clouds to my rescue

i meant to post this tuesday but the days slipped by with no time for posts. i slept in tuesday- i never sleep in... and to sleep solidly till 8:00 a.m. was bliss. the reason- our bedroom was dark-very dark. cause of the unusual and unheard of -grey clouds. something i never see till mid-october around these parts. everyday sunshine! it's sickening!!! gads what's a stormy gal to do! i even missed the 5 second rain sprinkle-snoozing i was! hubby was right-the evidence was on the dusty car windshield. the air was cool. so refreshing-i felt alive. yes! later in the day-the dark clouds moved on and white ones followed.
didn't get pics of the dark clouds though-believe me-they were here!!!! simple pleasures are the best i tell you. i also had an exciting trip to the post office. i joined my first dyed fiber swap on ravelry. for three months i have to dye fiber and mail it to someone on my list and in turn i get fiber in the mail too. this divine merino roving came from cheryl in north carolina.i can't wait to spin it!!! i'm going to do some more solar dying tomorrow for my august person.

i don't know about you-but i just hate plastic water bottles. i hate the waste, i hate the taste and i hate paying for the damn things. well, local potter paul seege of sweetland pottery just came out with these beauties-we were able to catch him before he left for craft shows in idaho.nice huh- i may make a felted thingee to help prevent-the unspeakable. shhhh-i'm not gonna say it. i'm not even going there. anyway-the cool thing is i can put hot tea in it during winter. well, tonight we are attemping to have a knit nite at birdsong's. so i need to get food for the family and figure out what i'm going to work on. so i need to get off the machine. later.

when life gets crusty.....

when life gets crusty.....i tend to crawl under a big rock-hence the lack of posts. but eventually i come around and realize -i enjoy blogging. it brings me pleasure-and i need to crawl out from under that big rock and keep on living-push thru the crusty, swampy and enjoy life again. make some lemonade..... right?

so i avoid the crusty and tell you the good stuff.....my life is far from perfect.

i've been spinning for our county fair. i never seem to get it all done-like the handspun baby sweater or the art skein i signed up for. oh well. i hear many folks say they don't want to enter stuff in the fair as they can't compete with all our talented guild members. i laugh- who cares? to me, it's not about competition or the ribbons-it's about supporting the fair which i love so much-if no one enters things, there will be nothing to look at. it would be a very boring fair indeed. my family loves looking at all the entries. i can't post any pictures-cause i know all the judges are reading my blog-ha!

i started some solar natural dyeing- i began with some old wolf bane lichen i gathered years ago in the high sierras. i only gather the lichen that has blown from the trees as i know it is very slow growing and very beneficial to the environment(as with all native species.) wolf bane has a high content of alum so it needs no mordant. in the past-i simmered the wool with the lichen and got an intense chartreuse. attempting to use the power of the sun-instead of heat up my already broiling kitchen. i put the lichen in canning jars and let the sun extract the color ooze.
the color was a lot softer-not so intense. i let in sit for maybe 3 days. it wasn't getting any darker so i strained it and added my handspun yarn i had soaking in water. the dye was a light chartreuse. i should have taken a pic right away but i waited till i got home from town and the dye was already exhausting.it's going to be pretty pale-but it's my first solar "natural" dye project. i also have some marigolds steeping in the sun-not much to look at now:i've resumed my mr. green jeans sweater-and i'm starting the cables-yahoo! family is summoning-gotta run!

we have a winner!

yes folks we have a winner!!!! yeah!!!! hip hip hooray!!!!!

congratulations to anne marie!!!!!! anne marie please give me your email addy- you can write me at woolydaisy@gmail.com. yes, the little coastal town is pescadero!!!! after our vacation time in yosemite we drove west across the state of california(we took the long way-gads! hell!) to the central coast. i will ultimately treat you with more vay cay pics and other goodies! lets give a big hand to anne marie!!!! liam is a bit bummed that someone guessed right away as he was in charge of drawing the hangman figure-not one body part was added!!

