Woolybuns

One Month Old

Born one month ago, the Bunivere babies are at the utmost of cuteness.  And sweet.  Every time I open the hutch door, they all run to the opening looking for scritches.  Once in a while, one or another will get booted out the door but they weigh almost nothing so tend to bounce, especially because there is a soft landing of dropped hay under the door.  They don't much like the surprise of it, though.  If I'm quick enough, I scoop up the dumfounded baby before it knows what happened.  If I'm not, it scoots for cover and I have to hustle before bunny panic complicates the catch.   Right now, they are at the age where I see them more as a litter than as individuals, but personalities are beginning to emerge.  The self chin girl with the white splotch on her face is kind of the leader of the pack.  She has been at the head of the line for scritches, attention and food right from the beginning.  I'm trying not to attach to any of them individually until I decide which of the silver martens stays here.  The lone boy in the bunch does get my notice, though, as he was the shy one and his mother bit the tips of his ears off.  So I've cuddled him a bit by himself and now he's right in there with his pushy sisters begging for attention.  Bunivere has decided I'm now welcome to give them all the attention I want.  It gets her off the hook.

It's Time Is Now

This has been sitting around for a very long time.  So long I don't even remember for sure what it is.  Other than 50% angora, of course.  There is wool in there, no silk nor alpaca, but I don't remember which wool.  The possibilities are polwarth, merino or blue faced leicester.  I suspect BFL.  The answer may be buried here in the blog, or it might even pre-date the blog.  Except I know it was processed by the talented folks over at Still River Mill and I think I already had the blog by the time I met them.  Guess I'll have to do some blog  digging.  In any case, the processed fiber came back natural bright white and I hauled it to NHSW a couple years in a row, and took it to many a spinning guild meeting.  It just did not sell.  So a couple (few??  not a clue) years ago, when I decided to experiment with dyeing roving, this stuff volunteered.  I threw about 4 ounces in a pot of sapphire.  Angora being so water resistant, I got lots of white and pale blue along with the sapphire.  I'm kind of an easy going type and like randomness so the monotonic variation is fine by me.  I expected when I dyed this that I'd end up with a sotted, felted mess because the roving is very soft.  But no.  Pleasant surprise: this roving dyes easily as long as I don't ask it to be a solid color.  I.e., don't mess with it in the pot and it won't mess with you in the spin.  Not that I actually spun any after I dyed it.  I just fondled it and drafted a bit to see if it would.  Then other stuff caught my attention for a few years.  Yesterday, I intended to felt, even gathered up thoughts, ideas, and materials, only to discover that my tables all took a trip to the town next door in anticipation of a young man's first birthday.  A good cause, one I had agreed to without fully acknowledgeing how long they'd be away, so that left me looking for something else to do.  When I tripped over this ball of roving, I realized it's time has come.   I spun up about an ounce last night and possibly another ounce this morning.  It's a very nice spin!  Turns out I'm glad it didn't sell because it obviously has much to teach me.  Not lace even though that's what I was thinking.  But it's choice is apparently sport or heavier.  I can't wait to see what it wants to do in the knit!

Ouch!

