Store and Serve Cool

Okay. So, here I am listening to the Super Bowl play by play on the Sirius Satellite radio. I have only now, two or three minutes into the first quarter, realized that what I am hearing is Flemish! (No, not phlegmish!) Ack. Apparently, the Big Game is being satellite-cast in 12 languages.

So very cool! I'm catching "Play action Manning" and "First down." Otherwise, it is not quite understandable.

I am hoping for a Giants win, because, well, we all hate Tom Brady (the horn dog) and the Patriots here in the Cult of the Colts. I had hoped for a Manning and Brady match up, but who thought it would have been little bro Eli and not Peyton (the Pure)???

Added later: I think it is so cool that BROTHERS have won back to back Super Bowls!

Open Along Edge

Not much shakin'. Sort of cold here with a smattering of snow. Oldest Brother wrote from the Great White North that is Upper Indiana to say that schools were closed and snow was deep. HA-ha.

Actually, there is something shakin' because, a few days early, Sheila delivered eight bouncing babies! Healthy and with no parts chewed off. Four are black and four are not black. I'm not going to post pictures yet because you have all seen pink and black squirming, hairless, sightless kits. (However, I never, ever get tired of the babies.)

Little Wednesday, on the other hand, is growing apace. Huge, actually! Eleven ounces at just over three weeks. I think he is an angora, even.





So. Right now, there are twelve bunnies in the house. Oh, hell, we don't mind.

Oh, yeah! Sweetie's socks are progressing. More on them later.



Go here for a cheap shot at Paul McCartney. Did you know he is sixty-five fuckin' years old?

Breathe Deeply

Today, Sweetie mocked my reclusiveness. In the real world and the less-real world of Ravelry.

He visited my profile there and said, "Hey honey, this is just like MySpace and FaceBook! It's social networking!" Oh crap, I thought. How dorky it this. "You really need to get involved if you want Fuzzarelly Fibers to grow!"

I know. I know. I hear you. Shut up, dorky butt.

I recently sold every-little-bit o' Fuzzarelly Fiber to The Sassy Spinster in Lancaster, Texas. So if I talk up FF, then I will actually have to make more. Sigh and dammit. (crank crank crank)

Sweetie just laughed out loud at me. Out loud! I'm glad I can amuse him. The Rat Bastard!

So. I updated my profile on Ravelry and friended four or five people that had friended me. Hi, Shannon, Valerie, Victoria, Kitty, Nancy! And I joined two whole groups.

Even worse, fuzzarelly.com has been getting hits from the Fiber Event in Greencastle, and the Southern Indiana Fiber Arts Festival in Corydon. That means I really need to actually update and work on the site. Double Crap and Damn!!

I can not work! The bats and acid-crazed brown recluse spiders make it impossible for me to deal with people!

Pictures of Wednesday. Not quite three weeks old and currently 8.1 oz! Astounding! Despite my earlier doubts, I think he'll make it.



Lastly, forced Sweetie out of the house yesterday to visit a beaver mound, which is in a quarry lake down the road a bit. Couldn't quite photo the actual beaver home but here is an example of their handiwork.



'Beaver mound' made me realize that I haven't bathed or changed clothes in some time. Maybe it is the inner homeless person, european, psychotic in me. Is this TMI? Please excuse.

Season to Taste

The ears ain't what they yousta was.

This morning, on NPR, there was an interview with The Wigs. I think that's what the band was called. Maybe it was The Whigs. Hell, I can't hear anymore. Their first song, was, I swear, "Michigan Troll."

Then they sang and it went something like, "Michigan Troll - Come in, over."

How I love that troll! It should be the state non-human of the upper and lower peninsula!

Do Not Fold

Okay. So.

Can you believe that January is mostly over? It is 6:30 as I write this and there is still a glimmer of light in the western sky. Cool beans. Now is the time that it is the hottest part of summer in the southern hemisphere. How weird it seems to us, to live in Australia with Christmas in July, as it were.

I would like to experience the white nights of summer sometime in Alaska or Sweden. The gloriousness of having the sun available for so long. Parteee!

