The Beauty of My Dreams

Exciting news

I currently have two very exciting things going on right now that are non fiber related and am just bubbling with!

Last Thursday, I had an intake interview at a therapeutic horsemanship program. The name of the program is Camelot Therapeutic Horsemanship and they serve disabled children and adults, free of charge, teaching them horsemanship, which includes riding or driving, care of the animals and their surroundings, classes in horse physiology and nutrition and things of that nature. I'm absolutely estatic to join the program. They have one spot open for this season, on Wednesday afternoons, and I hope to hear back soon about if they are going to accept me into their program. The interview was awesome, it went really well and Laurie and I both really hit it off with the executive director of the program. We were there for 2 hours, touring their amazing totally accessible barn, meeting the horses and getting a feel for what I would be doing with them. I suspect that I will start of driving and not riding because I am over their weight limit, but they did tell me that they extend their weight limit when it is clear that the rider has the ability and core muscles to hold herself on the horse, without falling and endangering the instructor or volunteer if she were to fall. We discussed my disability and why I wanted to join the program. I have lofty dreams that one day, Laurie and I could do an overnight backpacking trip and take no wheelchair with us. Wouldn't that be amazing? I felt so good at the interview - talking to the director felt like family and they seem like a great community - they even knit and the director wants to learn to spin! I think that even if I don't get the spot that is open right now for this season, I will make myself available to teach or help with getting a knitting or spinning group together in their community. That would be very fun and a good way to really contribute. The only compensation that they ask for their services is that you pay it forward. I'm keeping my fingers crossed and praying hard that I hear back soon and that I can join their program! I'm still having horse dreams almost every night :).

The other happy news is that we are finally going to get Bennett a friend! I have been in contact with a rabbitry in Northern CA and she has a one year old female English Angora who is a black tort that will be joining our family in November when we go back to CA for Thanksgiving. I've very excited to have a new playmate for Bennett, poor boy has been lonely and really could use a friend. He's been escaping into the living room lately (where he's not allowed to go but where Ella's cage is) and will pop his little head up and look at Ella like - why don't you come out and play? - when she charges him and tries to nip him, he just looks sad. It will be good for him to be bonded with a new bunny, especially since she will be his age and they can play together. I'm looking forward to the fiber (!) and new bunny cuddles. We've already decided on a name (even though she actually has a name, although I would change it no matter what - it's awful - Taffy), her new name with be Maisie, which means "pearl". She's not spayed, so we will have to do that before they can be bonded so it will take awhile but it will be worth it to see the two of them together!

Ella is doing a little better, still having accidents and respiratory issues, but she's hanging on an eating like normal, so things are far less dire than they where about a month ago. We have no plans for bonding the three of them, Ella is happier in the cage and it just isn't realistic to put her in a diaper to control the accidents and see if she can be back free roaming again. Honestly, I don't think that she is the right temperament for Bennett and she is very angry from her abuse and neglect days and even more so with the poking and prodding that is necessary to see how she's doing. She is liking to be held lately, we might turn her into a lap bunny yet :). Anyways, she'll still be on her own, and get lots of loves until her time comes.

I think that's it for the happy news post! Like I said, I'm bubbling with excitement about both the new bunny, Maisie, and the possibility of horsemanship!

2 surprises!

This post is something that I've had in mind for a little while now, but both Laurie and my computers have decided to crash simultaneously (a problem with the batteries) and only work when they are physically plugged into the wall, which hasn't lent itself to posting very frequently.

Anyways, over this summer, I kept the longest secret of my life from Laurie for 5 weeks. My mom and I decided to surprise her with a new wheel, one that she has been wanting for a long time. The wheel is an Ashford Joy, single treadle, and I ordered it secretly from Tempe Yarn and Fiber, and kept the secret until it was time to unveil it! It was definitely worth biting my tongue over - I nearly spilled the beans about a hundred times! She is very happy with her new wheel, it lets her sit on the couch and tuck her leg under her just like she likes, treadling with the other foot. She's about to ply her first yarn spun on the Joy and it's beautiful, when it's all done, I'll take pictures and post it :). It was very wonderful to see her so happy - and SURPRISED!

The second surprise is related to the first... Since we just happened to have an extra wheel lying about the house (and Ashford Kiwi), I surprised Laurie again by taking up wheel spinning! I'm officially a wheel spinner. Right now, I have a little bit of fiber left to spin up and then ply my very first yarn on the wheel. I'm so spoiled, the first time I mentioned to my mom that I had started spinning on the wheel, she suggested that I should get one of my own. So, now I'm ordering a wheel for myself at TYF, hopefully placing my order on Friday. It will take a few weeks for it to get here, but it will be worth the wait! I'm getting a Schacht Ladybug wheel. She's beautiful and I have gotten to spin on one and it was wonderful! I'm so excited to get her!

