Crystals

With temperatures yesterday topping out at a balmy 11°F (and that was at midnight, it just fell from there), we've been thinking about snow and ice.  We had tried making ice marbles once earlier this winter, but it didn't go well.  We got our water balloons food colored and set out and two of the four froze overnight, but by the time we went out to take the balloons off, it had warmed up to the mid 30s and they were back to water.  Then we had a warmish week or so where our nice big snowfall gradually melted off the lawn and the liquid water balloons looked at us reproachfully every time we went by in hoodies rather than parkas.  It did eventually get below freezing again, but with daytime temps hovering around freezing and bright sun, they didn't stick around very long.  So we decided to try again now that it is cold and will hopefully stay that way for a bit.  It went much better this time:

The blue one is tiny since it was the first one filled.  I took it off the faucet to see if it looked full enough.  Since there was plenty give left in the balloon, I tried to put more water in and promptly learned that it isn't a good idea to put a water balloon with food coloring in it back on the spigot.  Fortunately, it cleaned up pretty easily and I managed to evade the nickname "Smurfette."

Before we got in the kitchen to make our marbles, we had been watching Arthur on Netflix and saw an episode where Francine tried to make rock candy.  Miss Bean perked right up and wanted to try herself.  I Googled madly for a few minutes and determined that we didn't have all the supplies to get rock candy started last night, but while I was looking, I recalled an interesting project I had pinned on Pinterest a while back.  We did have everything we needed for borax crystal snowflakes so we started those instead.  We diddled with pipe cleaners, borax and boiling water and the next morning we woke up to these:

After they dried, we hung them in the front window so they can sparkle in the sun and sparkle, they do.  This was a quick, easy, and fun project.  We even read about crystals on the web for a while and saw how the smooth facets reflect the close-packed internal atomic structure.

So after we did our grocery shopping (and got some clothes pins), we were ready to make some rock candy.  We had planned on making four jars, so I did four times the quantities in the recipe we used, but it ended up with enough super-saturated sugar solution for six 12 oz. canning jars.

This one is going to take a lot more patience.  Most of the directions say 3-7 days for crystals to form, so we'll be checking them regularly.  Good thing we have lots of other fun stuff to keep us busy!

New...residents? employees? pets?

Last night, I scurried up to Madison for a class at Olbrich Botanical Garden about Vermicomposting. It was an interesting class. She demonstrated setting up a worm bin using a small storage container and talked about caring for and maintaining the worms and bin, as well as finding supplies around town. With her description, it would have been quite straightforward to get the parts together and set up a worm bin, but she had sample bins for sale for $10 at the class. I figured that the convenience of not having to run errands up in Madison to collect parts and to find the time to put the pieces together made the price seem like a pretty good deal, so I came home with a worm bin complete with worms and a first bit of food for them to eat.
The bin:

and one of the residents:

We added some coffee grounds and scraps from prepping tomatoes for canning tomato today. We will still be feeding our compost bin in the yard, but picking out the choice bits to feed the worms. Especially this time of year when there is a whole lotta canning going on, we generate a ton of compost! All three kids are pretty excited about it, but my bug boy Beeb is especially taken by them. Before bed last night, he came up to me and said, "Thank you for getting us worms, Mommy."
So are they merely new residents in our household? Employees who are producing some fantastic soil amendments in exchange for room and board? Or pets that we have to check on and talk to regularly throughout the day?

Tempus fugit!

One of the fun things about unschooling is that we don’t have a set schedule or a list of tasks that need to be done at any given place or time.  If something comes up, we can run with it.  Last weekend Miss Bean and I were reading a book that was talking about a park with a sundial.  She asked what a sundial is and we looked it up on Wikipedia and found some pictures of sundials.  I tried to explain how they worked, but it was pretty clear that it just wasn’t clicking, so I promised her that we would make a sundial on the next sunny day.

Sadly, we went through several gray, cloudy days, but today the sun was shining brightly, so we dug out the chalk bucket and had some fun.  When we started, I drew around her feet so she could stand in the same place every time.  Then I traced around her shadow.  We set an alarm clock to ring every hour and then ran outside to draw a silhouette.  Little brother didn’t want to be left out so we did him too.  The picture is actually Beeb’s sundial since it ended up to be a bit easier to photograph.  Bean’s outlines crossed between the sidewalk and the driveway and I just couldn’t get a decent picture.  As it was, I had to crank up the contrast on Beeb’s to be able to see the chalk.

