Be Careful What You Wish For

I was thrilled when my new end-feed Schacht shuttle came and had already watched a video on winding pirns. I'm surprised at how much yarn a pirn holds. The instructions said that the tension set when the shuttle is received is usually adequate and cautioned against loosening the tension too much as the springs would fall out. It wasn't letting the yarn pass so it was clear to me that I had to loosen the tension, but the cautions made me very nervous so I'm not sure I'd let off enough tension before I threw in the towel, no pun intended. Plus the shuttle is huge and the shovel-nose was scooping the warp threads.
I had to unweave a couple of times so went back to my favorite, a LeClerc shuttle. This used to belong to Jean, Laura's mother, and she gave it to me after Jean passed away. It's so light in my hands - it just flies across the shuttle race, I catch it and then toss it back. I've gotten the rhythm that Laura Fry says must come before good selvedges. It just ironically occurred right after I ordered the new shuttle, or I wouldn't have made that purchase. Nevertheless, the weavers I respect all are happy with their end-feed shuttles, so I've decided to weave the last towel on this warp with it.
I had to make a quick trip into town this morning to see our financial advisor. We had to make an accommodation for our taxes and it had to be done before tomorrow, so I treated myself to a 40-minute swim. Driving home I was in love with this sky!
It has been gray and blustery for so long that I had a hard time concen-
trating on my driving and not the clouds. Talk about a sight for sore eyes.

In going to town this morning, I forgot my phone so was at the place of the first sky shot when I had to turn around to go home for it. I called and said I'd be a half hour late. I'm an aging driver with an aging car, and I'm not a risk taker - I have a long drive on isolated roads. I decided to take the highway instead, since I could speed - but I came to a complete halt in the canyon before the highway. I herd of muletail deer were crossing. I was so awestruck that I completely forgot my camera - shoot.

I've been thinking about the white fleece that Alexia and I were drum carding, speaking of clouds. It really was like a brillo pad after I spun it up. I decided when I got home that I'd pitch that fleece and also take inventory of all the fleeces in the garage, which I have now accomplished. I am shy five fleeces and the remaining are all labeled and arranged by what I have. That still leaves 20 bins of fleece. At least now I know my inventory and I'm spinning my way through it for lap blankets. I'm probably overly optimistic, but it would certainly be nice to make a dent in that stash. I've realize I've spent a fortune in processing.

I gave our candidate, Xio Rodriguez, the lap blanket that I had finished to use in a future silent auction and I'm getting ready to weave the next one. I took Valerie's comment to heart, about not being a yellow person. I realized that I've struggled to use the yellow yarn I've gotten from rabbitbrush, so that bristly white fleece and the two skeins I'd already spun from it are in the trash. It looked like fluff, but it wasn't. I have really good stuff to spin and a surprising number of alpaca fleeces - not sure how that happened - and also merino - not sure how that happened either. In spite of being overwhelmed, I'm also excited to know what I have in my inventory.

Moving Along

I am doing a program for the library in a couple of weeks and trying to assemble my thoughts and materials. I realize I could do a lot of this by Powerpoint, but fiber is a tactile experience.

Someone gave me the flier when I was last in which says, "Sheep to Shawl: Join Sharon Campbell, of the Carson Sierra Spinners Guild, and experience the journey from collecting wool, to spinning yarn to knitting colorful creations to wear and enjoy. Sharon will bring her tools of the trade and will talk about everything from raising llamas to felting." Now that I've started getting my thoughts in order, I think it's going to be fun, though I don't raise llamas - Ian does - and I don't felt - Mim does.

Ian and I took a drive on Sunday up to Sierra Valley for Mexican food at Dos Hermanos in Sierraville - we think it's best in our latitude. We drove across A23 to check out the wetlands and see what birds are here, and found the area completely under water. This is a pasture and will be again later this year, though those black specks on the right are coots.
Passenger time is good knitting time. My Noro cardi is progres-
sing. We stopped at Woolly Notions, a wonderful little yarn shop in Graegle, California. They're big fans of Noro and were interested in my choice to go stripey in the round instead of chunks of color in separate knitted pieces. I'm interested too. I haven't seen anyone else do this. Perhaps there's a reason why.
I'm trying to make the best use of the sun these few pleasant days and couldn't help taking a couple pictures of the clouds - they're always different and always interesting.

I stuffed my camera in my sweatshirt this morning when I took the dogs for their walk. These form a completely different cloud picture. They're called lenticular, wave or wind clouds. They look like flying saucers hovering near the mother ship. Thanks to orographic lifting, we get wonderful cloud displays.
Those little lens clouds tell me that there are high winds aloft, which will be followed by high winds at my house later. Sure enough, the wind hit here by noon and when checking the NOAA foroecast, I see we have a little bit of storm to follow. No thank you. I'm trying to cut down.

