Fun for the whole family!

Alas, what I have is not a real pussy willow. It is a cottonwood tree, but it has little grey and fuzzy buds that look extraordinarily like pussy willow branches, to which they are botanically related.



I enjoy what I do have - a lovely cottonwood tree. In my own back yard!

Too many bunnies are bunking in the living room, as attested to by the ceiling fan above them.





The outside baby bunnies, I am relieved to report, are surviving. They are not quite so skittish as in the past, since I released the three at the same time the babies were first venturing out. "The Big Guys aren't afraid of the Big Pink Thing that feeds us. We won't be too afraid either."

This is one of two little brown ones.



And there are three little black ones, too.

see pg. 87 for details - link fixed - I am a Dumas

A very cool version of Come Together. With Ukulele.

Dance around the house happy but has a sad bit at the end.

Satisfaction Guaranteed!

More than a handful anymore. This is Runt, aka JB (after a friend,) aka Tadpole (for his big head,) and one of the Anonymous Others.

I was quite pleased with the two days of work that Mr. Josh Handyman did for me, and I may hire/barter with him for other chores over the summer. I mow his girlfriend's yard, a few doors down, plus his mom's vacant property next door, so I have some capital to barter with.

I even have a new fiber blend, or rather, an old blend that is made new and renamed. No more the Lumpy Bunny, behold the Fuzzy Nuggets, an 80% angora, 20% merino batt the delivers a slightly textured and fuzzy yarn.

This Saturday is the Friendship Spinner's meeting, as well as a preview for us FS members to the new facilities of The Woolery, which has moved to Frankfort, Kentucky. I intend to take my Fuzzarelly Fibers for general sale to the guild, and might as well see if The Woolery is interested. Why not?

So.

I have been busy in the studio. Sweetie worked a funky weekend shift that left me thinking that today was Tuesday. Whew. Now that the weather is warmer, I don't stand at the carder and shiver anymore, and I hope to be more productive.

The Evul Kitteh has vanished, methinks into the jaws of a recently deceased pit bull. (So much drama here in a tiny little town.) And so there are 4 or 5 little outside bunnies surviving plus the three I kept inside. With the warmer weather and their goodly size, it was time.

800 pound capacity

I went to do the barn bunny chores a little late by today's clock and a little early by yesterday's clock. It was almost dark, twilight, with a full moon in the east and the evening star directly opposite in the western sky.

There are little frogs here in ponds, swamps, and wetlands that we simply call peepers. Usually somewhere in the end of February, they begin their love songs - eepcreepeepcreekcreepeepeepcreepcreekeepeepeep At first, it's only a few chirpy voices, and not all the time. If it gets cold again, they lay low, but as it warms and the daylight lengthens, a few voices become tens of thousands and they sing around the clock.

So I was in the barn about 8:15, being serenaded by all these little frogs and listening to the bunnies crunching their pellets. The moonlight shone through the window. And I realized that I could smell, so I breathed in the hay and manure aromas, and the hand lotion that Sweetie bought me in January.

The babies were three weeks old Saturday.



There were terrible storms all around us today, but nothing 'cept wind and a little rain here.

The sun came out. It was fabulous.



Oh, and we have a pussy willow tree! The ice broke this branch not entirely off but the grey fuzzies sprouted anyway. I haven't seen a wild pussy willow, or wussy pillow, in decades.



And the third and final free scarf pattern is in process.




I'm relatively happy.

Everything On Sale

The babies are growing!



Was it last year, or two years back, that I swore I was going to get a maid for my birthday? It never happened. This stuff in the house, I can and should take care of it. Even if I am a layabout.

One the other hand, projects outside these twelve walls are not of my purview. The asthma and allergies mostly preclude me from heavy work outside, yet I have a long mental list of the things I Want Done Out Side. Some items on the list are small, such as 'adjust awning at back door so the rain doesn't pour down one's neck as one exits.' Other items are much bigger, such as 'fix/mend or do-whatever-it-takes to entirely roof the shed.' Wind me up, and I can recite to-do projects for about an half hour.

These outside projects, these things on the Honey Do list, some of them have been mouldering in my brain for several years. And Sweetie does many tasks for me and the house, most everything I ask of him. But sometimes, he works awful long hours, and he can't get to everything. I love my Sweetie!

So I hired me a Handyman, as a present to myself for this 52nd birthday anniverserary. Sweetie and I just got our tax refund, and one has to make hay whilst the sun do shine. Two or three days of work done, a couple of hundred dollars (money-from-heaven) spent - I think that is a bargain and good for the economy, too.

