Woolybuns

Mom

I'm at the hospital in Maine.  Mom had her cardiac catheterization and the results are startling.  Initially, the doc said triple bypass, possibly Friday, maybe Monday depending on the surgeon's availability.   He said surgery is not an option if Mom has any plans for living.  Then Mom had an episode of low blood pressure, migraine like symptoms, chest pain, tingling fingers, etc.  There is a possibility she will be hurried into emergency bypass tonight.  But there is no evidence of any previous heart attack, no damage to the heart muscle, so following surgery, her prognosis is good. 

Hug your loved ones for me, ok?

Looking Back on Saturday's Sky

I took the picture Saturday in the morning before anyone else was up, as usual.  Its gloomy gray fit with last week.  So does not being able to post the picture until Sunday.  It was a tough week and someone else must have been running my show.  Nothing went as planned.  I won't be getting my second red scarf done in time, I'm behind in spinning the yarn for the swap, my runagogo time go goed off into thin air, and all my strong good intentions to start my new semester in class off with a head start on homework - pfffffttt.  Drifting somewhere out there with my walk time. 

CC colicked again.  We think it's a combination of teething, cold weather, and miscommunication on worming.  Which is good news, because that means this won't become a recurrent issue.  The rabbit still won't voluntarily feed the babies, which wasn't a big problem until I got the call from Mom, a northern New Englander (I'm southern NE).  She's scheduled for cardiac catheterization in a few days (same day and time as Friend's funeral), with possibly an angioplasty the next day, depending on what they find on day one.  I asked how she was getting to the hospital 70 miles away from her home.  Her answer?  Driving herself.  Ummmm.  What?  Are you freaking nuts??    Yeah, that was her plan.  Well.  No. She's not driving herself.  I'm dumping everything, heading for Maine to take her to the hospital.  My sister lives with Mom and she's highly allergic to rabbits so I can't bring the doe and babies with me.  The doe is not happy with my forcing her to feed those kits but she submits.  I have no idea how she will react to someone else forcing her.  An angry rabbit is not the meek, helpless thing it would appear.  Don't believe me?  Watch this (thanks to Leslie W for showing this to me), but stick with it past the first few frames.

So many competing needs.  I got used to that as a mother.  I guess now I have to get used to it as a daughter.  Good thing there is knitting.  And a new laptop computer. 

Farewell, Friend

Wednesday afternoon, DH's Friend waited for his young sons to arrive home from school.  He gave them each a hug and then he died.  This disease in its relentless waging of war on the Friend ravaged his body and his family.  Not once did Friend find mercy throughout this long but oh too short battle.  That  he hung on until his sons came home is due purely to Friend's strength of character and love for the boys.  He died as he lived, doing for his boys the best he could with the shitty hand he drew.  Farewell to a good man who deserved better.

Hey, Where Did The Last Six Days Go?

They just kinda zipped right by.  Winter arrived, and the icy bitch laughed as she pointed out that adding a deck means more opportunities to fall on my ass shoveling.  CC is doing great, also providing lots of shoveling opportunities.  Only three baby bunnies survived the nest attacks.  Since I took the babies out of Pandorable's hutch, she won't feed them voluntarily.  She is obsessed with devouring every hay morsel in her path, so can't be bothered with babies.  Handfeeding babies is tricky and not always successful.  So I'm "encouraging" Pandorable.  Which means I put her and the wiggly woolies-to-be on the rug, get a death grip gently put my hand on Pandorable's head and scritch away while the wigglies slurp.  Amazing how little time it takes for those bellies to balloon with food.

I also whorled away my time.  Two months ago, I started spinning singles of Mango Tango, a blend of rambouillet and angora.  Last week, I finally plied it.  The hank on the left is already washed, that on the right is not.  A total of about 400 yards, 2 ply. Then I needed a non-angora spin.  I joined a swap and the swapee I'm spinning for doesn't like angora.  Did that stop you in your tracks as much as it did me?  Yeah, intellectually, I know angora isn't for everyone.  I do understand.  I do.  But I don't get it.  How can anyone not melt in the presence of such sweet softness?  Angora snuggles the soul, warms the cockles of your heart what the hell are cockles and why are they in your heart.  It begs for fondling.  How can anyone gasp not like it?  deep cleansing breath  Ok, I  got a grip now.   I looked deep into fiber stash and pulled out some roving I had processed a couple years ago, rambouillet and alpaca.  Still soft and not scratchy.  I started spinning.  This stuff did not like short draw.  I'm not that good at long draw.  Yeah, that equals one ugly skein.  No choice.   I had to practice long draw.  I finished two more skeins of about 100 yards each.  The first is much too loosely spun and fell apart in a number of places just in winding it onto a ball winder, then again in the plying.  I spit spliced and tied and got the darn thing done.  Second skein is much better but still on the loosely spun side.  And all three are pitifully inconsistent.  After a bath, they almost look like real yarn.  They will become a barn hat or two.  I still have to practice that long draw and produce a skein  I can actually send in the swap.   I guess Skein Swap Goddess isn't just a vindictive little vixen.  She's forcing me to expand my spinning skills.  Turns out I'm getting quite a fun kick out of spinning long draw.  I watch it happen and still don't know how it does that.  But I'm learning to control it.  I might have cold cockles but I am getting some giggles out of it. 

