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.
Bennett checking things out.
You can see how the chain leash and the carabiner is set up for Ella in this picture.
Interesting pic of both Bennett and Ella. It's funny how much their fur color looks alike in this photo.
We all had a lot of fun camping and in exactly one week we will be packing up to go off to Nebraska and have lots of adventures!
Fun with a drumcarder
While Laurie was away this last weekend in California, I had some fun dyeing fiber. Yesterday, a friend at our little yarn store (lys) allowed me to borrow her drum carder while we where there, hanging out and knitting and spinning. Another friend at Tempe Yarn and Fiber let me take her drum carder home to finish my carding project! So, I have been having lots of fun carding up some of what I dyed. The main project I'm working on with the drum carder is the mohair, silk and merino wool that I dyed in 4 different colors. First, I carded the different fibers that were all the same color together. Here's what one of them looked like on the carder...
Here's what each of the colors turned out to be. Notice that I got 2 batts per color.
I'm really happy with it and plan to start spinning it up (on my Kuchulu!) this evening whist I listen to an audiobook. It looks like the colors of a sunset, another friend at ty&f suggested to me and it might end up as a shawl. We'll see how it spins up and I'm sure I'll be posting the results of the spinning as it gets spun up. Tomorrow is Expressions in Spinning, and I'm looking forward to showing and spinning some of the other fiber that I dyed for the "wildflower" with the group. A big thanks to Debi and Barbara for the loans of the drum carders, I couldn't have done this project without their generosity!
A new home
Tonight we got one step closer to getting the bunnies out of the "bunny room", otherwise known as the second bedroom and into roaming what will eventually be the bunny zone in the house. (There will be a no bunny zone, namely in the dining room and living room, almost everything else will be bunny territory.) The big step? A future bunny house, located in the entry hallway. We have been looking for the perfect hutch or chest of drawers or sideboard to turn into a bunny house for Bennett and Ella, so their headquarters are not located in the second bedroom as much, so we can use it for guests and such. Also, we think the bunnies will want to be where we are and that's mostly in our bedroom, so we wanted to set them up with a little home base. So, here's what we bought off of craigslist tonight:
As you can see by the picture, both Ella and Bennett liked playing in it. The cabinet has a shelf that will be fun for them to jump and climb on. We're planning on cutting an entry into the "hutch" for them, but it is yet undecided where. I'm really excited! I've been stalking craigslist for a long time searching for something that would be perfect and I finally found something in our price range that fits our decor. Now to solve the Bennett has taken to liking to chew on cords problem...
Fun new toys!
On Friday, my new spindles came in the mail! These are the birthday spindles from my mom which I had planned to special order but it ended up that the spindles I wanted were in stock! Lucky me! These are both Jenkins Turkish spindles, I should have taken pictures of both of them together so you can see how small the Kuchulu is. The Kuchulu is the first one in the pictures, the shaft is purpleheart wood and the whorl is hormigo negro wood. Apparently, hormigo negro wood is native to Guatemala and is used there to make marimbas. It weighs in at 9 grams (.3 oz) which is absolutely tiny! I love it, as you can see I've been spinning a lot of the merino/silk blend that came with it to give it a test drive. The second one, a Meadowlark, is just as beautiful and a delight to spin with. The wood for the whorl is pink ivory and weighs in at 21 grams (.7 oz). It's been hard to choose between two amazing spindles as I've been acquainting myself with both of them. They join their sister, my Jenkins Turkish delight spindle that I got for Christmas.
(ETA - Here's a pic of my whole Jenkins family: the Delight, Lark and Kuchulu)
Yesterday, I played with some more kool-aid and fiber in the beautiful cool morning we had, while awaiting Laurie's return from the airport. This time I went for more dark colors and I really like the way it turned out. The fiber is Wensleydale wool, I dyed about 4 oz of it.
I included this picture because you can't really see the dark purple in the other one, the other looks very pink, which is really not what it looks like in real life.
And here is the Wensleydale fiber that I dyed on Thursday. (I promised a better pic than the one I took on my cell phone!)
