Woolybuns

It Doesn't Matter How Often I See This

I'm still totally sucked in.  These are two of the now 7 week old German angoras.   Lousy photo quality, I know, but they don't hold still long enough to properly focus the camera.  The cutie on the left is a buck and the one on the right is a doe.  At this point, she is the doe I am leaning towards keeping.  She's got the best combination of coat, shoulders, butt and over all type.  But this age is really too young for those decisions.  To make the best decision on breeding animals, I should be keeping the contenders for at least 4 months and deciding at that point.  I don't usually have cage space enough to do that, though. 

Molly Follies

That's the face I get when she wants me to do something for her.  Quite often, it means she's been playing with a toy, pounced on it with her front feet, and shot it under something furniture.  When that happens, she flops down on her shoulder so she can eyeball the toy, then frantically paw at it with her long legs.  She almost never has success in fishing it out.  And that's when I get that look.  So which one of us do you think plays fetch more often?

Yesterday, we played a different game.  I'm pretty good at teaching my dogs lots of things.  Sit.  Stay.  Come.  Molly even does sit up.  But I'm not good with convincing them to walk nicely on a leash.  I don't need a perfect heel. But a whiplash walk is not my idea of fun.  Molly is so very not food motivated, but she is intensely squirrel and bird motivated.  I've stopped taking her for walks because my back has no chance with all the temptations for her out there.  But we both need the exercise, so I decided to try something else.  Gentle Leader.  I have no pictures of Molly with her first wearing.  She immediately threw herself to the floor, digging and rubbing and totally tantrumming over and over.  She'd stand up and throw herself back down on the other shoulder, dig some more, rub some more, flop over on the other side, repeat.  I gave her five minutes, then attached the leash and stopped her from the tantrum.  Imagine the looks I got then.  We went outside to the back yard.  Another five minutes of fighting the monster I put on her face.  And then suddenly we were just walking around the back yard.  Molly still didn't like what was on her face but she did notice she was outside in the grass where she hasn't been for a long time because I wouldn't risk my back by walking her.  But after that ten minutes of mad hysterics, she stopped.  And just walked.  When I took her out to the sidewalk for our first Gentle Leader walk around the squirrel rich neighborhood, she was a mass of quivering alertness poised for action, but Molly just walked right there beside me.  The whole way. Wheeeeee! 

Pardon Me: My Blingy Cluster Is Acting Up

A dear reader let me know the email address associated with my blog is not cooperating today.  As painful a process as it  is for me, I am checking things out.  That email address comes from my non-existent website.  Ok, so I do own the domain name which in that sense means yes, I have a website.  There's just nothing there because of my... well, complete and utter ineptitude with things computer. Even if there was any content on my website, it wouldn't be readable because it isn't working at the moment.  Why?  My host's status page says:

Critical Announcement!  Please Read!

We're currently experiencing problems with the blingy cluster affectingweb, mysql and mail services. The file server is being worked on, we sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may be causing you.


Blingy cluster???  Snicker snort giggle.  Who comes up with these names? 

Ahem.  All this means is my comments are not making it to my email and I'm now aware of that. And I'm now aware that such a thing as a blingy cluster exists and can affect me.

Wednesday WIPing 3/26/08

No, it is not finished.  Sigh.  There are more inches on it so yes, there is progress.  The sleeve is now  up to about my elbow, so only a couple more inches to go.  But.  Yeah, there is a but.  Bigger sigh.  Remember when someone so accurately expressed her knitting frustration?  Well, that's what I'd like to do, too.  Do you see why?  The first half behaved beautifully.  All that fun color sprinkled so delightfully randomly, just like I worked so hard to get in the sweater body.  But the upper part?  It's striping.  I don't. want. stripes.  Damn it!  I tried cutting the yarn and taking out one section of color.  It just started a different stripe.  I balled up another skein and tried alternating skeins.  I'm still getting agita botheration exasperation vexation stripe.  I think I'm gonna ball up yet another skein and try alternating with three skeins.  After I punish  rip out those frickin' stoopid stripes.

Goal: I ain't settin' one this week.  Yeah, threaten it with time out.  That should teach it a lesson.

Nekkid As A Jay Bird

An odd saying, since Jay Birds aren't at all nekkid, given all their pretty plumage (if you get past the brassy temperments).   Apparently, even wordsmiths are stumped by the origin of the phrase, and don't even know if it refers to birds or if the quote is "naked as a jay" referring to country bumpkins rather than actual birds.  In any case, the phrase came to mind after I spent some time with Pandorable this morning.   Here she is looking nicely foofed.  This is not her most impressive coat, in large part because she was bred for babies earlier this year, plus I clipped her belly short in preparation for babies.  She is one who had only a few and they were too large, so didn't survive birth.  Since then, her coat reached it's clipping length and I decided today was the day.  She's an easy clip, took about 45 minutes to go from that full coat look to her current do.  She's not really nekkid.  Nights are still too chilly to clip to the skin, so she has that really choppy rag tag  look now that must embarrass them so.  But she won't freeze after dark.   This could be the last clip I get from her.  She insists on making babies with big white blazes down their faces.  Cute, yes, but correct?   No.  I don't want to spread that trait through the herd, so she will be living the dream of a lot of us retiring to a friend's fiber farm. 

Giggle Guffaw - Awww heck, a Good Belly Laugh

I received the following email forward from a friend:

As you may have heard, the Bush Administration said every one of 
us would now get a nice rebate. 
   