Yesterday, the day started with clear, comfortable sunshine, the kind of day that suggests you could soar like those folks parasailing under the huge happy face at Lake George.  So I shook off that re-entry blah from a fun weekend of little sleep and much junk food and headed to the barn.  It seemed a day wide open with possibilities.  Perhaps with my trainer's nicely developing trailer backing skills, we would finally take that trail ride we've been trying to get in all summer.  But Justin, a 4 year old Appaloosa my trainer owns, had a moment of idiocy and changed all that.  Lucy started her day early, getting the first horse out and working around 6 am to beat the heat.  By 10 am, she'd worked and bathed 4 horses with good results.  Then it was Justin's turn.  He hadn't been out for a couple days because of the ugly heatnhumidity.  He wasn't inclined to settle down on the end of the longe line.  He's kind of a chicken about silly things like the longe whip so Lucy hadn't been using it but he was being... well, a horse's ass, so she bent over to pick up the whip.  Justin freaked, slammed into reverse at about a hundred miles an hour and launched Lucy into the air at the end of the longe line.  By her hand.  Granddaughter Jessie, who saw it all unfold, said Justin flew Lucy like a kite.  The whomp on return to the ground stunned and hurt but did not break Lucy.  That snap into the air, though, focused on her hand.  When I arrived about half hour later, she sat at her kitchen table with her hand cradled in ice, tears in her eyes.  She asked me to take a peek to see what I thought.  It. Was. Ugly.  To the doctor you go, I said.  He confirmed it.  Her hand is broken.  The good news is this break is kind of a clean simple break, unlike the big break from a previous nasty horse accident which broke her femur in 57 spots.  She did not fully recover from that.  If she treats this break as she should, it will heal fully.  But as soon as she had the brace and sling in place, she started talking about how she has no problem training with a cast on her arm.  She's done it before.  We may have to use the longe whip on her.

Bunny Babes 3 Weeks Old

                                 

Turns out, there is only one buck in the litter and he's too embarrassed to show himself.  Seems his mom apparently got a bit too thorough clearing his sac off at birth.  The tips of both of his ears are gnawed off and ragged.  His sisters, however, are all about cuddles and skritches, nibbles and explorations.  This is a very fun litter!

WOOL

Weekend Out On the Lake, I think it stands for, the brainchild of Rows Red.  The place: Wiawaka.  A fun time in a beautiful setting.

Lake George   

Beautiful old buildings. 

             Pretty little gardens everywhere.

Little duckies gliding by.  

                          Spinners scattered about enjoying.  

        

                            

 

And maybe a bit of fiber.

What I came home with, from the silent auction to benefit Wiawaka.

Mid-Summer's Night Gnome

A couple months ago, a friend PM'd me on Ravelry about a swap she signed up for, suggesting I join it, too.  The assignment: get to know your swap partner and create gnomes to swap, deadline Aug. 1.  My swap partner hails from Houston and is Slightly Foxed.  So we connected on both Ravelry and Facebook and got to work.  Packages went out this week.   Mine arrived yesterday, though I did not see it until late last night, nicely in keeping with the theme Mid-Summer's Night Gnome.  Look at the goodies!  Is that face not adorable??  Don't you want to  just cuddle him?  I sure do. And look: he's got a mushroom.  A treasure trove mushroom.  Nice treasure, huh.  Even better: it's dark chocolate which I love and my children  hate.  Heh.   That bag of chocolate?  Yeah, it just might not be as full as when it arrived.  The yarn: 2 skeins of Regia self striping sock yarn, and a lovely soft skein of cotton, colorway Aqua Ombre.  Beautiful color combo! 

I chose to needle felt a gnome.  I've done some needle felting before, first time was in a guild workshop with Sharon Costello.  We made tiny little ornament gnomes and one clever fella, a teenage imp,  made his with a drop seat to his pants with a carefully crafted nekkid butt hiding behind the drop seat.  For this swap, I intended to get my fiber supplies from a local friend but the bum she went to Hawaii when I needed her here.  So I went back to Sharon's website and found the perfect kit.  It's called Woolabies and contains enough supplies to make not just the one gnome I was to make, but a second one.  I thought how fun to make the one then send the rest to Slightly Foxed so she could make her gnew gnome a friend or mate.  I had a lot of fun crafting the gnome and have come to think of him as Gnorm.  He reminds me of the character Eli Lap played by Jan Rubes in the movie Witness, with a slightly more ... impish perhaps? tone.  I had intended a chubbier, more jovial character but these gnomes are a bit like teenagers, with a mind of their own.  No matter your best efforts, they develop their own personality so you love them as they are and let them go.