MLK Jr Day

I'm trying to figure out how to weave with these yarns. The three on the left are handspun silk and the scarf on the right, which is now frogged and in two balls, is from the Rambouillet alpaca. I have eight balls of the mohair that I bought at a guild silent auction for $2.00. I bought it realizing that I might be able to tie it in. I don't have yardages yet and really don't know if I can achieve an attractive fabric from these odd balls, but I'm thinking about it.
It was an absolutely gorgeous day today with a high of 60 degrees. I was cutting rag rug strips this morning and when I saw the warm forecast was for just this day, I ate lunch and spent the rest of the afternoon on the deck. I pulled the scarf apart outside since the alpaca is hairy and was a little messy. It was a perfect day for reading and I probably should have used sunscreen.

I love these colors together - the green, terracotta and blue.

It felt like a holiday which seems odd since I don't have a job!

Firecracker Day

Amy pulled her little vintage 1953 trailer out here to spend the 4th of July weekend. We've camped together many times and this was a little quiet in-house camping trip.
She recently had the trailer renovated. Much of the interior space is wood-
burned and decorated by her. She also burned her Sisters-on-the-Fly membership into a plaque.

We spent much of the time on the front porch, with the water fountains plugged in, accompanied by birds singing songs of love.


Our temp-
eratures are still abnorm-
ally low. Amy is knitting to a deadline. This is a log cabin lap blanket for her nephew's wedding next month. The white is from our wether Robbie, very cool.

I'm knitting to a deadline of sorts myself. Diane asked me in May if I'd knit for her. She emailed me the pattern but I've been slow to get the yarn. I'm on it now and will use it for my trip knitting when I go back to Oregon the day after tomorrow. It's kind of weird to knit a sweater without a picture, only directions.

We went over to Mim's at dusk. Her ewes and lambs don't come back to the barn until sunset. They were still up at the top pasture so we visited "the boys." This is Duncan, her ram. Check out those horns! Four of her beautiful boys are already purchased for freezer lambs, sigh.
And here come the flock, running back in for all they're worth. A lamb came in early, got separated and is over on the right, bleating his heart out for his mother, who is calling out for him in return. All in a days work for Mim. It's kinda sad and sweet at the same time.
Mijo, Mr. Person-
ality, is getting bigger, but he's still not old enough to come live with us. He's posing for us with his mom and sister. Goofy. You can see why Mim is attached to him.
Man, Mim has a lot of sheep, which translates into a lot of fleeces to be skirted. Wait. Do you see that goat?! A goat with no ears. I'm confused. Why make goats with no ears?
We didn't have fireworks for our July 4th, just this firecracker of a sunset. It was a real popper.


The color was so over-
whelming that we had a double sunset, of sorts.

Retirement Eve

I finally finished the hat for DD Christina. I'm anxious to see it on her because, as always, I'm worried about how it will fit. She has soooooo much hair. I'm having lunch with and granddaughter Alexia next week.
The scraps of yarn on the left are all that's left from the gauntlets and hat. I had so much fun that I've decided to do it again with the yarn on the right. I need to dye up some sock yarn for contrast so I can start. I'm starting to think it might be fun to wind off the second color repeat and try some toe-up socks from Cat Borghi's book. I've got lots of time.
After all these years, I'm still taken aback by hour our beautiful clouds.

Last night on my Retirement Eve, I was helping the last library patron of the night. We had already closed up the building, dropped the blinds and locked the doors. My poor patron couldn't understand why I wasn't seeing his overdue books that he had just asked me to renew. Pam told me later that he had asked her and she had already done that.

I explained that the first any of his materials was due wasn't until July 1st. He's about 35, very pleasant and usually comes right before we close. I turned the monitor so he could see the screen with me and had leaned my body, supported by my right elbow onto the counter. At that moment, our heads were less than a foot apart. Suddenly a wave of something passed through me and I thought I was going to pass out. I looked at the patron and saw that he too was experiencing something, so it occurred to me that we must be getting a current through the counter. I felt myself falling to the left, but when I stepped back to keep my balance the effect passed away.

It was then that I realized that my patron was having a petit mal seizure and was frozen in a partial crouch to his left. I signaled to two other staff in the building and they both came over to help us; Pam rolled up a chair for him to sit in as his seizure began to pass. Liz wanted me to call 911, but the other seizures I have exprienced have cycled thorugh in minutes, as did his. As he came back, he told us his dad was there and we brought him in. Within five minutes, it was over and he walked out with his dad.

When I was a medical transcriber, two of my accounts were neurologists. I couldn't help think how little we see seizures these days, due to the miracle of modern drugs. I talked to Ian after I got home, because I didn't realize the electrical current could pass from one experiencing a seizure to another, but as he pointed out, we were both grounded by the counter. I woke up this morning, way too early, thinking about the event again. It happened on the last night of my entire library career, reminding me that life will always be full of surprises.

