Little, or Big Manny is doing great - he's on the teat, nursing away, wagging his little tail. I'm still bringing Florence Nightingale's triplet brother along. He cries and cries. While checking his mouth for chilling (that's how you tell if a lamb is warm enough, if his mouth is warm, he's okay, but if his mouth is cold - danger! do something quick!) I discovered a razor sharp tooth. No wonder mom jumps when he tries to nurse. I had a lamb like that a couple of years ago. I ran a flat bastard file over the tooth and no more problems. Mattie doesn't have that kind of file, and I don't even have an emery board so out came the sand paper. Got the tooth sanded, but he is so used to crying for the bottle now he is not trying as hard to nurse. His sister is way ahead on the nursing and is heavy and solid. What can I say? Girls are just smarter...
It snowed last night and the trench Matt dug to the trailer is covered. It's cold, sunny, snowy and blustery. The warm water in the trailer thawed on the 50 degree day we had this week and is still going...I keep it on a little all the time but the propane we are using must be unbelievable. Mattie and I both got hot showers yesterday - gave the stock tank a rest. I am paying off the $800 electric bill I got...space heaters in the trailer use a lot of juice! The electric cooperative was great about working with me...as most people are up here in NY. We may be limping through this winter but next one will be better. God gave us two hands and 24 hours in a day and I will try to do the best I can to do the most with it.
On days like this I used to have a roaring fire and spin/knit all day. I am still finding little skeins of bulky angora and wool here and there. I can't spin that bulky any more...a common problem! My friend from work, Gretchen, sat down at the spinning wheel for the first time and started spinning semi-fine. I tried to tell her how unusual that is - you could tie a boat to a dock with my first spinning. Now it is between sport weight and worsted, always slightly overspun. Can't seem to loosen up! I will try spinning on my old Louet and maybe my old handspinning will surface again. My Robin, although engineered like a Louet and bobbin driven, has me spinning finer. I am such a gut spinner and don't go into the mathematics and physics of spinning the way some do...I just sit and spin and see what happens...
Three more days and back to work. Work is a good thing and I find myself thinking about my co-workers, wondering what this one is doing, that one is doing, etc. They are a great bunch, all so different and interesting, hyper-educated, intelligent, yet so human with their personality quirks and foibles. We have good days and bad days, days when I feel betrayed and misunderstood and days when I think I am the luckiest person on earth to work there. We work with the toughest student population short of the penal system. Some of our students have been barred from setting foot on their district high school property, yet we do just fine with them for the most part. We have a new assistant principal/disciplinarian who bears the brunt of the behavioral problems. He happens to be the nicest, most easy going guy in the planet, not angry with an axe to grind like many vice-principals.
Mattie is concerned I have gone over the edge with this blogging thing...I better give him some attention.
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