Fantastic Day

Allison asked me if I would be interested in partici-
pating in a spindle boot camp of sorts. She spindles during staff meetings and several of the staff have expressed an interest. I'm still a beginner myself but said yes.

Allison is an amazing teacher. I took lessons from her when I got my wheel, lo those many years ago, and before we left, she had taught the ten-year-old girl in this group to spindle. Malinda is doing great too!
Amy (in the fore-
ground) was my spindle teacher. I'm not sure what the attraction is to the spindle, but it's gaining appeal. I think it's quiet and more zen than the wheel.
I was trying to ply two spindles-
full of singles during this time. This is my first spindle-plied yarn, and I'm going to be looking for some instruction at Spindle Camp next month. It was close to a disaster. I decided to try the Turkish spindle since it creates a center-pull ball but I'm not loving how tedious it is to wind on.
When I left for town this morning, the work had just begun on our yard for the fire-fuel and cheat grass abatement program. We applied several months ago and are one of the last families to get treatment for this year.

This is what it looked like a couple of weeks ago.

And this is what it looked like when I got home this evening.

Before.

Today.

This program is through the Fire Safety Council. Most people who want to remove the fire fuel from their property do so by brush hogging, which eliminates all the brush and fuel and native habitats. The Council wants to eliminate the fire risk, knowing that it's more cost effective than fighting a fire, but they also want to leave wildlife habitats. In a fire, that 3' brush would crown at three times it's height, or nine feet. They leave the brush "islands" spaced far enough apart so that the fire isn't able to charge through dense brush - compare to the before picture.

Before the team begins, they broadcast seed from five strains of native grasses. The tractor is called a masticator and it chews up the brush with its jaws and lays that down over the seed like mulch. It's going to look raw for a whole season, but next year it will again appear like a natural landscape. It's unfortunate that bird nests were lost today and that makes me very sad. We have an nth of the quail this evening as we usually do.

We had a dry lightening strike several years ago at the foot of our property where the terrain is pretty rugged. The fire department had a heck of a time getting to it and that's left me uneasy ever since. They're going to try to get all the way down to where that fire was. I don't see how they can, but if they're optimistic, I'm going to be optimistic too.

What I haven't posted about is the worrisome past few days with my oldest son (in Oregon) who was hospitalized early Saturday morning for an excruciatingly painful small bowel obstruction with a possible surgical outcome. He had surgery for small bowel obstruction when he was twelve. His doctors tried their best to not "rush to surgery" and their choices paid off - he was released home today. Assuming it is scar tissue related, he's on a liquid diet for a few more days, with orders to adopt an high-fiber diet. My grandsons have been terrified, and 12-year-old Logan broke down and sobbed after his first hospital - his powerful daddy rendered mute by the NG tube down his nostril. The silver lining? My DIL's mother had driven up for Mothers Day and was able to care for the boys so Missy could stay in the hospital with Josh. Julie babysat for them when they lived here - no one could have been more well-suited to that task.

I got four beautiful new tires, had lunch with my daughter, got my swimming haircut updated, caught 20 lovely laps before picking up the CSA box, and now I'm listening to my black lab snore. This turned out to be an absolutely fantastic day!