Ordinary Time

H.'s artwork that was displayed tonight at our co-op's closing program. 

I have started, at long last, to weave the sample for the possible fabric I want to make. Here's what I have so far. In some ways it is close to how I was envisioning it would look, in other ways not so much. I have a bad feeling that I have made the sett too big. The sett is how many ends of thread per inch there are. Too big and you end up with more weft than warp and it can be too loose. Too small and you can end up with a stiff fabric. This is definitely falling on the too loose side. This was done with singles of handwoven. It was my first choice because I would get the most yards out of it.  Next I'm going to try weaving with a two-ply. It may be a better match for the current sett. I wasn't sure how I would like the colors plied together, but it works. I would just get half as many yards if this is the better choice. Then I guess I'm going to have to resley the loom to a tighter sett to try the singles one more time. I'm not looking forward to that, but it is...

  Heard in the car this morning on our way to church: L.: "I think it is very unfair to blob fish when they say they're the called ugliest fish in the world. Because they look like normal fish under the right pressure. It's just when we bring them up here that they look bad because they're not in the right environment. It is an unfair representation of them."  I'll add that no one in the car at this point was discussing blob fish... or the ocean... or even water. Randomness stated with a very large vocabulary is a significant part of my life. 

We sat down to dinner at 8:30 which was late even by our standards. Usually we get dinner on the table anywhere between 7:00 and 8:00. The reason dinner was so late is that I perpetually underestimate exactly how long it takes to make stuffed spinach pizza . The whole 'change the pony's hoof poultice' routine played a part in it as well, because I underestimate how long that takes as well. But people are willing to wait patiently for stuffed spinach pizza.  For the non-Chicagoans among my readers, thus is a type of pizza particular to Chicago. It's not deep dish because it has two crusts with the filling between (hence the name stuffed) and the tomato topping goes on top of the top crust. It is difficult to find out here on the edge of the onset map, so I'm glad I know how to make it. 

And here it is the end of April, which seems to have zipped by. Being at the horse fair all day last Saturday meant that I felt as though I was playing catch-up all week. I'm looking forward to having a whole weekend.  I unearthed our electric ice cream maker and L. is entranced. She made some very good cookies and cream ice cream earlier this week. Yesterday was our last day of co-op. I will very much enjoy having Thursdays back.  I can feel my enthusiasm for school wanting drastically. I think we just need to take a few days to work through the schedule and be done. I do this every year. L. has suggested setting up a betting pool to see who comes closest to the actual date when I officially declare summer vacation.  The horses had their farrier appointment earlier this week. She's pleased with how Vienna is doing. Not that Vienna is completely healed yet, just that her hooves are where the farrier expects them to be. It's a long, slow process and the farrier said we are...

I love having friends who want to pack up a bunch of children and head out to the zoo. The weather started out cloudy, but the sun eventually came out. It was a lovely day and everyone had a great time. Our children all get along well together and we moms are good friends. I can't tell you how nice it is to have found these people.  First you have to sit through several peacock pictures. I have never been so close to a peacock with his tail displayed. He was even doing his dance.  I found the back of him to be as interesting as the front.  The peacocks were all calling today and they are loud. I had briefly looked up raising peacocks a while back because they're cool and children were interested. I'm afraid they have fallen into the donkey category of not an animal for us, and hearing them call confirmed it. My neighbors can rest in peace that Zorro will continue to be the loudest animal on the farm.  Some other pictures. One of my friends somehow managed to get even...

When J. and I were still doing youth ministry, we made a point to see the shows that the youth in our program were in. One of these was the local high school's annual student written, led, and directed production. One of the songs in the show was about Chuck the Tractor.  "Oh the life of Chuck the Tractor was a long, hard one. He plowed the fields of farmers in the hot, hot sun. But when the day was through, he would sit inside his tractor shack and think of all the things he'd do if he were not a tractor. ... " I wish I could share the tune because it is very catchy. So catchy that over thirty years later, J. and I can still sing it. This is why, when a friend offered us her tractor that she no longer needed, it had to be named Chuck. Chuck arrived this past Saturday while I was at the horse fair. L. has already learned to drive it. J. is very excited to have it and it has already proven itself useful. J. would like to get some attachments for it which will make it e...

I don't have anything progress to show on anything. It's been that kind of a week. Actually, I wasn't even sure I would do a Fiber Monday post there was so little to say. And then I went to the horse fair over the weekend. I'm wandering around the exhibition center where all the vendors are and happen to see someone selling jewelry made with horse hair. Since I still had Bristol's tail hair sitting in the studio, I decided to take a look. (For non-horsey people, when someone has a beloved horse die, often they will cut off the tail hair to have made into some sort of jewelry to remember them.) I really liked what she had made and we started chatting. Well, one thing left to another and I mentioned I was a hand spinner which started us down the fiber arts rabbit hole. She then says she's been weaving with horse hair.  G. was with me, and might have heavily sighed at this point and muttered something about being there for a while because I was very excited and sta...