And then this happened.  I hesitated not one second.  Shot off both a comment and a private email claiming that big burst of brightness all for me.  Could you resist all that color in the midst of winter's whomp?  Uh huh. Sure - only because I beat you to it.   I see a kicky half circle shawl in that skein.  It'll go with anything!  The package arrived yesterday.  I love it!  Our grumpy grotesque in the garden snow seemed to need it this morning.   Do you suppose his cockles were warmed at all?   The yarn certainly did it for mine.  But Dave's goodness didn't stop with one pound of his gorgeous Kaleidoscope.  He also included a  Traveler Needle Case.  How did you know I was lusting for one?  I even had it on my Christmas list but they didn't listen.  Your timing was perfect, Dave.  I started another class at college last night so the case will be traipsing to and from campus with me.  Thanks!  I'm all set for this:

Walking The Baby

All you moms, remember those nights of walking with a cranky baby, one whose belly is gurgling and roiling and cramping and making everyone miserable?  Well, that's what I was doing last night from about 5:30 pm until midnight.  Only I was doing it in the suddenly wintery cold that New England finally got yesterday.  And the baby is a thousand pounds or so.  A thousand pounds of stubborn hurting protest, prone to hurling herself to the ground with a horrendous crash, at which point it was my job to keep her from rolling and twisting her gut into necrotizing knots or ripping herself a hernia.  Yes, this time the call from the barn was "CC's colicking.  You better get here fast."  The confines of even a nicely spacious stall or large barn aisle are too small to accomodate a rolling horse, hence the need to walk outside away from any potential traps. Fortunately, CC's colic was of the excess gas nature, not one of the more potentially fatal impaction or other obstruction types that requires emergency expensive surgery.  Other than the gut distress causing volcanic sounding activity, her vital signs were all good.  The vet gave her a shot of banamine and within 15 to 20 minutes, CC was feeling better. Then he put me on poop patrol.  I was to walk her for about 15 minutes every hour, feed her a beet pulp mash in an hour and if she tolerated that, then let her nibble hay.  Keep this up until she pooped.  "You're probably in for a long night," he said as he was leaving.  She had one more episode of belly complaint around 9:45 and then finally pooped just before midnight.  All in all, it was a pretty mild bout of colic.  Vet expects that with the wet, muddy conditions we've been having, hay on the ground left over from previous feedings probably fermented and CC got some while eating fresh hay dumped in the same area.   I haven't had any more calls from the barn this morning, so I believe she's fine.  But I'll be heading that way soon.  Just to be sure. 

Silly Rabbit

Nests are for babies!  Pandorable hasn't figured that out yet apparently.  She's feeding the kits nicely but she's also eating their nest.  Everytime I replenish what she ate.  Which means I find the kits dumped out of the nest box scrabbling on the wire with flung bits of bunny foof tangled in hay.  Bunny babes do not make good weight gain without the warmth of the nest and one of the babies has now lost ground, so I finally said enough is enough.  I don't usually take babies away from their mothers because my does make it clear they don't like that.  But these kits are not going to survive if I leave them in there. Pandora had 4 days and about 4 times as much daily hay just for her to eat to figure things out but even this morning, the babies with nicely full bellies (except that one) were dumped and scattered. I filled a box with more hay, lined it with the tangled hay and bunny foof, plucked the kits out of the hutch and settled them in a nest outside of Pandorable's reach.  She can still see the box, hear and smell the kits, but she can't eat the nest.  She tried to eat my hand instead.  She's very defensive of the babies and other than that eating the nest thing, she's a good mom.  I will be risking my life and limb putting the babies in with Pandorable a couple times a day so she can feed them.  I hope to be able to return the babies to her full time soon. Pandorable will get one more chance at motherhood but if she treats the nest just as recklessly, I will retire her from breeding.

On the orchid front, Phrag's second bud is now opening.  The photo to the left shows the bud on Friday, positioned for opening but not yet started.  It also shows that the third bud is not the last bud.  Yes, there is a fourth bud now developing beneath the third one.  By Saturday morning, the bud was beginning to unfold.

And here she is this morning, baby bud on her way to full bloom. 

