For the quad horsies, not for me. Farrier came this morning and trimmed up their feet. Everyone was nicely behaved, except that Tess and Archie each snatched a hoof away from him once. He says Tess is doing well for this time of year. She's been having dry contracted hooves in winter ever since I got her, but apparently between a feed supplement ( Read more... )

Some of you will remember that I entered a book manuscript in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award competition a few weeks ago. The first cut was announced today, and my work is still in the running. The number of entries has now been reduced to 1000, and the next cut, to 500, will be announced in about a month. Making that next cut means at the ( Read more... )

I think it's time we dethroned the whistle pig from his phony position as weather predictor. It's been snowing all afternoon, the roads were drifted badly coming home, and now the temperature is dropping to single digits again ( Read more... )

...a well-digger's ankle? Well, actually, that's what my father used to say, but he was usually pretty decorous. My maternal grandmother would have said "It's colder than a witch's teat out there." And so it is ( Read more... )

Not as cold as last night, at least for the moment.

Spinning guild newsletter completed. The 50 mile challenge is up to 11.41 miles spun in the first three months. At this rate, we'll get past 45 miles in twelve months, but not quite to 50, so I'm still pushing people. Most are not turning in their figures yet ( Read more... )

OK, I have this knitting project to finish this week. It's a small one, just a hat. But it must be done using an obnoxious lace pattern created by someone else. This thing is called "horseshoe lace" though I have a hard time seeing horseshoes in it. If anything, it has frogs in it instead (the frog being the soft part at the center of a horse's ( Read more... )

Or maybe Yucks. Or was that Yak Yucks? Maybe Yucky Yaks. One of my statements that is quoted more often than I'd like is "Yak is yucky." This comment was made several years ago after a workshop session in which we spun samples of a dozen or more non-sheep, non-wool animal fibers. Among them was a sample of yak. It was dull brown, slightly smelly, ( Read more... )

Did what had to be done, and laundry too. Well, that had to be done, I guess.

Completed the guild newsletter for this month, including adding up the yardage for one of this year's challenges. I challenged the guild as a whole to spin at least 50 miles of yarn over a twelve month period. All they have to do is report to me each month how many yards ( Read more... )

Well, tomorrow according to my calendar but it sure looks full tonight. We're supposed to get snow flurries tomorrow night so it may not be so visible. At the moment it's clear and brilliant ( Read more... )

Good grief, is it over yet?

Boy am I glad I took next week off. I'll need it to catch up the lost time on NaNo. Guild newsletter is done, finally, after a long wrassle with uncooperative graphics. Not ideal, but it's done as it gets for this purpose ( Read more... )