Skim Off Fat

Interesting weather here in Lovely LAconia. Are you familiar with the eastern curse - May you live in interesting times? It could just as well be - May you have interesting weather.

Yesterday, storms swept across the left middle states (Arkansas, Missouri) and kept going over the midwest. Almost fifty people dead. Thunderstorms, twisters, rain, hail, and wind wrecked havoc.

We be fine and shit. The sirens went off twice, and at the second wail I took shelter in the understairs closet for ten minutes. A piece of metal was torn off our barn and the burn barrel was knocked around. I've seen worse. But this morning, I looked out my kitchen window to the south, and saw what was left of my neighbor's equipment shed - less that a quarter of a mile away. The building had no doors, so it became an airfoil sometime around midnight. The high winds completely lifted it up off its foundation and then flung back down. Hard. Looks like kindling.

No one around here was hurt. Nor in Brandenburg, Kentucky, which is just over the Ohio River. Drove over there today to recycle (and to rubberneck, yes, I admit it.) Several signs, fences, and trees were down and power was spotty. Power poles were snapped in two or tilting at scary degree angles. Windows were shattered and roofs (rooves?) were missing or damaged. Brandenburg was pretty much leveled by a huge tornado outbreak back in 1974, so I bet the older folks were a little freaked.

Knitting News

I've been toiling away on Sweetie's socks. I'm using the Eesti Trail Hiking Socks from Interweave's Favorite Socks book. (Yes, I am using a pattern!) (What can I say? Sweetie bought me the book.) After a frustrated evening of trying to figure out how to reconcile the chart for the fair isle pattern with the written instructions, I put down the socks and slowly walked away. The chart was a multiple of 22, but the written instructions said I should have 64 stitches on the needles. Not divisible by 22. I'm ashamed to say that it took me a while to figure that out.

The next day, I visited the errata page on Interweave's web site. Oh, yippee, there was a correction! I ripped back and began again. However. Yes. There is a however. The new and improved chart was a multiple of 6 and you know whut? 64 ain't divisible by 6, either. I'm ashamed to say that it took me a while to figure that out.

I emailed Interweave, and I was pleased with the quick response - but not by the response itself. "Check the errata page," was their reply.

I did!!

"Okay, I'll send this to the technical editor."

A few hours later, my face turned a little red. The technical editor explained everything and it was my bad. I had read the correction wrong. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I had improvised and soldiered on using the 6 stitch chart repeat over 60 stitches (instead of the 16 stitch chart repeat I should have used over the 64 stitches.) Dammit.

On the plus side, my adaption looks great - it fits Sweetie's leg perfectly. And we all lived happily ever after. La dee doo dah day.




Bunny News

Sheila's babies have turned into fat little fuckers, except for the one that didn't. There are four brown ones and three black ones. I had to remake her nest, though, as the kits were getting lost amongst the sheer volume of material that Sheila has been collecting for 6 months. She used the usual hay and her own wool. Also, wads of Fuzzarelly Fibers that she found in my studio, along with bits of polyester batting and fiberfill, pieces of fabric and a couple balls of yarn. I stuffed a plastic shopping bag full of the overflow and still had plenty of soft stuff left to cushion the babies.

Backstory. Both Sheila and Heizen live freely in the house. House bunnies are not supposed to have free rein. They are supposed to be caged when I am gone, according to the "experts." Blah. Blah. Blah. Heizen the Hut stays entirely in the kitchen and living room. Sheila, on the other hand, has always roamed all over the downstairs. She is very good about using the litter box and not tearing up stuff. She hasn't learnt to climb stairs. Yet. What's not to love?

They are not overly DestructoBunnies™. Yes, they have chewed through their share of electrical cords. (Not so much anymore. They made me become a pro at splicing wires.) And Heizen in particular loves to swipe magazines from the coffee table to nibble on. And there is the occasional doily that gets et. All in all, though, they are good kids.

So. Sheila found a lower, unoccupied shelf in the pantry last year and began keeping house. Sweetie and I, being Sweetie and I, let her do her thang. What we will do once the babies begin exploring their surroundings is a good question. No answer available.

Floppy and Wednesday are now living in the backyard enclosure. (At least Floppy is. Wednesday is small enough to slip through the fence.) Sweetie was aghast that I turned them out when the weather was so bad. I can't keep every critter that we feed in the house. And they are doing just fine outside, thankyouverymuch.

A Bit Late. As Usual.

May peace break into your house.

May thieves come to steal your debts.

May the pockets of your pants become a magnet for $100 bills.

May love stick to your face like Vaseline.

May laughter assault your lips!

May happiness slap you across the face.

May your tears be that of joy.

May the problems you had forget your home address!

In simple words -- may 2008 be the best year of your life, so far.

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.