More Wool

I found a few more white fleeces, mostly little lamb fleeces with hardly a pound or two, but so soft and buttery.  I'm working on a new roving run of blues, greens, purple and pinks for a new Pacifica which was so popular a couple of years ago.  I love roving the carded fiber that comes back to me as a long tube wound into a one pound ball.  I can spin it or felt with it.  Roving is a good way to store wool, too.  With so many people getting their wool spun into yarn, I'm one of the few that still sells it as roving.  I can blend colors and different fibers with their own unique qualities and characteristics.  I was worried about having enough wool for Maryland, but I checked my stash today and I still have a lot of fabulous blends.  Not to worry.  Problem is, I tend to spend so much time in the barn at night after dinner, doing chores, playing with wool, hanging with the critters, that I am not sewing the way I should be.  May be light on Bundaflicka Totes at Maryland this year.  We'll see.  It's snowing and very cold again.  I got the doggies up to the pond today after work and got back down the big hill before the snow started blowing in.  Got the stove lit, food cooking, and we were toasty warm.  The last snow/ice melted enough to get the big sliding door next to Thor's area closed.  It had been stuck open six inches, enough to let the frigid North wind blow in.  The far doors are always open at the East End of the barn, as the sheep broke the boards after crashing through them for the six years we've been here.  Another repair on the list.  Still looking for someone to come and clean out the barn and spread the black gold over the fields.  Not hopeful.  I got in from chores at ten tonight and brought some newly dyed wet wool inside to spread out on the table for the heat from the wood stove to dry.  Am still shooting for 100 pounds of wool to be carded this spring.  Forty-four pounds to go.  Am sewing Eco-totes in school.  A well-meaning teacher brought in her sewing machine for us to use.  Wish she had plugged it in to test it before handing it over.  I took way too much time trying to get it to work, with another teacher spending his valuable time to take it apart to oil it completely.  It still jammed.  I threw up my hands and boxed it up to return it to the owner.  Oh, well.  We still have one working machine.  Funny thing about Studio Art - we do some really neat projects but the kids eat them up ravenously and want to move on.  I guess that's a good thing but it really keeps us hopping.  We don't show movies and I've had all but one computer taken out of the art room.   There aren't too many classrooms that can make that boast.  We sure are tuckered out at the end of the school day.  Little Guy, new angora buck kid, is the cutest thing.  He hops around in his little sweater and nibbles on hay.  Oh, I love that little sweetie.  No more kids.  I thought for sure if Guy came into the world that there may be one or two more.  Not yet, and not tonight, I pray, for the wind is howling and the fan on the stove pipe is working over time to keep the down drafts going up instead of in my little apartment.  Better get some shut-eye.  I love to stay up because the late night is the only real time I have to myself.  Everybody is bedded down and the night is mine, all mine.  Trouble is the morning comes too soon and I have to get this place ready to leave and get my behind to work somewhat on time, clean and dressed appropriately.  Today one of the two or three cars I passed coming in the other direction in the 15 mile stretch that is Kings Settlement Road was a State Trooper.  I was flying faster than the speed of light as usual.  He turned around and followed me for two or three miles as I creeped along at 45 and went around the curves at 35, riding the brake.  He was sufficiently satisfied at my cowering in his presence and turned back around to head toward New Berlin.  I motored on to Norwich and was only ten minutes late.  I can't believe they still let me work there, but thank Goodness they do.  Time to snuggle with the doggies and say...Good Night.