Sunday Post-Race Boats and Projects

 Good Morning Friends,

    It's a cooler cloudy early morning here at the lake this morning. Looks like rain may move in. Nice for me, but not so good for the weekend race boat events-The Shootout-34th year.  I am actually looking forward to them all going home as many have been here since last week Monday.

  These race boats are fun to watch as they are all different boat lengths with bright colors, but they are also very loud and noisy.

   I caught a few photos but many didn't turn out as well as I wanted to. These boats are beautiful-very fast, streamlined, they cause no waves as they glide on top of the water  The race-timed for each category-is broadcast live both Saturday and Sunday. One boat's time was 199 miles per hour-that's fast.  If they don't get rained out today there will an air show as well.  This event raises allot of money for local charities and rural fire departments-their goal is to surpass 1/2 million dollars this year.

This first photo I found online-a view of some of the spectators

All photos will enlarge for better viewing-just click on them

A smaller one

Yes the ocean boats were in the mix of boats too. Late afternoon Saturday there were kayaks too-scary for them I would think  I saw the pair near our dock waiting for the lake to clear-thinking they were headed back home at the time.

     It was a very very busy lake Saturday, Labor Day weekend will be very busy on the lake too, but then finally much quieter. I expect if it doesn't rain today will be busy too with race boats and spectators.

Early Saturday morning, we watched many boats full of people headed to the event. One needs to get there really early to be in front of the lines of boats to watch the Shootout

Not a good photo but only one I was able to capture-the film crew

This larger boat to the right broke down in front of us-they managed to get over to the bank opposite us The boat on the left came back to help-they were there for a couple hours before they got the boat running again.

  My calendula plants are producing lots of flowers now-so I am still picking a few more to dry. Want to have enough for a couple batches of soap.  The rest I will leave to bloom and enjoy and then gather the seed heads for next year.

  I am still not inspired to create journal pages, or pick up the sashiko project not sure why. Actually this year is the first time I have actually felt old-so perhaps my body is changing into the next phase of my life cycle. I will blame it on that for now-haha.  Speaking of journal pages, I just ordered a handmade journal that I am excited about-more when it arrives in the mail.

    I did remember that I still have lots of fibers to spin. I need to get out the bags soon and see what I can hopefully sell. At the time I bought too much.

    Haven't done any spinning in over a year. I have a bag of fibers to spin that are Yellowstone inspired colors, so I grabbed the last project I was working on and finished that skein. Then I grabbed my bison fiber-which I love to spin. Just love the feel of this fiber-very short fibers but they just seem to stick together well. Most of what I have spun already is more bulky yarn but so far I got this finer-finally.

   I wasn't totally pleased on what I spun Saturday to finish this one off-very thick and thin and bulky-but for weaving it can always be wove into something fun-pillow covers, shawls etc I sprayed it down with water to set the fibers and let it dry outdoors-it was in the shade here.

   I was fortunate at the time to find this bison fiber at an affordable price. This is labor intensive as this is the extra top layer of fibers for the bison over the cold winters. In the spring it falls off or they rub it off. So one must find it and gather it.  The person I bought it from had her own bison herd out west and was in a co op so she was pretty much selling it wholesale to the public

   I have allot of skeins where it came out very bulky, the rest I will work on getting it much finer. Would like to make some sort of garment with it. Thus is very soft  fiber that I am in love with. I still have enough left to make several skeins of yarn

  I also dug out a bag with more of the Yellowstone inspired colors, and will work on getting a finer yarn with these too. I need to search around as I know I have a few other colors. Thinking I will switch off spinning with these and the bison fibers. Feeling better getting back to my fiber craft-maybe back to weaving is in the near future-the project is waiting for me.

 I have been thinking about my Christmas cards too that I want to make this year. It's time for a new stamp, so I spent hours looking online.  I fell in love with two rubber stamps that I "had" to have. They came fast in the mail and I really love them-so now to decide on papers. If you would like to swap a Christmas card just message me with my contact form in sidebar.

  Yesterday I also dug out another project that I started on back in 2015 I had gotten stumped on how to do it, and with the move to the lake house,  just hadn't thought about it again. It's time. 

