Coming and going...

• I got in to the Grad Certificate Program at USF! YAY! So in the Fall, it is back to school for me! I'm really happy about this...



• My Spring Break starts on Friday. So I'll be heading out to South Carolina that morning. I need to gather the projects I'll be taking with me... and I've got a lot of laundry and packing to do before then.



• I finally sent my HitchHiker off to Dave at the Merlin Tree to have the second treadle added. It should arrive there sometime today, according to UPS. I have no idea how long it will take to get it back. In the meantime, I have no wheel here to use...



• My friend Andrea, who is pregnant, is due in a matter of weeks! She thinks she'll be a little early, but of course, there's no way of knowing until it happens. We're all so excited for her!



• Unless my friend Maria gets a job in the next week or so, she's going to be moving back to Tampa. She's in DC right now. So, it looks like, unless a miracle happens, I definitely won't be going to DC this summer to visit with her. That kind of bums me out because DC is a lot of fun. But of course, she'll save a lot of money by being home, so that's a good thing. I'll still have to go up to Front Royal at some point to see about the Mach II wheel I want to get though...



• Must remember to upload pictures of my garden to share. It is looking beautiful right now!

Saturday randomness...

• I'm entering the 2010 Ravelympics on Ravelry.com. I'm not quite sure how the medals are awarded, but I don't really care either. I'm entering the Aerial Unwind, Felting Freestyle, Hat Halfpipe, Lace Luge, Mitten Moguls, Short Track Shawls, Single Skein Speed Skate, SnowCross, Sock Hockey, Stash Compulsory Dance, and WIPs-Dancing - all with yarn I already have languishing in my possession. I hope to end the two weeks with lots of finished objects and a greatly reduced stash. Another good thing is that most of the projects are small and I am working every day for the duration, so - with luck and lack of busy lesson plans - I'll be able to do quite a lot of work while subbing.



• OMG! My dad just came in with a package from Virginia. The mail man must have just left it at our front door. It's from a guy who owns a plant nursery up there and we bought a bunch of trees and plants from him to landscape part of the farm last summer. We're pretty neighborly with him and his wife, although they aren't really neighbors in the strictest sense of the word because they live quite a few miles away. We send them pink grapefruit from our tree every few months because we don't eat them and they love the stuff. Well, they just sent us a huge package of vegetable relish of some sort (can't really tell by looking and we haven't opened the jar yet), fresh pressed apple juice (!!! like in a big Mason jar!!! It's AMAZING!!!), dried apples, dried pears, dried summer squash slices, dried cantaloupe, dried pinto beans, and dried cayenne peppers! What an unexpected treat!!!



• In other news: I'm preparing the garden beds for the Spring planting... We'll see how much of that I'll be able to get done before it will be too late to try to plant anything. We have volunteers from last year coming up all over the place... So far some sort of winter squash (too early to tell what), some parsley, a carrot (how that happened, idk because they didn't flower last year and it's obviously recent growth), lettuce and mustard greens. What I'll be planting is tbd, dependent on how late it's getting and how much time it will need before harvest compared to how long I plan on sticking around here after school lets out first week of June.

Vacation update... short and sweet...

My mom, my sister, my niece and I went up to Floyd, VA yesterday to go antiquing and we bought a rocking chair, some paintings and some dishes for the cabin, and it was snowing up there. O.O First time I've ever seen *snow* falling from the sky. It was bizarre! It wasn't cold enough to accumulate on the ground though - only 34 degrees. Today, I hung out with my sister at the bead shop she works at part-time. Tomorrow, I'm going down to Greensboro to go to the yarn shop there. It's irresistable! Truly...

Heads-up...

I'm driving to VA tomorrow for Spring Break. Lots to do around here before I go. No time for anything else it seems...

I'll be back no later than the 13th.

Home!! and Mail-box Suprises...

Finally!!

It was good to get away, but it's just as good to get home. I miss my sister and niece and all my other relatives already, but home is here, so... My cats look different, and the dog has literally doubled in size in the last two weeks. I wish I were kidding. She's almost big enough to jump up on the dining table if she wanted to and she can fly over the pet gates we have to keep her contained in the kitchen if she wants to. Not good. Mom needs to get to the dog training really quick...