So, those are the surprises that have been going on here lately, I'm not sure I'll ever be able to keep a secret that long again :).

Bunny news

Laurie and I just took a week long trip out to her family in Northern CA, and although the computer was brought along, with my intention of posting here, it actually never came out of the case or turned on the whole trip.

I have a lot to say about the bunnies, and unfortunately it is not very happy. I mentioned in my last posts, that we were having trouble with Ella not using the litter box, and having many accidents and that we were taking her to the vet very soon. Well, with 2 subsequent visits to the vet, we have a sad diagnosis and prognosis. Ella has a parasitic infection, E. Cuniculi, that is affecting her ability to hold her bladder, which is part of the reason why she was not using the litter box. This parasite is attacking her brain, and she is also having trouble with her back feet. Her back legs are not totally paralyzed yet by the infection but it is obvious that she is having trouble feeling and using them. Because of the frequent urination accidents, we sadly put Ella into the large cage that we bought when we first got Bennett, and put her in the bedroom with us to watch her carefully. That's when we noticed the back leg problem. While it really doesn't affect her hopping around in her normal fashion, we noticed that when she would jump in and out of the litter box we use, she would trip over her back feet as she was trying to clear the height of the wall of the box. So, we've put a new litter box in her cage, and she is using it many more times that she was using the high walled dish washing pans that we use for Bennett and that she was using just fine before. The other thing that tipped us off about the leg issues was that when we hold her, she shifts from foot to foot, like she doesn't quite have balance down, and is fidgeting to remind her where her feet are.

Because we moved Ella into the bedroom, Laurie made a huge effort to bunny proof the bedroom for Bennett and he has had full reign of the former bunny room, the entry hall, the laundry hallway and the bedroom, and has been enjoying it immensely. He especially loves to wait until the middle of the night and jump up on the bed where we are sleeping and pounce on our heads! The first night of his freedom, I think we got pounced on between 8 and 10 times, but he has settled down a lot from that and getting furry bunny butt in your face is something I find pretty funny now.

On our little vacation to CA, which I mentioned earlier, we brought the cage with us for Ella, because Bennett and Ella had started to unbond. We had a few instances where we had Ella out of the cage for some loves or for some exercise and there was much mounting and once a large chunk of Bennett's hair was removed forcibly by Ella when she mounted him. For both of their safety, Ella did not join Bennett at his perch in the car, but rode in the trunk in her cage, and she seemed very comfortable there. Over the course of the trip they did not see much of each other. When we returned home and settled them both into their normal spots, we ended up being woken during the night to some banging of the cage. Before the trip, Bennett frequently popped up and interacted with Ella, whether it was stealing some of her hay, giving her a little lick, or chewing on her cage bars, she never seemed very concerned and I didn't even think, when we got home, that there would be any problem. Anyways, the bang was Ella nipping Bennett and Bennett defending himself nipping her back. We immediately separated the two, and Ella now resides in the dining room, just around the corner from Bennett's territory. Bennett hasn't really suffered too much physical or emotional damage from the new arrangement, but Ella did get an open wound on her lip and seems sad that she's not in the bedroom anymore. For awhile, we put a little stuffed bear in with her, but she spent all the time with it either ignoring it totally or mounting it and so it was taken away.

While we were away, Ella did get a little worse. We were slightly worried that she wasn't going to make it home, but she did and seem to be a bit better. The 6 week round of antibiotics she had been on for her respiratory infection did not clear it up and she is still sneezing white mucus (which means there is pus coming from somewhere in her respiratory tract). Also, she developed a small lump on her side which turned purple and was hot to the touch. There is still a small lump there, but it seems to be getting better, which is good because we were worried that it might have been an abscess. She is still fighting the fur mites as well. Her eating habits have been a little erratic. Sometimes she won't eat at all, sometimes she will. Either way, she's stick skinny, you can feel all her bones on her back, yet her stomach is very round and full, which is a little bit of a mystery. All her blood work that was done showed a possible liver problem, so we are wondering if perhaps her liver is swollen or something like that. All and all, with the terminal E. C. diagnosis, we have decided to take care of her and make her comfortable until she passes.

Bennett is in good spirits. He was in the pen for most of our trip, and is currently most likely to be found frolicking around the house at full speed or passed out asleep between the hutch and the bookcases in the bedroom - his little nook. He has also very much been liking the full access to Laurie and I, he always wants to be where the action is :). He's such a love bug, and I thoroughly love to wake up to him hopping up on the bed for some pouncing around. He happens to be an impeccable alarm clock. I swear, every time I set my alarm, he wakes me up exactly three minutes before it goes off. He also wakes me up when he's done being patient about food being served to him. Speaking of which, he's currently trying to remind me that it's time for greens. I'm off to fulfill my bunny slave duties!

