Wellington Fibres

Here are the photos from the trip to Wellington Fibres.

These are the breeding herd goats.

This is a boy goat, who is waiting to be sold to another farm.



This is fleece that has been dyed, and it waiting to be washed.

This is washed fleece, hung up to dry.

Picked fleece (that's the step after drying; it takes out all the extra bits of stuff) going into a carder.

And coming out the back end of the carder.



These are the roving cakes that are make by the carder, waiting to be fed into the spinning machine.


This is the spinning machine.

This is a skein of spun yarn.

And this is the store!

I don't have photos yet of the lovely yarn...Mom spoiled me with enough for a sweater, and I got two colours of merino/mohair blend that will make Fred and I each a pair of socks.

The cake was wonderful - both to eat and to look at. Fred did a fantastic job! But I forgot to take a photo, sorry.

A weekend in the country

Ok, so, really only a morning in the country, but I couldn't pass up the chance to hum a little Sondheim.

Anyway!

Tomorrow morning I am accompanying my mother, some of her guild members and some of the London Handweavers and Spinners guild to a goat farm! Wellington Fibres is about a 30 minute drive from home. They raise angora sheep, which produce mohair. Mmmm...mohair. I'm taking a camera with me. And some cash. But the debit card stays at home.

While I am out playing with goats, Fred will be at home baking this cake. We're going to a pot-luck Hallowe'en dinner party tomorrow night, and he decided while flipping through my Martha Stewart catalogue, that this would be our contribution, and that he would be making it.

I should be home from the goat farm by about two, just in case.

Day by Day

We did not have to make a trip to the vet today! Roo is doing much better: she's eating and drinking and not vomiting! She's kept everything down for 36 hours, now we're waiting to see when/if she'll have a bowel movement. Let me tell you, I never thought I would look forward to picking up dog poop.

Her balance is still off, and she falls over when she shakes her head or tries to chase a cat - but at least she's back to wanting to chase cats.

Thanks everyone for your good thoughts and wishes.

It doesn't look good

This is Roo. Up until last Thursday she was pretty darn healthy for a senior puppy. Sadly, although the head tilt is going away, she's still vomiting. On the vet's advice we've tried switching her hard food for soft, tried not giving her the anti-biotics, tried giving her Gatorade. She'll eat or drink a little and then at some point later on it all comes back up again. We were hopeful yesterday - she went for almost 24 hours without bringing anything back up again, but today... let's just say we're going through paper towels at an accelerated rate. The vet says that if the vestibular disorder diagnosis was the correct one, we would have seen a marked improvement within 3 days so it is likely something else. We'll wait to see how she is on Friday, but if there is no improvement, we will probably have to say good bye to Roo this Saturday.

The good, the not-so-good, and the downright crappy - updated!

It's been a crazy couple of weeks.

The good: the new job is exciting and only a half-hour drive from home, compared to the roughly two hours each was I was travelling. I miss my friends from the last job, but that's about it. As a going away gift, the company gave me a round-the-world tea package. Once a month for the next 6 months, I will get two fancy teas in the mail. Usually people who quit there get a "Don't let the door hit you on the way out" kind of good-bye, so the gift was quite a pleasant surprise. I got spoiled for my birthday this year too, with knitting books and yarn and more tea and an evening with Fred (he works the afternoon shift, so we don't see each other during the week usually), and I went to meet some internet knitters and eat gelato last night.

The not-so-good: Last Sunday we brought Fred's 14 year old husky/shepherd cross home to live with us. We expected that the cats would be unhappy with the change, but the level of unhappiness was far worse than we expected. Like, Zoe climbing the blinds in the kitchen then making Fred bleed really badly when he tried to get her down, then her racing across the top of the kitchen counter trailing urine (the cat's) and blood (Fred's) after her. The cats have pretty much lived in our bedroom since Sunday night, although they will go out into the hallway for food and to use the litter. We had to put a baby gate at the bottom of the stairs so that the cats live on one floor of the house, and Roo lives on the other.

