Not dead yet

You get into a thing where you want to update but you think it's silly without pictures so you don't update because you keep forgetting to take the pictures and then when you do your camera batteries are shot and so you go look for the recharger and then you forget why you're in that room and you do the laundry and you take the other load upstairs and your room is so squalid you go and knit and then the next morning there you are wondering whether you are, in fact, dead, because you have not updated your blog. And your room is squalid and you really never will find the battery recharger, and that makes about three in the last ten years

I will buy some double A's.

Sarah came over yesterday and sat and knitted while I put away four months of laundry. Maybe only two. I have both floor and clean underwear again. I may get the room really tidy by the New Hampshire sheep and wool festival in May. But I wouldn't bet on it.

Sarah says she is not dead either, but she seems to have given up the whole blog thing. This is a pity because she is still knitting like a fiend.

But I have not taken any pictures.

After my cri-de-coeur about not caring about knitting any more I went on a binge and finished the faux entrelac scarf for Doug. It is way cool (think a woven-look shelf fungus) and apparently way warm, now that we have weather where scarves are a serious consideration (think of a picture). I had good intentions about not starting things without finishing other things, and as a result of this hubris the nearly finished second twined-knitting silk and alpaca mitten and the yarn disappeared totally (out of a locked car, which showed no other signs of burglary. Doug thinks it's in a bag). I really wish it would turn up. It was not under the laundry. I doubt that it is abiding with the battery charger, except metaphorically.

I made one and a half bootees for my boss's any-minute grandchild. As I had only one weight of superwash wool they will fit the child when he is about three, but as long as he likes Darth Maul he should be delighted with them (think of a picture. They are based on the Zebra Bootees in the bootee book). I have now got some green and yellow Baby Ull and no interest in making my boss's relative anything, but it's hardly the child's fault.

Meanwhile the Only Beloved Daughter has gone to a Better Place, which we call Italy. She landed yesterday, having left her breakfast and her favorite sweater in a rubbish bin in the Zurich airport (She bought a pink t-shirt in the gift shop to be decent in, poor child). Said sweater was a store-bought (you can exhale) very fine gauge purple angora and lambswool with the holes of short-stapled fiber appearing all over it; I think it is in Sweater Valhalla, where there are no moths and only valiant cats sleep on you. Before she left she had grudgingly ("You don't NEED another Project. You don't NEED more yarn.") consented to my starting a sweater in a Noro Silver Thaw that looks like an impressionist hyacinth field (the picture does not do it justice). I am doing Ann Budd's pullover, as OBD doesn't like the way raglans hang, only I did the back and front in the round with a false seam up to the divide for armholes. I began the sweater on January 12. To her amazement (and mine, and both our pleasure), I finished the back as she was driving us to her boyfriend's house on Friday the 19th. Yesterday I finished the front and started the sleeves. (Think of a picture.)

During the time that OBD (I think this will be a fine acronym for her, but her name is really Ellie, if I forget. I have an Only Beloved Son but he is at college in Maryland and not terribly communicative) was here, we continued the years-long lament for how bored Mena is. After some more havering, we have a shelter kitty named Marten (imagine a picture - he's a light brown tabby with white paws and mask). He is about a year old and a goof. Unfortunately Mena thinks he is disgusting and he keeps trying to play with her and Digger and Asterix and fur flys and ugly words howl through the woodsmoke. Marten (named and spelled for the protagonist of the webcomic Questionable Content)(in this link, he is the guy. Not the librarian) thinks they are BOOOOOR-ING.

OBD wanted us not to get a kitten because she points out that older kitties have more trouble getting adopted, which is, of course, true. There are an awful lot of beautiful kitties in the Bedford and Manchester shelters. The ones that hurt worst were the fat 8 and 9 year olds whose owners had to move out of cat-friendly residences, or at least that's what they told the shelter. But we wanted a young cat and a male, which let out about 7/8 of the talent. Marten is a sweetie. But Mena might have felt more comfortable with a kitten, and I am still having midlife-kitten hunger. So I am still looking for sweet little male kitten, in a sneaky, guilty way.

We are unusual in our region for actually having had some snow. Think of a picture of the orange pin flags (marking the bulbs I planted last fall) on the white hillside, like the flags of a leprechaun slalom. I will get batteries.

New Year!

