Pillows & Senior Hair Care

 Good morning friends,

   Hoping you are not included in this latest heat wave. I was hoping our last round was the end but mother nature says no.  My goal this week was to make headway with the tall grass cutting. I did get out two days at first light but the heat and humidity especially has increased and at 5 am being 80 degrees F with very high humidity already--well it is just not a good idea for this senior to be out there.

  Oops that was strange, I did something that erased half my post. 😀 

   This weekend we are to cool down into the 80's which is just in time for the big Shootout here on Lake in the Ozarks. All sizes of boats and race boats race for the best time in the different categories. This event raises allot of money for charities for the immediate area. This has gotten quite large just since we moved here a couple years ago, Our tv service has the Laketv  channel for the lake and will broadcast the race live-I watch to learn about all the boats I see on the lake and no crowds to deal with haha

  Do you have a difficult time finding the perfect pillow? 

       I grew up with feather pillows which I like because I can make a flat spot for my head and neck and I have always loved feather pillows the best. Mom would always send them off to the dry cleaners every few years for cleaning and adding more feathers. I doubt this service is available any more. Are there even dry cleaners any more?  I know not available rural where we have lived.  I have looked into buying me a new feather pillow-the price was quite shocking.

 So I needed to go through our pillows this month-my feather pillows are 50 years old for sure so I tossed those. I would throw them in the dryer on no heat several times a year.  I had picked up a couple different pillows over the years but most didn't work out or hold up well-so those got tossed. I saved two very flat ones, and one I sorta like. I went online as the only shopping near me that would have pillows would be Wal mart.  When I got those from online Wow they said queen size but these are the largest queens I have ever seen so of course the pillow cases I have don't fit.   I was so unhappy as these also do not squish down flatter as shown in the photos-so these are useless for sleeping on. One of them works ok on the couch when I lay down to read though.  I then bought two Serta queens at Wal mart that looked really nice, felt like they would flatten-nope. Also bought pillow covers and cases for these two sets of pillows. I have given up on pillows for now.

  Sharing photos is a challenge here on the little lap top as I can't unload the photos to this computer because the connection is too large for the lap top. I can still unload them to the desk top computer but I then can't see the colors to know what they look like to post, so when I do post them I see what they look like on the lap top-frustrating-just like the pillows haha 😀

  I will be 74 in October and this is the first year I feel like a person aging. The biggest challenge for me this year has been my hair thinning-way too much-and just breaking off. I have always had very thin long hair but never this issue of losing hair.  I went back on multiple vitamins and also picked up gummy vitamins for hair. Don't see any improvement  I looked into different supplements for hair loss but they are really very expensive and reading the reviews most don't work and they cause hair growth on other parts of our bodies not what I would want.  

  This morning I was browsing on Pinterest which I have not done in ages and ran into a recipe for my hair issue. I had some of the essential oils (from my soap making) but not most of the other ingredients so I went shopping online. A little expensive to purchase everything at once but much less expensive than those supplements per month that they are selling. Here is the recipe  

She calls it mermaid hair tonic  Sharing a photo from her site, she even included her label to download

  I am anxious to try it if nothing else it should add moisture to my hair as it is so dry all the time now. The ingredients are witch hazel w/ no alcohol, hemp seed oil or carrot seed oil, distilled water, and essential oils of lavender, rosemary, cedarwood, peppermint

  I have gone through the large cotton bag of the  north ronaldsay wool this week. I wanted to fluff it up and get rid of more of the dried grasses that was in it. This was raw wool when I bought it. I may have mentioned it in my last post, I  messed up by washing this before removing the top layer, if I would have done that it would have saved me allot of time. I did start carding this and spinning on the drop spindle. Finding out I need less wool on the carders to be able to draw it out and spin a finer yarn. This does still have the lanolin in it but not as much as the churro wool. Now that I have that figured out, I may see if I can spin this on my wheel or not-the wheel is fast so will see if I can keep up with it for this project. If not a good project for in front of the tv. The huge bag is a bit daunting, but I am determined to get through these wools that I have in my stash.  I need to get back to weaving soon and fix that threading mistake first-which I need a clear head for as I will have to cut it off the loom to do that and retie it back on-ugh

   The morning is slipping away on me already, I have been wanting to bake us chocolate chip cookies but it is a bit too hot for that this week. I think I will churn us up some ice cream. 

 Happy almost mid week

Update: my husband told me about usb splitters-I plug that into the one usb port on the lap top and that will give me 4 usb ports-perfect-I just need two one for the mouse and one for my camera-less stress with photos 

Another Rare Sheep Breed

 I did get some grass cut early morning before we got hot and humid today, progress but more to do My back lasts for 3 of the batteries for the weed eater

Yesterday I worked with the Navajo churro wool, and discovered it still has too much lanolin in the wool even after washing a couple years ago. So I set that aside and looked for a wool I bought back in 2016 that is even more rare and has an interesting history North Ronaldsay. This one has two layers, the under coat is soft and then there is a long top coat that is more coarse. I worked on separating some of it today. I grabbed my drop spindle and my hand carders. After a few tries I decided I got a nicer yarn using a layer of the softer wool on the bottom of the carder and added the coarser wool on top-card and then make into those rolags to spin. This is a really large bag of wool too and was not processed at all when I bought it. I am loving it though and it is a very dark brown to black. I like spinning these rarer wools and learning about their history-this sheep lives on sea weed see why in link below

  This link is a good one for it's history, location, and uniqueness

The brown colors of these wools are very similiar but the wool I worked with today is darker and parts of the fleece almost black

   Sunday we are to get to 104 degrees F so I will be out at daybreak working on cutting more grass  

  My eyes have gotten worse over this past year and I will need new glasses for sure-we see the specialist this coming Wednesday He is an excellent eye surgeon and eye specialist we will need to drive an hour and past our woods home. Last year he told me I had the start of glaucoma 

Have an awesome new week everyone Stay cool and safe if you are in this heat wave too

This & That

 Good Morning Friends,

   Thought I would pop in with a post. I have been spending online time mostly at Instagram where I can buzz through photos of my interests, and they have a nice chat there-messages-where I converse with a new Missouri friend. We hope to meet up in the fall. She lives aways from me perhaps an hour or so-it was her suggestion to meet up so I think that will be fun We are close in age, she has been taking care of her farm while her husband is now in a care facility-no fun getting older for sure.

