Away and AWAY

Recently, I left town AGAIN.  Seems like I have been "away" much more frequently this fall, (and now winter), than all the rest of the year.  I am very thankful we can go away (even at short notice), due to the fact that we have a wonderful farm sitter.  Thank you Cathy!

It is important to get away, from time to time, in order to see things from a different perspective.  Driving through the countryside in the winter, I see scenes I want to weave.  I see the colors I need and I wonder what will bring me these colors.  I know that one that will be very important is Hickory red.

Last summer the kids at one session of fiber camp, wanted to dye some wool with some natural dyes.  R wanted to know what color hickory nuts would produce so I suggested he throw some in a small stainless bowl.  We didn't have enough to dye with so the bowl just sat on the counter in the fiber shed for awhile.  The color that resulted was a beautiful red brown, the color of much of the under story in the winter woods.

Now that the autumn nuts and berries are gone I may experiment with some barks and lichens.  This autumn there were very few acorns, walnuts, and hickory nuts.  The information out, is that it has to do with the wet spring and summer.  Don't know, but it brought the bears down from the hills looking for food.  I hope that they got enough to eat before  their winter hibernation.

Another topic that I pondered while gone, was winter fertilizing.  I now have a good plan and will just wait for the right weather to finish the fencing so I can start rotation of the flock and fertilizing behind them.  I wonder how many others have similar thoughts this Christmas season.

We also got to test a new product from the AWAY wearable art collection; a Beachglass glove.  I gave one to Lyndy and to Jen ( the two most devoted beachglass collectors I know).  So here they are on Christmas Day on a beach on Lake Erie.

They gave me a preliminary report and some tips for further development of the gloves.  Thanks Lyndy and Jen.

It was cold in Ohio and the only gloves I had brought along were some farm gloves which were starting to wear thin.  I also realized I need to knit myself a new winter hat, just like the shoemaker story I guess.  Now I am back so I guess I have some more spinning and knitting to do.  And fencing and collecting of dye stuff and ........

We had a wonderful Christmas and I hope all out there reading this, did too.