Usually's it's my mother who gets the post-Halloween blues; she was doing fine this year until her oldest dearest friend died on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. I was doing so-so, and although some of the immediate difficulties (human relationships. You have to wonder if they are worth the trouble...) seem better, I wouldn't say anything has changed dramatically. I think I am in a little plateau of 'Meh.' It's WAY better than deep depression, but not a lot of fun.

The worst feeling this has brought is that I can take or leave wool alone. I know. Don't hate me. It makes me spotty about reading the posts even of people I care about. I just am not interested in someone's else's socks, nor my own (well, actually, there have been a few links
I have checked up, I'm not really dead yet). I finished my father's socks and my mother's neck thing and my friend's fingerless mitts (I made them for Grace to give to Debbie... now, do I owe Debbie or Grace a Christmas present? ). I have a hell of a lot of roving and yarn and not a great deal of ambition and this makes shopping problematic.

Meanwhile I am knitting on a false entrelac alpaca scarf and trying to finish the twined knitting red silk/merino/alpaca mittens I stated in Dec of 2005. If I try to finish one thing for every project I start I should end up in better shape. And I have made room reservations for the Portland Spa because I know by February I will need bright colors and human contact and maybe even wool. (Well, not need wool, as such).

The number of things that I am very, very grateful for not being worse has skyrocketed; too many friends had Christmastides punctuated by screaming fights or arrests or debilitating illness.

(Does anyone have a good book to offer my friend whom, I finally realized, blindingly obviously needs to seek out Al-Anon? I am not aware of anything in the 'Co-Dependent No More' line that is any more recent.)

My cat (Asterix, 17+) has an enlarged thyroid and needs help, and as he is the last survivior I know of his litter I imagine this is the slow slide into shadow... he's deaf, but does he HAVE to yowl so loud? I know he's there. So we will be going to the vet and trying oral medication for his eating/digestive ills. In the meantime, the household wants a young kitty for Mena (9 or ten and feisty) to smack around.

I have a cold. I got it last Wednesday. I was better Sunday, so I stayed up too late, drank more than a glass of wine, exercised yesterday, and relapsed last night into mouthbreathing and sore throat. I need to go to work today anyhow, as I was out the last two days of last year. We'll discuss my attitude about work some other time.

I am going to try to blog, or write in my journal, or draw a picture five out of seven days in the year to come. I sincerely think these are good for feeling stuck.

and fiber?

I have largely finished the SCRAP database entry, so I have less excuse to avoid my Christmas knitting. This will not stop me, but still.

My mother's thing is sort of a surprise (she chose the yarn. She seemed bemused that I had so many types to choose from...) but complete (pics after Christmas). I took it almost altogether apart at least three times, and now the _very_ simple lacy pattern is correct all the way through.

My daughter's gloves were not intended as a Christmas present, and they were actually finished when I picked her up on Tuesday -- I had a couple of chances to try the fingerlength on her. I hope the angora blend does not pill too much, but in any case they will feel pleasant.


Just glovely. Thank you, Ann Budd.

So it was the Wool Tour back in October (where the responsiblity for the angora gloves lies, too) and by the end of the day and the reprise of the trip to the Fiber Studio and I was Weak and Not Thinking. My father often says he would like more colorful socks. The Taos by Crystal Palace was very colorful. I bought some.

When common sense returned (as much as it ever does), I realized the Taos was softly spun singles. The tensile strength of a scarf, NOT of size 13 socks. But so beautiful.

So I spun it again (suddenly the worsted was a sockweight) and plied it with itself (suddenly a slightly less jewel-toned bulky). It still feels like a felting disaster waiting to happen (my mother handwashes things that deserve it; I have to trust) but soooo warm and soft - not merino soft, but something with more integrity. Maybe Blue-Faced Leicester.



From 9 o'clock: the original ball of Taos, the spool of respun singles, the ball of two-ply, the sock in progress.

The only drawback is that it's 38 stitches around, makes up so fast it's dizzying, and my father may not think I have spent enough time on his present (since I like him, a certain amount of slave labor would be okay). I was able to try the initial sock on his foot and then turn the heel ("Clog-length already," my mother said approvingly. I offered a tiny pompom but we decided to go longer) while they were here for Thanksgiving; they won't be a surprise, but we agree that fitting is better than surprising.

I have a request from a dear friend for fingerless gloves for her wife. I don't think bulky will do, but I may have time to finish them before Easter. It's better than shopping.

a quick visit with the chickens.

None of them has attacked my daughter this holiday, which is good. Spike


Spike, who is probably an Araucana

continues to be the dominant male and a loud jerk, but the incidents of sexual assault seem to be less frequent. Or the hens just don't care anymore.
Faith crows with an inhale on the end the makes him sound like a dying bagpipe, but he's not as aggressive and I like him.


