firsts

First fire of the season.

It's been in the low 30s (F) all day today, but more than that, it's been blowing up a gale since last night and I'm hoping very much that no trees come down in a difficult place. Seemed like a good day for a fire in the woodstove. Piper agreed. She is almost asleep standing up in this picture.

~~~

My big task for this weekend:

a total clearing-out of the screenporch.

Made big progress on Friday, but dropped the ball yesterday

when it was raining and raw all day.

And today, well.

This nice fire can't watch itself burning, now can it?

Erm, maybe I'll get out there in a little while.

~~~

But not yet, because I have another "first" to share!

Years ago, an online yarn order arrived with a "bonus" hank of what I think falls under the heading of "art yarn." It's got alternating sections of tightly-spun single ply and completely unspun fiber. Like this:

Aren't the colors lovely?

I saved it for a planned venture into needle felting.

Someday.

At the Vermont fiber festival, one little gift I bought myself was a set of three felting needles. These are little L-shaped needles with a roughness that helps "felt" the fibers together. Do you know about felting? It's what happens when friction or temperature (or both) causes the scales on animal hairs to  grab onto each other and pull the fibers tightly together. Forever. Have you ever accidentally shrunk a woolen sweater? That's felting. (Some would argue that shrinking a woolen fabric is more accurately called "fulling," and I would not disagree, because life is short.)

The other day I decided to break out the new needles and try making a felt button.

I cut some of the unspun sections and gently pulled them apart a bit more:

And then I shaped them into a soft lump of wool, put the lump on a thick piece of packing material, and started stabbity-stabbing away. And soon it began to look like a button:

I've made four buttons now, trying different things each time:

different size, shape, thickness, blend of colors.

Here's the most recent, with the needle:

I've already managed to break one of the needles!

Good thing there were three in the set.

After years of thinking about it, the incentive to try needle felting right now is that one of my WIPCrackAway projects, a neckwarmer, requires two buttons. None in my button tin seemed right. And I have not found any for sale that were 1) right for the project, 2) of reasonable price, and 3) made in Not China.

I thought of trying to make buttons with wood (of course), but there has been so much rain lately, the branches in the brush pile are soaked through. So I'm playing around with making felt buttons instead.

All the time I thought about needle felting, I never planned to make a utilitarian object. I imagined little figures of animals or plants, or landscapes "painted" with fiber. And maybe that will come. But for now, I'm having a lot of fun making simple fuzzy buttons.

And if I make one that seems "just right" for the neckwarmer, then I will try to make another for a set.

No hurry, though...

It's really good fun.

~~~~~

rainy or not

Autumn continues!

Between recent days of rain and strong wind, there has been the welcome gift of dazzling sun. Clever Piper does not waste an opportunity to bask in the doorway of the screenporch, at a comfortable distance above the saturated ground:

On such sunny days, the few remaining garden plants can be pulled up, and either added to one of next year's garden beds or shared out amongst the goats and hens.

Rainy Day Projects have been getting more attention. Some are routine indoor tasks, like housework (seriously necessary at this point, I'm embarrassed to admit), and, more happily, a little more WIPCrackAway knitting:

But some Rainy Day Projects can be tackled in the sheds or barn. Which is nice, because I can't even see the housework from there.

Months ago, I found the tangled pieces of a garden cart at the dump. My plan was simply to salvage the wheels and axle, then take the remaining odds and ends back to the dump. But once home, I realized many of the metal frame pieces were semi-attached. Maybe...I could rebuild an entire cart?

All summer, I've been using a sadly rusted-out wheelbarrow (lined with plastic feedbags, which actually turned out to be fabulous carriers for loose materials going to the VRB!) and postponing the garden cart project, which had all the earmarks of an endeavor that would require multiple unplanned trips to a hardware store and possibly a lumberyard.

A couple of weeks ago, I decided to admit that the tangle of parts was a bit intimidating, and rather than waste a lot of time trying (and ultimately failing) to reconstruct something, I should simply bite the bullet and buy a new, heavyduty wheelbarrow.

I wish I had taken this step sooner!

Because...

well, have you bought a wheelbarrow lately?

I looked at a few ordinary wheelbarrows. Nothing special.

The prices averaged two hundred dollars.

For a wheelbarrow.

I didn't even get as far as looking to see if they were made in Not China, which is usually my first step in shopping.

The very next rainy day, I completely dismantled the tangle of garden cart pieces, and started the process of trying to cobble together something useful. I may not succeed, but there is now a pretty strong incentive to try. Here in Goat World, $200 = 40 bales of hay.

Wish me luck!

~~~~~

autumn

It's here.

First, there were small indicatons.

But now, it's hard to miss.

Even from a distance.

Even if you don't look right at it.

I love Autumn, I do.

I wish it would go on and on and on.

Because as much as I try to be in the moment,

every now and then - 

like today, when I was sweeping rain out of the barn

and suddenly thought, "soon this will be snow"...

every now and then - 

like yesterday, stacking stovewood,

when I suddenly thought of the armloads

I'll soon be carrying in, after chores, day after frigid day...

well, every now and then, for just a moment,

I think of the coming Winter

with something less than a joyful heart.

