Old friend

I bought my first spinning wheel in 1990, the same year Emilie was born.  Louet S-10.  Bought it from Rindy O’Brian who started the Down Home Spinners guild in Fryeburg Maine.  My first real job out of college and I had a 2nd grade classroom at the New Suncook School in Lovell.  I lived in East Conway across from the grange hall and down the road from a sheep farm.  Across the Saco river is Fryeburg and the Fryeburg Fair, held each October.   I was knitting like a mad woman and thought that a spinning wheel would be a good way to have cheap yarn.  Can’t spin if you don’t have a wheel, so got one, this one.  Best little wheel ever.

I have had a lot of different wheels, a couple of looms, various do-dads for spinning and carding, and tons of knitting tools.   My louet has been to many fairs and spinning demonstrations.  It has never let me down.  It has never broken.  It has always done the job.  Old friend. I buckle the wheel in the front seat when I travel with it.  I carry it over my shoulder so I can carry a basket of wool by my hand.  I never spin with a shoe on, only with a sock foot or bare foot.  I let lots of people try my wheel out.

Tonight I sat down to a nice fire in the wood stove, snow outside and a half pound ball of Merino/Silk roving. Ashland bay, rose I think.  I have spun his before and have a skein done.  I have no idea what will be created from the yarn, but the process is ancient and comforting.  I know what to do and the wheel just follows along.

I spin, but not in a spinning class and I certainly don’t break a sweat when I do it.

what a peaceful time with an old friend.

787 is the magic number

Was starting to write about Bingo on Sunday night, but I just heard on the news that Obama is going to sign the Economic Stimulus plan today.

787,000,000,000. So where is the money coming from?   Who is loaning us the money, because if we are in a deficit, that means that we are already in the hole, so there is no money in the bank and we are BORROWING it from somewhere or something.  Or we are simply printing it, making the money we already have lower in value?

Hello China!

What is the interest they are charging us?

When is the first payment due?

What did we put up for collateral?

I really don’t think this is a good idea.  But nobody asked me what I though about it.

Bub thinks I am being a bit of a foo.  ” what do you mean nobody asked you, since do you wait for somebody to ask your opinion?”

True that.

I believe that we are in a depression and that the economy will be low and slow through the summer and into next year.  By that time, folks will have adjusted their spending habits and the retail sector will have adjusted as well.  The idea of getting out of this by spending on stuff is the thing that got us into this mess.

Excess leads to consequences.

Happy Valentine’s Day

What a beautiful day today,  crisp and cold.  Blue skies and very little wind.  It is 5:22 and still there is light outside, sun has set, but still light enough so that I haven’t turned the lights on yet.  This is my favorite time in the winter.

Bub and I went down to the Duckworth Factory today to work on our float for Barbi-gras, coming up in two weeks.  We are going to do a “bale out” theme float. Craig was getting his rocket float updated and will space man again.  I think he should retire the float.  All floats for the parade are personal costumes constructed out of boxes, duct tape, hot glue, mardi-gras beads, glitter and odd add ons.  A general mid winter get together held at the ware house where crawdads and served along side barbique delights.   A parade around the parking lot at 3:00, more food, some drink, a lot of music and fun times.  Sorry, no pictures from years past, but I will take pictures this year.

So our couple activity for Valentine’s day was to begin to construct the float, then pick up the roses as Green Top Market on the way home.  I ordered the longstem red roses about a month ago, and he paid for them today.  A win/win.  I have flowers, he didn’t need to work about remembering them.

We are heading off to Stonegrill *Howard Manosh’s hang out* but really good eats.  I think I will have shrimp on the stone.  yum.

Happy Valentine’s Day all.

Emmie Update

Poor Tookie.

By Tuesday morning, less then 20 hours after the injury an infection had started.  The doctors gave her antibiotics Monday, but basically ineffective.  So she followed up at her local health care center and they cleaned it all out, removed the stitches re-dressed and a different type of antibiotic. That was Tuesday.

Puncture wounds on feet can get easily infected because of materials, like bits of her rubber boot and what ever was on the pitch fork being thrusted into the wound.   I did a little research and found out that a foot puncture wound should be seen within 24 hours by a foot surgeon/ would specialist because the high rate of infections. So on Wednesday she was able to get an appointment right away with Seacoast Foot Surgery in Portsmouth.  Yea.

They put her on an IV for antibiotics, took culture samples and blood samples.  She goes back today for more IV treatments today and tomorrow.  If that route fails to show progress, Tookie  gets hospitalized.

She is pretty bummed out at this point and I think the lesson of safety in the barn really hit home yesterday.   NO barn chores for at least a month and  week of missing classes.   She seems fully humbled by this now and I am hoping that she changes a bit of her antics in the barn.

You can tell them to be careful until you are blue in the face, but sometimes they only learn by making the mistake.  I just hope she is able to keep her toe.

Miss Emmie

Emilie has always been a calamity Jane.   This year has been a banner year though with mono in the fall the Salmonella around Christmas.  Yes, Emmie got it from bad peanut butter. She is over it now, but had a couple of tough weeks.

She called Monday night with a new issue

” hey mum, this is your oldest.”

Hey Tookie, Where are you calling from? I don’t know this number.

” I’m at the hospital, but I am ok, don’t worry”

(don’t worry? ha)

What happened?

“I stuck a pitch fork right though my foot, but I am ok, I am being seen right now.”

(I know you are OK because you are talking to me)

How in God’s name did you do that? what happened?

“I was doing chores, feeding alphafa and I hit my foot with the pitch fork and it went straight through, in one side and out the other. “

So as a mother, you have this drive to get right down there and check on the kid. Make sure that everything that should be done is being done and that the child is OK.  Time to get the broom out and fly right down.

But Emilie is going to be 19 soon and she is able to handle her own business now.   She drove herself to the hospital, even though it is her right foot, because the other folks in the barn needed to finish chores and milking.  She took the farm truck and called the barn manager to come get her and the truck afterward.

She put the pitch fork down though the top of her middle toe and out the other side.  How she managed to not break the bone is puzzling, but she is not out of the woods yet.  Puncture wounds on feet get infected easily because of the forgien material that can get trapped in the wound.  In her case, the rubber barn boot and anything that was on the tool, which is pretty scary.   She already has an infection in there and there is a risk that she could loose her toe or have other damage to her foot.

She is out of the barn to two weeks for now.  Accidents happen in farming, but this was preventable in that if she had slowed down and was not pushing so hard to get though chores, she might not have had the force to push the pitch fork though her foot.  Also,  rubber barn boots are the general attire, but do they protect well enough?

I don’t have to tell her this though.  Like most lessons in life, she needs to learn them on her own and is doing it.

(I still worry though)