Faith


We get two or three eggs a day, and they are small but beautiful -- bright orange yolks. I can't say they taste much different to me, but others swear they are 'eggier.'
They come in brown, white, and off-white. Doug is fairly sure Buffy and Joyce lay the white ones on the shelf above the bin.


Buffy is the one in the middle. She is a Game Hen and looks like a velociraptor.

This leaves Ms. Callendar, Dawn, and possibly Auk laying the darker ones. These three do not flock with the others, preferring a quiet life nearer the coop.

We still haven't figured out if Auk, who LOOKS like Cochin China rooster but rarely crows and is sometimes brooding on the eggs, is a hen or not.

We lost Harmony (off-white with brown checks) last month when she flew into something, we believe, and gave herself severe spinal damage. Cordelia, the Polish, whose gender we weren't sure about either, had been avoiding the rest of the flock. She managed not to get shut in with the others that same night and has not been seen since. The crows made a terrible, unusual racket at dawn the next day...

So we are down to seven.

The other day I went to MA to get the daughter. When we arrived home, Doug, as bravely as possible, said that Joyce was missing. She is one of the layers and almost as humanized as Buffy (read that as 'eagerly exploitive.') And Doug loves her neatness. She is something like a Duckwing. We had not expected such attrition. Joyce had definitely been around at 3 pm, when I stopped in at home on the way to MA. Doug said he knew I had stopped in because the dishwasher had been running and there was chicken poop in the entry way, and indeed the living room. I was surprised because I had thought I had shooed them outside again before such disgusting events could occur. As Doug left the room, shaking his headver mortality, I saw:
o


Man and hen were reunited and Joyce seemed happy to get back to the coop.



The happy man and his chicken

There was an election

No one seems to be mentioning it, but there was an election. It went Democratic beyond my wildest dreams. I know I will soon be disappointed because they aren't far enough left, but right now, I am wandering around feeling exhilarated. It won't Change Everything. But it may help some things, and I am getting old enough that that is pretty damn good.

Meanwhile, I bought One-Skein Wonders and started something for my mother, and realized the yarn for another project was singles and soft and unsuitable. So I spun it tighter and plied it with another skein of itself, also spun tighter, and it is slightly less colorful but much more durable. And I have almost finished my daughter's gloves, thanks to Ann Budd. I had not found any good advice about gloves the last time I looked in my library, and made nearly all of the first glove before finding this. I ripped it back. It was quite glovelike, but I like the one in the pattern better.

This weekend I am going to an archaeology conference, where I plan to use my drop spindle.

How pathetic is this?

For the past couple weeks, I have been dragging the SCRAP database into the early 21st century. Really: I have been entering data from as early as 2001. No wonder that binder was overflowing. When it is doing what I want, I love Access. Things look so tidy. Now I am making personalized timesheets for the seriously hooked lab participants, which I plan to print on different colors every year, so if it ever gets this bad again it'll be easy to sort out. The timesheets have to do with getting Federal funds in return for time donated.

So I am making a fiber-in-my-possession database. I realize I am not the first to do this, but it's a new one on me. Now I HAVE to learn how to embed photographs. I can tell I am going to be carrying the files around like so many fuzzy grandchildren.

It will, unfortunately, make it entirely clear how LAME I am (no offense intended to the halt, of which I am one sometimes), because so very few entries will actually have the last line filled in: Fate. What I did with the stuff. Mostly, what I do is start something, usually a sock, and put it carefully aside until I need the needles, when I rip it back.

Daughter has the nerve to want me to finish her gloves. I am scared enough I plan to leave all the fingers unfinished, until I can put her petite digits in them. Finishing will give me something to do on Thanksgiving Day.

I am also at the -you-must-pay-attention point (narrowing the fronts and backs) of the generic vest, doing a very delightful garter-stitch shawl, perfect for the car when I can get someone else to drive. Maybe it's time to make Christmas presents. Maybe people will be lucky to get gift certificates...

Winter's coming on

The leaves that remain, mostly oaks, are becoming less brilliant every day. It is getting seriously cold. I have about 30 lbs of bulbs in my front room. I may have waited too long.

Asterix has suggested that he would be feeling EVEN better if I were to buy a small container of heavy cream and give him some of that instead of milk. Since he does not projectile v. from cream. He's doing fine, bless him. For however long.