This is Josh.



What got done today was the Great Compost Pile Relocation and Supplemental Addition Plan. aka GreCoPiLSAP.


The compost pile has been augmented but unmined for five years. Black Gold, it was. I arranged for all that great soil to be moved inside a wire corral for my little garden and I can even see it through the pantry window from the kitchen sink. I am planning on growing mostly tomatoes plus a little okra. Maybe one zucchini plant. I have a great recipe for canned tomato sauce, as well as a pickled okra one. I have learned not to be overly ambitious and so I think this will be just enough. A lot of people around here grow enough produce to feed small third world countries. I remember, too, that I may have tons of apples and asian pears again this year.



The newer bunny waste, having recently been tossed out the barn window, was moved to the compost pile,



and tomorrow the current rabbit poop will be cleaned from under the cages, and it will become the piles underneath the barn windows. The Great Circle of Poop. This is how I rock.

To paraphrase The Knitting Curmudgeon, A Handyman is a Rare and Handy Thing.

I was worried that Sweetie would exhibit some sort of Manly Growl about this, and so kept it my secret until Handyman actually arrived— but he was cool with the concept and delivery. Get a bunch of work done by someone else, pay some money, Fuzzarelly feels like Queen for a Day. It's a win-win situation.

I have formatted the second pattern that is offered as a freebie with the purchase of one ounce Fuzzarelly Fiber. I used NeoOffice, a free software download. Susan, I will forward to you my pattern for printout in pdf form.

Currently, I am working up the third and final free scarf pattern. I used a trick from Mary Thomas, (and generally known design principle,) to shift one half of the pattern upwards by half. It adds a positively dynamic aspect to a simple design.

Discard after 30 Days

So.

I am considering getting a couple of hens soon. I have never raised chickens, but has that ever stopped me from doing anything ever? Even though we are in the town limits, (those of you that know where I live can laugh now,) I don't think there should be a problem. As former clerk/treasurer, I know for a fact that there is no ordinance against livestock in "town." We have the space and a structure that can be made into a henhouse with small effort.

I say this knowing that I do not need another thing, another species, to take care of but really - how hard can it be?

Nurse Kelly bought 30 heritage breed chicks by mail a few years ago and she lives in what can be called ruburbia. Not quite rural, not quite suburbia. She knew about raising poultry and everything was fine until the chicks grew up. Now, some were lost to predators or whatever, but of the 18 or so that grew to adulthood, 12 were roosters. Even that was okay with this Nebraska raised farm girl, until the roosters all decided to commence crowing at about 3 am.

They were beautiful. Silkies and Tophatters, and other colorful breeds that I can't remember the names of right now, and the hens laid eggs that were small but delicious. But Nurse Kelly's husband finally said that the roosters Had To Go. You know, before the neighbors cooked them for supper. She brought them to me for overnight keeping until I could deliver them to another friend and so I now know that I don't want more than one rooster and even better, no roosters at all. Sweetie does like to sleep in, ya know, working second shift and all that.

But wouldn't a couple of chickens be cool? I'd be happy with a couple of guinea fowl.

Oh, my brothers, if you are reading this, you will remember the Fourth of July festivities on the square in our hometown. About three o'clock in the afternoon, maybe ten guinea fowl would be released from the clock tower of the courthouse. You catch it, it's yours. Our parents wisely forbade us attempting any capture. I think that event is probably not done anymore, in these here modern times.

As an aside, as a youngster of maybe 8 or 9, I won the twist dance contest in the bandstand on the square. My prize was a Kennedy Silver Dollar. (A Silver Half-Dollar?)

50% LESS FAT

So.

As I was carding bunny and sheep bits this afternoon, I considered what I might could blog about, concerning the fiber. (I really do not want this blog to be so much about the business. Boring.)

Firstly, when I write "mats," what I mean is the short bits of feet, belly, and tail wool of the bunny, plus the less than perfect bits. (I save it all, and sort it into categories.) Some bits are matted, and those I cut into small pieces. Once all of these so-called mats are run through the carder and mixed with a bit of sheep, they begin to look mighty fine.

The four categories I use in wool sorting are: best (3 inches or longer,) shorts (less than 3 Inches in length), combings, and mats.

I spun up some of the Lumpy Bunny and plied it with thread, and it is lovely! Soft and slightly textured. Nothing "matted" about it.

Doesn't matter! har har

I feel as though my life-force has returned lately and I am happy to be at work. I am happy to be doing what I am doing.

Spring is burgeoning.