, turned around, and started walking back. I walked out the driveway to meet them, because Mom probably would want to just continue walking with her, and wouldn't understand to come down the driveway. As I got closer, I realized it wasn't the neighbor girl at all, but the wife of the neighbor that rents the field. (She had her little yorkie in the stroller!)

I apologized, and explained who I thought she was. She just laughed and said she didn't mind at all, she enjoyed having Mom with her.

Then, she thanked me. She said that the family had talked it all out, got their Mom to the doctor, and she had started on Aricept. It had made the world of difference for her. She said that the wives of all the brothers had been pushing for them to do something, but it took hearing it from an experienced, non-interested third-party for them to take action. My impassioned plea to her husband had really sunk in. So, she thanked me.

I was happy to hear that at least some good had come from my family's experience.

Frost

Sick of them yet? Too bad. The hoarfrost looked so pretty falling off the trees this morning I couldn't resist. Really, click for big on this one. If I sent out Christmas cards, this might be the shot I'd use.

A real post one of these days, perhaps.

Chicks and Walks to the Mailbox

The most recent batch of chicks seems more intelligent than previous ones. They have figured out that I bring the food and water, and they start chirping as soon as they hear me crunching through the snow to the coop. Then, when I get in the coop, they come running and stand on my feet. That makes it difficult to walk when you're carrying a five gallon bucket of water, let me tell you! My prediction, based on their combs, there are four pullets and two cockerels. I can never actually tell until they crow.

We had three inches of very light fluffy snow fall on Saturday night. I walked out to get the mail Sunday morning. There was no wind, and everything was absolutely silent.

Yesterday was bright and sunny, and a slight breeze had picked up. That slight breeze set to resculpting the landscape. The fluffy blanket of snow now kept shifting and reforming new drifts. There is a slight ridge on the field to the south. It looked like the ground was moving, the snow ebbing and flowing in the breeze, and being reflected by the bright sun. It makes me wonder how far it has come since it first touched the ground. The snow making this drift...did it first touch the ground a mile away, and then the wind carried it here? Where will it be tomorrow? Anyway, I love watching it. I have found it impossible to capture on camera. Sometimes you just have to experience things.

Yesterday's walk to the mailbox:

I enjoy walking to the mailbox.

Art of Alzheimer's, and your opinion needed!

You may have to look very closely to even see this one, the colors match so closely.

Now, I need your help.

Some of you may have seen the felted neckwarmers I've been making. I have one that I thought was in more masculine colors, so might appeal as a gift for a guy. This one.

Is the felted button closure still too feminine looking for a guy? I had my suspicions, so was trying to figure out an alternative. I have tried Velcro, but fiber gets caught in it, so it doesn't work.

Then I thought of magnetic snaps. Here is the prototype, showing the snap:

Closed:

And on:

The closure could also be worn in the back. What do you think, button or snap for guys?

ETA: So that you can actually see what I'm talking about, here is a lightened and larger photo of the Art photo. (Thanks for your assistance with this, Rick!)

Shearing and Spinning

Yesterday morning I got a call from a woman in my spinning guild. She had a sheep she needed to shear, but didn't know how to go about it. Could I use a scissors, she asked? Sure, if you wanted to cripple your hands and be there all day. We determined that the most convenient solution for both of us was for her to bring the sheep here, and I would do it.

So she did. Here is the innocent victim. She is a Corriedale/Romney cross.

We did it in the kitchen. That way I could still be in the house with Mom, and we wouldn't freeze our hands off trying to shear outside.

I clipped the first row, and part of the first side, and then she did some. Here she is.

The sheep just stood there, sort of leaning against my (cheap knock off) Hoosier cabinet. (Yes, I washed down the cabinet and mopped the floor when we were done.)

I'm sure this isn't how sheep are normally shorn, but I've only ever done alpacas, so we went with what I know. Basically, one strip is shorn down the back, and then each side is done, row by row. The fleece sort of cascades down the side.

I used to hand shear my animals in a 9' x 9' catch pen. They would walk around, and I would just follow them, shearing as we walked. Eventually, they (and I) would get dizzy, and they would stop. I just continued shearing. This method was perfect for me. I didn't need any help, it was just the animal and me in the pen. However, it is fairly time consuming, and just didn't cut it when Mom came to live with me. Now, with the help of friends, I shear with an electric clipper. I'll go into greater detail when I shear this spring. But I sort of miss hand shearing, so it was nice to get to do this.

My friend brought Mom a gorgeous pair of mittens made from a recycled sweaters, and a very nice Christmas greens arrangement. She says that I'm the only person she knows who would invite her to bring a sheep into the kitchen to shear. I'm not sure what that says about me.

I actually got out the tripod and shot a very amateurish video of me spinning this morning. Blogger wouldn't load it though, so I have a feeling it was too big. Oh well, it wasn't very good anyway.

Tools of the Trade, cont.

One of the difficulties of having no focus for this blog is that not everything is going to be interesting to everybody. All you spinners and knitters are probably thinking move along, nothing to see here. That's ok!

I'll start with the wheels. I have a Babe,



an Ashford Traditional,

and a Louet.

I purchased all of them used over the Internet. The Babe was first. This one is a production wheel, and yes indeed that is PVC. It is lightweight, very hardy, and relatively inexpensive. When I first started, I had no idea if I would like spinning or be any good at it. I didn't want to spend a lot on something I hated!

Turns out, I liked it. So when I stumbled on an ad for the Louet, I jumped on it. It is, like the Babe, a bobbin-lead wheel, so I thought that would be a good transition. I love this wheel. Right now I do all of my spinning on it. It is an upright, Castle-style wheel, so it takes up less space in the living room.