I left two of the clinics we had gone to yesterday at the horse fair. Sometimes a clinician's personality just doesn't match your own and sometimes there are just so many egregiously wrong things that you can't stay because to do so would indicate support. I want to briefly discuss the latter. The minute the word 'respect' came out of his mouth, I knew we were in trouble. Not only do I problems with requiring respect from children, but I have even more difficulty with using that frame of reference with a horse. It just doesn't make sense and if you read current ethology research it is not how herds function. It's outdated and damaging.  [An aside to head off comments. Yes, I expect my horses to be safe to be around. They don't push in for food, they don't push ahead through a gate, they don't push me aside. Those aren't safe behaviors for horse-human interactions. I work very hard to be sure my horses understand how to safely be around people...

G. and I were up and out of the house to head up to the Midwest Horse Fair this morning. We had a great time and only saw a handful of snow flakes. This is an improvement over actual snow one year and drenching rain another. I feel as though I do not bring good weather to the event as it has never been even vaguely warm when I have been there. But we assumed the weather would be unpleasant, so were prepared.  We saw many beautiful horses, did some shopping, learned some new things, and watched some clinicians who were a decidedly very mixed bag. One of the highlights was watching a team of six Belgian horses being harnessed and driven. One of the team was over 19 hands. For the non-horsey among you, this means that at the base of his neck he stood over six feet tall. G. took a few videos of them, so enjoy this one and I'll give more details another day. 

L. woke up with significant pain in her lower right abdomen. Now, I don't know about you, but this is one of those things which causes parent alarm bells to go off. I'm pretty low key about most medical things these days, often taking the wait and see approach. Pain in the lower right abdomen that caused a child to squeak a bit when I push on it? Not good. Since W. had an emergency appendectomy a while back, it makes me even more jumpy. It makes me so jumpy that I actually called our doctor's office to see if they would rather us come there first. I try not to ever call the office because the process is so horrendous, instead taking care of everything I need to do when I'm physically in the office. This particular phone call was actually quick and painless with the nurse returning my call within a half an hour. We went through all the triage questions and she confirmed my initial gut instinct that this required a trip to the ER.  I have actually lost count of the number...

Vienna continues to improve. What relieves me the most is that she is standing much more normally instead of having her back legs tucked underneath her. She is not, however, entirely convinced that she is pleased with Buddy's appearance in her life. Buddy is cute, but he also has no problem taking what he wants. This is what Vienna objects to. She spends a lot of time standing far away from him and staring. It's still early days in their relationship. It's actually not unlike how Major was in his relationship with Java at first. He was not a fan of Java's pushy ways. Somewhere along the line, he decided to stand up for himself, and they've been good friends ever since. I expect the same thing will happen with Vienna and Buddy. These things just take time.  Some pony videos for you. They aren't exciting videos because they're just eating, bud I think watching horses eat is soothing. 

Negativity bias is the description of our brain's tendency to focus and remember the negative or scary things that happen to us. It really did serve a purpose because it's how humans stayed safe from saber toothed tigers and the like. It's important to remember the times you saw a predator or the near misses to ensure they didn't happen again. This was great until it wasn't. There are very few predators in our modern life, yet the way our brains are hooked up didn't change along with civilization.  This is not unlike modern domestic horses living in fenced pastures and barns far from grizzlies and mountain lions. They are still going to assume the plastic bag floating on the wind is a predator and run away before doing anything else. It doesn't matter how many times you tell them there are no mountain lions in the forest preserve because it's how their brains are wired.  Our negativity bias doesn't have us running away from the random blowing bag. In...

Taking a break from cleaning out yet more flower beds, I decided to sit in the shade next to the hot tub pond. If you sit very still while the chickens are out, they will wander over to you. Some may even pose. The roosters even joined the fun.  Fluffy, who is now six years old. See his spur? They are wicked looking things. And Zorro who is about nine months old and just starting to grow a longer tail, but the spurs are yet to grow. And spring is officially here because the very large frog that lives in the pond has reappeared.  This picture makes him look bizarrely huge. He's probably four or five inches long in reality.  We have done our very best to enjoy this beautiful weather. We have one day left to go before the weather turns again. 

Today was one of those beautiful though somewhat rare days that are both the perfect temperature (high sixties, in my open) and sunny and fall on a weekend with nothing on the calendar. We did quite a bit of cleaning up outside, but some time was also spent working on the tree house.  Floor boards are getting installed, so I sent L. up with my camera to the some pictures.  The ones of J. and L. working on it I could manage myself. Here is a better picture of how high up it is. I sat for a while and watched. It was a perfect day just to sit outside and enjoy spring. I had a pretty nice view. It almost felt as though I could almost see the trees leading out. I'll admit I still pinch myself that this is where we live. I get the same feeling when we're working outside that I had when I was little and would build the outline of cinder block houses in my backyard pretending that was my house. It feels like play. That's not a bad place to be. I did do some gardening. I got the lon...

I spent the evening at our church's inaugural disability inclusion game night for older teens and adults. I think it went very well. H. had a great time.  But since I have nothing left, I'll leave you with a fritillary picture. This afternoon I discovered the fritillary in our side garden was blooming, but I hadn't noticed because it was hidden in the dried ornamental grass I had yet to clean out. I freed the fritillary and discovered this year it has six blooms! I was so excited because I love it.