Baby sweaters, shawls and socks - oh my!

Finally, another post, and a fiber post at that! :) Just rounding up all of the works in progress that I have been doing over the summer and some that I just started. First up is Laurie's master graduation present socks, using hand dyed superwash merino yarn. I didn't like the way that the yarn was flashing and pooling in the first pattern that I started with this yarn, but I really like how the second one is knitting up. Much more stripey then flashy. This was my daytime car ride project for our road trips and has kind of been put on the back burner until the baby sweaters get done.

When we were up at Laurie's family's cabin for vacation, we went to a small yarn shop in Murphys, CA called Maisy Blue. The yarn that I picked up there was 100% cashmere, lace weight. I am knitting an Ishbel shawl with it. The size will probably be more like a scarf than a full sized shawl, but I'm very happy with it. It is just amazingly soft to touch and a pleasure to knit with.

This is a little bit of a random entry but here are the pictures of silk hankies that have recently become part of my stash. The one on the far left lower corner I bought at the Estes Park Wool Market and the other three in the picture were dyed by Barbara, a friend from TYF, and given to me in a swap for some of Bennett's fiber. It was total coincidence that they matched so well! There are about 2 ounces of silk total.

And finally, the yarn for the baby sweaters! This first picture is of the yarn that I'm using for my sister, Jessica's baby, Paul. I'll be knitting him a newborn sized Baby Surprise Jacket with this superwash merino sock yarn. It's coming along nicely, I hope to have it finished for the baby shower. I also plan to knit him another sweater, but have not gotten the yarn for it yet...

Here is the yarn for a sweater that I'm making for Laurie's sister's newest addition to the family, Dominic. He was born just a few weeks ago, and alas as it is summer is not in dire need of a sweater, so I'll be making a size for him to wear when the weather gets cooler. I plan to stripe it with these three colors, it will be very cute! (I am thinking of using the pattern for this sweater for Paul's second sweater depending on how it goes to knit this one.)

(I hope you like the colors, Christy!)

The end of summer vacation

Laurie and I returned home from our last summer vacation a week ago Sunday. I've held off posting due to a combination of things, I've not been feeling well (I have costrochondritis) and the camera died up at the cabin on our trip and we've been searching for the charger since we got home and finally found it two days ago, but when I went to upload the pictures on the camera, we realized that the card reader was MIA as well, so it took some time to find that, too. So now I can post! - with pictures!

Laurie and I headed up to her family's cabin for practically the whole month of July. It was beautiful up there and we had a lot of fun doing some outdoor activities. We thoroughly enjoyed the brand new deck on the cabin. I was able to sit out in the shade in the afternoon in the cool weather spinning for the Tour de Fleece. We kept the bunnies out on the deck in their pen during the day and in the car, safe and sound from animals, during the night. Bennett had a fabulous time with the deck. Supervised, he had endless fun dashing around the furniture and hopping up and down on chairs and leaning off the balcony as far as he could stretch his little head. There were lots of binkies. :) Ella was a little wary of the deck and definitely didn't think it was as fun as Bennett did. On our trip, we discovered they both had fur mites again but there was not a bunny vet to be found up in the Sierras, so we held our breath that neither of them would get too bad and waited until we got home. I actually had the medication at home, but needed the proper dosing instructions for each of them. Bennett's mites were healing on their own, but Ella is not looking that great right now. We actually have a vet visit scheduled for today for Ella because she seems to be having incontinence issues and is urinating just about anywhere. We think that she might have a bladder infection because she doesn't seem to have control to hold her bladder, she just goes when it strikes her. This really became apparent a few days ago when I was petting her in my lap and she peed all over me, which is something she has never done before. She's always politely nipped before to indicate that she needed to be put down to use the litter box. The inside of her pen is just soaked with urine. We'll see what they say at the vet's later today.

While we were up at the cabin, we drove about an hour or so to some hot springs. This particular hot springs is run but a state park and they pump the water into pools. There is one hot pool and one cool pool, and they both have accessible lifts to get into the water. We spent an afternoon there, I absolutely loved bobbing around in the water in my life jacket (even though I surely looked like a dork :-P). It was really relaxing and the water was cool on a hot day. We also took a day trip into a little town near the cabin called Murphys. We went wine tasting and bought some yummy wine and then we went to the local yarn store. The store was more of a cross between a yarn store and a stationary/book store, but it was very nice and the owner was extremely friendly. I bought some yummy cashmere yarn that will be in the next post, and a very cute book called Woolbur, which features a really cute free spirited little sheep who wants to shear, card, spin, dye and weave differently from the herd. We also bought some little books for Laurie's nephews.