Eyes Open

Bunivere's babies are now 12 days old, their eyes are open, and their color is evoloving: two self chins and 3 black silver martens.  My early guess on gender: one boy, one girl self chin, at least one boy and one girl marten, and one marten not yet willing to hint.  At this age, those are definitely just guesses.  But I like to guess, keep track of my guesses, and compare final results.  One self chin is definitely a pet wooler, possibly already promised.  That's the one I think is a girl, and she is the one I am most confidant on the guess.  She has a big splotch of white on her nose and a white strip on her forehead.  She is also the biggest in the litter, and the most adventurous.  The other self chin so far is all black. He (?) is also available as a pet wooler because Bunivere apparently got a bit too vigorous when cleaning off birth sacs.  The tip of one ear is chomped off.  The three silver martens are correctly marked and have not been chewed on.  I will be keeping one of them, but I'm not yet sure if I want a buck or a doe.

Wednesday WIPing 7/29/09

My garden grows, my knitting does not.  Before I started the heel on Lucy's Socks, I wanted a fit check.  It was more a reality check.  As in, of course, there was no fit.  While the stitch count is good for her skinny legs, it does not accommodate her big heel.  I have started a new sock for Lucy but only just barely.  It's not even photo worthy yet.   So I distract you with summer veggies and a garden update.  I put in a variety of tomatoes, including early big slicing type, heirloom, plum, and cherry.  Those two puny maters are the early big ones.  Nature must be supported by nurture.  I'm doing my part but Sun Goddess took a vacation (to Texas, I think) and left her grumpy sisters Rain and Humidity in charge here in the northeast.  So I get puny tomatoes and green peppers. Silly size, but still a great addition to scrambled eggs.  Squash apparently will grow no matter what.  My heirloom tomatoes are showing more promise, and pretty shape.  I'm also starting to see activity in the plum and cherry tomatoes, both setting out fruit.  The plums even seem to be reaching normal size, though so far, not quantity.  I hope I get enough for a pot of spaghetti sauce. 

Eat My Dust, Darth Vader

Four kids, two horses, a beautiful day, and a wide open riding ring.  The kids cut loose and whooped it up.  The only words we could understand rang out every time they raced from one end to the other: eat my dust, Darth Vader!  Ahhh, the crazy days of summer when you're a kid left to your own devices.

Eeeee Haaa!

Three of us mounted up yesterday and took the short but oh so sweet ride through the woods to the town riding ring, where we had a productive and fairly uneventful ride.  (Yes, CC lives in a horse friendly town which maintains two large, open to the public riding rings).  I did not ride CC.  She is a stubborn beast who has developed a fondness for kicking up her heels.  Kimmie rides CC and the woman plants her butt deeply in the saddle and It. Does. Not. Leave.  Strong strong legs, just what the stubborn beast needs.  Maybe someday I'll get there.  I rode Honey, Kimmie's 11 year old daughter Jessie rode Snickers, and a newbie to the barn rode Maggie.  Maggie and Honey are pretty bomb proof.  Snickers is part chicken, and definitely a follower not a leader.  But Jessie is the experienced rider in that little trio, so trainer Lucy decreed Jessie in the lead.  Well.  Three horses returning home single file on a wooded path.  Add one bounding deer.  Instant rodeo.  Ok, ok, so I exaggerate a bit.  Snickers was the only one who saw the deer,and he whirled and sought the safety of the back of the line.  Except with trees and brush lining the path, the only way to the end of the line was straight through first Maggie, then Honey.  Maggie started backing up right into Honey.  Honey tried to stand her ground on only her hind legs, but I decided retreat was the order of the moment.  We reassembled on the grass around the riding ring and sorted out what just happened.  I had caught a glimpse of something but neither Jessie nor the newbie saw the deer.  We decided I should take the lead and headed down the path again.  Sure enough, several yards off the path there was a deer standing there, presumably wondering when the real fireworks would start.  She looked awfully satisfied with herself.  Honey and Maggie just ambled on by,  and Snickers found his comfort zone as follower.