Two eggs appeared in the henhouse yesterday, the first. Chickens hatched in mid April. Doug still thinks Cordelia is a hen and thinks they are hers. I notice changes in Buffy's and Joyce's combs and think some serious hormones are happening there. Whatever. I would be grateful if Doug would not refer to the eggs as 'our first lay.'

The saddest remark about my character is that for devious reasons I undertook to make a massive database of SCRAP volunteers and I am finding playing with Access on my own time really, really interesting.

If you hate party politics, skip this liberal attack

From a friend's blog:
Want an extra vote?
I can't give you that, but I can give you an opportunity to affect the upcoming election. How? By spreading links to informative uncomplimentary articles about Republican candidates. The idea is that voters doing Google research will be more likely to encounter these articles. The more people play, the better it works. The more prominent your web site, the more such links on it will help. This idea had its start on DailyKos.

You can play too. Go to this link, copy the text you see there and put it in your blog

If your blood pressure is low, try reading a few of the articles

-AZ-Sen: Jon Kyl

--AZ-01: Rick Renzi

--AZ-05: J.D. Hayworth

--CA-04: John Doolittle

--CA-11: Richard Pombo

--CA-50: Brian Bilbray

--CO-04: Marilyn Musgrave

--CO-05: Doug Lamborn

--CO-07: Rick O'Donnell

--CT-04: Christopher Shays

--FL-13: Vernon Buchanan

--FL-16: Joe Negron

--FL-22: Clay Shaw

--ID-01: Bill Sali

--IL-06: Peter Roskam

--IL-10: Mark Kirk

--IL-14: Dennis Hastert

--IN-02: Chris Chocola

--IN-08: John Hostettler

--IA-01: Mike Whalen

--KS-02: Jim Ryun

--KY-03: Anne Northup

--KY-04: Geoff Davis

--MD-Sen: Michael Steele

--MN-01: Gil Gutknecht

--MN-06: Michele Bachmann

--MO-Sen: Jim Talent

--MT-Sen: Conrad Burns

--NV-03: Jon Porter

--NH-02: Charlie Bass

--NJ-07: Mike Ferguson

--NM-01: Heather Wilson

--NY-03: Peter King

--NY-20: John Sweeney

--NY-26: Tom Reynolds

--NY-29: Randy Kuhl

--NC-08: Robin Hayes

--NC-11: Charles Taylor

--OH-01: Steve Chabot

--OH-02: Jean Schmidt

--OH-15: Deborah Pryce

--OH-18: Joy Padgett

--PA-04: Melissa Hart

--PA-07: Curt Weldon

--PA-08: Mike Fitzpatrick

--PA-10: Don Sherwood

--RI-Sen: Lincoln Chafee

--TN-Sen: Bob Corker

--VA-Sen: George Allen

--VA-10: Frank Wolf

--WA-Sen: Mike McGavick

--WA-08: Dave Reichert

I regretted missing the people

but not Rhinebeck itself. I still have an awful lot of stash. I still have an awful lot of projects. I haven't been home all weekend for about a month and a half, and it isn't getting better any sooner. Which means that my desk is still glaciated, and I still have an appalling weight of daffodil bulbs to plant, but I caught up with the laundry.

On Saturday we had the autumn meeting of the NH Archaeological Society, with about 50 people in attendance. I knew probably over half of them by sight, and apart from starting repellantly early in the morning, it was a pretty good time. I should get some kind of recognition for two board meetings in three days, right? But at least the NHAS has slides (some of them even of rocks!) and not enough took place that I needed to take notes.

Sunday I ought to have been planting bulbs but Doug and I tidied and I have had so little time at home that it was almost as pleasant as it was necessary. One of our friends had relatives visiting and we had lunch with them at the local Nice Restaurant. I wish I were sleeping better, but life could be a lot worse.

Asterix continues to be alive and vigorous. And obnoxious.

Schroedinger's cat

Yesterday, for the first EVER, Asterix did not wake up and plague me through breakfast. He was breathing but deeply asleep. I spent the workday bursting into sobs.

Many years ago now, a dear, previous cat named Pangur Ban came down with pneumonia and fell asleep in a tight doughnut on a garden path. Even though I knew she had a slow cancer, I woke her up and took her to the vet. She got antibiotics and recovered completely -- from the pneumonia. We had just moved to a suburban house, with a big yard and prey, and I hope she did enjoy it. Her death maybe 18? months later was long and nasty and ended in a vet's office. I do not wake sleeping cats over seventeen years old who have been losing weight slowly but steadily.