El Sol

The weather has been specta-
cular and I spent the entire day on the deck. I read, knitted, and yes, I even took my wheel out and spun for a while with my faithful companions. Best friends. While short on precipitation, this has been a consistently cold, grey and wearying winter.

I went for a walk with my best friends. There's still snow on the Sierras, and in fact, the weather is supposed to turn tomorrow to bring us more snow on Sunday. Today was a gift.

I got a generic email on Wednesday, addressing all of the county employees who had applied for cost-savings incentives. It directed me to contact the public employees retirement system - I have been approved for my early retirement buyout. This means I won't have to drive to work in the snow any more. People are asking me - what will you do when you're retired? I'm still thinking about it, but not driving in the snow is really high on my list.

The tempera-
ture was in the low 60s, not especially warm, so when one cloud stepped in front of my heater, I as suddenly chilled. I ran inside for my camera and caught this image. One little cloud, and then it moved on. I was again feeling comfortable.




I freshened the catnip in Charlie's scratcher. He looks a little drunk, doesn't he.

I'm Out of Silk

It's so nice to finally have our skies back again. I took this from the porch yesterday morning. I was reading my daily readings but couldn't resist the temptation to run back into the house for my camera. I know the fires west of us are only 58% contained, but we're finally getting relief from the smoke.

The silk from my brick is spun and ready to be entered in the fair. I weighed it at 2 ounces. I can't wait to knit it, but wait I must. I'm spinning more Shetland for some commissioned hats, then need to do a skein of merino for a hat before I get to decide what I want to spin for me. After reading the Spin Off article on Kaye Collins Alpaca lace shawl, I think I want to spin alpaca. I took a class from her on spinning alpaca about four years ago at the Conference of Northern California Handweavers at Asilomar, California. It was an absolute treat, but I've never wanted to knit with alpaca, until I read that article. Of course, I never wanted to knit lace either.

I shot this from the mailbox tonight.

Spring Flounders, I Think

Mornings are clear and cold. We still need a fire to make ourselves com-
fortable. We are getting low on firewood. This morning the llamas seemed to be happily kushed, but they did have frost on their backs. The calendar says it's spring, but my eyes aren't seeing spring.
By the time I drive home from work, this is what I see. This has been an unusual year - to stay so cold, con-
sistently for so long. We're going to San Francisco next week for a couple of days to see our youngest grandson, and his parents, and when we get home I'm planting tomatoes in Walls-of-Water, and they will grow because I say so. I've had enough.

As for the indigo dye bath, I realized that I didn't tell Sara that I have freeze dried indigo when I asked for her advice. I think I only need lye, and as a soap maker, I have plenty of that. I took an indigo dye workshop from Judith MacKenzie at Black Sheep Gathering a number of years ago. She told us that we needed an electric pot to keep the bath at a consistent temperature. That's how I plan to use the turkey roaster. The rest of the plan is rather nebulous but I expect blue.

Rain

I wasn't going to stop because I was just so exhausted on my drive home from work tonight, but we never get rain - not never, but it's pretty unique so to get out of the car for pictures means getting wet because I'm not wearing protective clothing.



When I realized that I couldn't take my eyes off the clouds and rather than continue to drive badly, I pulled off onto a wide shoulder to see if I could catch a couple good images.

This is taken from inside the car because I was getting a bit wet. I can't believe that I never get tired of looking at our clouds and that they haven't become "old hat" to me. I hope they never do.
The clouds are to the west of my car and on the east I have this. I'm reminded of the Ladysmith Black Mombasa song, "Rain, rain, rain, beautiful rain." Only where you don't get rain, can you appreciate the sentiment.

I had planned to write on the past weekend, but I'm so happy that it rained, the weekend can wait another day.

Clouds

I was driving down to the surface street this morning when I suddenly realized that the only clouds in the sky were these. Here on the eastern side of the Sierras, I'm used to interesting clouds. If you remember from school, it's all a part of the orographic lifting over the mountain block that makes photographs of our clouds find their way into textbooks.



I might as well have had a bumper sticker that said "I brake for clouds" because that's what I did,multiple times. Every time I drove into another valley, I'd think, oh man, look at them now. Pull over, get out camera, shoot from car window.



Suddenly I realized that I had reached the clouds and was driving under them. Brake, grab camera, get out of car, shoot picture, see man in truck in driveway across road with tractor on trailer, wave, get back in car, go through gears to get to speed because car is coming and promise self not to stop anymore or risk being late for work. I'm bummed because my brand new camera, now two months old, needed to have the battery charged. But you can still see the lovely eastern Sierra clouds. The wind has blown hard all day and snow is forecasted for tomorrow, however, my head and knee have not confirmed that forecast. When I drove into the next valley, I realized that these clouds were the northern-most of Reno's cloud cover. Sometimes they will get a storm that will completely miss us - weird.