Mid-October

I have not had a lot to write about nor a lot of time to write.  But things are picking up so I wanted to be sure to post this week, though the weather has not been conducive to outdoor photography, so I don't have many photos to share.

My dye day which had been scheduled for Oct 4th was cancelled.  I made the call on Friday afternoon due to a bleak weather forecast, and I am glad I did.  The high was only in the 40's and not only did it pour rain, but it hailed!  Fall weekends are either really nice, or really crappy it seems.  Had I scheduled it for the previous weekend, we would have had perfect sunny weather with highs in the low 80's.  Ya never know.....

Grover and I are still enjoying agility.  We are entered in our first trial the weekend of November 21 in Zanesville Ohio.  It's too far off to be nervous yet.  I am looking forward to it.

This past Saturday, I prepared my garlic bed and split a few of this year's bulbs up and planted for next year's crop.  Then I covered it all with a nice layer of maple leaves.

On Friday (that's only 2 days away!), I am taking off with a couple friends and we are heading to the New York Sheep & Wool Festival  otherwise known as "Rhinebeck".  It will be about a 9 to 10 hour drive, but is supposed to be the biggest fiber festival in the country and it's one I have been wanting to attend for a few years now.  We have a hotel room for Friday and Saturday night and will head for home sometime on Sunday.  We may stay somewhere along the way, depending on when we head out.  We shall see.  I am meeting up with a woman from New Hampshire there from whom I am purchasing a new loom.  More on that once I get it!

Mom came this weekend to pick up her dog, Luca, who I was dog-sitting while she was away for a couple weeks.  The day before she arrived, Sam and I attended a local auction, mostly because the real estate was being auctioned as well as other items and we wanted to see whether the real estate sold or not, and if so, for how much.  Sam's dad was already there when we arrived and he had purchased a small vintage hand-cranked ice cream freezer, which he gave to me.  So on Monday, Mom and I made ice cream in the sunshine on the back deck with the maple leaves falling all around us.  We used heavy cream and 1/2 and 1/2 and sugar and vanilla extract.  Boy, was that good!  The freezer is very small and we made less than 2 quarts, which is about perfect for a small household.  Next time, I will add a good splash of bourbon as well (Mom nixed me on that idea this time)!

 I am almost done with my sweater, which is good because I want it for this weekend.  Though the forecast for Saturday is looking a bit warm for an alpaca/wool sweater, with the high supposed to be upper 60's and mostly sunny.  Sunday is supposed to be a good bit cooler, however.  I will finish this today.  The photo does not do the color justice.


I also have rugs working on my big loom.  I'd like to use up as much of my rug yarn as I can in the next few months, so I can take some more fiber in to the mill in March, which is when I will be making my next trip there.

Tari (who is going to Rhinebeck with me) has a great rag rug book she had checked out from the library when we got together last week and I checked it out when she returned it.  It has a lot of great ideas for doing interesting things with the warp to make rugs that are a little different and these ideas will work well with my rug yarn as well as with rags.  Totally inspired me and so now I need to acquire more colors of warp (the threads that are strung onto the loom).  So watch for those in the future.

Yesterday morning I thought the sun was going to come out as I was doing my chores, but it only lighted the tops of the trees on the ridge to the west for a short while.  There was the faintest of rainbows.  I got off a quick photo, but the rainbow is so hard to see.  And then the sun went behind more clouds and we did not see it again.  Maybe you can see the rainbow if you  look closely.