Empty Nester

First a little catching up...

It seems it gets longer and longer between posts here! I keep busy, and it always seems like this is the last place I want to spend time, which is unfortunate, because I love sharing what happens in my life. But, in light of the readership, it just doesn't seem too horribly important to spend time posting. Not that I don't appreciate the five (or so) wonderful people who seem to be the only ones who ever read this blog! I do, so regardless of the lack of comments or correspondence, I will keep posting occasionally, but the frequency will most likely continue to decline.
On to the news!
We were blessed to have spent Thanksgiving with Kevin! He had the National Lampoon's Trip Home from hell to get here, but he managed it! He got to my Mom's house just as we were cutting the turkey! He was supposed to get here the day before but to start, the plane he was supposed to catch in Palm Springs had a flat! That left him sitting in the airport there for almost 5 hours, and when they finally got off the ground, he was late for his connecting flight in Phoenix. They put him up in a very nice hotel for the night! The next day, he was supposed to get in to Reno at 10AM, but again his flight was delayed for a few hours, he didn't get in to Reno until after 1PM. Luckily my nephew lives in Fernley, just 40 minutes from the airport in Reno and was able to stick around and wait for him to bring him home. It was great to have him here, and the visit was way too short, but we had a good time :)
Karaoke will never be the same!

Joy celebrated her second birthday on December 1st! We had a great time, and she got lots of presents!

We went to Arizona for Derek's niece's wedding, it was beautiful of course, she was beautiful, of course! She'll be moving to Virginia where her new husband is stationed in the Navy.

Grandpa Gale, Bailey and Dean

Daughter Jari and her beau followed DH and I down in her beau's truck with Joy so that Grandpa could finally meet his great grand daughter. She loved him from the first, and didn't shy away from him at all! The adventure started when the 'kids' decided to leave on Saturday night. Jari needed to be back at work on Sunday night, the beau needed to be in Boise on Monday, it was time to go home. Derek and I decided to stay until Tuesday. A couple hours later I got a phone call, they had broke down in Phoenix, they were getting a motel, the turbo had went out on the diesel truck. That it happened at all was unfortunate; that it happened in Phoenix, was a blessing. There is a lot of empty road between Phoenix and Home! Much of it with no cell service. Three days later, the truck was still not fixed, Derek and I picked the three of them up on our way home. Luckily it was an over night drive, we all slept most of the way... except of course for Derek, my super husband who can drive the 12 hrs home straight!
After we'd been home a week, my daughter finally did what she'd told me she was planning on doing; her and Joy have moved in with the beau. He is a really great guy, very responsible, good job, and is awesome with Joy! Joy thinks he's 'da bomb', and he's pretty sure she is.

I woke up yesterday with the realization that I didn't have to do anything for anybody for the first time in 26 years. I could get out of bed, or not, and do what I wanted to do; I wouldn't have to clean up after anyone, I wouldn't have to feed anyone, I wouldn't have to argue or cajol or convince or please or worry. And I realized, I've been waiting for this moment, almost like I've been holding my breath.
I've raised my kids, and good or bad, right or wrong, they are now on their own. And although I love baby girl and miss her deeply at times, I am delighted to be my own person once again, for Derek and I to have the time and the space to be 'us' once again. Twenty-six years is a long time to go without a sense of self, when nearly every waking moment is spent thinking about and doing for your kids. I've heard stories about how hard it is on  parents when their kids leave home, of the sense of loss and of having no direction... so far, I'm just not feeling it :)

The Difference a Dye Job Can Make

A few years ago at Black Sheep Gathering in Eugene, OR, I came across a 4 ounce strip of dyed Merino/silk top from Lisa Souza Knitwear and Dyeworks. It was dark blue (black in places), indigo blue, brown gold, greens with undyed white sections. The colors were so appealing to me, I bought 8 ounces. I spun it up, took pictures of it, and tried to sell it on Etsy. Instead a member of the spinning/knitting group I belong to in Elko bought it and made a beautiful Baktus Scarf! I wish I had a picture of it, I would share. But this is the yarn.

I have decided that Navajo plying is my preferred method of finishing hand painted yarns. You get much better color changes and not as much striping as if you two ply it, and a stronger yarn.
I bought the same colorway the next year, don't remember what happened to the yarn, I guess I sold it on Etsy.
Last month I thought about it again and ordered more. When I got it I wasn't sure I would like it. The colors weren't as heavy this time, instead of broad splashes of bold color, it's more like it was spattered with color.

