To smile

I recently put up my profile on an internet dating site. I have come to a few realisations in the 2 weeks since then. The first was about myself - I am more naive than I thought I was. I expect others to tell the truth because I do. Sadly not true.
The second was that most people have little to no idea of spelling, punctuation or grammar. One of my bad points is being a slight spelling nazi, and every time I see 'getting to no you' it is like fingernails on a blackboard.
The third was that I still have no idea what makes two people form a relationship.
The headline I chose for my profile was 'looking for someone who makes me smile'. At this point, the process has probably brought me more frowns than smiles.
Someone told me it is essential to hold the things we wish for lightly. To hold them like a baby bird. If we hold on too tight, we crush the life out of it and we lose what we wish for. It becomes cold and lifeless - killed by our fear of losing what we never had.
I realised that that was what I had been doing. Clinging so tightly to the dream of togetherness that I squeezed every drop of colour from my life and all I had left was strangers on the other side of the computer screen.
But luckily the valley is always there when I need her to bring me home, back into myself. The weather lately has been much more human. Each day seems less like a barrage, and more like the river, flowing past. The mornings seem more like autumn, with heavy mist dampening my hair when I'm on the motorbike. The cows have started calving at work too, and while I was washing out the yard the other day, a poem came to me.

The newborn calf
I smiled today
My face creased
My lips cracked
It felt foreign;
Of a country not my own

It was born
Not of words
Or wit
Or songs

But of life.
Slippery,
Clumsy,
Wet-nosed,
Life

New Years Resolutions

I made two lots of resolutions this year - life resolutions, and fibre resolutions.
In the life resolution category, I resolved to make a budget, and stick to it, so I can get out of debt and start saving. So far, that is going very well.
In the fibre resolution category, I made a couple of resolutions:
1. Learn to wash and prep fleece - As you see in the previous post, I've started already! I've done one fleece, and I have another (a Corriedale) to do. This resolution was partly driven by the fact that I have about 5 fleeces coming to me from my cousin’s sheep (Merino and Texel) that I need to make room for.
2. Reduce The Stash - This means No Buying Of Yarn Or Fibre. None. This kind of works in with my life resolution because I am very bad at the impulse buying of fibrey goodness. Etsy, in particular, has been my downfall on many occasions. I am, however, granting myself an exception to the stash diet for the Bendigo Sheep and Wool show in July, but only to the limit of what I can save in cash till then. No credit cards!
My last fibrey purchase was 5 braids of roving from Stitches and Rows on the 19th December. Nearly a month, and no purchases! I give myself a pat on the back for that. I got a fibre fix in the mail today though - a gorgeous WC Mercantile merino, silk and sparkle batt which I won over at Phat Fiber. Free fibre - woo-hoo! It is so wonderfully soft, and the blue sparkles set off the browns perfectly - like the shimmer in the scales of a trout.

Pretty, no? And it was very nice to come home after a humid, sweaty afternoon in the dairy to something so beautiful.

Fleecey goodness

I overdid it with the Christmas knitting this year (again), so at the moment I am having a small holiday from knitting/spinning/crocheting to rest my wrist and forearm. Which perhaps accounts for the rather cranky and maudlin last few posts. The people around me know I am a much calmer and nicer person when I can knit.
But I couldn't abandon the fibrey world completely, so I have made a start on washing some fleeces that I had in my yarn room. The first was a mystery fleece, gifted by a friend who discovered the sheepy smell of raw fleece made her extremely nauseous. It is coloured a mid brown, with the tips bleached to a dark gold. So after some googling I ventured into the world of fleece washing.
Here's a play by play on how I did it

• I spread the fleece out on the kitchen table and went through it, pulling out as much VM (vegetable matter) as I could, as well as feathers and beetles and poo. I have to say, my opinion of sheep's cleanliness went down a lot. I present this photo of the dregs at the bottom of the first wash bath as Exhibit A:

• Then I put 20 litres of hot, hot water in a plastic tub (later I used the kitchen sink, because it was easier than lifting the tub up and down), and added about half a cup of dishwashing detergent and swirled it around with a mixing spoon so it mixed with the water but didn't froth at all.

• Then I put some fleece in a net bag and put it in the water. I pushed it under the water, but resisted the urge to swish it around, so I didn't felt it. I let it sit there for 15 minutes, then lifted out the bag and let it drain a little while I refilled. I made up another lot of hot water and detergent, and put the fleece in for another 15 minutes.