   We have had soooo much humidity and rain here that I have been stuck in the house for that reason now. My grass is so tall here too and is heavy with dew in the mornings-ugh I will try to tackle that this morning.  Starting this weekend and all of next we will be back in high 90's F again.

  I am still spinning. I started spinning a new to me breed that was a gift from an Etsy seller-I am in love with this one-spins easy for me. The breed is Teeswater more information about the breed here  This is more coarse, long fibers but is still soft-weird I know. Another nice link here with photos The fibers I am spinning came from England

  Sad news a close friend of ours stopped by to let us know her grandson 17 years old with an air force career ahead of him (he scored 7th highest in the nation on their test) committed suicide over a girlfriend. I still can not wrap my head around this. Such a tragedy. Still praying for the family

  I also went through my bags of fiber stash-many of these I bought around 2017, I had washed all of it before we moved to the lake. I had a couple bags I bought off of ebay from a young 4H person and was very unhappy with it-she didn't shear the wool properly so is just a mess-I decided to toss it-my time now is too valuable.  I also ran into a very large bag of Navajo churro-a very rare breed. This is at least 45 years old-crazy I know but I have always stored my fibers well.  This needs to be hand carded. Have not done this is awhile so looked for a video-this is the best one I have seen. Video here  This wool has always made me happy-Larry had friends back then that lived in New Mexico and they had a flock of these sheep. When they were sheared they didn't know what to do with so sent it all to me. It was quite the job sorting out the wool. I have bags of nice wool and other bags marked coarse. This wool was used by the Navajo for saddle blankets and other outer wear.  more about this breed here

the rolags I made last night watching Gordon Ramsey's shows on food network

                                     

Those above two photos are not cooperating where I want to place them oh well

  I have done a little baking-a peach upside down cake that was sooo delicious. I made it with frozen peaches I had bought at the Amish store. I made us meatballs and spaghetti, and a few other dishes I haven't made in years. I prepare all of our meals so I was getting bored with the same meals, was trying different things.

   Well I am off to tackle the sooo high grass. 

Books by Victoria Fnlay

   A few posts back I shared the book:  Color by Finlay.  

This book was so well written-an adventure in a book describes it for me. This read like an adventure novel to me over a boring history book.

  I am thinking the author is a world traveler as she was on a mission it seemed to me, to travel where the colors were discovered in the world and their history.

   I highly recommend this book to any painter or dyer especially and anyone wanting to learn the history of colors. I learned so much about the first natural dye colors along with their politics and she also mentions the artists ages ago that used them.

  I also had bought her books: Fabrics and Jewels.

  Deciding which book I wanted to read next, I  discovered that the author also wrote another book on colors: The brilliant History of Color in Art  

   The descriptions of this book around the internet, sounded like some of the same information as her first book, so I wasn't sure I wanted to search for it. Looking around for reviews, I read a review that stated in her opinion,  this was an extension of the author's first book, and included many photographers of art-the reviewer highly recommended it so I ordered a used copy this week. I think reading her first book Colors would be best 

 Do you enjoy learning about the history of colors-in paint and/or dyes?

When it Rains it Pours & a Catch Up

   Happy Friday everyone,

     Wow last night we got major lightening and thunder, hail and around 5 inches of rain-I think we got caught up a bit. It is raining off and on a bit today still more rain coming in. There were several tornado warnings in the area as well. 

  I will have soooo much yardwork to catch up with once it all dries out. The high temps and high humidity are still with us.

   I haven't been online much, as my desk top computer screen is really messed up, and so far I can't figure out how to fix it. I thought I accidently clicked on something I shouldn't have but can't find anything. All the colors are washed out, very hard to read online too. and the curser arrow is florescent-crazy stuff haha

  I have been catching up with things using my husband's old little laptop. He bought it maybe 15 years ago or so to take with to keep up with his business when he took trips with his friend that flew his own plane. Larry enjoyed those days as he was a pilot too, had his own plane for awhile  but can't be a pilot since his diabeties.

  It has been over a week now that my husband hurt his neck moving something heavy that he should not be doing any more-he has had severe arthritis since childhood and these things only get worse as we age. We went to a chiropracter that he had used before and liked, but this doctor did something that later caused tremendous pain-was hard to watch. and the doctor was out the rest of that week attending a conference.  Hubs is just now feeling a bit better, but is catching up on lost sleep now.

  This week I decided to make a pot of chicken soup with homemade gluten free dumplings. I had defrosted the deep freezer and found two quarts of my own stock so used that and ended up adding a carton of a no salt organic chicken broth. This was soooo good. I took a few photos but since I can't see them the way they should look hoping ok  This soup turned out sooo delicious. That bright spot is a reflection from the stove light.

  The cheesecake I made was a big hit, a friend  came over for a visit today and him and Larry had the last two pieces.  Deciding what I want to bake next.

  Still spinning. I had allot of difficulty with the Shetland wool for some reason, so put that aside and working on merino which is very soft. After this is spun, I want to go back to another large bag of white roving. Hoping to use black walnuts to dye this fall.

  Happy Friday and weekend