He was fine and mouthy when I got home and has already plagued me this morning. Ain't love a bitch?

Octoberfest '06

For more than you probably want to know about my dig last weekend in the Mt Washington Valley, go to http://scrapdig.blogspot.com.

the wages of enabling

SO Doug and I spun at the Canterbury Shaker Village WOol Day, and I was spotted by one of the women who works down the hall from me. The next week she came in and asked if I knew anything about angora rabbits. A lot, I said. Within a few days I was scouting for rabbits on her behalf and last week, when I was particularly exasperated with my job, I took one of the Diak spindles down the hall and a some of Mary Pratt's Romney and taught her to spin. Poor Jean.

So today I went to pick up the red-eyed white rabbit I had met on the Wool Tour and the Spinning Bunny lady mentioned that Doug (who bought a spindle from on the Wool Tour) would want to know she had a new shipment of Forrester spindles in hand. Including ones with pyrography.

A better person would have started her Christmas shopping.

It's really beautiful and Doug already has two Forresters, anyway. Now I have one.

The Wool Tour. Friends from Massachusetts, ripe for enabling. The first clear three-day weekend we have had ALL YEAR. A tidy fiber room, meaning I have a reasonable idea what I have in the fiber holdings.
We went to the Fiber Studio. The Daughter who points out accurately that she has enough stuff allowed her bestial nature to get the upper hand for just long enough to allow me to get her one small skein of Raspberry Mocha pastel, part-angora hand-dyed (fingerless gloves, I have the cuffs done already). And that was all I bought. See my restraint?

Then we went to lunch, which was delightful and took far too long because there were not enough waitresses. This left not enough time to go to more than one more site (of five) on the Wool Tour; we went to the Wool Room, so we could see our friends from the Elegant Ewe (two patterns is not very much) as well as check out Mrs. Hennessy's health. She runs the Wool Room and has been recovering from a stroke. She's doing very well, her daughter says, she certainly seemed in good shape. I found a couple of books. And some other small things, very. I got Sarah a Christmas present, which is perfect for her, perfect, and I will just say I think she will like it, but I won't tell her what is it, hey Sarah, I know something YOU don't know... anyway, at least one person will get one thing she'll like.

Then we went to Chauncey Farm, where I got Sarah the blue-shot-with-orange roving from Brimstone Hollow Farm, as she had bought one bump back on Canterbury Shaker Village Wool Day and one was not enough.

And then we went back to the Fiber Studio where I bought 4 oz of melted frozen raspberry roving and two more books... I have been wanting the Baby Bootee book for years, despite the dearth of babies in the immediate future, and the Harlot made me get the weaving book... I think it was the Harlot...well, there was still room on the bookshelves.

I hope to visit the alpacas of Mirage Farm on the way back to taking Daughter home to college this afternoon. Isn't she home now, you ask? Yes, but she explains rather sadly that Home is where you aren't, at the moment.

I have a kind of life-ADHD. It's inherited, and I found it irritating in my parents and I know my daughter finds it irritating in me. I am still about the goldfinches, and still about the fiber, and for that matter the gardening and the cats and the digging.

Right at the moment, however, I seem to be mostly about the brewing. The generations on either side of me worry that I will become alcoholic. I don't think so, and I pay attention (although I notice I've had have an empty tequila bottle next to my bed for the past month and an empty prescription container on the floor, giving me a pleasing Hunter Thompson ambience).

Although the kit wine I made was generally pretty decent (as long as I bottled it in a reasonable time,and bearing in mind that I have tried to keep my palate from becoming refined/expensive), and although I actually drink more wine, I love making beer.

It smells good. You get to make potions. You get to use yeast, which makes it more about symbiosis than cooking usually is (I used to be a a kickass breadbaker, but the gluten intolerance put an end to it. Also makes the beer somewhat problematic, though I get no detectable reaction to the dilute, chopped around proteins that survive in malted barley tea.). You get to have airlocks, kind of auditory LavaLamps that say 'Bloop' when you walk past.


Sometimes it's _really_ glad to see you...

It smells good, and it does bona fide amazing transformations over the brewing, fermenting, and bottling periods. The ingredients are not too expensive, and they have wonderful names like Maris Otter.The hardware is not too bad after the initial ~$60 investment, though there are a satisfying number of nifty gadgets to continue bleeding off unwanted cash.