baby pic #2

here's the latest photo of our baby boy-still too young to bring home-but ain't he a peach?guess what i got in the mail the other day- an authentic pippikneesocks dyed fauklands roving! she's up and running again after a cross country move from vermont to oregon-yeah! she's a west coaster now! welcome pippi!!!and yes we have the hangman update- soxchik added some a couple of "E"s. you can guess anytime!!!! letters or the name of the town.good luck-gotta make some grub for the gang!

hangman yes! there is an A

karen guessed A. yeah!!! see previous post if you haven't a clue of whats going on.

garden post and more!

i realized i have not done a garden post in like for-evar!!!(i'm trying to sound like the youth of califonia-ha!) anyway- parts of my garden are good-parts of it- not so good. my potatoes seem to have some sort of fungus or blite. big bummer! i rotated my tomatoes as the garden gods tell me i should-they don't like this spot as well as last year's spot-they look tired. i think i could succeed very well as a zucchini farmer.
my melons are doing pretty good this year-this bity thing is now getting really big-sorry no pic. updates.i'm having a heck of a time with earwigs this year-damn them to hell! liam and i have been having fun with a breakfast challenge- only stuff from our property. we make a mean potato, zucchini, purple bean and egg scramble.on the fiber side- been updating my etsy shop. i was really ambitious and tried to do some dying for a fiber swap-tried to replicate kandinsky's concentric circles:well-the color mixing went awful and it was a big joke! check it out:i hate it. i couldn't even send it to my fiber swap person-i was even embarrassed to put it in my store. then younger son goes ape shit over it and doesn't want me to sell it-he wants socks made from it!! go figure-one dyers garbage is someone else's ecstasy.

here's the hangman board younger son made for my photo contest-see this and this - if you don't know what i'm talking about.
please start guessing letters!!!

i was unable to attend my fiber guild's spinning saturday this weekend -i hear there were several flavors of homemade ice cream! damn! and i missed getting to experince air conditioning!!!!
i so needed it after these triple digit days and smoke clogged lungs-gag! i made up for it spinning at the forest city museum(check this out too!) with birdsong on sunday! no air conditioning but the smoke seems to be clearing!!!! yea!

hang man!

let the game begin! so far no one has guessed the california town from the 2nd lag of our vacation. see previous post. nine letters! now you may guess letters-the first person to comment with the right town gets a groovy something special from yours truly. here's the picture again:
i can tell you it is NOT inverness, groveland, jamestown, point reyes or bodega bay.

i have lots of dying pics to post but can't deal now. the smoke is affecting my brain-ugh! gee maybe if burning wood smoke had a bit of nicotine in it i wouldn't feel like such a zombie.

i think i've pin-pointed my hand issue- swimming. i really use my hands when i swim-i have been swimming way more this year than than last year- and i've been swimming up against the river currents. we've been going at night to cool off. we had a great night swim with an orange(because of the smoke) moon-bats flying around your head-way cool. will try and get blog totally updated as it's impossible to get anything done outside these days.

we're expecting!

well-i have some exciting news for you. in 26 days there will a new member of the woolydaisy clan. i am so excited and nervous. you know how expectant mothers can be. it's been a very long time since there has been a baby in the house. here's a pic of the little guy:
he's a red queensland heeler. can you say "too cute!"

elvis sighting in downieville!

wow! we had such a great 4th of july yesterday. last summer the boys and i were in idaho visiting family. usually liam and i venture up to downieville and have a fun mama son time. this year it was a regular party. hubby came, the neighbors came and we hooked up with birdsong. carey missed the ordeal as he was hanging with his gal, sage and her family.