So I wasn't sure what would happen with it, and I remembered that I had liked the last few batches I'd had so much! 

 So here it is, and I love it! It really is that light, although its washed out a little by the sun shine through the window...

In other news, my daughter started working at a local restaurant, nights, so I have Joy all day while she sleeps, and all night while she works. I tell ya, I haven't been this tired in a very long time :)

We Have an Accord!

There were a couple of things that were making spinning on Maxwell (thank you Laura :) difficult. First, I'm used to sitting in my easy chair to spin on my Joy, the orifice is at the perfect height, but Max is almost a foot taller than the Joy, so I grabbed two small pillows and plopped my butt down. Just right! Second, Max has, as I said earlier, a draw like a mule team.

The little ball on the string is the tensioner. Its supposed to go over the end of the maiden and tighten there on the right. I took it out of the equation. Even without tightening the string with the knob, just the weight of that little bitty ball caused friction.

I am pretty sure I wasn't supposed to do this, but I did it anyway. I oiled the metal whatchamacallit. The piece below it is plastic, just like a Louette (I think), and I've seen people with these put that grey powder on this spot, not oil, but I don't have the grey powder, so oil it was! It worked.

This is mohair roving, I have no idea where it came from, but it was handy when I went looking for something strong to put on this bad boy. I will never spin lace weight on this wheel, its all about chunky! And it bobs and weaves a bit when I'm spinning, makes a fairly loud 'thunk' at the top of the treadle path, but I think we're going to get along just fine.

My Lil' Angel?

In't she cute!?

This was Joy's first real Halloween, she was too young last year to really get into it, but boy she was plying that basket this year! She knows what candy is now!

I swear I can sit across the room from her and rattle a candy wrapper, it doesn't matter what she's doing, she will bee-line to me to find out what I've got. Oh, she is a 'Bat-arrina' by the way :) It even had little gloves, but she wouldn't wear them.

Nana and Joy at Nana's house. We always go there for Halloween. Living out in the sticks we have never gotten any trick or treaters, so we don't decorate, and the pumpkin we carve always goes on Mom's porch. She is a holiday Hero, always has her house decorated for Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Oh, can't forget Easter!

We had kilbasa, fried cabbage and home made mashed potatoes for dinner.

Goodies!

I've been plying my trade, which could be the reason I'm growing again. I can't believe how fast I put on weight in the winter!
The fiber above is the alpaca bond blend I talked about a couple of posts ago, the yarn below is a better color of the yarn also from that previous post, I like this one better, shows the truer color.

And I finally finished spinning and plying the alpaca blend (thank you Eli the puppy)

New Goodies!

Have you ever heard of Stansborough Grey? Stansborough Grey is a breed of sheep, only found in New Zealand, there are only about 1000 of them and they all belong to the same farm. If you haven't looked up, you should (or just click on the name :)

 I regret to say that I let my uncontrollable urge to have some of this fiber get in the way of my better sense that told me it was too expensive. But, I bought it, its here and it is delectable! I can honestly say this wool is like nothing I have ever put my hands in. It is silky soft, to the point where you're really not sure you're touching anything at all. There are a couple of negative points (though I wont let them stop me from processing this fiber), there are second cuts all through what I've handled so far. If you read the website, you'll know that all of this wool is actually meant to be commercially processed. So what I don't understand, is what do the commercial processors do with all those second cuts? From what I've played in so far (and I just got it today, so I haven't gone through very much of it) I will lose a good 40% of this wool, if not more, because where there are second cuts, the staple length is often cut in half (at 3 to 4 inches, that don't leave much!) so I lose the lock too. Ah, well, such is life! I can see why they chose it to grace the backs of movie stars though. Oh my my!

Yesterday, this arrived from the Netherlands!

I am now a two-wheel spinner! Although I haven't quite gotten the hang of the Moswolt Hammer Wheel yet, I feel confident that we will be able to come to an understanding soon. Where I have always thought of my Joy as a girl (the name not withstanding, she is rather petite), the Hammer is definitely masculine. He pulls like a mule team on the draw, so we have some issues to 'hammer' out hehe.

