A Few Sheep Shy of a Farm

This is very, very strange!

Seems the only way I can get to my blog is via a link from someone else’s blog, just plain weird!

Well, guess what day it is? Yup! That’s right its my favorite day again! FRIDAY! And not only is it Friday, but its the Friday before a long weekend! And to make it even better, I’m only working 2 1/2 days next week and then I get another long weekend! How wonderful is that?

I’m going to spend part of the weekend doing some more gardening and part of it doing some fiber stuff. I’m not sure what the plan is for tomorrow, probably just stuff around the house. Sunday, weather permitting, I think we are going to a Polo Match! I love horses, but polo isn’t my favorite (known too many horses with perm. brain damage from it!) But we have a friend who really, really wants to go to Polo this summer so we are taking him! If we go, there will be some serious tailgating going on! Reminds me, need to look for my biggest straw hat!

The new 4 unit Bunny Condo Complex is coming along nicely! DH “volunteered” to be our builder on the job and has been working on it for about a week now. The main form of the structure is done. The wire floors for their “living rooms” are in, the bedrooms have been built and he is currently working on the doors. Once those are done the sides and back will be added and then it should be pretty much done! Should be interesting to see how the bunnies all react to their new home. The two little ones really haven’t spent any time outside so thie will be a first for them. The older two are used to being together and will now be seperated by a layer of wire mesh, don’t know how they will feel about that! We are going to try keeipng the old hutch around and using it as a play area, may move it to the garden, in the shade and let them take turns having time in there. Later in the summer I hope to have some sort of a bunny play pen where all 4 of them can hop around on the lawn for supervised play times.

I’m also planning to ask DH to build a bat house! We live on the edge of a small area of woods and the corner of our yard closest to the trees tends to be filled with mosquitos. We also have 4 rain water barrels for the garden, 2 of which have goldfish living in them. Means we can’t drain the last bits for the garden, but it also means the bugs can’t breed in there, or rather, they can, they just don’t make it out alive! My fish will eat anything that lands on the water, let alone any larvae that actually manage to hatch! They are very happy goldfish. I think one project for this weekend will be having him, finally, cut the tops off the other two barrels so we can add fish to them. The yard has been getting very buggy already this year with all the rain so I want to eliminate all possible breeding grounds. Later, when he builds a bat house or two I hope to have them move in to help keep the bugs away. I read on-line somewhere that one brown bat can eat more than 1200 mosquitos in an evening! Now that is serious bug removal!

Fiber wise, my 2 fleeces from Whitefish Bay Farm arrived on Wednesday. What beautiful wool! I got Limburger and Precious this year and couldn’t be happier! Limburger is easily the softest stuff I’ve ever gotten. Actually, I have a small scoured piece in my pocket just so I can keep touching it today. Getting my fiber fix in one way or another! If the weather is good tomorrow I may take a few fleeces out into the yard to do some additional skirting. I have at least one that I know needs some work and I’d like to get that taken care of. Some of the others just need a litle bit of shaking out for some stray hayseed etc. Perhaps we will even managed to get one scoured tomorrow, if A is around to help that is. Monday I plan to do some immersion dyeing on the stuff I’ve been spinning lately so we shall see what happens with that! Who knows perhaps I’ll even manage to get some photos!

Have a great long weekend everyone and I’ll post during it if I can!

Blogging difficulties

I don’t know what is going on with Blogger but I’ve been having trouble even getting to my blog all week let alone to the posting area . . . strange things in blog land.

Finished the 2nd of the hats from the old handspun last night. Off to hat box land for that one. Now there are 6 hats in the pile to give away later on. I seem to do them in spits and starts but I’m still on track with that one goal for the year. I may do a few more in the next week or so, they go pretty quickly if I carry them around with me. If we have another winter like this past one I think there won’t be such a thing as too many warm hats on hand I also plan to let each of the gardening club kids pick one at the end of the season. . .

Still haven’t plied up that 2nd pound of yarn. May try to get to it tonight. I’d like to get it set and ready to be dyed. At this point the plan is to take the dyes out on Monday and do a bunch of immersion dyeing with the 2 pounds that are spun so far. I’ll likely just use up some of the odds and ends of colors we had mixed up last fall rather than actually taking out the powders to work with. Lets me skip one whole step. I don’t remember what I have mixed up for colors but there should be more than enough to play with. . . .

I also knit a swatch last night of some handdyed cotton I bought last year that I’d like to knit up a quick summer to out of. Need to measure and then launder it before taking the final gauge as I think it may shrink up a bit when washed. Wouldn’t want it to shrink after its done without factoring that in . . . I have 2 larges skeins of this yarn and I think my top may take 1 plus a bit more so I may wind up with enough to make one for A as well. Wouldn’t that be cute, matching tops?

Ah well, back to the day time stuff. . .

Garden Club tonight!

Ran to HomeDepot last night and bought 5 gallon pails for the kids to use as planters! Way cheeper than real pots! Plan to bring up the fact that with more planning they could “find” similar containers free (from laundry soap etc) if they want to plant more.

I’m thinking we’ll discuss how to prepare a garden bed, examining the soil etc and then actually dig a bed along the back fence. I was planning to put in a small strip along the fence with some lavendar, hollyhocks and “wild” flowers so that might be a fun project for them and they can learn about conditioning soil for planting . . .

We may, if weather and time allow, do a little star gazing at the end of the evening as well. I know, what does that have to do with gardening? Not a whole lot, but its something they might enjoy and I bet a few of them have never done and it might be a good winding down activity as they will be laying back and looking up rather than running around. I just hope none of them fall asleep on top of the rock out back, I can’t carry them down!

Off to prep some materials for tonight, must be prepared!

Quick update:

Spun 2 more skeins last night and finished the hat I started the night before. That means I’ve spun my pound for this week and though I have yet to ply it that shouldn’t take too long.

I did cast on another hat, top down, but since its on dpn I left it home for now. Should finish the increases tonight and be able to move it to a circular needle. . .

Took out the hat tub last night and I’m actually on track with the hat portion of the goals for this year. There are 5 hats in the tub for next fall and soon to be 6 . . . .

Tomorrow night is Garden Club and I need to work on my game plan. We should be potting their seedlings (if they bring them, if they lived) and giving those that eat them, tomato plants as well. Any ideas for recycling objects as containers? I’m thinking of just buying 5 gal. pails at Home Depot tonight but I’d rather use it as an opportunity to talk about reusing containers If I can’t come up with anything better I may get some paints and have them decorate their buckets . . .

Oh well, back to work

This is scarey!

I’ve just checked next year’s reservation list and I’ve got 7 fleeces that are definately mine and 3 that I have “right of first refusal” on for next year! Even at a lb a week I’m not spinning fast enough!

Perhaps I should commission MIL to Knit something very large, like an afghan, from my handspun? Actually, she knits faster than I can spin, but she is also retired so that works in her favor! Hmm, something to consider . . .