She now understands better how the sun moves across the sky during the day and how the shadows get longer as the sun moves from more overhead to closer to the horizon.  If the sun cooperates tomorrow and it doesn’t rain and wash the chalk away overnight, we’re going to try and go outside at a random time and see how close we can get to guessing what time it is by comparing the shadow to the chalk outlines.

Oops.

Forgot the action shot that follows this one:

in the previous post.  Clearly, relaxation is contagious:

Mmmmm…ketchup

Oh wait.  Not that kind.  I mean “catch up.”  We have a new furry family member that joined our family this Christmas.  May I present “Snowflake”:

We went to KittyDaddy’s mom’s house on Christmas Day and returned to Wisconsin with this little guy.  Three of the five kittens in the litter had already been selected by cousins, but Miss Bean got to pick him out and name him.  He is appropriately playful and silly:

Surprisingly patient with all three kids:

Even though wee Beeber has been known to carry him around the house just like Charlie Brown’s neighbor did with her boneless cat.  No pictures of that, but take my word, it’s stinkin’ cute.  I just don’t want to send mixed messages:  Don’t do that to the kitty, but wait a second while I take a picture.

Friend Molly Bees came by for a bit of knitting and, instead, deboned the cat.  She says she put all the bones back, but he’s been a little slinky every since, so I’m not sure everything got put back in the right places.

But at least Beeb has had the chance to study sunbeam basking with a master:

Kitty Chai has been doing her best to resist his charms, but she is putting up with a nap buddy begrudgingly.  She has been reminding him regularly that pouncing on the diva is ill-advised, but he seems to be a slow study.

My only complaint is that the vet has been pestering us for a <ahem> sample to analyze.  With two cats sharing a litter box, there is no way to get his sample without witnessing him in the act.  So last night we finally got lucky and he was taking care of business when KittyDaddy went to clean the box.  I ran and got a baggie and retrieved the treasure.  Since it was a bit, shall we say, fragrant, I set it out in the garage.  Then first thing this morning, I wrangled all three kids into clothes, grabbed my purse and the baggy, hied everyone out into the 2°F weather*, and trucked over to the vet’s office.

I went in to make the delivery, fairly pleased with myself that it had only taken a month and a half.  I proceeded to get LECTURED about how it had to be less than 8 hours old and that it couldn’t be frozen.  (Might have been nice to know that before).  The general tone of the lecture was that I clearly don’t have my priorities straight.  I should have brought it in within a couple of days of being asked.  I should have know that it needed to be delivered still steaming.  I am clearly a bad pet owner for, well, you know, living life, dealing with my children and the household, etc. instead of following the kitten around with a plastic bag.  If I were just a wee bit pissier, I would come back to the vet with the cat and a plastic bag and told them to call me when they have what they need.  Pardon me, if you need me I’ll be over here, rolling my eyes.

* Okay, perhaps I exaggerate.  I may have been as high as, say, 5°F.

Horicon

On the way home from the WPA homeschooling conference a week ago, we stopped at the Horicon Marsh, which is a huge wetland area.  Part of the marsh is managed as a National Wildlife Refuge and another part as a State Wildlife Refuge.  In the National Wildlife Refuge, there is the “Horicon Tern-pike” which, in addition to being a terrible pun, is a motor loop through the Refuge, complete with interpretive signs to stop and read.  Also, partway through is a parking area with a floating boardwalk that makes a nice short hike though part of the marsh and then back through woodland.  A fun side trip for Mother’s Day!

Lot of lovely scenery and a beautiful day for seeing it!

Trillium in bloom in the woods

Muskrat house seen from the floating boardwalk.

One of many turtles seen from the floating boardwalk.  A bit of “Where’s Waldo?” was involved to spot ‘em.

Goslings!  Babies!  Fuzzy and cute!

A couple of beautiful birds.  We saw zillions of different kinds of birds, but these were the only ones besides the geese that I could captures with my little camera.  The pros had their big gonzo fancy pants lenses.

