Snow

Yep. We got some.

Pictures I do not have because I left my camera at work. Brilliant, eh?

There are a few "dregs" left and I will attempt to take a few shots on my way to work.

The best part was the reaction from Jerry and Alice. This was the first time in their lives they had seen snow (they are technically, still lambs). It was very cold and they were sleeping inside of their house for a change. Fortunately, I had slept in so did not let their alarm clock (the dog) out until it was daylight; so I got to watch their first snowy morning. I could almost narrate their conversation by their "body language"

Jerry stuck his head out first and stopped halfway out the door. "Shit! What the hell is this crap?" as he looks first right then left.

Alice, from inside the house grumbles, "Common Jerry, move! I gotta pee!" She bumps him from behind and he stumbles the rest of the way out of the house onto their covered porch where he stands without letting a hoof touch the strange white stuff. The front half of Alice's body appears in the doorway and stops. "Ooooh, wow. What happened to my grass?"

She moves slowly off the porch and out onto the snow, hooves crunching down through 4 inches or so of the fluff. She looks up and down her yard and then looks up and down again. Jerry hasn't moved out from off the porch.

"Jerry," Alice says, "I think we may have a problem. There's no grass out here."

"What is that stuff?" Jerry asks her. "What does it taste like?"

She puts her face down into the snow, gets a mouth full and nose full and immediately shakes her head to try and dislodge it from her nostrils. The snowball in her mouth gets stuck on the fur around her lips. Suddenly she's shaking her head violently and bobbing her head up and down, then paws at her nose and mouth.

Jerry backs up a step in alarm and his back feet go into the snow and he bolts forward into the snow and bumps into Alice, who has finally freed herself from the snow blocks and gasps for air. "Don't eat it!" She orders. She goes over to get a drink of water from the water bin with the de-icer and takes a long drink of water just under the freezing level. Then she heads back into the house. Somewhere in the midst of the short suffocation from snow, she peed.

Jerry stands outside for a moment longer, walks around the entire house, and finally retreats to the relative warmth and darkness of their house.

They did not come out again until I went out an hour later and brought them pelleted alfalfa mixed with cracked corn and some fresh hay. They ate a little and returned to their house.

It wasn't until the next day that they came to realize the white stuff meant them no harm and we enjoyed watching them running and sliding in the snow at dusk. While they had hay in the hay feeder to eat and more hay in a tin kept under their porch roof to eat, they decided that they prefer a small flake of hay laid in the yard on top of the snow. If they would eat all of it I would not mind feeding them that way all the time, but they pick through it, scatter it about and end up trampling most of it. The hay feeder seems to be the most economical way to feed them hay, they just don't like it because they can't pick through it and must eat what comes out the hole.

Where Have I Been?

visited 26 states (52%)
Create your own visited map of The United States

My Bad Housekeeping May Have Saved Lives!

Check out this story:

Germs May Be Good For You

Now they need to hook up with Social Services and find really awful homes in the US and test those kids.

Spinning in progress

I purchased a wonderful, deep purple and deeply soft roving that contained flecks of green from The Barefoot Spinner at the Maryland Sheep in Wool Festival in May. This picture looks washed out.

This looks much closer to the correct color.


I purchased about 2 pounds of this stuff and got just under half of it spun while we were in Maine. I seriously need to sit down and get serious about spinning again or I will never get through it all before Jerry and Alice are shorn.

This is a closeup of the oatmeal colored Wesleyndale Fleece I purchased. This stuff is just yummy... even if full of vm. The closeup shows the softness. The picture below is the most accurate for color.

Growing up

I took some new pictures of my sheep this weekend. Looking back at their lamb pictures, it's amazing to me how much they have changed.

Here they are together: Alice on the left and Jerry on the right

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And here is a preview of what I will be spinning in the spring:

This is Alice's fiber.


And this is Jerry's
.

Aren't they wonderful?

Maine continues

Sally and I had fun with all the fiber she dyed before leaving for Maine. I don't have pictures of the spinning she was working on, but I can tell you she really has a knack for making wonderful stuff.

Here is what we did the first or second day we were there. You can see how warm and comfortable this house is. But we pulled out bags and bags of dyed roving.