• I repeated this process 2 more times with no soap. So, two washes, then two rinses. It was very hard to resist the urge to fiddle around with it, so I had to go and do other things and set a timer to tell me when to go back to it.

• When the final rinse was done, I let the bag drain for about 30-45 minutes, then took the fleece out to my enclosed front verandah, where I had a very high-tech drying rack set up (an old screen door resting between an old washing machine and the edge of a table). I spread the fleece out as much as I could without breaking up the locks too much, and left the hot weather to do its thing. It took a few days to dry, which I was surprised about. I thought it would take maybe a day at the most, but it took the better part of three.

So now I have a large quantity of clean fleece, just waiting to be prepped ready to spin. After consulting the spinning goddesses over at LSG (Lazy, Stupid and Godless) on Ravelry, I started combing the fleece with my mini combs I got from Petlyn Fibre products at Bendigo '09.


Mostly I decided to comb the fleece because I had the combs already, but it was also pointed out to me that the kind of yarn, and even the knitted item that I wanted it to be, determined the way I would prepare the fleece. It is the first time I have felt that flow between all parts of the fleece's journey, and felt that I was in control of all the choices that could be made. It was a new feeling, but I like it!

Before:After:It is very slow going though. These mini combs are good, but I am imagining how much faster I would get through the fleece if I had some decent size ones. Unfortunately, these are well beyond the budget right now, so I'll just have to go with the mini ones.

Good news on the craft room front! My uncle, who will be doing the building, gave everything the once-over, and gave me a price, which I've started saving towards. I'll try to do a rough drawing soon to show you what will be happening. (EDIT: See my dodgy efforts below. You should be able to click on it and then zoom in to get a closer look) I'm very excited to have discovered that all the floorboards are Redgum! I can't wait for the work to begin. Depending on my uncle's other work, it may be as soon as Spring.
So much to look forward to this year.

All I had

When all I had
Was you and I
I cooked your food
I washed your clothes
I cried when you went away

Though you weren't here to know it

I filled my life
With you and my
Dreams became all you
I sewed my mouth
And bit my tongue
And mile by mile myself fell behind

But in that loss
I lost you too
The lies grew from the cracks in the road

One day you were mine
The next, hers
And the hills caved in around me

I don't wish you back - I've passed that by
I've gone back along the road
And I found I was just where I'd left me

End of year angst

I find the end of the year a hard slog. The weather heats up to a point where it is unpleasant to be outside between 10am and 6pm, and I can only brace myself for the next 3 months of the same. Then there's the fun of being single again, and floundering in a deluge of happy couple festive advertising. And then the forced interaction with family members who have little sense of personal boundaries, no idea of hygiene, and an instinct for saying the worst possible thing at the worst possible time.
Every year I make the same New Years resolution - a quote from Pride and Prejudice.
"I am only resolved to act in a manner which will constitute my own happiness, without reference to you, or any person so wholly unconnected with me"
And every year it falls down. I take the words and actions of others at a higher value than my own experience and instinct. Why? When my sister speaks condescendingly to me, making me feel like an ignorant failure, why do I take that to heart? When she rummages through my cupboards, why don't I speak up for myself, and tell her to back off?
Seems like as much as I try to grow and change, they don't want to have to change the mental box that I live in in their minds. So they treat me the way they always have, and I allow myself to slip back into the groove of how I used to behave - uncertain, colourless, and weak.
But that's not who I want to be - I want to be someone who laughs loud, and doesn't care if she sounds silly. Someone who is strong, and sexy, and confident in her own ability. Someone who values herself.

Summer good morning

In summer when the sun rises, it sneaks round the corner of the house and taps me on the shoulder, waking me with a warm breath and a kiss on the back of my neck.

The first step is the hardest

Bah, humbug

My New Years Resolution: To start my Christmas shopping and gift making in July next year, so I can actually enjoy the festive season.

Things I learnt today...

• It is worth spending two minutes to find your gardening gloves before embarking on a weed-hoeing binge.
• Soap and open blisters do not mix, kids. Much pain ensues.
• It is really hard to dress injuries on your right hand when you are right-handed.
• Typing with one hand is frustratingly slow.
• A large glass with gin and tonic and lots of ice makes a fine cold compress.
  