I received a postcard from Ilana today. She sent it from Vermont and it has a lovely picture of a covered bridge on the front. I can't wait to show it to my mom when she gets home from work. She loves covered bridges. I'm glad Ilana is enjoying her getaway.

I also got all the back-issues of MaryJanesFarm (which is an awesome, awesome magazine, btw!). I'm savoring each of them. I just came across an article about a home from troubled teenage boys that teaches the boys to crochet to help relieve anxiety and anger issues, among other behavioral and emotional problems. They make lap-quilts to donate to old folks' homes and they make and wear their own slippers. Some of the slippers have pom-poms. With deepest sincerity (in case someone might think I mean to mock), I think this is very cool and utterly delightful, and it makes me extremely happy that these boys can be helped and that they help others in turn. They make all this stuff with donated (mostly scrap) yarn and there's an address where yarn can be sent. I'm so raiding my stash for them.

If you'd like to send them some yarn as well, the address is:

Northwest Children's Home
P.O. Box 1288
Lewiston, Idaho 83501

First a rant about Robin Hood and then an update:

The rant (with lots of spoilers for the season finale which aired last night):

You know, I don't expect much out of Robin Hood. I don't expect historical anything from it and I think it's pretty much the medieval equivalent of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. But... still...

WHAT?!?! That was SO NOT COOL, MAN!!! I'm kinda upset by this. Sure, Marion annoyed me sometimes... Sure, sometimes I wanted the costumers and writers brought up on charges over her character's clothes and some of the things she did/said... but I didn't want her DEAD! SO NOT COOL! *pouts* Honestly, Robin Hood without his Maid Marion? What exactly are we supposed to do with that? It is so not the story... There was at least one more season that they could have dragged out their romance and it didn't ever need to end with her dying.

Also, I liked both Djaque and Will, and I'm very sorry to see that they apparently won't be back. *grrrrrs*

Lately, it seems like a lot of shows have been ticking me off with their season finales. I can't think of any others at the moment that won't be potentially spoilery to some people who might be reading this (and there are several!), but I feel like I've been left disappointed by a lot of tv lately... I know it's just tv, and really, yeah, it's just tv, but it's supposed to entertain, right? Not leave the audience going OH NO THEY DIDN'T!!! with their surprise, irrevocable twists full of what-the-fuckery... And it seems a number of series have done that lately. At least, that's my take...

And here's the update:

I'm staying at the cabin by myself now. My parents have gone back home and I'm staying until after my niece's birthday. I was really scared at night the first several nights, but I'm feeling much better about being here by myself now. It's easier to identify the creaks and groans that the house makes periodically. FYI, new log houses (and possibly log houses in general) make a lot of noise and sometimes are so suddenly loud that you'd think an elephant abruptly landed on the roof and it's getting ready to cave in. This is, apparently, quite normal, as are thumps and creaks in the walls and floor.

I was going to go to Floyd yesterday to go antiquing, but it rained all day with thunder and lightning, so I didn't risk the unfamiliar, twisty mountain roads to get there. And our kitchen has inexplicably been infested with ants. Little (but not tiny) amber colored ants that don't bite. Even though they weren't congregating anywhere in particular in the kitchen, just crawling around all over the floor, cabinets, stove and countertop, I spent all of yesterday afternoon cleaning and sweeping and making sure there is absolutely no food that could be drawing them in. But they're still a few around. Not nearly as many as before though. I didn't know where they were coming from for the longest time, but after dinner I found that they're coming up through a hole in the cabinet under the sink. Today, I'm going to try to find something not full of chemicals and yet effective to kill and/or get rid of them... Suggestions welcome...

Edit: How to make organic ant traps. Awesome!

In other news: I have been knitting up a storm! I've finished two felted bags, two pairs of baby booties, two dishcloths and two hats since I got here. I'm well on my way to finishing another two pairs of baby booties (each ball of Bernat Organic Cotton makes two). I'm also working on a scarf and another hat (both from KnitPicks). I think once I've done all that, if I finish all that, I'll have exhausted the small yarn stash I brought with me... Not sure what I'll do then. maybe move on to sewing projects...

Finally, got the photos to cooperate!

Been trying to get this uploaded to post for days. For some reason, my phone, then my e-mail, then my browser didn't want these photos to go up. *eye roll* Oy, technology!

