Thank you, Kelly

Probably one of the hardest jobs in the lives of all of us animal lovers is to have to put down our dear friends. Our responsibility to them is to not let them suffer. Yesterday, Russ, our dear vet came out to help us say good by to Kelly.

These top two pictures were taken on Monday and if you look closely, you can see that she was blind and was losing weight. Her arthritis was very bad and sometimes if she laid down, I had to help her get up. This last week, she sometimes would get disoriented, especially when the wind was blowing. My guts and conferring with Beth told me it was time.
Beth (critter lover who comments here occasionally) owned Kelly before me and her nearly grown up kids learned to ride on her so Beth had lots of love invested in our dear little pony mare, and came to help say good bye.
Once again I am so grateful to friends and family who gather around in stressful times and offer their support. I'm so thankful to Matt who took time from his crazy, busy farm work to bring his back hoe over and bury Kelly in the woods, and to Russ, our dear vet, who gives supportive hugs.
I would like to tell you what a loving, kind pony Kelly was. She was gentle and even after going blind, trusted humans to help her out. Like this spring, when she was down and got caught under the bottom rail of her fence. Even though she was terrified at being trapped, she stayed still while I talked to her and knocked the boards out so that I could help her up.
She patiently helped many youngsters learn how to ride back in my riding instructor days. She even made it to a few horse shows. Below is a picture of my now 10 year old grand daughter taking first place in a lead line class at a local show.
So, Thank You, Kelly, for the lessons in patience, kindness, trust, and love that you have given to so many of us.

With love, there is also great loss and suffering....

Yarn, Thistles, and Candles

Happy Fourth of July, to my American friends!!!...and a good old Happy Day to the rest of you folks. Hope you are having the kind of day that you enjoy most.

I've been doing some dyeing ↑ of that 65 skeins of white alpaca/merino. Six are finished and I have six more soaking while I decide what colors to use.
I spent a couple hours this morning digging up thistles in the girls' pasture. The plants are starting to produce their seeds, those really nasty round burrs that stick to everything. This has become a twice a year job for me. Can you imagine what the burrs would do to alpaca fiber? A few years back, we got some hay that had a few in and ended up having to shave everyone's top notch off. Bald looking alpacas.

Daughter Terre has started an Etsy shop with her candles. They are really, really nice soy candles. Terre brought me one a couple days ago and it seems like it is going to burn forever......and so yummy. While the kids were growing up, I wore YouthDew perfume, and that's what T scented the candle with.

I hope that you have time to go look at her shop http://terreizzy.etsy.com/ While you are there, click on items and give her a ♥ if you have an Etsy account.

BirdBath

These pictures totally disappeared from my post below and I wanted to be sure that you could see what I was talking about. Danette → had a mound of sand (she's making a bird bath), covered with a layer of plastic, then the leaf is veins up, and she is patting wet cement over the top.
When dry, the cement is lifted, turned over, and behold - a birdbath.
Danette is the daughter of my friend, Billie, who lives across the street. The other lovely is my daughter, Terre, who lives in Ithaca.

Spinning, Bird Baths, and Stepping Stones

What a wonderful weekend! full of friends and creative "stuff". On Saturday several of us met for a day of fibery fun at Cary's lovely place, SerenityFarm. Donna ← taught a spindle class in the morning. She wrote about it on her blog Here and this is her Etsy Store.
Pam, looking over her shoulder below, blogs also and has an Etsy store.
It's so inspiring and heart warming to hang out with good women.

On Sunday five of us got together to play in cement. We made either birdbaths or stepping stones. A brief description of what we did. First of all, we cut several rhubarb and burdock leaves and built a mound of damp sand the shape of our chosen leaf. A sheet of plastic covered the mold and then the leaf was placed on top with the heavy vein side up.
We mixed a bag of cement in a wheel barrow and working from there, scooped wet cement to cover our leaves about an inch thick.
This ↓isn't finished, but it's one of my stepping stones. I stained it with reddish paint and sealed it.

Preparing Doggy Hair for Spinning

My Ravelry friend Teresa sent me a couple ounces of washed dog hair ↓

We wanted to see what kind of yarn it would make. I was a little worried at first because it was so "hairy", and thought that it would probably be too prickly. I've only spun the undercoat brushed from my Golden, Cassie. This was cut, not brushed out, and had lots of short hairs, like the second cuts from alpaca shearing. I threw away lots of those shorties.
This picture of my drum carder shows me adding the dog hair on the metal tray. The turning/crank handle is on the right.
I added a layer of the dog hair and then a layer of a white alpaca/merino roving that I pulled, separated, and fluffed up. I continued layering until I filled up the drum, removed the batt and set it aside. The batts are pretty much a 50/50 blend.
After I carded all the doggy hair, I split the batts and ran them through again. This may have been a mistake because I created some little merino noils (lumpies). I probably won't run it through the second time if I do this again.

I think these batts look gorgeous and have them all packaged and ready to send off to Teresa in Atlanta, Georgia. There's 4.2 ounces here. I wanted to spin up a little to see what it would spin like but all my bobbins are full. I will just wait for word back from Teresa.

Featured on Lime and Violet

Oh, my gosh, my store is featured on Lime and Violet. Thanks so much, RC, for telling me.
Go look:
http://www.limenviolet.com/blog/?p=6675

NutriSystem Food

Summer has finally arrived in midMichigan. That's my thermometer from yesterday. 117 degrees in the sun!!! the inside temp is only 65 because the unit sits right above my register in the kitchen. It was actually 75 inside.
Except for barn chores, I wasn't outside much but did a lot of spinning and knitting. I cut back my morning walk to a mile and my evening bike ride to a mile.
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My second NutriSystem Box arrived yesterday by UPS. I thought some of you might be interested in it, so took pictures before I put it away.
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Because this was my second month, I got to make some choices before they shipped it.
First of all are the breakfasts. You can see there are several packages of cererals and a couple oatmeals, plus some scones and muffins. At the very bottom are breakfast bars. Last month I had some scrambled eggs that came to life with water and the microwave. I really don't like milk, but will get it into me on cereral. I usually have an Activia when I come in from chores.
If you want a bigger picture of what is here, just left click on the picture:

On to the lunches....the little tubs have a metal top that comes off, replace the plastic top and microwave. I think these are quite good. The larger containers on the left get boiling water added and then set for about 5 minutes.....and, of course, more bars.



Moving right along here to the dinners. These boxes just go into the microwave so are quick and easy. No veggies here so I have to supplement. Last month the Schwann's man brought me a big box of NutriSystem's frozen dinners with veggies in them, some sandwiches, and ice cream. I'm thinking I will probably get that again.

And the yummies.... Last month I got quite a few cookies so I changed that to more salty stuff like pretzels and soy chips. Oh, and the monthly supply of vitamins on the left. So, my friends, you can see that there is way more food than I need for a month. The best part is that I can just open my cupboard and choose something. No planning ahead and no prep, well except for having some fresh fruit and vegetables on hand.

As for taste - it's ok. I'm not a big connoisseur and don't especially like to eat, so it works for me.

You probably want to know the cost - $299 a month.

I will have to make a decision each month if I want to continue. I have lost 13 pounds, and want to lose about 10 more.