Wisconsin Sheep and Wool was...

well, sheepy and wooly. The whole famn damily went up to Jefferson around noonish and we saw sheep dogs and sheep and shearing and lambs and vendors and lunch and shaved ice and all the wooly wonders. Since we had taken two cars, Kitty Daddy and the kids left around 3:00 and I got serious at the vendors. I found buttons for my February Lady Sweater and was viciously attacked by a couple of spinning projects. It turned out that Gale's Art booth was nearly fatal for me. First, this lovely jumped off the shelf, roughed me up, beat me into submission:

It's a merino/bamboo blend and it is as soft and cushy as it looks. While trying to get up and dust myself off, this subtle little lovely on a bottom shelf started flirting with me:

This one is an alpaca/silk blend and quite possibly even cushier than the ruffian above. Her booth also had trindles which captured my eye and my fancy, but they were out of budget after feeding my flock lunch and snacks. Next year, they can starve so I can have more fun at the vendors. Well, probably not, but the trindles did make my fiber encased engineer-type heart go flippety-flop. The etsy pictures hardly do them justice. I haven't tried them, so for now I am trying to convince myself that they couldn't possibly be as wonderful as they look.

Anyway, after the family left and I spent my money, I had some quiet spinning time by myself and did some people watching until it was time for the after-party and Ravelry meetup, organized by our very own Chocolate Sheep. The dinner was yummy and the cheesecake was practically illegal!

Creative Energy

As the school year winds to a close for the public school kids, we have been sticking a littler closer to home that usual. EVERYBODY is taking end of the year field trips and some of our favorite places are unusually crowded with large groups of kids whose spirits are already on summer vacation, even if their bodies aren't! Since none of us really enjoys too much chaos, we'll wait them out and enjoy our favorite places again in a couple of weeks.

Even though we haven't been out and about so much, we have been busy! Here Bean models one of two new mama-made dresses. Over Memorial Day, we got a lot of good stuff on sale at JoAnn's and I also had two 40% off coupons, so I got two pieces of shirred fabric to make her two quick and easy dresses. I got most of both done yesterday, with just sewing down three more strap ends on the second dress. The straps on one dress have taken longer that the whole rest of the two dresses combined, but they are still pretty cute, instant gratification projects! The other is lime green with bright lady bugs, but pink with froggies will probably be her favorite of the two.

The boys got their summer hair cuts, so all three posed for a picture. I got a cute picture of Bug alone, but didn't have the same luck with Beeb. He didn't want to stand still, so one is focused and has his eyelids at half mast, so he looks stoned and the other is blurry. But the group picture turned out nicely for all of them!

Another project that has spun off of the loft project is a new flower press. We have lots of odds and ends of plywood left over, so I cut a couple of pieces and got bolts to make this:

After getting it put together, we made a trip out to a nearby state park and picked some wild flowers to press. Now I need to remember to ask at the grocery store for some corrugated boxes to make more layers! Then we can carry it with us when we go to the park and have some nice flat flowers to use in some of Bean's art projects or other activities (I have some ideas percolating...more later, I'm sure)!

We've got a little brawler who can't hold his beer...

We've had Namma and Grandpa visiting for a week in addition to me and three kids with colds for that same week. This morning we drove up and dumped them unceremoniously on the curb of the Madison airport and came home and hung on the sofa and watched videos and napped and dozed all afternoon. Except for the coughing and sniffling, I believe a good time was had by all.

Last night for dinner we had homemade sauerkraut with some brats and for dessert, Daddy got some vanilla ice cream from the store and we used the root beer we had made from the kit he got for his birthday for root beer floats*. Those were, by far, the best root beer floats I have ever had! Little dude had to agree, but it became clear that he just can't hold his beer. Because of his penchant for flinging, he got only a little dollop of ice cream with about a half inch of root beer in a plastic cup. It was guzzled immediately with a strongly worded demand for more, so he got a refill. However, with each refill he got gigglier and sillier, so we finally had to cut him off after four or five.

All this was enhanced by the remnants of a bloody nose he got from the losing end of a fight with a table at the bakery earlier in the day.

Of course, he paid for it this morning. He staggered out of bed and spent a couple of minutes moaning and groaning and carrying on consistent with tying one on. Of course after a couple of minutes of milk from the tap, he was right as rain and his usually cheery self...