 If we spend the money at Wal-Mart, it will all go to China. 
 If we spend it on gasoline it will all go to the Arabs. 
 If we spend it on fruit and vegetables it will all go to Mexico, 
Honduras, and  Guatemala. 
 If we purchase a good car it will all go to Japan. 
 If we purchase electronic gadgets it will all go to Taiwan 
or Malayasia. 
   
 We need to keep that money at home to strengthen our economy
 here, so the best way to spend it is for prostitutes and beer,
 the only truly functional businesses still in the US. 
   
 My name is Elliot Spitzer and I approved this message... 

Contented Sigh

One little corner of the world is doing all right.

Bone Wars

There it sat, right out in the open, up for grabs.  Who would spy it first?

Gypsy swoops in for the coup!

Molly sees what happened. She watches.  Waits for An Opportunity. 

Gypsy knows Molly is plotting, so warily stands guard.

Molly makes her first move, cleverly disguised as a casual stretch and recline.

Gypsy is not deceived.  She moves away with the prize.

A major setback.  Molly retreats and registers her discontent with a long series of sighs and groans.

Gypsy is wary and maintains her vigil.

Molly strategizes, movies her base of operations to a more favorable position.

 

And then, in apparent defeat, she moves on, taking the consolation prize.

She lays in abject misery, too defeated to bother chewing the substitute.  Gypsy takes a moment to savor her victory and sniff her opponent's butt lesser prize.

But no. With stunning cunning, Molly makes her move, snatches the bone and takes several victory laps around the house before finally settling in, victorious again.

Gypsy slinks off.

But soon she returns, and she brings a new diversion.  The war begins again.

Wednesday WIPing 3/19/08

WIP.  As in work in progress.  Yes.  Well.  I suppose I technically made a bit of progress.  The Frien d's Folly sweater sleeve has a couple more rounds to it, although I knit at least 4 more rounds.  But then I spotted something.   Oops.  Too much friction on the merino, I guess.  I tinked back, cut out the offending stuff, then matched up the color sequence and knit ... oh, 5 or 6 stitches, just so the join is solid.   Goal: finish this sleeve. 

On both the SKP and corrugated rib socks, progress has consisted of showing what's on the needles.  I'm all about modest goals these days.  So again, the goal on both of these socks is whatever progress happens.

I took my knitting with me to North Carolina but other than showing my hostess, I didn't touch it.  I was too caught up with some pretty nifty distractions.

  Like a brand new angora goat baby taking his first steps.

And then just posing with an abundance of sweet cuteness.

And twin baby boys.

Confused peafowl.  First the hen flirting with a rooster.  Then the peacock romancing a chicken.

Newly naked sheep who look a bit like cows and a wiley ram who said no thanks I'd like to keep my coat. 

And the biggest distraction of all, the lady who runs Avillion Farm, and a newly met blog friend with her daughter who out competed all the animals in the cuteness category.  Chatting and  laughing and sharing and just enjoying clearly took precedence over knitting.

BTW, all those newly nekkid critters, both shetland sheep and angora goats,  left their coats available for purchase so if you're in need, talk to Elaina.  She's probably got some bunny foof available, too.  And possibly some yarn, too.

Here Comes Mistress Woolybuns, Hopping Down The Bunny Trail

Hippity Hoppity, bunnies everywhere.  Yep, the trip was a bunny run, set into motion last October when I fell head over heels in l ove with bought Gryffindor.  He's enjoyed his time at Avillion Farm and produced some lovely babies there.  So now, hoppiness abounds here at Woolybuns.  Gryff is home.  And yeah,  there might have been a  -cough - couple more to come home with me.  Like Gryff's son, a handsome pure German angora who I have christened Hop Tuit.

And these two cuties of interesting color of which neither the breeder nor I know the proper name.   Their sire's color is sable and we suspect these two are sable but there is something else going on.  Possibly something that is not a recognized color combination.  They have some lighter, possibly golden, ticking to the hairs.  I'm  not familiar enough with steel phenotypically (what it actually looks like as opposed to what it is genetically) to know if this is a steel but I do understand the genetics of steel.  It's kind of tricky, because it modifies color rather than determines it, and the sneaky devil can hide because of the way it works.  That means it can pop up unexpectedly, which means many breeders hate the gene.  But the few times I've seen it, I've loved the affect - a good over all color that is tipped with gold or silver.  With the exception of non-extension colors, any rabbit color can be steeled.  But not all of them are officially recognized as approved colors for show.  I don't show my rabbits and my focus is on good depth of color for spinning fiber.  I find these two very attractive so I jumped at the opportunity to see how this color develops.  And hopefully find someone who can tell us what the color actually is.  Both of these little tykes are French angora does.  One will be staying here and one is promised to a friend.

I also brought back a chocolate buck who is here only for a short time, until someone else further north can pick him up, along with a German doe Gryff sired (half sibling to Hop Tuit) and another doe already here.  And then, just to round out the fun, there are two other sweet does who seem to have hopped into my car and rode home with me. Heh. One of them is a nicely dark black German cross doe with, so far, really good depth of color.  I named her Hop Tart.  Gryff is her dad.  And lastly, there is a broken French doe.  Broken refers to the color pattern: butterfly splotch over the nose, black ears, black rings around the eyes and a good bunch of black over the butt.  Ain't she cute?   I don't have a name for her yet.

Even though I brought back a couple of French angoras, I have no intention of breeding pure French angoras.  I don't show rabbits.  I want fiber.  And the French don't produce as much fiber as good Germans and good German crosses.  But these colors are not common in German crosses, so if I want the color, I need to bring it in.  As good an excuse as I needed to indulge, don'tcha think?