The downright crappy: When I got home from knitting in public last night, Roo was sick. At first I thought it was just because she had gotten ahold of and chewed up a bunch of kleenex. So I cleaned up the carpet, gave her a drink and took her out to pee. Then she threw up again. All the water she'd just drunk. This went on all night, with her only being able to keep water down for about 5 minutes, and not wanting to eat anything. She didn't even want any peanut butter. Fred is on his way to the vet with her. We're both thinking kidney failure, and Fred said that while the vet didn't want to diagnose over the phone, he felt from her tone of voice that she agrees with us. So after a traumatic 5 days with the cats, it's about to get a whole lot more traumatic.

Edited to add: Apparently we get the slightly broken animals. Roo has the same thing that Zoe does - vestibular disorder. This is something that manifests in young cats and old dogs. I'm very happy that Roo's illness is not the worst-case scenario, but boy, it would be nice to have an animal at some point that isn't dizzy or limping or running away from dust.

Forever and a day...is how long it's taken me to get this posted.

Before the ceremony

Exchanging vows



Official kiss


Ring photo

Us with my girls

Fred getting in trouble (so it's all back to normal pretty quickly!)

In other very, very exciting news, I will be starting a new job October 1 that is only a 30 minute drive from home! Woo!

eta: Thanks to Allison, Jess and Callie for photo help!

It's like s*x, but better!

Ok, maybe not quite that good.

Still, loving Buffy and Dr. Who this just gave me a big fangirl squee, and considerably lightened up my Thursday afternoon.

Women Deliver

How badly do I want to go to this?

Women Deliver

So, so badly.

Sadly, People In Ties Inc. doesn't have a GL code for "feminist interest, and helping the women of the world".

They do have one for golf though. Hm. I wonder if I could make that work.

Circlet!

The last piece of jewelery is made!

Circlet front

Side

Back

Other side

Tonight I'll start sewing the dress together.

Two weeks! Woohoo!

I'm in Ravelry!

If you're not a knitter, or a friend/family member of a knitter, feel free to scroll down at look at my pretty wedding dress fabric.

*looks around*


*hyperventilates*


I got my invite to Ravelry!

I was all set to go quit my job so that I could stay home and knit/play on the knitting internet full time, then I realized that if I do that, there will never be any cash-ola to buy stuff to knit with, and they'd cut off my internet access.

Poop.

Whee!!!

The underskirt is mostly done.

Next, I move on the the overdress.


The necklace and earrings are made.



And I have my shoes.


I still need to make a thingy for my head (circlet won, but I'm still figuring out how to make one).

I am still waiting to hear back from the minister.

That's about it! Nineteen days. Woo!

Checklist

Done

~ Marriage License obtained
~ space for ceremony/Minister of Ceremonies booked
~ my ring (inherited from my paternal grandmother, via my mother - yes, I know that's an odd way of doing things)
~ Fred's outfit (he's wearing a suit and whatever shirt/tie he feels like putting on that day)
~ restaurant reservation (although I'll be confirming it again a little closer to the date. The girl (and yes, I mean girl, not woman) seemed a little distracted and giggly when I called, and thought I said five, not twenty-five)
~ asked friend to take photos
~ guest list finalized (of course, with only 25 people invited, that was pretty quick)
~ asked my mom and Fred's oldest friend (who just happens to be here from Texas at the time!) to be our witnesses

Still to do

~ get Fred's ring
~ get fabric for my dress, figure out what I'm putting on my head (I can't decide between a beaded snood, or a beaded circlet), make dress/jewelery/head thing
~ make and send invites that need mailing, hand out the rest, make map to go in invitations
~ talk to Minister of Ceremonies about the ceremony to find out how it all works, and if we can have music
~ if we can have music, find some (we have ideas, but nothing concrete)
~ figure out what I'm missing and do that

Less than 30 days people! Woo!

Official Announcement

The date: Friday August 3rd

The time: 1:00 pm

The place: Evergreen Seniors Centre, Guelph

The thing: We're gettin' hitched!

