So. Kool.

As an example of my nearly limitless ability to avoid cleaning my house, I am preparing to dye yarn.

This is an experiment.  It is always an experiment.  I enjoy experimenting with botanical dyeing, usually with Black Walnut hulls from local trees.

Black Walnuts make brown yarn.  Turns out, I really like brown yarn.  "Brown" is more exciting than it sounds.  Well, it is exciting to me, anyway.

See, here's some:

This yarn is an 80% superwash merino/20% bamboo blend.  Doesn't that color look like soft, sweet, homemade molasses taffy?

Don't you just want to hold it up to your nose and inhale deeply?

Ahhhhhhh.  Mmmmmmm.

No?  Well, okay, moving on.
~~~
Almost exactly 2 years ago, I tried dyeing with Kool-Aid for the first time. There are many, many, many online tutorials for Kool-Aid dyeing, and at least one dedicated group of enthusiasts on Ravelry.com.  The rav group is called What a Kool Way to Dye, and if you want to see projects made with some bright and cheerful home-dyed yarn, that's a very good place to look.

It's easy to see why Kool-Aid dyeing is so popular, especially for a crafty project to do with kids: it is quick, easy, safe, and fun.  The colorful results can be startling (at least to someone who is so enamored of the many subtle and delightful shades of brown) but there is also a sense of playfulness that comes with the crayola crayon hues.

This is what my first Kool-Aid experiment produced, and it is quite tame by Kool-Aid standards:

I was aiming for variegated forest greens on this 100% superwash merino.  After my first "flavor" produced a brilliant green that would knock you over backwards, some mighty fast back-pedaling with a blue "flavor" turned down the visual volume and yielded this spruce-and-snow-colored, variegated yarn.  Whew!  Nice save!

I wish I could show you the gorgeous socks that were made with this yarn!  But I did not make them.  Lucy Locket made them, and if you happen to read this and have a snap of those socks handy, Lucy, please email it along and I will add it to this post!!  I love those socks!

Update: Yay!  Lucy came through with a picture  :) 

~~~

After that first rollercoaster Kool-Aid experience, I try to be prepared to just have fun and expect the unexpected.  But this time is different.  This time, I am looking for a specific result.

Kool-Aid: the Search for a Soft Pink

I've done my research, poked through my box o' dye stuff, and found what I hope will produce a soft (Soft, please! Do you hear me Kool-Aid?) pink tone, on a hank of yarn I've been saving for Something Special.

The yarn is a squooshy fingering weight from Cherry Tree Hill, called Sockittome Select.  It's 80% superwash merino and 20% nylon.  I plan to use 1/4 to 1/2 the Kool-Aid I would expect to produce a saturated color.  My guess is that the superwash component will soak up the dye like crazy, and the nylon will absolutely not, producing a yarn that has some fairly deep pink and some almost white fibers blended together along its entire length.  (Mind you, this may be totally and completely wrong.  Yarn dyeing!  So exciting!!)

Would you like to come along for the ride?  Because I am not writing this post after the fact; I am writing in "real time."  The yarn has not yet been soaked, the dyepot has not been filled or even been dusted (see opening line on this post).  Nope, it's Saturday and the yarn will be dyed on Sunday.

At least, that's the plan...

And the winners are....

The results are in, for the very first Comptonia giveaway!

The nuts & bolts:
I assigned a number to each entry in each drawing, then used the free random number generator from random.org to select the winners.

Drumroll, please.

The winner of the tiny embroidered purse from Mongolia is:

InJuneau

Congratulations, InJuneau!  Your little prize will be on its way north (way way north!) as soon as you send me your mailing info via an email or a PM on rav.
```
Another drumroll?
No?
Too much suspense?
Okay, then. Without further ado:

The winner of a felted wool eyeglass case from Kyrgyzstan is:

Ronda at Mountain Delights

Congratulations, Ronda!  Please email your mailing address and tell me whether you would like the grey or the tan case, and I will send your selection ASAP.
~~~
Thanks to everyone who entered the drawing and to everyone who has visited during the first two weeks of this blog's existence. I appreciate each and every comment and email, and am grateful for all the encouragement!

It's very flattering that so many readers have chosen to "follow" Comptonia.  I am such a rookie blogger, I am still trying to understand the difference between subscribing to a blog in an RSS feed (which is what I have always done in the past) and "following" or "joining" a blog.  (Is also a there a difference between "following" and "joining"?  Oh, there is so much to learn!)