Perfectly timed with our departure, Laurie's sister gave birth to her 3rd child, another little boy, named Dominic David. We got to see him in the hospital and spend a short amount of time with him the night he came home. It was a treat to be able to see him and hold him and coo over him before we had to leave for home. Laurie is hoping to go back to CA in September, and I know that she is looking forward to seeing baby Dominic again (and the two other boys!).

I have another post planned for the crafty stuff that I have planned but I think that will happen later as it's lunch time!

Here are some pictures of the bunnies enjoying their vacation on the deck:

Back home, again.

As you probably noticed, I have taken a little breather from blogging. Laurie and the bunnies and I have been on a very nice road trip for two weeks and two days and just got back last night! I had thought that I would have more access to the internet and be able to blog while I was away, but alas, that did not happen. We've been so busy with fiber festivals, camping, family reunions, and more driving and camping that sitting down at the computer for more than a few minutes at a time when there was internet access just wasn't happening. So, really soon, I'll be posting lots and lots about our trip but right now, I'm just trying to catch up on sleep!

Bunnies' first camping trip

This past weekend, Laurie and I and the bunnies all went camping near Prescott for Sunday and Memorial day. It was the bunnies' first camping trip and something we hadn't done for too long. We wanted to get out of the heat and enjoy camping but we also wanted to see how the bunnies would react to camping before we pile them in the car with everything else and spend over 2 weeks on a road trip to Nebraska and back, camping along the way. This trip was a little mini run and we were able to fine tune the things that needed fixing and really get a good idea of how the bunnies would react to being out in nature and all that stuff. We went to Mingus Mountain, where there were electrical hookups for the oxygen concentrator that I need for sleeping. We were lucky, the campground was apparently full Sunday morning, but when we pulled in in the early afternoon, there were lots of spots!

I'm happy to report that the bunnies did great (and we had fun, too)! Bennett loved being out and in the cool air (he's in full coat right now, but we will definitely be plucking him before we go). He would half close his eyes and lean into the wind and just look totally content. Our set up was having the bunnies in their exercise pen on top of a tarp covered by a rug. We also made sure that they had a place to go hide if they wanted to, so we brought the small carrier to lounge in. At night, we set them up on top of rugs in the trunk section of the car (we have a station wagon). Laurie was hoping that Bennett wouldn't be able to hop over the back seat and get into the rest of the car, but, Houdini that he is, he did. When Laurie went to get them out of the car in the morning, he was up at the driver's seat. We are going to have to rig something so that he cannot escape the trunk. We locked them in the car for safety at night, there is just too much risk from predators and things for them to be left out in the x pen. They had plenty of cool air and hay and the small carrier to hide in, if necessary. When we packed up on Monday to go home, it was obvious that Bennett didn't want to go. He tried to forestall us by "needing" to be petted for as long as possible, after we got his harness on him.

We tried out a new arrangement for travel than usual. Normally, we put the bunnies in the large carrier and strap that in the back seat for travel, but since we're going such a long distance and it's hard to keep the cool air circulating in the carrier, we built a little bunny contraption for long distance travel. We got the largest rectangular laundry basket we could and strapped that into the car via the seatbelt. A cotton rug went in the bottom of the basket and we got a chain link dog leash and attached in to the handle of the laundry basket. Then, we carabinered the bunnies to the leash by their harnesses. It was a long leash, so we carabinered Bennett to the end and Ella somewhere in the middle, so they could still move around the basket, but just enough slack that they couldn't get out of the basket. They could pop up to see out the window (which was partially covered by a towel for shade) or to investigate what's going on in the car. They had hay to eat in a brown paper bag and some toys to chew on. Mostly, they slept as soon as we got underway. This set up really worked well. Bennett could run around and see everything and we could be sure that they were both getting enough cool air to keep them comfortable. I should add that Laurie devised a lovely way to keep air circulating in the back seat (because we have no air vents back there), she stretched a bungee cord across the roof of the car to latch on the dry cleaning hooks and we got two little carabiner/flashlight/personal fans to attach to the bungee cords and turned the fans on. It made a big difference in the coolness of the air back there. Anyways here are all the pictures...

You can just see the snow on the San Francisco peaks from Mingus Mtn.

The lovely view!

Bennett and I lounging in the shade in my camp chair. He's such a snuggle bun. Ella came out once and hung out with Laurie, but she prefers to have her feet on the ground and looks down upon snuggling.