But here they are!

We start with the new yarn I got for my stash from KnitPicks.com a few days ago:

The Renaissance Sampler:

The Georgian Sampler:

The Victorian Sampler:


All of the colors are much brighter than this. The Renaissance colors were very hard to photograph because they are dark and deep and my lighting sucks. Aubergine, hunter green, burgundy, chocolate... Beautiful colors all!

There's also the sock yarn I got... I needed another $5 to get the free shipping, so the sock yarn pretty much paid for itself. Dolphin and Porchini Gloss Sock Yarn. I'm making Lickity Split tabi socks with it. It seems to be perfect for this pattern. Got gauge with no problem on US 1 needles. But I've gotten much better at the provisional kind of cast-on since the last time I attempted it! So YAY!!! These will take forever to do, but that's how hand-knit socks are... Here's what I had as of last night:



I've also been working on the Pedicure socks from knitty.com, using old-style Cotton Ease by LionBrand.




In other news, the cabin is very nearly finished. I've been charged with picking out everything. So far, for all the things I'm to choose, we're under budget. :D It's a miracle, for sure!

Granite for the bathroom countertops:


Extreme close-up:


My reflection can pretty clearly be seen in these photos. Any pink tones you see are reflected from my shirt that I was wearing at the time. I liked it because while it has a neutral over-all feel to it and at first appears to be a rich brown, when one is looking right at it up close, the abundance of periwinkle and sky blue inclusions become apparent. So it's kinda surprising as well as pretty and subtle... It's called "Sapphire Blue" or "Sapphire Brown" depending on the distributor.

The sink that will go in this granite in my bathroom is this lovely thing:


The light fixture for both bathrooms is the one in the middle in this photo:


Drawer/door pulls/knobs for both bathrooms:



And the fixtures for the sink and shower in my bathroom:



The only thing that could make this bathroom better is if we could get white-painted wood cabinets with bead-board paneling in the doors. But alas, those would be custom cabinets and too much for the budget. So we're going with pre-fab solid oak, natural stained cabinets... I can always paint and alter them later if I really get persnickety about it.

I'm really excited that it's almost done. Now, the only thing I have left to pick out right now is a mattress for my room. I know I'm going with an all-natural latex mattress because the idea of off-gassing beyond freaks me out, not to mention lack of petroleum consumption is always a bonus! These mattresses, contrary to popular belief, are not like the memory foam mattresses, they aren't hot (they actually breathe very well), and if you know where to shop for them, they aren't any more expensive than conventional mattresses of similar quality. 'Cuz let's face it, high quality mattresses are never cheap.

Been busy...

I went on a little trip to South Carolina and Virginia last week during my Spring Break to visit Susan and my brother and sisters and other family there. It was a lot of fun and it felt like a lot longer than just a week with all the things we did. I took lots of pictures (312 to be exact) on my mom's new digital camera, which I borrowed for the occasion.

While in Virginia, I picked out the granite for the countertop in my bathroom in the new cabin. The guy told me that it's called "Green Juparana" but I can't seem to find a picture of that online... In any case, it's got some subtle splotches of sagey green, but is mostly yellow and gold tones, with flecks or red and black in a folded pattern across the surface of the stone... It's very pretty and mirrors the exposed bedrock stone outside where the hill was cut back a bit.

The cabin itself is progressing quickly. The plumbing and electrical things are all done and the interior walls are being finished. The roof is pretty much finished as well. The flooring and ceilings go in next week. We went out and took pictures.

The back:


The front:


The hillside:


The view from the porch:


We also went to the fabric store and got things to make a shirt and a dress for me for EyeCon and a shirt and new dresses for Susan, which I think she mostly needed anyway, but is also making especially for EyeCon. It's in 16 days! Wheeee!

We also went to Yarns, Etc. in Greensboro and I got roving... I think the gray stuff might need to be picked through some more before spinning, but overall it's good stuff from a small farm, so I shan't complain. The blue-gray 30% mohair/70% corriedale is very nice... I've spun some on my Hitchhiker (which is now fixed and working perfectly) and did a simple 2-ply. See here:



And I spun up the last of the black Merino that I had... about 6 1/2 ounces...