A gardening update and highlights from the visit coming soon, I hope!

* Yes, there will be root beer at the post-apocalyptic commune! And even though the ice cream this time was from the store, I do have homemade ice cream in my repertoire.

Oshkosh B'Gosh

Whee! We just sailed back into town after two nights in Oshkosh. We left Friday noon for the WPA's annual homeschooling conference. The conference started Friday evening and ran all day Saturday. Kitty Daddy and I traded off kid duty, so we each got to attend some of the sessions. Daddy made it to three and I went to two. Bug and Bean (with either Mommy or Daddy and sometimes Beeb) went to sessions on making seed starter pots from newspaper, a fun and games session, a stories and games session, a paper airplane making session, and a flat traveler session (more about that last one at some point...). We stayed in the conference center (which apparently was a dorm in a previous life), so the kids got to try out dorm living and Kitty Daddy and I got to relive our undergrad days and two nights was quite enough of that! I much prefer being a grown-up! I do believe that everyone had a fabulous time. Bug didn't want to go ("I'm so shy about conferences"), but now he can't wait to go back next year.

Although the conference was over by suppertime on Saturday, we opted to stay over a second night and see a little of Oshkosh. We got to go swimming on Saturday night and we spent Sunday morning at the Oshkosh Community Playground and the Oshkosh Zoo, both of which are part of Menominee Park right on Lake Winnebago. The playground was one of the biggest and nicest I have seen. We got the Beeb seal of approval:

(Why yes, those are Oshkosh overalls he's wearing!) and the Bean seal of approval:

and the Bug seal of approval, but that one was moving and climbing too fast to capture with a camera. Well, that and I was pushing Beeb on the swing most of the time we were there!

The play structures were just too cool. There was the standard towers and stairs and climbing and playing things that we've seen at other dream parks (like McKee Farms Park, where we used to play a lot), but a few of the things that really caught my eye included a castle:

See the arrow loop for shooting arrows out off? See the keystones on the two arches?

There was also a very cool airplane:

And, my favorite by far:

The first time I walked by (before I had dug out my camera) there was a kid peeking out of the mouth. Bug got eaten too, but I was pushing Beeb on the swing. I didn't look closely enough, but Bug and Bean tell me that you can look out through the eyes (maybe a telescope or periscope?)

Signs of Spring

It's green! Three of the daffodils we planted last fall are peeking through. After having lived with some neurotically early daffodils in Iowa City, I was starting to think these hadn't survived the winter. My IC daffs were facing south and probably an early variety anyway, but they always came up during a rogue week of warm and sunshine in the middle of the winter (like early February) and then got snowed on and frozen and generally abused for the next couple of months until spring really arrived. The flowered when spring really arrived and generally flourished, but the ends of the leaves always looked like the losing side of a rough boxing match.

Not only do I have three up, there are also lots of cracks in the soil at roughly the spacing that the bulbs were planted, so I am optimistic there are many more on the way:

Fortunately, the forecast 3-5" of snow this weekend failed to materialize. We had a dusting on Sunday morning, but that was gone by mid-day.

And it's green! Tomato seedlings are coming up:

They will need to be thinned once they get some real leaves. I am also planning on potting up to yogurt containers before putting them outside.

And, finally, it's green! Okay, technically not a sign of spring, unless you count the fact that I am just perverse and twisted enough to start a sweater just as the weather is warming up. My (March) February Lady Sweater continues apace:

I got a big whack done at Late Night last Friday. I was just a few rows shy of splitting off the arm holes on Friday morning and (barely) managed to get them divided before heading of to Late Night. I was pretty sure I would have better luck with the whole knitting a seven-stitch lace repeat while counting off number of stitches before casting on extra armpit stitches at home. But I made it, and knit gull lace until my brain was no longer capable of keeping track of a four-row, seven stitch repeat. For a late Friday evening, I was fairly impressed with how far I made it. After that, I worked on the toe of my second attempt on the Raspberry Charade socks. After misjudging the amount of pulling in from the pattern, I finished one sock that wouldn't fit over my foot. After carefully measuring, computing, and pondering, I started the second one. After getting a few repeats into the pattern on the foot, I finally accepted defeat when it became clear that version 2.0 fit over not only my foot but also my sneaker. Version 3.0 has been started with a number of stitches between the two. If that doesn't work, I will accept that the pattern and or yarn are clearly cursed and put both in timeout and start a new pair of socks.