I suspect some of my enjoyment in brewing plays off the same delight I find in using millenia-old technology to prproduce clothing, though the use of hops is pretty damn recent -- after the introduction of knitting to the West, barely becoming widespread before the European discovery of the New World (in other words, post-mediaeval crap). On the other hand, I haven't had much success with non-hop bittering, despite the earnest condemnations of Stephen Buhner.

My first forays into mead, the other ancient brew, were disappointing; though they smelled like honey/heaven, they tasted like a moderately dry white wine. It is quite easy and much faster to just buy a bottle of white wine, assuming you want to waste your money not buying red (this summer was the first time I really regularly appreciated the lightness of white wine on a hot evening). But then I tried some of the herb-infused meads, metheglins, which is a cool enough word to be almost worth the trouble right there. The problem with meads in general is that they take much longer to mature than beer or kit wine or even fruit wine (this is the book that started me off. Blame the SCA). Eighteen months is the minimum, and I have not been as good about recording recipes as I should be. I can't remember how much nettle and sage went into the tea after a couple of years. My more recent efforts have better records, partly thanks to Doug who has been very kind about about trying to get the details nailed down, like labels and mopping the floor. And my mead recipes tend to be in one-gallons, which seem hardly worth the trouble when after 18 months you end up with maybe ten 12-oz bottles.

Fortunately one of those bottles is enough to dispatch two adults.



This is the current lineup in the engine room, from left to right: Try to Remember September Ale, with pumpkin, a touch of saffron and honey, ready maybe in a month; Persephone's Lament pomegranate melomel (all fruit meads are technically melomels), appearing March 2008?; multi-berry Barkshack Gingermead, ready about the same time or maybe later; Shaker Peach Wine (the peaches are from Shaker Village, though the Shakers did not imbibe socially), ready next July or so; Blueberry Melomel, about 18 months if it ever settles down; Sweetfern Metheglin, another couple of years, and 2 jugs of Dandelion Wine, due for consumption in March of 2007, practically next week and I hope it loses the edge it had the last time we racked it.

When I go to the recycling center, I drop off some beer bottles (with screw-off tops; they would need special caps) and pick up others. God bless Sam Adams; if they ever go to unscrew caps, I will have to consider buying my beer bottles empty. The sad thing is that I like brewing better than drinking and I have largely non-drinking relatives. I can't sell it and there's a limit to what the basement will hold.

I am wondering whether Blogger always loses drafts nowadays. It certainly seems to be a bad bet.

Saturday, when it rained, I spun at the Canterbury Shaker Village. It is never a big event, but there is a certain gentle interest in being the first spinners some of the visitors have ever seen. There are other visitors with much more experience, like the mother of one 18-month old and almost another (due in Dec), have spun, and woven and crocheted but haven't touched any of it since the 18-month old was born -- she hadn't ever tried a double-treadle and wasn't sure she and the baby-to-come would fit behind a Joy (they did, and she really enjoyed the double treadle). And there was the 60ish woman who had gone to farm for a sheep shearing and spinning demo fifty years earlier and never forgotten. I suggested that all of them come to the NH Sheep and Wool next spring.

Since there were very few vendors you would think I could have behaved. But the woman I taught to use a spindle at the CSV Wool Day two years ago (now demo-ing on a Great Wheel and a Joy) showed me a really soft sheepskin she had bought. I was cold and damp and now own a really rich-feeling brown sheepskin. It would go well on my car seat or my computer chair but I think I am going to make a Barbarian Vest. I have been reading a lot about the need for the invention of tailored garments (read: needles, cutting, and shaping) as modern humans suddenly developed the use of symbols (or at least started using them in a way that shows up in the archaeological record) and were able to move into colder climates (and push out the Neanderthals, who didn't seem to have used needles, at least not in Eastern Europe, at least not in the unbelievably dull book I was trying to read). Any ancient person would plotz at the feel of my sheepskin, with its supple hide and long, clean fleece. I will be using plastic sinew for sewing but I want to try some kind of appropriate technology to color the skin. Anyone know anything about how corrosive iron oxide might be?

In other fields, specifically the teardrop-shaped hummingbird garden, Doug and I got a bunch of Home Depot bulbs planted. I am delighted, because the huge order from White Flower Farm has been shipped and my back will be to the wall between now and serious winter to get them planted. Yesterday's weather was unusually unpleasant, being cold AND sweaty. After bulbs and the traditional weekend trip to the dump/recycling center, I racked the peach wine (very tasty), the dandelion wine (something of an edge on it), and the sweetfern mead (spectacular and lethal), bottled the honey/ginger beer, bottled another recently rediscoved 2004 mead, and reeling around the kitchen, brewed BarkShack Gingermead with frozen berries and canned sweet cherry juice. Mead is quite a vindictive little drink.