I know it's coming,

and I hope I will love it.

But I know I love Autumn.

~~~~~

Saturday Sock Story

These socks - or as they later became known, Those Socks, or even Those Strangely Cursed and Wretched Socks - have been haunting me since 2010.

These socks - which were already the third version of an experiment - were my Portable Project during a much-anticipated long weekend of enjoyable and interesting research (on a boat, on the ocean: previously, two of my favorite places to be). Unfortunately, the weekend turned out to be not very enjoyable and not even very interesting - and that is really saying something, because I am quite good at being interested in all sorts of things.

The experience was a grim sort of personal watershed for me. When I was (finally, exhaustedly, gratefully) back on shore, I had to admit: my standards for a minimum level of physical comfort had shifted. In fact, I'm not sure I really had such standards earlier in my life. Previously, physically challenging was Good, rustic was Good, tough was Good. And I still don't need luxury or frills. But I do need to be able to move freely, to stretch fully, to rest quietly in a mostly painless position.

Quite a few nebulous lifelong dreams of future work opportunities, distant travel, and physical adventure died that weekend.

Ah, well. These things happen.

Back to the socks!

At some point on the boat, trying to focus my mind by knitting - which can be quite a useful meditative tool, am I right, knitters? - the stitch count was suddenly off by one.

No problem, just pull out the error and carry on, yes?

No. The lace stitches were tricky to get back on the needles. Row after row was lost. The project bag was finally stashed away, safe from the rain dripping through the deck and onto my bunk via a dangling light bulb, to await later repair.

Do your clothes become imbued with associations? Whether the socks had become permanently tainted by the weekend, or whether they had simply been cursed by a passing troll, I don't know, but they resisted all subsequent efforts to get them back on track. And the part that had been properly knitted looked quite nice! So I also couldn't bring myself to rip them out and repurpose the yarn.

Stuck.

Enter the WIPCrackAway KAL!

One week ago, bolstered by the completion of my first WIPCrackAway project...

The Forgotten Orange Leaves of 2012...DONE!

...I tackled these damned wretched red socks again.

And 7 days later, after one final and incomprehensible kitchenering glitch that meant ripping out and redoing both toes (?!), I cast off and declared these socks DONE.
I have never felt more relieved to be finished with a knitting project. Whew.

And onward!

~~~~~

approaching the bench

Remember when the new goat barn was built this past Spring? I quickly put together a little bench to provide cubbyholes (in a choice of sizes) for Lily's and LeShodu's kids who would be arriving soon.

I made the cubbies just one foot deep, so the mamagoats would be able to reach in and easily touch their babies.

They do that a lot.

Like this:

Campion and Azalea were newborn and barely dry in the above picture.

Not long after, here they are, sharing the smaller cubby:

When all four kids were a little older, I added a foot of depth to the bench. That way, even the bigger goats could rest on top, and the youngsters could still snuggle up underneath.

When I put the rolled flooring down last week, I had to first dismantle and remove the bench. Then I had to figure out a way to rebuild a new and improved bench without nailing anything to the floor. Putting holes though the rolled flooring would negate its purpose, which is to keep moisture away from the wood beneath.

I decided to try a series of rectangular brackets, tied to the wall. It's another 2-foot-deep bench, but a few inches higher. And it's longer this time, going all the way across one side of the barn: 114.25 inches long, to be exact:

 I was so pleased when this board fit into place!

When you trim up a 10-foot board, you really want to get it right the first time. 

Of course, I had some help with the measuring and cutting.

From Azalea and Campion:

Also Tsuga:

Once the Quality Control crew were persuaded to leave the barn, I started putting all the pieces together as quickly as I could. Which is really not quickly at all. In fact, I'm a bit of a plodder. But a cheerful plodder! Very happy to be getting on with this task.

It was coming together nicely when the sky suddenly became ominously dark, and the goats began to ask when The Staff would be opening the barn again. I attached the top and left some of the cubby "walls" for another day.

Maybe with the bigger cubbies the goats won't even need dividers? Maybe they will be peaceful neighbors?

We live in hope.

Heavy rains did come last night, and it has rained all day long today.

It is a gloomy, stuffy, mucky sort of day.

A nice day to be indoors.

I have been soaked to the skin several times.

The goats, however, have been quite cozy.

Here is a random goatcam snap:

That's Azalea and Lily and Campion atop the bench, with Vinca and Dara tucked under. (LeShodu is not in the picture because she was in the front half of the stall, eating hay and celebrating her feelings of superiority and power after pushing poor Tsuga out the door to seek shelter in the Chalet.) There has been a lot of shuffling around, and at one point I saw LeShodu laying across the front of a cubby with both her kids snugged into it, just the way she used to (try to) contain them when they were babies.

So, there's one little project nearly done and already functional! Hmmm. I think if I had a motto it would be "nearly done and already functional." If anyone can tell me how to write that in Latin, I will start working on a crest and a coat of arms. Heh.

Meanwhile, it's time for evening chores. 

Once more into the muddy, mucky breech!

~~~~~