I also bought a pound of bleached 50% linen/50% silk roving for a shawl I want to make of my own design, which I typed of before here... I'm going to spin it going for a dk-worsted weight... And I want to try Navajo plying. But first, I think I need to dye this stuff... I want light colors... I want light blue-green and very light, almost-not-there pink and I want to leave some of it natural. I have no idea how to go about achieving these colors though because everytime I've ever tried to dye things before I've been going for deep, dark colors and the only way I know how to get lighter colors is by exhausting the dyebath. Also, I've never dyed roving before, let alone roving that is silk/linen. And I don't want to fuck it up. Although, maybe it might be better to spin it, knit it and dye it afterward when it's all finished so that I can get the color placement exactly as I want it... and maybe even do something like a tie-dyeing effect... I don't know. So. Any help, suggestions or advice you might be able to give me on any of this will be much appreciated.

In other news: This Saturday, I'm going to RenFaire with my friends. It will be awesome...

Sheep!

I looked up info about sheep breeds... (This is what I do, people... research random topics that pop into my head.) Why share the info here? 'Cause it's my blog...

All of these sheep are attractive breeds (none of those sheep that look more like goats or have oddly football-shaped heads). A lot of them have something to do with the Vikings... as in, they owe their existence to them... (I love the Vikings... as if I need to mention that.) The Vikings preferred animals that could pretty much take care of themselves in a cold climate with generally rocky terrain and that did not require shelter for most of the year. This is one of the reasons they never bothered with pigs or chickens. They considered it too much trouble to keep them from turning into pigcicles and chickencicles to be worth keeping. Most of the breeds descended from their domestic animals are fairly independent, self-sufficient, stocky, winter-hardy animals that need little supplementary food and are very easy-care.

Icelandics
- easy to care for, does well on sparse pasture where other breeds would not do well
- very little herding instinct, will wander in small groups
- good mothers
- can be aggressive toward other breeds, will usually dominate
- milk, meat and wool!
- wool very long and low grease
- oldest, purest breed of sheep in the world, unchanged & undiluted for 1100 years (that's when the importation of livestock was cut off.)
- horned (both females and males usually)
- females can lamb as young as 12 months old, and continue until as old as 14
- generally produce 1 - 2 lambs at a time, rarely they can produce as many as 3 - 4 lambs at a time
- males can sire offspring as young as 7 months old
- not a docile breed, can be nervous until acclimated to people and herding animals, but then usually become quite friendly
- seasonal breeding - November to April

Cotswolds
- need extra care while fleece is growing in order to get good fleeces
- wool is less fine than the Leicaster, but finer than the Lincoln
- developed in the 1820s and 1830s to present breed standard (traditional breed completely replaced by an original Cotswold/Lincoln cross to result in better meat production.)

Dartmoors
- produces more wool and eats less for its weight than any other breed
- produce twins 70% of the time
- wool used in tweed fabrics, blankets and carpets
- post-17th cent. breed
- developed from the native Heath or Cornish Sheep, native to Devon
- very winter hardy
- rare breed - currently level 4 of Endangered Breeds on the Rare Breeds Survival Trust List... whatever that means...

Faeroes - not really bred for wool anymore, due to comparatively low yield of fleece and the commercially low price of wool
- primarily bred for meat nowadays
- descended from the Old Norwegian, related to the Icelandic, Shetland and other Scandinavian breeds

Finnsheep
- surprisingly young breed considering it is native to such an isolated country, only going back a few hundred years
- good fleece producers
- few in NA
- currently undergoing "improvement" in Finland through selective breeding (not interbreeding with other breeds to preserve bloodlines)
- from the pics I saw, rather delicate looking... like a ballerina...

Gulf Coasts (aka "Florida Natives")
- native to Florida
- related to Spanish sheep - arrived in 1500s
- naturally developed a degree of resistance to internal parasites
- perfectly adapted to the hot & humid conditions of the Southeast, very hardy in Florida
- medium to long staple length (2.5" - 4") wool quality variable, averaging 26 - 32 micron, grade 48 - 58
- horned and polled (without horns) in males and females
- critically endangered
- because they lived wild for several centuries, were never wormed, had no assistance lambing, and were never shorn, these sheep have developed in such a way that they need no assistance lambing, have very few internal parasitic problems and have relatively light, compact fleeces, open faces and bare legs.
- can be used for dairy
- I want some of these!