A couple of updates

The wine I bottled last month has improved a great deal. It's still isn't exactly amazing, but it's drinkable and I won't have to make 5 gallons of mulled wine or learn to culture vinegar.

In the Goldfinch section (see title of blog), we seem to have said farewell to the humminbirds for the year. None has been seen since Labor Day, the same time as they left last year. They were a week early this spring, and they seem to have been successful in raising young, as there were a lot more hummingbirds fighting in late August than there had been in mid-July. The downy woodpeckers, the goldfinches, and the various sparrows seem to have done all right, too.

As to the Fiber, I am knitting a little, occasionally. It may have been the weather (oppressively humid at times) or I may just not be as obsessive as I should be if I am ever to finish anything. Unfortunately I don't think any of my relatives would rather have a bottle of home-brewed whatever than a pair of socks. I was able to present my ex with a home-grown canteloupe

This week

I almost need a 12-step group; I am almost reading too much. Robin Hobb, as I should have known from her association with Steven Brust is very good. Simon Green is not good, exactly, but it's certainly amusing. Much darker than Terry Pratchett and the philosophy is thin, if any.

Apart from giving all of my hard-earned to Borders, I have been trying to get my place of work's database up to date. Sometimes I get to weed my garden, which is important, because I have way too many bulbs coming in the mail. I have just a few that I bought from the impressive selection at Home Depot; I had hoped to plant them yesterday, but I was seduced by the filthy kitchen. This only makes sense if I explain that I HAD to make the kitchen habitable by humans to make it safe for brewer's yeast. I started a batch of blueberry mead (canned blueberries; I should get to taste this in about two years) and a ginger-enhanced beer (I should get to taste this in about a month). I found out that what I had always though was a 6-gallon carboy was a 5-gallon carboy the empirical way (I drew off a gallon and put it in a jug with a dash of yeast and an airlock... it's doing FINE. The two will be reunited once they calm down a bit).

There seems to be some kind of relatively pleasant curse on me in that I rarely have a whole weekend to avoid cleaning my room or weeding the gardens. Saturday mornig Doug and I went for a walk and then it was time to go to Mass. for my ex-husband's birthday dinner. Next Sunday I am going to Mass. for a send-off to college of someone I have known since he was 18 months old, maybe less. I think there may be a couple weekends before the poultry show and then it will be OctoberFest and then the NH Archaeology Society Fall Meeting (I skipped out on the spring one) and then it will be November.

I have not been very sociable and I owe people I care about some responses to their e-mails. I intend to do better.

Autumn

This morning I had to put on pajamas. I suppose I was cold most of the night, but it is my God-given right as a resident of New Hampshire to sleep with the windows open so I can hear the frogs/crickets/occasional owl/coyote, to wear nothing to bed and to complain about about the heat --

Oh. It's September?

If it were three months later, it would be my God-given right to wear sweaters all the time, up to three pairs of socks, and generally justify the Knitting Way of Life. This would continue into early May.

I have trouble with transitions.

I was going to talk about the Hopkinton Fair. We went in search of other chickens. There were, most of them silkies, a breed we are told was described by Marco Polo as a "fowl with fur." I was happy to see some outside of a book, and if the nine chickens we have were not already polluting the deck and chasing the cats I would have been tempted to buy one of those for sale. (As it is, no.) There were a few other breeds, enough to suggest that our chicken Joyce is a Duckwing, and Auk, our big black Cochin China hen... is a male. Making four out of nine, with Cordelia, Faith, and Spike (in ascending order of dominance).

(As to what we will do with four roosters: so far only Cordelia, the Polish with the silly haircut, is suffering from much bullying. He has a bald spot. I have heard stories about other breeds killing Polishes because they are gentle and philosophical. We hope not, but I am worried about the winter. Faith is missing some neck feathers and Auk has been the odd bird out since he was a chick; none of the others interacts with him much. Only Spike crows, and usually only about after we let them out of the coop. The hens still don't seem to be interested in sex, to Spike's apparent disappointment. No eggs yet.)

