Filed under: Humming | Tags: Burdock, casting on stitches, hunting, Kismet, matted fiber, prayer shawls, weather
It seems quite unfair that after all this time I’m back — writing about cockle burrs! Actually, the plant is Burdock, or Arctium minus, if you please. What I please is to get totally RID of it! And of course the animal that got the most in her fiber is Sweet-n-Tart, my suri llama whose fiber is exceptional, and who is going to Iowa to be shown off some (and maybe help sell her mom in the sale in October) before she is bred. She is one big burry mat. I should have taken a picture of her with all of the burrs, but I was too busy trying to take some of them out. I did get the ones off the top half or so of her neck, but there are still so many to get out. I’ll have to try to put some Cowboy Magic on the biggest messes on her neck and maybe her front legs tomorrow before I go to the dentist and then work on them some more when I get back. At last she was pretty good about it all. She did want to move around too much, and Lady Eleanor kept getting in the way . . . ACH!!
The frustrating thing is that the grass looked so good in that pasture — our Pine Tree Pasture — and I went all around it looking to see if there was a patch of stuff I needed to get out. I didn’t see anything, but obviously it was there. Oh, sick, sick, sick.
I know this isn’t anything as serious as the problems a lot of others have, but I have been working so hard on getting the general mats out of her fiber and she has been so good, and now this! Bummer!!
Other than that, this has been a somewhat normally frustrating day. I started the prayer shawl again, using Lion Homespun ‘wool’ and can see why people like the feel of it. But in a shawl that is supposed to be 51 stitches wide started out at 49, so I took it out and started again, and it went to 52, so I started again and this time it was at 55 (I had decided to try for 54 stitches). I tried just decreasing a stitch, but I can see that it isn’t what I want it to be, so it’s back to taking it out and casting on again. I suppose I should be happy I’m doing this at the beginning of the shawl so I’m not taking out lots of rows of knitting, but I really want to get this going.
The weather, on the other hand, has been gorgeous! It was in the low 80s today and should be in the high 50s again tonight. So too cool! I think Kismet was shivering a bit this morning, but she was fine once she got started. I don’t know why she would be shivering, though, because she is the one with all the fiber on her. She is growing quite well. I’m going to figure out how to put pictures on the blog so I can keep track of her while she is so young. Change of subject, but I’ll put pictures of our little rescue kitten, Kitten Kaboodle, on, too. She is special — and lucky to be alive! But that is another story on another night.
What else happened today. Someone was chain-sawing something, but it turned out not to be on our property, just on that Other Guy’s property that is on our private road. At least they came in a different way and didn’t use our road. We think they are getting ready for hunting season. Hopefully they will use that other entrance for their cars this year and not chase off all the deer by driving down our road. That did tick off the other guys who we allow to hunt on our property. And before anyone gets upset that we allow hunting, as much as I like deer, they carry a parasite that can kill our llamas and alpacas, and if I have to choose between my family (llamas and alpacas) and someone I don’t know (the deer), the ‘don’t know’ guys get the short end of the stick.
I did get rid of a whole row of burdock bushes along the drive to the barn, so they won’t spread around (YEAAAA!) in years to come. I am thinking about burning the back pastures and the Wooded Pasture, to get rid of the weeds, but I need to do a lot of research on that one before I start. I would do it in October before we head off to vacation with Jay, Angelica, and Ben (our youngest son, wife, and 20-month old grandson!). Then I figure we can plant the new grass when we get back (it’s not a long vacation) and it should start growing before we get a really hard freeze — at least I hope so! It’s supposed to be a particularly cold winter this year — hopefully a good time to sell alpaca sweaters! Anyone interested?
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