This is one of the reasons I wanted this wheel; see the size of that bobbin??? My Joy is supposed to hold 4 ounces; I'm lucky if I get 2.5 on it, and even then I have to split it because it wont all fit back on the bobbin plied. But this baby! He holds 12 ounces! I can see why some people have bought this wheel just for plying, but I would love to be able to spin that much at one time!
If anyone anywhere sees this sometime in the future and knows anything at all about the Moswolt Hammer Wheel, please leave a comment so we can chat. There is precious little on the internet about these wheels (in English or Dutch) and it would be wonderful to find out more about them. Near as I can tell, the company quit making them in the '80s. To be honest, I am not entirely convinced this one is completely genuine. The flyer is new, that is for sure and made (even though it is well made) from ply wood and I am positive  the bobbins are replicas. The body seems to me to be original, but what would I know? The whole thing could be a replica and no one this side of Deutschland and 1980-something would know the difference!
Hope everyone had a wonderful Halloween! Cheers!

Porcine Paradise?

I guess they'd have to know how to talk to be able to tell me if they thought it was paradise, but I can't think of anything else to make it so.
A week ago Sunday, I was sitting in front of the grocery store, looking at the bulletin board, when out popped a sign that said pigs for sale. We'd been talking about raising piglets for the freezer for six years (we'd done this before and I had not enjoyed the experience, but the results were tasty), and the subject had just a couple of days prior, come up again. This time it had more of a chance of succeeding because of the drastic flock reduction I've implemented here. All we needed was a pen and some pigs.
I'm one of those that lets things happen, I 'roll with the flow' if you will :)
If I have to work hard to over come obstacles in order to achieve my goal of acquiring something I don't necessarily need, I will let it go until fate again gives me an opportunity to do so. This may sound lazy, but its the difference between something coming together smoothly, and working out superbly in the long run, and the frustration of trying to make it happen when 'someone' doesn't want it to, and it turning into if not a complete disaster, then at least something that no one is quite happy with. A lesson I learned from my Texas-raised Dad; he would say "If it was meant to happen, it'll happen."
So with the conversation about the pigs a couple of days before, and how we would work out the pen, seeing the ad 'pigs for sale', it just felt like it was coming together.
I called the number later that day, talked to the woman about where she was, when we could come look at them, and decided on four o'clock. Turns out she also has a couple of sheep, although she's very new to them, and would talk to her husband about trading the two pigs for my last terminal ewe lamb. Jari had decided when she took the rest of the lambs to butcher a few weeks before, that this one was just too small to go yet.
So it would seem that this had been coming together for at least a few weeks, it looked like I was in the pig raising business again.
I ended up picking up three pigs, going to raise one for a friend, and they do better in groups anyway.

Introducing the Three Little Porkers!

 The pen didn't go up quite like we thought it would, but surprisingly it was still a smooth process. I have several sheep panels that I had thought I would use, but the friend who the third pig is for had these panels lying around in her back 40. We dug a trench about 6 inches deep to put the panels in (with the help of my friends son, we couldn't have done this without him!), this is suggested as a precaution against the pigs rooting out under the fence as much as it is to keep dogs from digging in. We wired the corners together, put T-posts up for stability, set the railroad ties up as the walls of the shelter, and laid plywood across the top bolstered by posts to hold up the corners.

We put straw in for bedding. I figured they'd have this scattered all over the pen by the next morning, but apparently, they like it just where it is!

Joy's First Pumpkin!

 HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Home, Sweet Home!

I've been back home now for 11 days, seems like three weeks. I've been pretty busy, but not overly so, Jari did a pretty good job at keeping the house up!
I came home to a small box that contained a pretty good amount of Bond Corriedale wool, ordered from Gleason Fine Woolies while I was in Texas. I just can't resist Joanna's wool selection, even though it is much more expensive than most, I can say its worth it. It is very clean, and oh so yummy!

 "Charlie"

"Peter"

