Better Late Than Never

Deb and Craig make so many occasions here even more special with flowers.  They brought this gorgeous armful for Mother's Day, and I'm just now putting it in the journal to share.

I had other photos from yesterday, Ruffles on the swinging rope and Poppy showing off her new hairdo, but lost them in transition to the computer and, trying to be efficient, had deleted them from the camera.  Some days are like that.

Bessie Anne moves with me wherever I go, from room to room, outdoors and in.  She got her exercise yesterday and must have thought I'd lost my mind.  I was working at the computer when Deb called to remind me about the solar eclipse.  It took a couple of tries (and trips outside) to get the pinhole-in-the-paper viewer right, and then I'd go out every so once in awhile to check the moon's progress in front of the sun.  It was amazing.  All Bess knew was that she'd be snoozing comfortably by my feet, have to get up and go out with me just to stand in the driveway, come back in...and do it all over again.

A friend asked if I'd started spinning Poppy's wool.  Not hardly.  It's a pretty lengthy process.  First I'll open up the fleece and pick out the really nasty clumps from around her backside and the short belly wool to throw away.  Then the fleece needs to be carefully washed.  I used to do it in batches by hand, but have found a way to use the machine to save time.  Water temperature is very important, but most important of all is that there be no agitation of the wool, lest one end up with a huge clump of unusable felt.  It takes a couple of washes and even more rinses to get a year's worth of dirt out.  The spin cycle on the washer helps, but then all that wool has to be spread out on sheets to dry thoroughly and turned over again and again.  Then it must be carded, something I'll do in fits and starts, working until my wrists ache.  A full fleece could take a month or more to card into usable rolags.  Only then will the wool be spun.  That will be a project for this winter.