The fair: there weren't enough chickens. I doubt that the rabbit, sheep, or goat fancier would have been impressed with the numbers of those animals. There were some very lovely cattle



and a few pulling horses. There were some unremarkable vegetables, except for the pumpkins



which were pretty good. I am told there were a lot of rides, and I noticed there was an great assortment of food (though not nearly enough things on sticks). I had a felafel plate and some excellent French fries, and I hope to see the barbecue first next time.

What really surpised me, given the way I behave at fiber fests, was that there was nothing I wanted to buy. There was only one pitch-man (car wax) even trying to persuade me to be interested; three different sets of Bible-based Christians (which, if you want to get theological, is dubious; wouldn't they be Biblians?) offering salvation. There was no pie contest, no handiwork contests, no homebrewing contest, no home-made jams or canned vegetable or pie contests.

So we are going to a poultry fanciers gathering in October.

The Internet ate my homework

I had a lovely entry covering the past week or so. I was going to put the pictures in this morning, so after I fixed the typoes I hit "Save as Draft,' and wasn't I cross this morning to find it was gone. Never trust that command again. again.

It went something like this:

When Doug made me make a batch of dandelion wine in May, he blew some very cold embers back to life. When I moved here in 2004 I had a carboy of red wine and about six gallons of mead aging. They have been living in the the back room where the refrigerator and washer and dryer are. Sometimes I would add water to the airlocks, but it was too much trouble to do more. The first batch of mead, when I tasted it a year or more ago was very, very alcoholic and uninteresting otherwise.

I bottled the wine in August; it tasted fairly sour and awful, but whatEVER, it was out of the engine room. I picked up a beer kit and made it and even got that bottled, and it was fun. And Doug thoughtfully washed the floor as the malt made our feet stick.

So then Sarah gave us a huge load of cosmetically blemished organically-grown peaches and told me to go make wine out of them, so I did. Since then I have been rereading all my Charlie Papazian books and I decided that the next thing to do to excel as a brewer would be to take care of the zombie brews in the engine room.

This meant I had to face the mouse-infested boxes of brewgear in the basement, which turned out to be even worse than I expected. At least four mice had thought it was a good idea to squeeze into upright (and once sterile) empty wine bottles and die. I chose to recycle the bottles at the dump, rather than at home. Possibly I should have attempted to make it a feature, like the worm is the mescal bottles. But no.

Friday night I bottled three gallons of three different batches of mead, only one with any trace of a recipe, though all were labelled "Feb 7." 2003? 2004? The first batch on Friday was similar, but the second and third batches gave me some glimpse of why people thought it was worth the trouble.

On Saturday we went to the state fair, about which I will say more tomorrow. Sunday I spent cursing the rain and trying to make labels, cursing Apple, Avery, AppleWorks, and when I finally switched to a Windows machine, Word. Finally I gave up and we bottled the final, three gallon batch, which was based on a fancy herb tea, honey, and apple cider. It is quite tasty, a little sweet, but there was about 11.5 ozz that were all cloudy from being at the bottom of the carboy, so DOug and I drank them and that was all for the evening. About a wineglass -- a small wineglass-- apiece and we were totalled.

I am looking forward to making another batch. The book I use is big on long aging for meads. If the world order is going to collapse in 2012, I should be brewing for it now.

I haven't posted lately (well, you know that). I am not depressed, I don't think, but it almost feels like that. It could be the change in the seasons; though it's three weeks before the calendar says Autumn, it's been noticeably cooler and now it's also dark by 6ish pm.



The frogs are doing fine in their puddle.



Buffy, like the rst of the chickens, is all grown up (and pictures of them will follow). Spike is definitely a rooster, as are Faith and Cordelia, but only Spike is crowing, which he does in classic style.

I sit and have tea in the garden and the chickens come and beg for sunflower-seed handouts. This evening there was a fine atmospheric effect:
.

Work is moderately dull, which means I am only getting slightly behind. The other day I went to my boss. "You know how you proofed that e-mail where I said the meeting was September 21, and you said it was October, and would rewrite it?"
"Yes," he said.
"Well, it wasn't October 21, either. It's October 19th. I'll send another one."
So I did, and went down the hall to ask the other woman in the other office if you need more than two people for something to be a cluster f*ck. We both rather thought it did.

BUT:
So then the treasurer of the Bible Society came in and signed the checks and zoomed out again, and it wasn't until the treasurer for the Council of Churches (remember, they share office and staff (Me and boss) between them) came that we found the Bible Society treasurer had in fact signed the Council of Church's checks.

Other than things like that, I make database and write letters. Could be worse.