What I did (and didn't) today

So many times I find myself at the end of the day thinking 'Didn't get that done today...' and 'Should have done that today'. What good does it do? Is it going to magically make things finish themselves? I don't think so.
Maybe I should count all the things I did today, instead of the things I didn't.
So what if I didn't get all the dishes washed - I got most of them done, and I helped Dad with the bees instead.
So what if I didn't get some seedlings planted - I slept in instead (sleep ins are vital for continued mental health lol).
So what if I didn't do any washing today - I worked on a pair of socks for someone I love instead.

So on this beautiful full moon night I'm going to sleep away all the 'shoulds' and 'didn'ts', and start tomorrow with a little less self-flagellation in my life.

Tired

I don't like feeling tired - all the thoughts in my head collapse into a lumpy stream of blah blah blah, occasionally interspersed with comments of astonishing cruelty from the little man that sits in the back of my head and tells me what I do wrong.
He seems to be the custodian of all my mistakes. He keeps them neatly indexed and cross-referenced. He's been getting creative lately though. He has taken to pulling out things that are not mistakes, and trying to make me feel like they are.
Note to self, and to you too, little man: Just because the road is hard, doesn't mean it is wrong.

*Almost* there

This is the view of my vegie garden and the hill beyond from my bead room. Until Friday, the room was an absolute mess. It was dusty, cobwebby, the table was covered in beads, the floor with various bags full of Stuff. Cleaning up what had once been my favourite room in the house, seemed far too overwhelming a job to tackle. But friend Charlotte happened to come to lunch on Friday, and with a lot of her encouragement and help, it is once again a room with purpose.


In my renovation plans mentioned here, the bead room will be joined with the one behind to make a long, narrow workspace, where all my crafty possessions can be stored in one area, and I can have a light, airy, sunny space for spinning, knitting, beading or just sitting.
I've had a building feeling of frustration lately, a feeling of being *almost* there,. I *almost* have my new car. I *almost* have my new spinning wheel. I've *almost* got the work situation sorted. My shower *almost* works properly. I guess it's a matter of time - sometimes events flow smoothly from one to another, one segueing neatly into the next, and sometimes they jam up and get stuck like the three stooges in a doorway and you just have to let them sort themselves out.
The garden has settled into the growing groove now, and I'm starting to think I may have planted a little too much. However, it will be a good opportunity to learn about preserving. I've planted 10 Roma tomatoes on my first tomato trellis for drying, bottling and cooking.

The peas and beans are going very well and up around knee height now. I've planted 3 golden nugget pumpkins in that bed as well. In the same bed as the Romas are eggplant and California Wonder capsicums. In the next bed I have the root crops. The carrots were mostly snail snacks this time, but the beetroot and the red onions are doing very well. The War on Snails continues. I am determined to have homegrown carrots.
I've also planted my sweetcorn on Friday, in the same bed as my green and yellow zucchinis, button squash, spaghetti squash, and pumpkins. So far I have some Jap pumpkins in, and some Crown Prince, Baby blue, and Rouge de'Etampes seedlings in the hot house. I had some Turk's Turban pumpkin seeds that I planted but they haven't come up - I think they were too old.
The potatoes have been planted under the straw. This year I am growing Kipfler, Otway Red, Lustre, and some purple ones that I don't know the name of.
Still to be planted in the garden are some lettuces, the gherkin cucumbers, basil, brown onions, the 5 colour tomato mix on the second tomato trellis, and the pumpkins, rockmelon and watermelon.
Tomorrow is an exciting day - I get to go and pick up my new spinning wheel! It will be a 4 hour road trip across to Tongala to meet Mandie of Ewe Give Me The Knits and pick up my new baby. We'll also be getting a tour of Mandie's new shopfront (or den of temptation as I think of it). So, that will be one *almost* to cross off the list. ;)

Honey days

Some days are like swimming in a clear stream - things just flow. Other days are like trying to wade through thigh-high honey. And the honey days lately are getting me down.
So, to combat that, I've decided to count my blessings:

• I have only two more payments on my Rose and then I can pick it up and bring it home.
• My dad mowed all my grass and even mowed the chook yards for me so the snakes don't get my girls.
  
• All my animals are healthy.
• I have my computer back.
  