I was greatly inspired by the golden yellows, greens, oranges and spots of bright red in all the trees as we drove up to Maine and wants to try and capture that feel in a yarn.

Here are some of the many colors Sally provided for me to work with.

Here is a completed swatch (while blurry) it is hanging on the branch of a tree that I used for inspiration.

This would be my next goal if we had more time to play.

The fun thing is that even Ken got in on the act and did some work with the drum carder. He also seems to have a knack for color blending.

More Maine Pictures

Maine - Day 1

Ken and I just got back from a trip to Maine where we stayed with Sally and Charlie in Rogue Bluffs.

We got a whirlwind tour of the local area during the first few days and here are some pictures from our first fill day there. It was pretty cloudy and I did not do a good job of focusing my camera but here are a few shots from the first day:

Knitting Stress

Yeah, I know that's a conflict of terms. But I have found there are some things about knitting that really stress me out despite the long periods of calm it provides me.

1. Deciding on a project. I can spend HOURS trying to figure out what I want to knit next.And those are hours I probably could have and should have been knitting on one of the objects from #2.
   
2. Guilt over unfinished objects. Well, I get bored sometimes and the next one is calling me (see #1). But why I have to have 10 or so projects running at the same time, none of which are knitting themselves and so it takes me forever to complete anything (see #4).
   
3. Guilt over stash. When I break down and buy when I honestly don't need. It's especially bad when it comes out of the grocery budget.
4. Gifts not completed. At least not completed in a timely fashion. I think friends and family are getting used to this, but I'm trying not to promise anything until it's completed.
5. Lace. I love it and hate it at the same time... I think I've frogged far more than I've completed and I know practice makes perfect, but sometimes I have to finish things that are not quite right (or even close to right).
6. Casting on. Why can't we knit without this step? I don't know why I hate casting on... but I do.
7. Times when I cannot knit and I'm stressed and want to knit...
   

It's crazy talk!

Is this menopause or insanity?

This has not a thing to do with knitting or spinning ... or maybe it does because those are the only two activities that make me the least bit happy these days.

On Friday I actually had a good day. I got out and completed 30 home contacts with my "clients". Of those, there were less than a handful where no one was home. I did not get lost at all and everyone was pleasant and I even got a lunch break. And I made it back to the office about 4:15. This is record breaking stuff here! I felt good!

Then I looked at my email and found an email from my immediate supervisor who was basically scolding me for something I did not know, derided me for being too trusting of the clients, and claimed I had not done something that I did. He also told me I shouldn't have gone out that day and should have stayed in and he wanted a complete report on Tuesday when we returned to work about what I was going to do to fix this problem. Now, there is not a thing I can do about this. My weekend plans are full. I don't get paid overtime. Today (our returning day), I have three regular appointments and a case opening in the morning. And the matter at hand will have already been to court.

Well, long story short I had a bit of a meltdown. I burst into tears. I felt myself getting horribly angry. I decided I really needed to quit my job that I was obviously a complete failure at it and I really hated my position and I certainly hate my supervisor. I fired off an email to him stating that he was not being fair, and I would work on it over the weekend.

Unfortunately, in my hurry to pack everything up and hustle out the door (in tears, mind you), I forgot the powercord to the laptop.

I drove home crying and actually started considering ways to quit my job. I did not sleep well that night. I woke up with a horrible sinus headache (probably from the crying). On Saturday I spent the day feeling like crap but got a few things done around the house. I cleaned a lot of odd junk out of the sheep yard (logs and what not uncovered from their grazing). I planted some more grass seed. I discovered that evening that I did not have the powercord and again felt like crying.

That night I had the notion that folks might be better off all around if I was dead.

Fortunately, I've been here before and I recognize that as a notion that is irrational and driven purely by a chemical imbalance. For now, I can fight that off.

I know it's depression. But I'm taking an anti-depressant (Sertraline, generic for Zolof). I've been taking it for just over a year. And it's been working just fine. Why this sudden onset of worsening symptoms?

Is it the Autumn Blues?
Menopause?
I've recently stopped drinking... could that be the problem?
I also just finished a course of Prednisone for my back -- roid rage?

In any case, the whole thing is really frustrating and I can talk about it rationally and I know one side none of the depression thoughts make sense. I should be able to handle some criticism from my supervisor. But this is really debilitating and frustrating.