Ella
Ella is famous on Disapproving Rabbits again! Check her picture out :)... Ella
This week has not been very kind to Ella. Her fur mites just seem to be getting worse and worse and she's loosing a lot of fur. She bald in many places. I keep brushing the hair out because our vet told us to and it seems to give her some relief from the itchiness even though we rarely see her scratch at it. We've doubled the dose of her mite medication this week after a call to the vet. She's been so good at sitting still for the long grooming sessions and I feel so bad for her. Hopefully the meds will start working really soon.
Meanwhile, I have some cute pictures of her...
Ella noshing on hay in the hay box. She actually climbs into the hay box. Once she got stuck in there and I had to rescue her out the top and another time, she made a little nest for herself in there so we've put a little grill inside so she can't climb in anymore. It was really cute though.
Another disapproving glare...
Cute sleepy bunny!
Spinning and dyeing and knitting, oh my!
Well, I've been a busy spinner, knitter and now dyer recently. In my last fiber post, I showed the Pagewood farms Mississippi Mud BFL that I'm working on for expressions in spinning, and I've been dedicatedly spinning that up. I have to say that I wouldn't have picked up that fiber if not for the group, but now I'm really loving it.
Also for the expressions in spinning group, I had a little dye day for myself today. Laurie's gone out of town to visit her family (I was supposed to go with, but, alas Laurie had somethings to take care of this week that she wasn't anticipating and our plan of driving out there became Laurie flying out there for 3 days. I'm bummed, I would have really liked to see her family, as it's been since January. If all goes as planned, we will be seeing them in June, which is not that far off.), and we were able to get a microwave so I could dye things in the garage without making a mess in the house, so I pulled out the Kool-aid and had a lot of fun. I was actually dyeing for two projects, the first one in the pictures is for expressions in spinning, wildflowers. I was picked for the topic of "plants" and had a beautiful picture of wildflowers that Laurie and I took on our second wildflower hunting trip (I don't think I've posted any of the pictures from that particular trip). I kind of turned that topic around and dyed the fiber colors that reminded me of Laurie and our roadtrips. Let me warn you, it did not turn out as planned, but I still like it and it's all good. Also, I took these dyed fiber pics with my cell phone, which is not the best quality. I'll be retaking and posting them when I get the good camera back from Laurie when she gets home. The colors I used were a blue/green (turned out) for the color of our car, brownish (turned out) for the dirt that gets on our car on our trips, dark purpley/black (didn't turn out) for the road and our favorite color, dark pink (turned out) for the color of our roadtrip journal, with some white in there for snow. Here's the picture:
This second fiber is silk, mohair and merino wool that I'm going to card together. I dyed each fiber type in four different colors and when the fiber types are all carded together, I'm going to card together the colors for a lovely shawl. I'm hoping that it turns out beautiful...
On the knitting front, I've started a new pair of socks. These will be a gift for Laurie for her Master's degree. The fiber is superwash merino and bamboo and was handdyed by the owner of our little yarn store, Tempe Yarn and Fiber. The yarn is so colorful that I chose a relatively simple pattern so the two didn't get muddled up. You can enjoy the pattern that the yarn makes, with the simple embellishment that the pattern adds. They are coming along nicely...
I'm expecting two new spindles in the mail in the next few days. They are birthday gifts from my mom. I was expecting to have to special order them, but when I went on the maker's website, low and behold, there were the two spindles I wanted in the woods that I wanted. So, I ordered them and I'm really anxious to have them here already. In anticipation of getting them, I got a little bag from Tempe Yarn and Fiber to put them in. It's also working well as a sock project bag until I get the spindles. Both pictures are of the same bag, just inside out!
In other fiber news, Laurie and I had been planning a road trip out to Nebraska for her family reunion in June. I found out that the Estes Park Wool Market is happening the week before the reunion, in Estes Park, CO. We would be driving through CO anyways and I'm really excited to go to this fiber festival. Jumping up and down excited!!!! My younger brother, Nathan, is also going to join us on the first part of the road trip (he is going to fly home when we get to NE). Needless to say, I'm really looking forward to this trip!