Anyhoo. Here in realtime, Wednesday is growing! 4.6 oz. after tonight's feeding.



I've taken to putting W. into mom's cage for feeding. She feeds and grooms him nicely, but he still lives in his bowl. (Not that I know he's a boy, but I hate to keep calling him an it.) His eyes are open! He can be weaned at three weeks (he's two weeks now) if need be. In a few day's time he'll outgrow the bowl and I will have to decide where he'll live. Mom may go into the backyard enclosure - no more boarding with Percival!





Here he is in his bowl with Candy's pelt.


The late, lamented Candy. Her pelt is in it's final stages. It is out of the brine, has been washed, and I am conditioning the skin side stretching and pulling on it while damp. Lastly, I will rub the flesh side with mink oil. Considering the circumstances under which I acquired her pelt, I believe it has turned out purty good. I now have the confidence to do this again - and may try some fresh road kill raccoons later on. Or squirrels. Maybe not skunk. Spring is fraught with wandering small mammals around here. The poor little flattened things could be put to some use beyond buzzard food. They can have the innards, I will take the fur.





The New Shawl is progressing. As are the Sweetie Socks. Nothing worth imaging. The shawl is a mere purple blobby boob on the 16" circulars. It is time to cast on for the second sock, as I have knit the better part of the first sock's leg bit. I am a firm believer in knitting a pair of socks simultaneously in order to avoid the dreaded Second Sock Syndrome.

Sheila has been in a nest building frenzy! She's taken the Swiffer sheet from the mop, along with refuse from my studio (NNS old jacket sleeves, for example), and every bit of alfalfa and broom straw that she can find. Her babies are not due for two more weeks.

Use Adequate Ventilation.

Must admit that I am still in the bunker - avoiding the silent, hovering, WalMart-sized bats. The ones with the flashing lights.

Sometimes I am so ashamed of my lack of ability. This time it was the lack of ability, and common sense, to keep Percival and Floppy separated, up in the barn loft. She had babies and are we surprised? Because bunnies never have a tendency to reproduce like, what, rabbits? Do they?

So I found her babies one morning, which had scattered. Two were cold and one was chilled. I took that one and held it to my chest for several hours until it warmed. Mom is now in the kitchen but the the kit is kept separated from her, as she seems to have no mad mothering skillz whatsoever. I have been loathe to even acknowledge the kit, as it reflects so badly upon me and my husbandry skills. Also, I wasn't sure that it would make it.

But it has! Ten days so far. Little Wednesday has finally started to put on weight - it's up to 3 oz. and is brown like its daddy. Little babies never cease to amaze and fill me with wonderment.



A note - At first, I placed mom on her back and placed the little one one her belly to feed. Which it did, but it didn't put on any weight. Grew fur, whiskers, and bigger teeth, but did not gain a gram. A few days ago, I sat mom on a chair and let the little one feed from underneath, as in nature. That's when Wednesday began putting on the tenths of ounces. Floppy appears to acknowledge that this thing is hers, sort of, as she stands quietly for the process.

And Hi!, it's fucking cold here. The furnace is balky. It works, sort of. Some part needed to be ordered to correct the problem so the thing will not be fixed until Monday. Tonight is forecast to be 6 degrees. I'm not worried about me (we still have a wood stove and a shed full of fire wood for just such an emergency) or the bunnies (who take the cold much better than the heat of summer) except that their drinking water turns into ice blocks. Bunnies won't eat if they can't drink.

So - we are all fine. Sweetie has been working lots and I miss him. He has tomorrow off - in order to catch up on his sleep.

Being the book slut that I am, I ordered the first and second books of Modern Lace Knitting by Marianne Kinzel. Using the belly button cast on, I have successfully started the Azalea pattern from the first book. I am using the purple cashmere - again. I gave up on the last shawl effort. I seemed so unable to do a simple two-row repeat - but this time all seems to be going just fine. Go fig. And I have begun a pair of socks for Sweetie, from the book he gave me in December.

This site is too funny. That is, if you are a news junkie.

Dispose of Properly

Layin' low to avoid the bats.

Finished the socks.



Only one squirrel was harmed in the making of this website.