Better Today

Maybe I am finally breaking out of the rut! Yesterday I canned some wonderful orange marmalade, Plucked my beloved Tigerlily (5 1/4 oz . and she's a tiny little English!), cleaned the house, finished my book, did some laundry, transplanted my 2nd crop of peas, weeded the garden, and various other things. Today is wide open, though it is still raining! I really need to sit down and get some knitting done, and my kids could use a bath. Maybe I'll find time to groom another rabbit. Or post some of the lbs. of angora covering my kitchen table onto etsy so that we can eat there again.
We decided to start "doing school" after maggies birthday, in fact, it is one of her birthday gifts. I think it's awesome to start out very year thinking of it as a gift. But, I realized that I had this silly idea that we should all start getting up earlier in preparation (keep in mind that my children do NOT get up before 9 am) so for the last week I have been trying to drag myself out of bed earlier and earlier telling myself that it was so that when we started "school" we could start early. Then this morning it hit me. We as a family are night owls. We are not morning people. I tried to wake maggie up at 8:30 this morning and it was most unpleasant. So my epiphany was hey, didn't we decide to homeschool to break free of all those things?!? I realized what a gift that kind of freedom is! Instead of forcing all of us into an unatural schedule with hours of groggy, unfriendly waking up time I can just do things on our normal schedule. I don't have any set hours which means that if we want to start school at 4 in the afternoon we can. If we want to do it at 11 in the morning, we can. Then that makes me realize what an adventure we are about to embark upon! The world is wide open, we can learn what we want, when we want, how we want!
Life is good. The kids are wonderful, the garden is bountiful, the husband is agreeable, and the bunnies are wool producing machines! Now, if I could only get the house to come to some sort of agreement about it's level of cleanliness.

lazy end of summer

Still being lazy. I have on fingerless glove for maggies birthday on the 20th halfway finished. I have an assortment of other projects in similar stages of completion. I've gotten my 2nd crop halfway planted, but I am still waiting on a few packets of seeds to come in the mail. My 2nd crop of tomatoes has it's first green ones. The neighbor kids brought me a litter of kittens that they had found under the dumpster and after walking around the neighborhood with a mewing kitten I found momma and lured her back to my house. So now we are dealing with little kitty terrorists....pooping on the floor, attacking anything that moves, just being babies. They are so cute but I can't wait to get them fixed and find them homes. Today I will be canning some orange marmalade and hopefully plucking tigerlily and maybe spending some time catching up on all the things that I have been letting slide. It's damp and rainy and this kind of weather doesn't make me want to jump up and do things. The other day I turned one whole side of the overflowing compost bins. the very bottom was finished so I shoveled it into a barrel and turned the rest back into the bin. I had planned on shoveling out the other side but it has rained for the last two days so I don't see that happening until it dries up again. Phinny is 7 months old and into everything, he has started pulling himself up to standing and he crawls everywhere.
We are once again without a vehicle, the van was totaled a few weeks ago and we don't all fit into the truck so I have not left the house for quite a while. The jefferson county freecycle program is getting started, as is handspun with love, we have picked up some volunteers but we still need more. I'm not especially inspired lately, just tired and lazy.

Where did the time go?!?

I don't know how, but I have been so busy the time has just been slipping away! I have been knitting alot on the nifty knitter looms because volunteers for handspun with love have been less than I thought there would be. I picked up some decent cheviot wool today. Quite a bit of it actually..... I see a queen sized bedspread in it's future! Oh, that lovely sheepy smell that comes with bringing home a bunch of fleeces! No, I am not being sarcastic, I really do LOVE that smell. My husband thinks that it's a sign of mental illness. I sold all the buns that I am willing to part with and brought home three more. They are the sweetest boys, I love to bring a bun home and be pleasantly surprised with a sweetheart. I've gotten alot of things listed on Etsy and have alot more to take pictures of BUT one of my children decided to take my camera out of my purse and then step on it so my beautiful new camera is destroyed. The screen is not visibly cracked but when you turn it on you can see where it is ruined. Will go shopping for a new one this week but I am not happy about it.

