Swift and Ball WInder

THe antique wooden swift I bought off eBay came yesterday and I have just taken a few minutes away from cooking Thanksgiving dinner to try it out with the alpaca I bought for CIC sweaters.  With a few fits and starts (learning curve), I mastered both it and the ball winder and have wound 3 skeins into balls in the last few minutes  Woo-hoo!  I love it.  I wish I could have paid cash, but I'm glad I bought them.  More time for knitting, and the swift is very decorative too.  Maybe someday a wooden ball winder too.  I dislike plastic of all kinds more and more, and think the world would be a whole lot better off if most of it, especially packaging was simply eliminated.

 

Open wireless

ANd I can plug in my computer in the Vibe, too! Maybe sometimes these modern conveniences are a good thing.

Gentle Giants Rescue

I have been trying to look at this website, to see many different giant breeds and just SEE them, but the site is so huge, even the home page, that I can't even download the whole first page with my dial-up. It even kicks me off the web and I have to start all over again. So I guess I'm never going to be able to look at this site unless I take my laptop to Barnes & Noble or the Millstone Cafe and plan to stay there a while. Or heaven forbid, wait until next summer at Quilt Camp. Wait, if NAU has wireless all over the campus, I wonder if the MCCCD does. I will take my laptop to the CSA pickup tomorrow and see if it can pick up an open wireless system.

Mid-term elections

It was really great working the elections this time, even though as always, it was totally exhausting. THings really went very smoothly, and the turnout was wonderful. And the results were mostly very good too, even here in AZ. I CANNOT understand why Jon Kyl was re-elected, but most of the other people and propositions I voted for passed or failed or whatever. ANd countrywide too, Maybe, hopefully, finally, people have woken up about this gang in the administration and will start trying to undo some of the damage inflicted over the last 6 years. If its not too late for the earth and for our standing in the world.

Visiting friends

My friend TK and her daughter came to visit for a few hours last week, in the area from New Jersey. It was great to see her; wish I could see her more. Her daughter is a very nice little girl. Of course, she would be. Both Fred and TK are nice and intelligent, and they were mature enough to know what they were doing when they decided to have a child. It was funny, though. The little girl wouldn't look DH in the eye. I introduced them when TK was out of the room, and she immediately started fading away. SHe averted her eyes and backed away, and disappeared. We didn't see her again until we went outside to show them around.
I guess he's still got it. Or something. He always used to make women of all ages nervous for some reason, but he is 61 now. Oh well.

A dog to love me

I want a dog so bad, and I think I want a Mastiff. I haven't really known any personally, but I am going to try and rectify that this next weekend. THe Mastiff judging on Saturday is at 8:30, so I can go and watch for a little bit before I have to go to work. And I have joined 2 Mastiff email lists to try and learn more about them.
DH doesn't want me to have a dog. Its not that he doesn't want me to be happy; its that he is afraid his precious foxes won't come around the house anymore if there is a dog living here. I don't think that would happen unless I got some foolish dog that went flying out to chase everything in sight every time the door opened. A Mastiff wouldn't do that, I'm sure.
I guess they do snore though. This process of getting him used to the idea and then actually bringing a dog here to live may take a while. I wish Pat would hurry up and get a dog. He has a harder time refusing me a dog if she has one.

Baby chickens

My little brown hen has hatched 5 of the 6 eggs she was setting. That is so weird; that a white egg hen who is supposed to be a Fayoumi but isn't, would be the one hen in the flock that was firm about wanting to raise a family this year. I bet there isn't another white egg breed except Fayoumis that will set, and she is at best half. Anyway, 2 of the babies are half Ameraucana and half Fayoumi, 2 are half Barred Rock and half Fayoumi, and one is a purebred Fayoumi. THe other Fayoumi egg didn't hatch. So far I'm not sure which are the Amer/Fay and which is the Fayoumi, but the BR/Fay are black. That's easy.
DH thinks I'm really strange because I am more interested in cross breeding and seeing how my crosses turn out than I am in purebreds. He loves his purebred Cornish, (although he does have 3 different colors of the breed) and will fool around with them for hours. Good, that is supposed to keep him from pushing me to do this and that with MY chickens that HE thinks I ought to do. It doesn't really, but at least he isn't quite so insistent.
ANyway, Brownie is being a great mother. Its neat how she shows them what they should eat, and takes them around to explore, etc. I guess I could spend hours watching them too, if I had the time.

Tired

I have been so tired lately. I hope it is just because I am trying to do too much, and not a sign that illness is creeping up on me again. I am going to the doctor (the MD) next week and will have blood work, so will find out something I'm sure. I am also trying to ease my way off the SSRI I take. I have been taking it too long, and I do think its interfering with my adrenal output. And that of course would contribute to my tiredness. THe chiropractor gave me an adrenal support supplement, and I am taking it, but it doesn't make sense to me to take something else to counteract a side effect of another something. We'll see; I could just be having trouble adjusting to working 2 or 3 days a week at the Museum as well as trying to do everything else I normally do.

Warm Hearts, Warm Babies

I sent off a box of 34 handknit baby sweaters to them late last week. I took photos in groups of 3 as I packed them up, so I can copy the photos to my postcards and put them in Christmas cards to show people what I have donated in their names. I really love taking care of Christmas that way; everybody has too much stuff already, and if they want something, they buy it. So giving gifts is just a way of adding clutter to everybody's overfull life already. ANyway, that's the way it is in the world I know. I'm sure there are families that wait all year to get something they really NEED for a gift, but we're not in that world. Bill does try to give Pat something she really needs for Christmas, but a better quality something that will last her for a while. And that's OK.