I'm making my way through this massive bag of bluefaced leicester roving. It's two pounds — doesn't sound like much, does it? That translates to days and days of spinning though, for a 2-ply yarn. I have 8 skeins done, with probably another 4 to go. The Apple Butter Festival is coming up this weekend, and I want to get as much handspun ready for that as possible.
Okay, that's just unreasonable. I can't get the house up to a good working temperature inside either. And my truck is stuck in the snow out on the pasture.
Save the date! The Berkeley Springs Studio Tour is coming up this month. More info later!
What better way is there to spend an hour than shelling fresh beans as beautiful as these?
We shared a booth at the Morgan County Fair with Andrea, of A Rare Breed. At the left you can see the reenactors tent. Note to fair organizers everywhere — don't put these guys next to the livestock tent. Every couple of hours they would march around in formation and shoot their muskets off. It was a bit alarming to all of the animals (and some of the humans).
This is Madeline before she got totally freaked out by 4000 little kids touching her all over. Things were going okay, except for that... and except for the wild goat escape... She was sharing a pen with this handsome boy, Amos. We had them set up with a divider in between in case they didn't like each other, but she immediately hopped right over it to hang with him.
At one point, Andrea took Amos for a walk, and in seconds Madeline took a leap out of the pen, presumably to be with her new man. She dashed around in six directions simultaneously for a minute or so. I nearly had heart failure, but we did get ahold of her eventually.
Overall it was a fun experience and we met a lot of really nice people. I'll know better next time to take an animal who is more used to people, so I don't have to babysit her quite so much.
After the glorious ice storm earlier this week, this morning everything is covered with tiny spikes of hoar frost, frozen dew. The needle-like spikes are 1/4" to 1/2" long.
mostly with the dog. He's taken all of my "spare" time. I'm being "forced" to walk much more, though, and that's a good thing. Here's a few shots from our 3 mile walk today.
I'm telling you, you can't get away with anything in a small town. There is very little crime to speak of, so the police do silly things like pulling people over for not wearing seat belts and monitoring their speed traps (word to the wise, the 25 mph speeding limit is severely enforced in WV towns). I'm not complaining. It's just unexpected for me, urban chick that I am. So yesterday, after a LONG day on the road, Lily and I pull over for pizza in Hancock, a few miles from my house. After dinner, we are just pulling out of the parking lot, not having moved 100 feet, and I get pulled over, for not having that seat belt on.
We strategized in the truck while the officer was running my plates. Lily offered to burst into tears, but we were laughing too hard about that for it to work. So when he came back, I had to tell him the joke about the woman knitting while driving. You know it--this woman is driving very erratically, weaving around on the road, and a cop pulls up alongside and sees she's knitting while driving. He yells "Lady, pull over! Pull over!" She nods, smiles, and drives on. He pulls up alongside her again. "Lady!! Pull over!" Same result. Finally, he has to cut her off and she is forced to stop at the side of the road. The cop is very agitated at this point. He goes to her window, and shouts, "Lady, didn't you hear me?! I said PULL OVER!". She hold up her knitting. "Oh, officer, its actually a scarf".
He didn't get it, man that he was. But I did just get a warning.
1. If you have a nice sunny, warm, cloudless day, with the promise of spring in the air, do not be seduced into laziness by it. Do not EVER neglect going out to the wood pile and getting two days of wood for the porch. EVER. Its lots harder hauling wood in six inches of snow.
2. Location of said wood pile. Think about it. 100 yards from the house was NOT smart. Down a hill, however slight — ditto.
3. Tarps are okay, but this summer, I'm building an open shed.
4. Hauling: this cart is the best thing I've bought for the house, aside from the stove. If you're heating with wood, you need one. This is about a day's worth of wood, by the way.