The dress. The one on the left, with the underskirt. Which won't have the fabric bought for it until less than a month before the wedding. Yipes!

Woohoo!

There are wonderful people in this world.

Today someone did something wonderful for me. Ok, technically she did it a while ago, but I'm only just finding out about it today.

I got home from work to find a bright turquiose squishy envelope in with my mail. I looked at the return address and thought "who do I know who lives there?" Then I opened it and found this:



This is Socks That Rock sock yarn from Blue Moon Fiber Arts. It is hand-painted. It is something I have wanted to try since I discovered sock knitting, but have only admired from afar until now, since we keep having to do things like spend rent money on sick kitties.

A woman named Johanna I know a little from the ren fest I used to work at, who is the sister to a close friend of mine and who once helped me try to find a job got me yarn. She got me wonderful, happy-making, beautiful, hand-painted sock yarn in a colourway called Puck's Mischief.

All I can say to her is thank you.

Zoe is much better and says thank you too, for making my day so much brighter.

Well, now. That's not shocking at all.

You're The Mists of Avalon!

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

You're obsessed with Camelot in all its forms, from Arthurian legend
to the Kennedy administration. Your favorite movie from childhood was "The Sword in
the Stone". But more than tales of wizardry and Cuban missiles, you've focused on
women. You know that they truly hold all the power. You always wished you could meet
Jackie Kennedy.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

I re-read this book about once every two years. It's a favourite, and got me interested in the Arthurian legends in the first place.

Update. Without photos.

I've been wanting to update. I've been wanting to post photos. I just can't seem to be awake in my house long enough to find the camera, take the photos and sit down at the damn computer.

So, photoless, I update.

Zoe is doing much better. So much better in fact that a pie plate (with pie still on it!) was knocked off the top of the refrigerator. I also come home every day to the taped-up cupboard where the garbage lives wide open. Sometimes with garbage on the floor. And the daily struggle for dominance between Sabre and Zoe is back up to normal levels. We've got another week of anti-biotics, and two more doses of Prednisone, and another follow-up visit to the vet on Tuesday. There was one recurrence of Zoe having a dizzy spell, after (while chasing Sabre) she bonked her head on the bottom of the coffee table, but it passed quickly and didn't keep them from moving on to I Am The Boss, No I Am The Boss, Round 478. Dorky cats.

I finished (and wore) my first pair of non-vanilla socks. For those unfamiliar with the term, that means they are the first socks I've done with a pattern on the leg and top of the foot. They're Roza's Socks by Grumperina from the latest Interweave Knits. I'm now on incarnation 4 of a pair I am designing myself, using Debbie Bliss Cashmerino in some light orange colour. I am also using up the ends of my first four pairs of socks by knitting in stripes. It's fun! They're gonna be a butt-ugly combo of blue/brown, red with multi-coloured flecks, purple/blue, and olive-drab green.

A couple of weeks ago I said good bye to Shadoe, my husky dog. We got him as a puppy when I was in Grade 12. That means that he was somewhere in the neighbourhood of 17 years old, a fantastic age for a dog. When I went off to University he stayed with my parents. When I finished University, I moved to Toronto to live in a succession of apartments, which is no way for a big dog who loves to run to live. So he stayed with my Mom, and moved with her to the farm when she and her partner bought one. He was very, very happy there, and I think that (along with the fact that my mom and step-dad take very good care of their animals) is why he lived to a venerable age. They had him put to sleep because even though his he had arthritis and was deaf, and probably mostly senile, and they kept hoping he'd just go in his sleep, his heart was very strong. So we finally all said good bye to him. It was hard, but he was getting to the point where his pain wasn't manageable anymore, so it was time, maybe past-time. I'm very happy that my mom and step-dad took such good care of him, I think much better than I would have been able to. So thank you to them, and thank you to Shadoe for being such a lovely boy.