Joining Party 2007

We've all felt it.  That magical something of fiber fellowship.  Special things happen when people gather for good. NETA is one of those special things.  NETA burst into being during  a spontaneous combustion of enthusiasm: a couple of women fantasized about a pampering weekend of fibering, laughingly shared the thought with a couple others and suddenly the idea swept through New England with the speed of a fireball. And it came to be.  What happens: a large bunch of fiber enthusiasts descend on Portland, Maine in the middle of winter for a weekend of fibering, chatting, sharing, buying, learning, teaching, pampering and partying. It's called Spa Knit and Spin, and the good feelings it generates simmers throughout the year, both in enjoying the memories and in planning for the next one.  Part of the planning includes knitting in support of the Ship's Project.  As an offshoot of that, a bunch of us knit one or two afghan squares each and then meet in January to put it all together.  Joining Party 2007 happened on Saturday.  This year, we have two afghans, as well as a couple of "lapghans" and maybe some pillows.  The afghan joinings took place in Portsmouth, while the other items are coming together someplace in New York.  These items will be raffled off to raise postage funds for The Ship's Project.  If the lapghans and pillows are as nice as the two afghans, you're all gonna want to get a good wingspan of raffle tickets.  Look at those squares!

Keepin' On

See that ticker up there?  Yeah, I'm making steady progress.  I didn't walk on Tuesday because I got very little sleep the night before and it was cold and ... yes.  Well.  How many excuses do you use?  Then came Wednesday and good intentions.  And - not so much walking.  Ok, no walking.  I officially slammed into my mental block. By Thursday, even I recognized that if I didn't take a walk, I could kiss the goal goodbye.  But there's that ticker up there.  It would either sit there on 10 miles or suddenly, conspicuously, disappear and I'd have to admit to all of you that I quit.  I got up off my tired old ass and kicked it right out the door.  Into the cold.  About a quarter of the way into the regular route, Inner Me was jabbering on almost incoherently about no shame in quitting, lots of time to make up the miles, a gym would be so much more comfortable....  I ignored me.  Just kept on.  And eventually I made it to the coffee shop.  I sat with a hot cuppa and some knitting, wondering how long before someone I knew would drive there and I could beg a ride.  Fortunately, I know very few people in town.  No choice but to drag that sorry old ass back out into the cold and walk home.  And then it happened.  Endorphins kicked in.  I felt good.  Walking felt good.  Before I knew it, I was pirouetting down the sidewalk, all grace and twinkletoes.  Oh, wait.  No.  That was just in my mind.  But it felt that good.  Getting out the door this morning was ever so much easier than it was yesterday.  And I increased my distance, logging 2.832 miles instead of 2. 

Something else to celebrate.  Pandorable and Hop Toddy made some babies.  They were born last night around 10 pm.  7 of them.  I'm pretty sure one is wild gray agouti (the darkest one in there).  The other two grayish looking kits at this point have a hint of chocolate look to them, but it's too early to say.  The other 4 are probably ruby eyed white.  This is a bit early in the year to have babies, but it's just been too long.  I needed a healthy dose of cute.

And speaking of cute, check out those tack pins from  Leslie Wind.  Ms. Leslie generously decided to donate a bunny tack pin as a prize for a silent contest.  The latest winner:  Spinneret.  Her comment on the bunny with no name tickled my fancy.  She suggested Aphra Behn, author of Oroonoko, and I flashed straight away on a writer's "pun" name of Aphra Buhn.  So, Spinneret, you win the prize! Email me with your snail mail address and Leslie will send it to you.

I must confess, though, that's not the bunny's name.  Before any of the suggestions got to me, a name that acknowledges both of her moms hopped into my head: Woolybuns Doe Si Doe.   

Fuzzy Wabbit

needs a new home.  See that ear hanging down?  It doesn't make a bit of difference in the wonderful quality of his coat and he's just as friendly and personable as my other bunnies.  But that ear means he's not breeding quality.  He's 7 months old and his brother is tired of sharing hutch space with him.  Which is to say his current coat is a mess.  Once he's away from his brother, his coat will grow in beautifully and he will look pretty much like this fella to the right, except that one ear will still hang down.  So if you're looking for a good fiber bunny with a very low price, take a look at him.   I'll be driving just north of the Boston area soon, so if you live within reasonable distance of my route, we can even arrange delivery.  Interested?  Email me.

A Quick Giggle of Glee

Wheee!  See that?  It's snow.  Soft, sweet, fluffy snow.  It started around 9:30 this morning, with temps cold enough for it to stick, too.  Are we finally getting winter here in New England?    Of course not.  A mere 18 minutes later, this was my sky: bright, sunshiny and snowless. Still cold, but by tomorrow, temps will be back to 40, and Saturday through Monday, the forecast calls for highs of mid 50's.