they promise it will get better soon

They being the weather forecasters. The ceiling fans have not stopped for about two weeks. I am turning into one of the less attractive mushrooms (you may try dyeing with me, I imagine it will come out tea-colored no matter what you ferment me with).

Twilly caught a pickerel frog (look, I have a new eNature button in the sidebar). Sarah brought its limp corpse for me to wonder at and mourn. Then she carried it away toward the great compost heap. It hopped up and scared the daylights out of her, a very good strategy. She managed to get it back outside. I imagine they don't mind the weather.

Meanwhile, even though I aspire to Woolcentricity, it is too damn hot and I am caught up in the infatuation of being a supervisor for this year's SCRAP fieldschool (also in sidebar. Looks like a hat). So I care about the fairly grim pottery of the Northeast, since we are very likely to find some (after roughly 5 years of Paleo sites where I hallucinated Romano-British pottery), and thus I care about the very useful plant-fiber impressions that decorate? Woodland pottery, some of which are tabby and some of which are twined (probably bast)(well, pretty damn certainly bast)(it is now cooler, thanks be, and I had a glass of RED wine). So I am making a piece of twined fabric out of some very tasty, in its way, flax yarn(?) I guess, though, if you said "designer string" it would be closer to the truth.



It takes an inexperienced person about 20 minutes a 12"long pick, at about 1/8 of an inch (say 4.5mm, okay?)per pick wide. It is apparently really strong, suitable for carrying home the caribou cutlets, and doesn't unravel while it rests. I have a fine loom, more portable than hers,



I am trying to bear thinking of it pressed against modelling clay, but I suppose it'll be cleaner than dismembered plant or mammal, by and large. If I can stand it, I'll try with raffia, too. I have already learned some great tricks to do with the fringe of woven scarfs, if I progress to that phase of technology.

It's finally cooler. Still very wet, but my clothes aren't sticking to my body with the same disgusting viscosity. I think I'll twine awhile and then KNIT!!!!