On Saturday we went to the Mackenzie Nature Center for their Maple Syrup Festival. We had fun looking around, but only saw about half of it. I didn't realize that one of the flyers we got when we arrived had a map on it and left it in the car. One of the kids was too tired and crabby to go with the flow and just wander around and see what we could find. After a while, Bug, Bean, and Beeb started getting restive (and hungry), so I gave in gracefully and we went to find some lunch!

Wacky Week

This is the story of the little rhinovirus that could (with apologies to Watty Piper).

Once upon a time, the little rhinovirus said, "I think I can, I think I can." The baby got sniffly. Mama said, "Nuh-uh, no way." The little rhinovirus said, "I think I can, I think I can." The four-year-old got sniffly and Mama got a tickly throat. Mama said, "Nuh-uh, no way." The little rhinovirus said, "I think I can, I think I can." The Mama got stuffy, the baby and the four-year-old got coughy and sneezy and snorty and snuffly. Mama said, "Nuh-uh, no way." The little rhinovirus said, "I think I can, I think I can." The four-year-old got hoarse so no one could understand what she was saying. I didn't really matter though because the Mama's head and ears were so congested that she couldn't hear what the four-year-old was saying anyway. The baby continued to produce his body weight in snotters. Mama said, "Nuh-uh, no way." The little rhinovirus said, "I think I can, I think I can." The six-year-old went on a field trip, the snuffly four-year-old trailed along, while a stuffy (and somewhat cranky) Mama carried a snorty baby on her hip in the sling. Mama said, "Nuh-uh, no way." The little rhinovirus said, "I think I can, I think I can." The six-year-old woke up the next day coughing and sneezing, the four-year-old were still snot-encrusted, the baby was blowing snot-bubbles of Olympic caliber, and the Mama discovered that she had put out her back carrying the baby around. Mama said, "Dude, I give up. You win, you nasty little bug." The little rhinovirus proceeded to get prissy and strut around announcing, "I knew I could, I knew I could," until Mama smacked the snot out of the little brat.

Other than the stupid cold, we have been having a nice week. On Tuesday, Bug went to the Aldo Leopold Nature Center to learn about Maple Syrup. They got to taste sap and syrup and my little connoisseur was the only one in the group that preferred the fake stuff to real maple syrup. I guess the bright side is that means he has beer tastes on a beer budget, right? He also got to carry a yoke with buckets and drill in a log with a brace and bit, learned how to identify a sugar maple in bud (sharp buds), and saw trees with sap collection buckets. I think we will go, as a family, to the MacKenzie Environmental Education Center on April 4th for their Maple Syrup Festival so the rest of us can check things out!

I got about 20-25 rows into the February Lady Sweater yoke and discovered that I had dropped a stitch about ten rows back so I frogged back, got all the stitches back on the needle, noodled around to get all the stitch back where they belonged, counted and recounted the stitches (and recounted a few more times) and accepted the inevitability of missing one stitch somewhere. I couldn't find it, though my best guess was in the buttonhole. Since I was (a) one stitch short, (b) thought the first buttonhole looked a lot wonkier than the second buttonhole (which vanished when I frogged back to reclaim the dropped stitch), and (c) was not convinced by the order (left leaning vs. right leaning) of my increases for the raglan, I decided to start over. None of these three alone (or probably even in pairs) was enough to convince me, but all three apparently pushed me over the tipping point. So far, I am just past where I was when I took the picture early in the week and am MUCH happier with both the buttonhole and my increases, so it's all good.

We also got our tomato seeds into little peat pellets to start them on Tuesday night. It will be fun watching the little seedlings grow and getting ready to start a real garden! We have also spent an unusual amount of time playing Lego Star Wars on the Wii and watching videos and reading and otherwise laying low to let our bodies fight the virus. We all seem to be on the mend, so we just need to let the darn thing run its course.

Catching Up IV: Kid Pics

The brood doing assorted cute things...

Bug was cold one afternoon, so he bundled up in a sweater and made himself a bed atop the cedar chest. Looks pretty comfy to me!