It's lovely to meet so many new bloggy-friends, thanks to Vicki's Grow Your Blog Party.  I'm still wending my way through the list of participants, and enjoying each garden, project, and cup of tea along the way  :)

There will be more posts to come soon, on this fledgling blog.  There will be crafty creative stuff (I hope), trees and plants (lots), cooking (a little), and occasional guest appearances by Piper, who now wishes me to address her as Your Bloggy Highness...but I am resisting!

And, of course, there will be goats.  Please come back and visit again  :)
~~~~~

(blog)party animals

Whew!

We've been to our first Blog Party!  What a total blast!

Maybe just need...a little...nap......

??????

What??  Sleeping??  Who's minding the Giveaway?!

You kids have no sense of responsibility! None whatsoever!

Why, in MY day..."

Shhhh, big goat.
Not to worry, little goats.
It's all under control.

The Giveaway is up and running til the end of January,  and everyone, everywhere is welcome to enter!

~~~~~

winter greens

(see what I did there?)

It was chilly when I went outside for morning chores today; 0°F (-18°C), but the wind had dropped, so it was really very pleasant.  Last night it was bitter and blowing, but when I did a final check on water buckets, I found the goats had chosen to remain in the paddock with open-ended shelters rather than move into the snug barn.

There is much to be said for cashmere underwear!

~~~

So, the goats are fine with the cold.  And the hens? They have feathers, yes, but they spend their waking hours awfully close to frozen ground.  And they are barefoot!  Still, nothing stops them in their busy puttering and muttering.  If the snow is deep, they follow my tracks to the goat barn or the paddock.  In fact, they seem to take Winter right in stride. 

Some chicken-owners say their hens will not step foot out of the coop if there is snow on the ground.  My hens must be made of sterner stuff, or else they have places to go and are willing to face some snow to get to those places, I don't know.

Certainly they have their own little universe going on out there.  During the day I will suddenly discover them scratching through the bedding in the goat barn.  Or I look out the window to see them trundling along single-file toward the paddock, where they have a secret clubhouse under my workshop.

Really, I have no idea what goes on under there.  

There is about 14 inches between the ground and the floorboards of the workshop.  I am no longer limber enough to get bellydown on the ground without a very good reason.  Crashing the Secret Chicken Clubhouse to find out what they are doing down there is not a very good reason.

~~~

One thing I know for sure they are not doing: scratching and pecking for bugs and fresh bits of greenery.  Because there just aren't any.

For about 7 months of the year, these hens supplement their diet (fresh water, organic layer pellets, organic barley, organic kitchen scraps) with no help from me.  All day long they are free to wander within a vast (on a chicken scale) fenced area, and except for the time they spend snoozing in the sun, they are endlessly scratching and pecking, scratching and pecking.

Now the earth is frozen solid.  The only hen-level "greenery" looks like this:

Not a lot of "green" to glean.  Hmmmm....I have an idea!

Hey chooks!  Who wants sprouts?

"I do!  But only me, none of the other hens care for any sprouts.

So stop shouting about sprouts!
Meet me behind the Poultry Palace in 5 minutes.  Bring the sprouts!"

~~~

I've been sprouting green lentils for the hens this winter, and find it's a simple way to provide a little fresh greenery at minimal expense or effort.

Maybe you'd like to try it too?  Here's what I've been doing.

Start with ~1/8 cup dried green lentils in a quart Mason jar.  Cover the lentils with water to soak overnight.  Add a lid that will keep the lentils in but let water flow through.

In the past I've used cheesecloth and a canning ring, but now I use a rubberband and a scrap of the rubbery stuff that keeps scatter rugs from sliding or glasses from getting broken in the cupboard.  The bigger holes make rinsing and draining the mason jars a snap!

After soaking overnight, drain.  Rinse and drain daily, and keep the jar in a darkish place til the roots appear.

Once the roots are growing, rinse and drain several times daily, gently shaking the sprouts apart if they are clumping together.   Keep the jar in a place that gets some sunlight.

Here's what they look like when the roots and the stems are growing and first leafy growth is beginning; perhaps 3 days.  The whole jar takes on a greenish hue.

At this point, my hens will eat them but I like to wait til they are a couple of days older, with more lovely green.  I've been starting a fresh jar every other day, for an overlapping and steady supply.  If I overdo it and have a surplus, I'll store the extra sprouts in the fridge - so far, that hasn't happened.

This isn't a big component of my hens' diet.  I want them to eat it all right up, and I want everyone to have a share.  One big handful, well scattered, has been working out nicely every day.