Yesterday I spent the day at The Church of the Holy Trinity with about 100 other witches doing meditation/trancework/storytelling with Starhawk! It was a wonderful, if tiring day. There were epiphanies had, and laughter with my friends, then a spiral dance and a good dinner. It was really nice to see that there is a community of people out there who think/believe in a similar way to me.

This weekend is going to be busy. Grocery shopping then ritual tonight, band rehearsal, then a going away party tomorrow, then on Sunday I will attempt to cram two week's* worth of laundry, weeding of my garden, other assorted housework and a visit from Mom into one day.

So there probably still won't be any photos. :)


*Somebody please tell me whether the apostrophe here is wrong. Please!

Send more tuna! aka My Cat is on Prednisone

Zoe has something called a vestibular disorder. Basically, her head is tilted to the left side, and she's walking funny.

On Sunday she tried to jump up onto the kitchen counter but missed (missing is fairly normal, we don't have the most gracefull of cats in this household). I think on the way down she bashed her head. When she landed she started to do this thing that looked like she was trying to swim across the linoleum. We kept an eye on this behaviour, and talked to a friend who works in the vetrinary industry, and kept keeping an eye on things. Around midnight Zoe started yowling and looking for somewhere to hide, so we called the emerg vet clinic, packed up the cat and booted it to Cambridge.

The original diagnosis was bilateral vestibular disorder, which means the peripherhal vision in both eyes was affected. It's a neurological condition that can be brought on by anything from polyps in the ear canal to trauma to a stroke. Zoe spent the night at the emerg vet, then we picked her up at 7:30 am and tried to get a bit of sleep before going to our regular vet in the afternoon. The emerg vet had suggested trying to get Zoe in to see a neurologist, but by the time we got to see our own vet, the condition had improved enough that it's only affecting the left side of Zoe's head now and our vet felt that a $4000 MRI probably wouldn't tell us anything really pertinent. Whew!

So now I have added duties to the cat herding roster. In addition to needing to give Sabre a bit of aspirin every other day so that we don't have a repeat of the leg incident from last summer, Zoe gets two antibiotic pills a day, and one Prednisone pill a day.

Send tuna (for Zoe), send Bailey's (for me).

Early Morning

Riding the escalator up into the glass atrium after getting my morning coffee
I can see the first beginnings of the sunrise,
A backdrop for the brightly lit crane, already moving,
Building the next tall thing to bring more shade to the city.

At my desk there is a beauty in the silence;
No people, just the sound of the air intake system
And the hum of the flourescent lights
(Most of which haven't been turned on yet).

6:45 am is too damn early to be at the office.

Vacation booked!

I have just booked myself a week off at the beginning of April. I have no plans, nowhere to go, nothing pressing that needs doing. There will probably be some crafting since I'm working towards setting up my own etsy shop and will need some stock for that. I may even paint my kitchen and start getting my sewing room set up. But mostly I'm going to stay in bed late, cuddle my kitties and spend a little time with Fred.

I can't wait!

I've also booked a day of mid-April because Starhawk is doing a workshop in Toronto! Woohoo! [dances]

I've been feeling incredibly run-down, beaten down, and just generally at the end of my rope, mostly due to work and commuting. I'm hoping that a week away from it, and a bit of a spiritual jump start will help a little. There is a plan to get out of cube hell, but it's going to take some time, so I'm taking a break in the interim. Yay!

Since Meg asked...

The only revelation I got from cleaning the bathroom was that they really, really mean it when they say not to use mildew remover unless your space is well-ventilated. Chemical burns inside the nose hurt. Happily, my nose was back to normal in about 24 hrs. so that I could smell the vanilla body shop perfume that got all over the bedroom carpet when one of the cats knocked it off my dresser and the bottle broke. Gah. Vanilla's nice and all, but not that much of it all at once. It smells like a cookie exploded.

I spent some time yesterday throwing out old perfume/nail polish/make-up. I can see the top of my dresser again, and there is nothing breakable on it anymore.

It's a good thing I love my kitties.