LAZY

Oh, Have I been lazy lately! Took the kids to grandma's and have done nothing since! I've still got the two littlest ones but they are quiet and happy to read books and color with me all day. We haven't gone anywhere or talked to anyone.... or gotten any shop updates done, but it's so nice just to take a break. I did get some more wool and angora dyed up and tommorrow I am planning on getting some more roving dyed. My computer is not liking me lately so I am having problems uploading pictures here and on Etsy. I have kind of started a new project, I am in the process of sanding down an old desk, it will be painted and then decoupaged and it's just going to be awesome, so good that I don't know if I will sell it. Either way I am going to have to find a chair to match it and figure out how exactly I want to do it. I am thinking on a few different ideas. It's nice to get back to my first crafty love (furniture) It's something that I haven't had the time or ambition for in a long time, I still have that amazing vintage chair in my bathroom just waiting to be reupholstered but I can't decide what color and there are sooo many buttons on it, I think It will be in it's ugly but beautiful pinkness for a while longer.

Alpaca Field Trip

Today we went on a little field trip, I got my fiber fix for the week and some alpaca love too! Just 15 minutes down the road from me in Dittmer, Mo Big River Alpacas has alpacas of every size and color. We had so much fun, they are so beautiful and exotic, my girls got to pet them and they were very sweet and well behaved. Nothing that I love more than to not only get my fiber locally, but to also see how well cared for and loved the creatures providing my fiber are. My mind is made up, I must have alpacas! Not right now but , but as soon as we get a bigger chunk of property. I can only hope that Lisa will still be around when I am ready to bring

home a few of these sweeties. I took pictures and petted to my hearts content and then I got to bring home some more fiber, this time more suited to needle felting which is the next thing I am going to teach myself to do. I was once again impressed with the size and good temperaments of LGD's. They have both Great Pyrenees and Maremma and they are such wonderful dogs! All and all I would definitely recommend getting your alpaca fiber here and if you are close enough make time to go pick it up and visit for a while, you'll fall in love.

Alpaca and other things

I got some alpaca from a really wonderful woman in dittmer the other day, very pleased with both the alpaca and the price! I love alpaca! Anyway, I've gotten everyone plucked or sheared except for two of the babies and they are getting done as soon as I get the chance, I've been so addicted to etsy lately I haven't been doing much else, I even have it as my start up page! I have been busy in the garden though. Picking peas and lettuce and spinach, using herbs with everything, anxiously watching the beans and peppers and tomatoes for ripeness, pulling weeds, and showing the trees in my flower beds who's the boss! Oh, yeah I was featured on someones blog!!!! So excited! here's the link http://sockpr0n.blogspot.com/2008/06/etsy-friday.html

The New and Improved Bunny Love Shack!!!!!

I'm so excited! The new bunny shed is here and all of the buns are safe and snug inside. Here is a picture of the new shed, I would show a picture of the old one but it was such an embarrassment i'd rather not! I have been really sick with a sinus thing and i'm still a little dizzy today, but much better overall. I've been very busy I've sheared 5 buns in the last two days because even with air conditioning the shed isn't fully insulated yet and they looked hot so I figured I would shave them all and this october when they are ready again whoever doesn't produce up to my expectations is going to be sold as pet quality and I will get to buy some better stock to replace them. I am making some huge cuts right now in the herd as it is so if you see someone you ike now is the time to let me know, I will do package deals and everyone's price is discounted. I have been busy dying wool like crazy (even doing the angora)and listing it to my shop, I figure I'll dye up everything that I have washed and then when it's all done and posted I will start washing some more. I am sooo busy, spinning and dyeing and knitting on the loom, I am stockpiling stuff for fall soft angora winter wear and lots of other stuff. oh well, I am tired. more later.