as you know-hermitesses do not like crowds. i avoid them at all cost. that is why we choose to go to downieville for the 4th of july. a parade and other festivities are happily happening on a small scale-a scale i can deal with.savannah with her....goat. yes, that is a goat! and the "fun guys" were there. nice shoes! where we live fire danger is always so high in the summer months. fireworks are not allowed. but the mountain folks have their own version of fireworks. they call them fire-less fireworks. the parade rambles by-it turns around and comes back-you get to see it again-from the opposite direction-how cool is that. they end the parade with 2 huge rolls of bubble wrap rolled down the street and the crown gets to stomp up and down the street in merriment-making our own firecrackers-what a gas!after the parade-beers and visiting. awaiting the awesome street race competitions. way too fun. i'm feeling it today. okay-let me clue you in on a little something-i walk-i walk a lot. but i never- i repeat never run- not ever. i don't even jog-okay? maybe it was the beers-but i agreed to run the street race-women-age 31 and over. shit! what was i thinking? when we lined up-i was checking out all the "in shape" 30 something babes. well- at least i can be a crowd entertainer. but there were too many women lined up. age 40 and 0ver had to step out this heat. thank the embarrassment-save face goddess! well, the age 40 and over wasn't much better. i still felt ancient. i can say-according to family members-i did not come in last-or were they just being nice-ha!!!! sometimes you forget about your body parts till you really use them-crap! i'm moving slow today-and it was nothing!

after the races comes the infamous "tug-o-war" competition. my personal favorite. here's a picture of my neighbor girl raena(with the red bandana) pulling her weight in the girls versus boys-under 14 years.--the girls won!!! then it came time for the womens tug-o-war. us gals had a ball! mountain women VS. flatlander women. what can i say? we kicked ass!!!! sorry to say the mountain men didn't do as well.

okay-some of you just might be thinking pretty wholesome eh? well- let me inform you- colorful folks are alive and well in downieville-just when you are saying to yourself- how could the offspring of this gentleman ever rebel?i think i found him-in downieville-very eager to pose. the day was complete with an elvis siting-how blessed are we????

i can see clearly........

i can see clearly(sort of) now the smoke is gone. (sing to the tune of-i can see clearly now the rain has gone) we had some wind blow in today that cleared the air a bit. not good for feeding fires but good for clearing the air-i just took this picture from our front porch-we've seen nothing but white since the fires started.

i attempted some solar dying a few days ago-i'm happy with the results. althought next time i think i will try a stronger dye solution. i put my rovings in enamel pans covered with plastic wrap. i want to make a solar oven using glass to see if i get richer colors. this is some targhee wool from sweet grass ranch in montana. i'm very excited to spin it as i've never spun targhee before. here they are before i put the plastic on:here's a few pics of of the roving after drying. i'm having camera issues. none of my colors are looking right these days.i did stove top steamer dying this week also. there's one in particular i really like. not sure if i'm gonna sell it or not. very cool and summery.i haven't been able to knit in awhile as my hands have been really ailing me. every fiber fanatics nightmare-not having use of their hands!!! i've been giving them a rest. i have other pics of other rovings but i'm involved in a fiber swap right now so i can't post any photos- it will spoil the surprise.

i'm too tired to start "wheel of fortune" tonight but i can tell you- it is not groveland, jamestown, point reyes, angel's camp or twain harte. remember the name of the town only has 9 letters.

everyone have a fun a safe 4th. !

camels or marlboros?

fires fires everywhere-sigh! summer time is stressful here in california. i still can't see my view-but i don't know if the air quality is getting better or i'm just getting use to smoking 20 packs of cigarettes a day! i'm sad about many spots burning in our state-but the glorious "big sur" fire is only 3% contained last i checked. gads! i hear it's so hot even the redwoods are burning. they are known to withstand fire. heavy sigh! we almost went there for our vacation. now it will never be the same. last time i was there liam was just a wee little guy.

iv'e been so worried about the henry miller memorial library burning up. i went on line and it looks like it is unharmed-whew! i love firefighters!!!!!!!! kiss kiss to you!on another note- i have been doing lots of dying-but my pictures suck and don't do the fiber justice. i hate to post them. i did some solar dying and the fiber is beautiful. some targhee fiber from sweet grass wool. i'll try and rework the photos.

as far as the vacation photo contest(see a few posts back)-i've had 3 guesses-no winner yet. it is NOT groveland, jamestown or point reyes. i will give it another day-and we'll start playing "hangman" or "wheel of fortune" if you prefer-don't worry you don't have to pay for vowels! although hubby did suggest 10$ a vowel.