Bug is up to much buggish stuff. He loves numbers and has just discovered dot-to-dots...he's been working his way through a book of them and is now doing some with 100 dots! He is also experimenting with phonics and loves finding rhyming words. He asked to start up with the Bob Books again and we are currently breezing through the second set. He wants to read since he loves books so much, but some of the brain pathways just aren't quite ready yet, but he's getting closer all the time.

Bean is very pleased with her pigtails!

She is very into dressing up with jewelry and hair-dos these days. After an enthusiastic (and very cute) start to life in pigtails, she wouldn't let me mess with her hair more than the bare minimum most days. She is very determined to learn her letters since she wants to read like her big brother. She also loves counting, but still tends to put the numbers in her own order: One, two, bree, seben... She also is very taken with the stroller she got for her birthday. She loves being a little mommy and has her "baby" close at hand much of the time (the baby she got two years ago is the baby of choice these days...bottom picture of this post).

And last, but certainly not least, the Beeb:

My little dude is turning into a toddler (sniff, sniff). He needs a haircut, but Mama isn't quite ready to part with the sweet baby hair just yet. We are getting a lot of "Oh what a cute little girl" comments. He has been walking with a walker like Great Grandma Dell for a couple of weeks now. He doesn't have a fancy one like her, but a doll stroller or a foot stool serves quite nicely thankyouverymuch. He started taking short jaunts on his own last weekend and is gaining confidence all the time. He is also getting ready for talking. He knows a couple of signs ("more" with respect to food is his favorite) and parrots back some words. Oh, and according to my little future fiberphile, all animals go "Baa," even the fish at the library.

Routine!

After the chaos of getting settled, I find myself once again reminded how much better we (including me) do with some kind of routine or rhythm. I think we have our weekly schedule pretty much set finally. Monday is our homeschool playgroup with 6 and under unschoolers; Tuesday is our "outing day" (more on that in a sec); Wednesday is library day and starting this week, we will be joining a story time group; Thursday is our day to get together with our local "grandma"; and Friday is Farmers' Market day. I really like that most of our things are half day or less so we can fit groceries and other chores in flexibly.

Two weeks ago, our Tuesday looked like this:

so we headed to Lake Kegonsa State Park and spent most of the day there. We had a picnic, identified a few trees and wildflowers and played on the playground. Another mom and her two girls (almost three and just turned one) stopped and played for a bit and Bean declared the older girl to be her "best friend." After they left, Bean pretended to talk on the phone to her, making plans for fun things to do and telling her that she loved her very much. That evening, when telling Dad about our day, she announced in her ever-so-earnest (as only a three-year-old can be) voice: "____ is such a great human." I am desparately hoping for a little girl about Bean's age at story time...she wants a girl friend so much right now!

Beeb had fun doing Beeb things:


and trying outa new hairstyle courtesy of the slide. That's some serious static electricity!

This past week on Tuesday, we joined other homeschoolers for a tour of the Sassy Cow Creamery. Very interesting for everyone, but some of the highlights were riding on pedal tractors, trying out their ice cream, and watching the bottling machine. The bottling machines had all of our boisterous group watching with rapt attention! I didn't have my camera, but there are a few pics at Denise's blog (she's the one who organized the trip). I have started carrying a notebook for Bug and Bean and crayons or markers when we go on an outing, so they can "journal" about the outing. I posted some of their pictures here (I also finally got around to posting their Sheep and Wool pictures, too).

We went apple picking with our local "grandma" on Thursday and then came home and made applesauce for lunch. The big kids cored and peeled and Bug and Bean chopped up the apples with butter knives, so it was a group effort. Another very fun day and I am currently on my second batch of apple butter! I would like to get some apple sauce put up too, so we may end up going apple picking again!

So a lot going on, not a whole lot of blogging, but now that we are getting settled, it should be easier to get back on track posting regularly!

Busy Weekend!

Okay, a longish post with many pictures coming here...go grab a cup of coffee and settle in (Beth, you'd better go brew a whole pot with dial-up!)...

Birthday Celebrated!

Friday evening we were joined by the kids' local adopted grandma for dinner and birthday cake. I made eggplant parmasan, and Beeb declared it a hit!