Hebridean
- old, but now rare & used most commonly as a decoration on estates
- small
- solid black face and legs
- fleece black, grays with age
- both sexes horned, curled, and they usually have 4!
- wool quality in the 44s - 50s, medium length staple
- browses and forages
- low fat content in their meat

Leicester Longwool
- 18th century breed
- used in "the Colonies" and UK
- very heavy fleeces, sometimes 20+ lbs
- wool 32 - 38 microns
- very rare and endangered - global pop est. at 2,000 animals w/ fewer than 200 new registrations in NA each year
- a favorite of George Washington

Old Norwegian
- one of the oldest domestic breeds in Europe
- closely related to Bronze Age "Soay" breed
- cute with short legs and snout
- pop #s around 10,000 animals
- remains of the breed have been found at Bergen that date to ca 1000 BCE
- all males and 10% of females have horns (although females' horns are small)
- very fine wool, long staple - good for hand knitting and felting
- very strong flocking instinct, can keep flocks as small as 5 - 7 animals without problems
- do not do well with herding dogs - the weak will hide while the strong of the heard will lead the dog away, resulting from their natural reaction to predators; little if any loss of the herd to predators and have practically no need for a dog
- very excellent mothers and lambs will be defended fiercely by the herd
- lambs begin grazing at around 14 days old
- need little if any surplus feeding as long as grazing is present
- love to eat heather
- right now there is a shortage of animals for meat production, so prices are high

Orkney
- eats exclusively seaweed most of the year
- evolved to deal with the harsh conditions of the N. Atlantic
- small, fine boned
- almost entirely open-faced and bare legged
- rams are horned
- wool quality 50 - 56

Rambouillet
- late 18th century/early 19th century breed
- mix of Spanish Merinos and native French stock, with some German
- very fine wool at 18.5 - 24.5 microns, quality range of 60 - 80
- staple length 2" - 4"

Romney
- from Kent, predates 19th century
- quality 40 - 48, 38 - 31 microns
- considered dual use (meat & wool)

Shetland
- date to ca. 850 CE
- smallest British breed, rams weigh 90 - 125 lbs, ewes 75 - 100 lbs
- considered one of the "primitive" or "unimproved" breeds (personally, with wool like this, I don't know why it would need to be "improved"... any breeding with meat stock would probably significantly reduce the quality of the wool... That's what happened with the original Cotswolds when they were crossed with Lincolns.)
- rams are horned
- fine-boned, very short-tailed
- fiber 20 - 25 microns, quality 58 - 62-ish, staple 2" - 4.5"
- very hardy, good mothers, easy lambers, high milk production
- meat is very good, but difficult to produce in quantity
- numbers are slowly rising, there are now approx 2000 breeding ewes in the UK
- calm, docile and easy to manage
- slow growing & long lived
- price ranges from $100 - $300 per animal in US
- I think I'd like a small flock... would be most useful...
- http://www.shetland-sheep.org/

Green Acres is the place to be...

My mom told my dad and I this evening at dinner that, now that the remod on our house is done, she's thinking that my dad and she should look into buying a vacation property/retreat somewhere (of course, my dad's response was "With what money?"). She loves our home, so she doesn't want to move or anything, but she's really missing the farm she used to have in Brooksville. She said it's always been a dream of hers to have a lovely, 5- 10 acre property in the Carolinas or Virginia that she could eventually keep horses on... maybe some goats. She said no chickens, which is disappointing. She's worried about the bird flu thing, silly as that is. As someone with a degree in Biology, she should know better. (added 10/16/05: When I asked mom if she was serious about the no chickens because of the bird flu thing today, she laughed and said she had just been messing with me and that by the time we were ready to get chickens, the bird flu wouldn't even be remembered by most people. ::sighs:: She's been hanging out with dad too much, starting to develop his sick sense of humor.)

I started looking around on the internet to see what I could find and I didn't find much. Mostly listings for way too much property or smaller parcels at $8,000+ per acre. If anyone knows good places to search, please let me know.

If only we could win the $1,000,000 Lake Lure, NC home that HGTV will be giving away in January... ::sighs::