• It is raining and not too cold so the vegies are growing.
• Soon I will have a new car to replace the shitheap I am driving now.
• I don't have to work in an office and be polite to small-minded people with not enough to do.
• I have a rare weekend off that I can use however I want.
• For the first time I have a vague and amorphous idea of what I want to do in the future.

And a quote from Eleanor Roosevelt that has been in the front of my mind lately:
'The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams'

More new neighbours

More new neighbours at Chez Hillside arrived on Monday:

Three Isa Browns from a friend who didn't need them any more, and as you can see they are already hard at work - head down, bum up. They've already been proving their worth in the laying department too:

(4 eggs from 5 hens!) The chook on the left has spurs on her legs, like a rooster, which is something I've never seen before. I'm thinking of calling her Boadicea or Hippolyte, or something similarly martial. The others don't have names yet.

I've finally got my camera to play nice, and I've added photos to some of my earlier posts. I haven't planted anything new in the past couple of days, but there has been a lot of activity in the hothouse. The vegetable spaghetti seeds have exploded into life, and the heirloom tomatoes have started to shoot. The grey crown prince pumpkins are up as well, but none of the other pumpkins or the melons have shown themselves yet.

When night falls

It's so much easier to be positive in the daytime. When the sun is up, you can distract yourself with Things To Do, and potter around, getting a sense of achievement from little things like putting clean clothes away, pulling up a few weeds, or washing the dishes. At night, you are trapped, the empty half of the bed beside you snickering derisively as you try to slow your brain down enough to get hold of the reins and think clearly again.
Last night the past couple of days of food poisoning, exhaustion and pain caught up with me. The probing of all the half-healed mental scars, and then the tears, began. I tried to avoid it by turning the light back on and reading until I finished the book, then I stared out the window at the stars until they started to flicker and dive and then I must have fallen asleep.
The moon last night was the faintest little sliver of white, like a fingernail cutting. It hung just above the hills on twilight, and it looked about as worn out as I felt.
I slept through my alarm this morning, so I was late for work, but I got an extra 2 1/2 hours sleep, which I can feel the difference in my mind today. I've tackled the Mt Kosciusko of dishes in my kitchen, as well as making up some white oil and spraying my newly pruned citrus. I've given them some citrus food and a good soaking, so hopefully they will go ahead now. I'm not sure how old the lemon (Meyer) and grapefruit trees are - the lemon is between 50 and 60 years old, and I assume the grapefruit is a similar vintage. The orange tree I planted 2 years ago - it is a valencia, but hasn't had many fruit yet - fingers crossed that with a bit of TLC this year may be the year. The lemon tree has been a martyr to sooty mould for as long as I can remember, but this year I hope to see healthy green leaves instead of black dusty ones.
In the last week I've planted some carrot (Manchester Table) and beetroot (Boltardy) seed, and red odourless onion seedlings in the root crop bed, and in the hothouse, planted some gherkin cucumber and some more chive seed. The basil, and red and white strawberry seed has come up in the hothouse, and the peas and beans are coming up in the garden.

Spring has sprung

Well, spring has certainly arrived in the valley. The days have been sunny, the earth is warming up, and Mavis has gone clucky.
There has been more planting this week in the garden. After 4 weeks, the plants that I ordered from Garden Express arrived. I was not happy. We shall see whether the plants grow or not. The rhubarb (Giant Victoria) was slimy and looked like it had been in the plastic bag for some time. The asparagus crowns (Mary Washington) were in a net bag and looked very dry. The lavender (Hidcote) was leggy, and the growing tips were yellow. After a few days in the sun they are starting to look better, but yeah. I don't think I'll be spending any more of my money with that company.
On a happier note, my fantastic sister gave me membership of the Digger's club for my birthday, which I'm very excited about, and I've spent a lot of time poring over the catalogues. I got 2 free packets of seeds with my bundle of goodies - some sunflowers, which will get added to the collection, and a five colour heirloom tomato mix. It includes these varieties; 'Burnley sure crop' (Red), 'Black prince' (Black, obviously), 'Banana legs' (Yellow), Aunt Ruby's German (Green) and 'Tigerella' (Orange). The tomato seeds got planted the day they arrived, so they should be poking their leafy heads above the surface in about a week hopefully. The red and white strawberry seeds are coming up, and the calendulas continue to power along.
Yesterday I hit the road with friend Sue to go to the Bogie Spinners open day and spin-in at Euroa. I haven't done any spinning in a long time. There was even dust on my spinning wheel when I came to pack it in the car on Saturday night! I gave myself a stern talking to before I left on the subject of fibre impulse purchasing, and I even went through all the fibre I have that I haven't spun yet. At this rate, I will be spinning till I'm 106. So, by my standards at least, I was very good. I spent $20 and got 200g of 21 micron merino roving and 50g of tussah silk in a beautiful colourway called 'Seagreens'. I'm planning to make something for my mum with the yarn I spin from this - I don't know what yet though :)