The birthday cake was also a hit. The look on his face when everyone started singing "Happy Birthday" was priceless (but not captured by camera). "Hey, dudes! They're all singing! They're all lookin' at me while they're singing! Crazy!"

The obligatory cake-all-over-the-face shot, though he wasn't as thorough with the cake as he was with the tomato sauce!

And one last gratuitous baby picture. Kitty Daddy found this footlocker at a thrift store and got it cleaned up for stowing some toys. This is where we store Beeb when we aren't using him.

Actually, it is his favorite place in the world to be right now. He carefully empties one side of toys, climbs in, and plays with the remaining toys and/or watches the world go by.

Sheep! Wool! Sheep AND Wool!

We (Bug, Bean, Beeb, and I) spent a good chunk of Saturday exploring the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival. Daddy stayed home to get a little work done and straighten up his office after a fairly crazy week just after been away for a week. We saw a little of everything. In one building was a shearing demonstration (no pictures as Beeb was in the sling and we were all in the bleachers and I couldn't reach the stroller to grab my camera). Talk about crazy hard work! The shearer was very personable and would talk about shearing and answer questions between sheep. He had the standard electric stand clippers as well as a hand cranked clipper stand and had volunteers crank while he sheared a couple of sheep! The cranking looked like hard work, but not nearly as hard as wrestling sheep with legs and one arm while shearing with the other hand. The same building there were some baby sheepies. These guys were about three days old:

And this little sweety-pie was one day old:

I invested a fair amount of effort figuring out what would have to be transferred from my backpack to the stroller basket to stow him away. In the end, I left him behind as Kitty Daddy's last words as we drove away was "Don't bring home any live sheep." While I figured this one was too tiny to count, I didn't think Kitty Daddy would see it the same way. *le sigh* We also looked at bunches of different breeds of sheep. Rams with two horns, four horns, no horns, curved horns, curled horns!

We watched the Herding 101 dog school and the kids loved it!

We watched some of the Crook and Whistle trials, but decided that watching dog school was more fun since the enclosed area was smaller so you had a closer view.

We wandered through just about everything and saw a mish-mash of fleeces, sheep, equipment, information, education.

We also checked out the vendors at the General Store. Ummm, let's just say there *may* have been a small accident involving an ATM card and some vendor merchandise. But, really, it wasn't my fault...it was the wool fumes. Yeah, the wool fumes, that was it. This is mine:

Twelve ounces of natural colored wool on clearance, a bag of hand-dyed silk hankies, a bundle of soy silk/merino roving that, I swear, jumped out of the basket and wrapped itself around me, and a 1.1 oz Shacht Hi-Lo spindle. It really could have been a lot worse. Bug fell head over heels in love with this. He got to practice treadling on a Ladybug at two different vendor stands and really thought we needed one, stat. Instead of that, he got an Ashford student drop spindle (just like my first one) and a small ball of roving and had his first spinning lesson last night. It is very much a cooperative effort at this point, but he is just delighted to be spinning. He can do the spindle spinning or help with the drafting, but even with park and draft, he can't quite coordinate doing all the parts himself. It will come. Bean wanted to spin too, so I finished plying the fiber that was on my Ashford and helped her break into her little ball of roving. All she can managed so far is giving the spindle a spin and can get the spin direction right slightly more than half the time. So in less than a day we went from a one spinner household to a three spinner household. I think I need to lock up my roving stash.

A post with spinning stuff (mine and theirs) will be coming soon!

Sith and Jedi and Clones, Oh My!

Today, I have a quiet afternoon with just the Beebster (who, incidentally, is napping!!). Kitty Daddy, Bug, and Bean have gone downtown to see the Clone Wars at the movie theater. If you don't know that there is a distinct tendency towards Star Wars obsession in the family, you haven't been around very long! While moving we ate lunches at McDonald's so many times that I turn green at the idea, because they had Happy Meal toys in conjunction with the release of the Clone Wars. Beeb is easy-going enough that we probably could have all gone, but I decided that I would rather just wait until the video comes out, rather than have to worry whether Beeb was being cute or charming or seriously annoying to other movie-goers. After a big day yesterday, a quiet afternoon is just the ticket. Catch up on some blogging and blog-reading, do a little straightening and catch up with the laundry. Okay, so no so much quiet, but still.