I've started work on Peter's fleece, I just love that crimp! It washed up pretty well, although there is still enough grease left in it that my hands feel wonderful when I've been in it for a while. I found this small ball of mohair and wool blend roving that demanded  to be blended with some of this fleece, so I got my carder out and started on it. It looked great! I had three batts done and had started spinning it.
I don't know if I posted about my car or not, but its been out of commission for a couple of months. My daughter hit a rock, she said, and it messed up the alignment so bad that I think we will have to buy two new tires for it. We had to drive it home from town, about 4 miles. So the other day we finally found a trailer that we could use to haul the car to Elko (an hour away) to get it looked at. We were gone all day Monday, came home to find that the new puppy likes Peter's wool too! Oh, by the way, we have a new puppy. he is black lab and blue tic hound. He's a great puppy, will someday make a beautiful and intelligent dog! But not if he keeps doing what he did that day! He doesn't know how close he came to shortening his life span. Not only did he tear up those batts (which were in a box with the lid down) but he got on my table and pulled down 5 ounces of that gorgeous dark chocolate alpaca top I posted about earlier! Sigh!
I picked it all up after chastising my daughter about how its never her stuff that gets torn up and ruined by the animals she brings home, its always my things that get torn up! Why is that? Make you want to gnash your teeth and say bad words! Not to mention kick the dog! (something I learned long ago not to do, unless I wanted a bruised toe, cause I never manage to hurt the dog, just me). So, what to do with this mess? I took what I could salvage of the batts, which weren't as bad off as they had first appeared, and recarded them, they have a few more dog hairs in them now but, eh! Then I looked at all that alpaca. I had not over reacted at the alpaca. It was a mess! He must've enjoyed that much more than my home-made batts, cause it was torn up and slobbered on.
My drum carder is not made for fine fibers; they get stuck in the tines, they get all fly away and aggravating! But, I decided to blend the alpaca with Peter, I just couldn't imagine throwing it all away!
This is how I managed it: I took a small amount of Peter's wool, flicked it, laid it down on the carder, took one of the puppy-fied pieces of alpaca and lay wisps of it against that little bit of wool. Then I took a normal sized lock of flicked wool and lay it over the alpaca. It worked great!

Here is the yarn from the mohair blend

 This is the alpaca blend in the morning sunlight... I really couldn't get the color right...

It is so much prettier than this picture, I will post another when I'm done spinning it up. I managed to save most of that alpaca! I only had to throw away the most slobbered on bits.
And the car? Found out today that the frame is bent. Musta been some rock!

Motel convenience and puppy problems not withstanding, its great to be home!

In Rememberance.... Picture Heavy

The day I got to Texas, my daughter called me to say that our faithful 14 year old dog Zip had passed away. I wanted to wait till I got home to share this, because I wanted to share these pictures as well as the story of how he came into our lives 14 years ago.
I went to the store one day and there were some kids out front with a box. There were little black puppies peeking out, some jumping others just looking around. I walked up to the box to get a better look, and in the bottom of the box in the corner was a silver, tan, grey and black ball of fur. I of course took that ball of fur home. I wanted a truck dog. I wanted a dog that would be exited every time I said "wanna go for a ride?". I wanted a bosom buddy, one that would go with me every where and be my best friend. This seemed like the perfect dog! According to the kids with the box, the mother was a golden retriever, the father was a blue merle Australian Shepard, he had a different sire than the other puppies, they were golden and black lab.
As he grew, we realized he was going to be a good blend of the two breeds; the size and mellow attitude of the golden, with the colors and hair of the Aussie. He was smart, and beautiful, and after going through several dogs over the past few years, none of which really fit us, its seemed we'd finally gotten lucky.
I brought this little silver fluff ball home, thinking I'd found the perfect dog. Well I did, I had a dog, but he didn't have me. It was about ten minutes after bringing him into the house, that this little fluff ball had found his boy. If Tad and I sat on opisite sides of the room and called Zip, he would always go to Tad, but if I said lets go for a ride, he'd dump Tad in a second! So I had a truck dog, but Tad was his Boy.
Tad named him Zip, after the Australian blue healer in the movie 'Last of the Dog Men', Tad's favorite movie of all, but as he got older, we realized he wasn't all that zippy. He was very laid back, but he did love to play with sticks! He would chase anything you threw but would only bring sticks back.

 Not much room left for Tad....

 This was taken about halfway up Mt. Lewis, looking out on Reese River Valley, where we live.

 Tad was teaching Zip to catch treats off his nose.

Derek's mother was very sick with stomach and intestinal cancer, so we all packed up and went to visit her in April of 2004, she passed away on June 4th that same year.

Zip rode in the back of the Suburban, while Tad had the back seat to himself. At one point, Derek had went off the road just a bit and hit the rumble strip, scared Zip so bad he jumped into the back seat where Tad was stretched out. Zip landed feet first in Tad's groin. We all laughed at Tad's discomfiture. Neither he or Zip thought it was too funny at the time :) 

 Zip loved horse grain, and didn't really care that Jasper loved it too....

 That same trip to Arizona to see Derek's mother, we came home by way of the Grand Canyon. Wonderful memories!

 Me, Jasper and Zip, ready to go for a quick ride.

 This is on Mount Moses, just me Derek and Zip on this trip, just wandering around the mountains.

 Tad and I used to do this a lot, he loved looking at the stars.

They are together now, I think. It is a comforting thought.
Rest in Peace Zipper!