I was mightily taken with some 60/40 merino silk blended top from First Edition fibres. It was an exquisite blend of green, yellow, orange and white - it looked like a bowl of citrus sorbet. But I had already spent over my budget, so I left it on the stall. 'What would I make with it?' I said to myself. 'I don't wear yellow and orange'.
But salvation came in the form of Sue, who insisted on buying it for me. What a friend, hey? So now I have 200g of this gorgeous fluff, and I've been wracking my brains trying to think of something to make with it. My best idea so far is a throw for my bed. I might save it for when I get my Rose, and it can be my summer spinning. My camera has thrown a hissy fit and it is well past my bedtime, so photos will have to wait till tomorrow.

Progress

In the garden yesterday, I put up the pea and bean fences and planted the peas. The seeds are three years past their 'plant by' date, but hopefully I will get a few come up. Today I planted yellow and green bush beans. I remembered myself in this garden as a small child, picking the heavy green pods off the vines, and the explosion of flavour in my mouth, and the juicy snap of the pod on my tongue. This morning I imagined children in this garden, playing hide and seek between the rows of beans with their bellies on the cool earth. Looking up at the sunflowers' heavy heads and the clouds beyond. Little fingers stained with strawberry juice.
One of the hardest things to let go of in the loss of my relationship with M is the dream I had of having a family. It is my birthday today, and much as I am a complete kid about birthdays and love them to bits, a part of me now realises that with every year that passes that dream becomes a little harder to attain. I haven't given up hope yet, not by a long shot, but that dream has become almost like a sore tooth - fine if you leave it alone and let it be, but the minute you start probing at it, it causes you pain.
So for now, it is my god-daughters and my friends' kids that will have to join me in this garden and I hope they can enjoy it as much as I do. This afternoon, after a lovely lunch with friend Charlotte, I started planting my summer vegies. These go into seed trays or jiffy pots so they can be transplanted once the danger of frost is past. My nan always planted out her summer vegies on Melbourne Cup Day, but I think I might chance it a little earlier, and keep a close eye on the weather.
I've planted 4 types of pumpkin (Rouge d'Etampes, Turk's Turban, Baby Blue and Grey Crown Imperial), Watermelon (Candy Red), Rockmelon (Hales Best) and 2 types of basil (Dark Opal and Large Sweet Italian). They are in the plastic hothouse with my red and white strawberries (no sign of life yet), chives (no sign of life as well, but to be fair, the seed was 3 years past its plant by date) and Calendulas (Going like a house on fire).
I'm going to make a cup of coffee and take a wander round the garden before what looks like the first thunderstorm of the spring arrives.

The most noteworthy thing about gardeners is that they are always optimistic, always enterprising, and never satisfied. They always look forward to doing better than they have ever done before.

Vita Sackville-West

Cars, liars and fools

Lessons Learnt:

• Never buy a second hand car without getting a qualified mechanic to look at it first.
• Never believe anything the former owner says, eg. "it won't take much to get to roadworthy" (It took $900, including reconnecting the thermostat which had been disconnected so I couldn't see how hot it was running), "it's very reliable" (no, it's not. It blows blue smoke and won't start when it's hot), "You'll have it for a long time" (no, I won't. I've had it less than 6 months, and it needs a new motor - I am going to set it on fire and push it over a cliff)

Ugh, I'm so angry right now. I'm going to go chop some wood so I can imagine the lying SOB's head rolling off the chopping block.

Tired after milking

Slowly...
Slowly...
The day drips down behind the hills
And the dark settles over me

Sandy eyes
Niggling headache
Twitching feet

Sleep calls
Like chocolate
Like warm water on my skin

Roll me up
In the stars
And cover me till morning

The power of music