~~~

I've experimented with a couple of other types of seed, but have not been impressed with the results.

I wanted to try a monocot, because the hens eat a lot of grasses in the summertime.  This is organic barley, same volume of seed, started at the same time as the lentils above.  The barley was sprouting, but slowly, and I felt concerned about the possibility of mold or bacteria that might be harmful to the hens.

I also tried some flax seeds, with a similar result.

I don't know if there is a real risk of mold/bacteria, but don't care to take a chance, especially when the lentils are so easy.

I'll continue to try other kinds of seeds, though, when I have other organics available.

~~~

Do you raise sprouts for your hens?  Or for other critters, such as yourself?  Please add your input in the comments, or send me an email!  This is the first season I've experimented with sprouting for the chooks, and I'd love to learn from others' experiences!

~~~

A loud THUNK just made me jump!  Happily, it was not a(nother) big branch falling on the house.  It was a 12"-wide column of solid ice sliding out of a waterbucket that has been upended in the shower since this morning.  Tonight is predicted to be about 10 degrees colder than last night.  Good thing I have lots of water buckets in rotation!

~~~~~

First party! Will my blog match my socks?

When it comes to trying something new, two things tend to move me from pondering action to taking action:

a deadline, and a project that doesn't seem overwhelming.

Good gracious.  That makes me sound like both a procrastinator and a slouch, doesn't it?  Rats.  Oh well.  Now you know the worst.  Onward!

For example: Although I could knit, I never imagined becoming a sock-knitter.  I liked the idea of knitting socks, in a romantic, tribute-to-Louisa-May sort of way, but really...those teensy stitches?  Those many skinny needles, waving around like a demented sea urchin? Those heels??

Then, I had a very specific reason to try to knit exactly one pair of socks, right away.  Small socks, for a little pair of feet.  An experiment.  Not overwhelming.

And it was such crazy fun!  I knitted five more pair, then moved on to real socks, for big feet.  And I began to wonder why it had taken me so long to get started in the first place.

~~~

During several years of reading and commenting on blogs, I've often thought of starting a blog.  But...why?  For whom?  In the immortal words of the Mock Turtle, "With what porpoise?"

Still, I thought about it...

~Interlude~

This is my dog, Piper.  
Piper is a terrible procrastinator.
Mostly, Piper is a procrastinator about coming when she is called.

"I am NOT procrastinating!  I can't hear you calling!
I am BEHIND this TREE!!!"

So, aaaanyway.

It was the timing of two unrelated bloggy events that made me leap joyously off my Slouchy Fence of Procrastination and Overwhelmedness.

First, the lovely Vicki of Two Bags Full announced - fortunately for me, several months in advance! - that she would be hosting a non-commercial "Grow Your Blog Party."  It sounded like a lot of fun, especially for newbie bloggers.

And second, just a couple of weeks ago, after I'd been mulling for months about starting a blog so I could join Vicki's party, something happened.  Two of my favorite knitting bloggers, Ann and Kay of Mason Dixon Knitting, instituted a 15-Minute Lightening Round for their own blog posts.  Hilarity ensued, and I saw that it might be possible to blog in tiny little bits of time and have fun with it!

So...my first post was published a whopping four days ago, here (bear with me, please, this is my first blog post with linking and I'm kind of excited about it).  In that post I jotted down what I think this blog might become.  The jotted part may or may not be interesting, but I'll tell you what:

the goats are worth the click.

~~~

Because of other folks' blogs, I have developed valued friendships with people I may never meet in person, but who choose to share something with their readers that happens to be an important, or an unusual, or a just-plain-fun part of my life, too.  It's nice.  It's really nice.  And having my own blog to share already seems to make it much more of a 2-way street.  And who knows, maybe I will make more friends, and learn more things, and have lots and lots more fun!

And I'm beginning to wonder why it took me so long to get started.

"It's because you PROCRASTINATE.  Try to work on that, willyouplease?"

~~~~~