The Ashford is probably what most people think of when they think of a spinning wheel out of the fairy tales. To be honest, I don't like it very much. It could be that I haven't used it enough to get used to the different tensioning system, because I know some people swear by them.

Anyway, those are my wheels. I'll answer any questions anybody may have, but right now that's all I got. A friend is bringing over a lamb for me to shear. I've never shorn a sheep before, so this could be interesting!

Sweet rooster

I found the rooster cuddling one of the hens again tonight. So sweet! I don't blame him. Current temp is 1, with a windchill of -12, supposed to get to -7 real temp, with windchills in the -20 to -25 range. (Don't worry, they are in the Taj Macoop, they won't be affected by the windchill.)

Tools of the Trade, Part 1, Sort of

Mom slept late, so this morning I set about photographing the tools I use. I actually set up a staging area outside for the wheels, because there wasn't enough light and space in the house for it.

Then I got sidetracked by the dogs. We romped in the snow awhile, and I caught this one of Simba.

Goofy girl.

Then I cleared off the work table in the room I euphemistically call my studio, and snapped some photos of the smaller tools.

As I took photos of the swift,

and ballwinder,

I remembered where they came from. And decided to tell the story first. (Plus, I realized that to explain the swift and ballwinder, I actually need to have some yarn on there for it to make sense.)

Many years ago, my dad purchased a used knitting machine at an auction. He was the kind of man who could look at something and figure out how it worked. If there was a defect, he could either fix it, or figure out a workaround. So once he fixed it, he spent hours knitting with this knitting machine. When he died in 1996, there was a partially knit sweater on it that he was working on for one of his grandchildren. My sister took the machine, thinking that she would finish it.

The machine sat in her house for many years, she never did anything with it. When she was cleaning out her house in preparation for a move in 2003 or 2004?, she found the machine and gave it to me, thinking I might have a use for it. It was summer, I was busy outside, so I stuck it in the "fiber room" and promptly forgot about it.

One day, probably a year later, I got around to looking at the machine and the box of accessories that came with it. You guessed it, the swift and the ballwinder were in the box. Two tools that I hadn't yet purchased, but had been thinking about doing so.

It tickles me to no end to use these tools, this previously unknown connection to my Dad from so many years before.

Order or Art?

Living out here on the prairie, we get a fair amount of wind. Enough that I want one of these http://www.tangarie-energy.com/productsturbines.htm , but that's another story. (or a rant, really)

Anyway, my lawn chairs are pretty light weight, so it is not uncommon to come out of the house and find them blown over, or even blown half way across the yard.

Not for long. Mom has them back in line almost immediately.

I often wonder if her desire for order is because that is one thing she can control in the rather out of control life that is AD?

Spinning and a Story

Do you think I'm in a blue/green phase?

The first is domestic wool, the last three are alpaca/wool blends.

So I was working on the computer, and Mom comes and stands next to me. I leaned my head against her, closed my eyes, said, "Goodnight, Mom," and pretended to snore.

She brushed my hair from my face, patted my cheek, and said, "Goodnight, whoever the hell you are."

Intuitive

Mom was looking through the new Christmas coloring book I got her. She looked at this page, and said, "Ooh, he's sneaky." Sure enough, that reindeer does have a sneaky expression on his face.

That reminded me of other times she has attributed emotions to pictures in her coloring books. I found a couple more examples.

He's mad.

He's grumpy. She also once told me that was her dad. Oddly enough, he does bear a resemblance to my grampa.

I've read that AD patients are very in tune to body language and expressions, and have found that true with Mom. Sometimes I think Mom is always happy, she is just reacting to me if I am having a bad day. I have to tell myself, smile, smile, smile even if I don't feel like it.

I'm just amazed that she can see emotions in a coloring book drawing.

Ice

The sun peeked out momentarily so I ran out to snap some shots. We only got about 4 inches of snow, then the 1/4 inch or so of ice on top of it. It made carrying water to the animals this morning a bit of an adventure. I didn't go down, but if a video had been made, it may have won some money.

You may be able to click for big, or maybe not. I can never tell with Blogger. It seems to be a crapshoot for me.

Drift

When I got up this morning, I discovered that the wind had shifted. It was now coming from the southeast, and it was blowing hard. My sliding glass patio door facing that direction does not close properly. The house was built in 1890, so that's not surprising. I found a little drift on the floor. Let me tell you, finding a drift in your living room is never a good thing.

I had a can of that expandable foam stuff, so thought maybe I'd just squirt some of that in the gap. In reading the can, however, it looks like it creates a permanent bond, and I wanted to be able to open the door in the spring.

What to do, what to do...what could I stuff in there, something soft, pliable, that I could stuff in the small crack at the top, but that could expand for the 1/2 inch crack at the bottom....hmm, what could I use. What could a person that has bags and bags of fiber use as weatherstripping?

Yes, I thought of using some of my alpaca roving. The frugal side of me balked at that though. It's alpaca roving!

Then I remembered. I had a bag of off-cuts of felt created from the neck warmer "manufacturing" process. I had kept them, thinking that I might find a use for them someday.

Aha! I grabbed a knitting needle, and poked strips of felt into the gap.

It worked a treat!

Not only did it stop the wind (and snow) from coming in, but it's colorful too!

Spinners joke that all those bags of fiber they have stashed away are used as insulation. Let me tell you, it really works!

ETA: Eek! I just looked at the other side of the door, the stationary side. I found an even bigger drift.

Do you think maybe the time has come for a new patio door?