   I have been wanting to publish an ebook on Kindle of my late sister's poetry. At her early death (car accident) my Mom years later had split her writings up with me and my brother-and then I later learned she tossed allot of it-why she would do that is beyond my understanding.  I also have an original art piece for the cover that a friend painted for me and gave me the copyright for it-should I get it published. 

   I am working on figuring out how and where to type this up and get it ready to publish. Looks like Amazon Kindle has a better program to do that in now-so I will see how that goes. I am computer illiterate for sure.

 A few early morning views today

a lone duck

I was trying to capture crows flying by, not sure if this is a crow though I did also see the back of an eagle flying by to far right of me on the deck

  Happy Sunday and new week ahead

T Stands for Tuesday & Spinning and a Brat Picnic

Welcome to my T Stands for Tuesday post

    This is where we share a drink related post on Tuesdays. Our hostess is Bleubeard and Elizabeth-find link in my right hand column-you are most welcome to join us at our T Party.

  The weather this past week-sigh- still not a drop of rain. We are in a spot I guess where the rain is missing us. Hopefully with all of the rain coming in this week we will finally get some.  
    Still hot and humid but not as horrible as it was.  Everything is dying here in the woods-acorns and nuts falling off the trees before they have matured, blackberries all burnt up, leaves turning to their fall colors and dropping. 
   I did get a nice surprise though when I watered the veggie area this morning-another nice bowl full of beans, several cucumbers, another yellow cayenne pepper, and the tomato plants looking beautiful-with some rain they may just produce for me.

  These beans all went into the freezer

This past week, I finished spinning the baby alpaca fiber and am quite happy with it-still spinning singles but finally looking nicer.

This yarn is really soft.

When I finished up with the baby alpaca fiber I grabbed my bag of bison fiber. I have spun allot of skeins of bison fiber already and it is still quite bulky so am glad I took a break from it and spun a couple of other things.  Now that I am back to it-I am thrilled that I am spinning this fiber thinner as well-that makes me happy. The bison fiber has very very short fibers so I was afraid to draft it out-but it's working for me without falling apart.

Cuteness arrived in the mail today-friend Barbara sent me a couple very sweet handmade items. One is stuffed and hand beaded, and the other is a knitted rabbit.
   The rabbit really made me smile as a rabbit family has returned this year to live down near our home-so we see them often. They are always fun to watch.
   I have a box full of nuts, and protein bars near my computer-so I stuck them in their on top-so cute-the face has so much personality. And the mini stuffed little "pillow" that is beaded has flowers and grasses on it-so these go together nicely.

Over the weekend, we invited our friends -that made the catfish dinner- over for a brat picnic.  I grilled indoors do to the super dry grasses, and made sides of potato salad, cole slaw with carrot and crushed pineapple, baked beans in the slow cooker, and a angel food cake with fresh strawberries and blueberries.  
     I made a gluten free yellow angel food cake using my Grandma's recipe-just changed the flour-it turned out sooo good, no one would know it was gluten free-it even rose above the pan-so thrilled.  I forgot to take a photo of the cake out of the pan though

We also had gluten free macaroni and cheese and deviled eggs, along with my own pickle relish, lots of different mustards to choose from too.  I had ended up with too many brats and hot dogs in the freezer so that's why I decided to have this indoor picnic. I used toothpicks to tell the difference-cheese brats, polish, Italian, natural hot dogs, and angus beef hot dogs-so there were lots to choose from. I also picked up three different types of buns-one was Chicago style for my husband.
    The biggest favorite was the crock pot beans-those had cooked all day long-some were my canned beans along with cans of pork and beans-I added molasses, maple syrup, a little mustard, a little ketchup
   Of course I sent home with our guests lots of left overs but we still have lots of salads left.

and for dessert--so good

On another note entirely:
    I looked online in search of another doctor group in hopes of an earlier appointment than November. I found a doctor with excellent credentials and 5 star reviews-but sigh today I learned she is closing her patient practice and only working at the hospital. Asking about someone else in the group-they are booked up through next January-wow is there that many people with thyroid issues or is this area just short on doctors?  
   So I guess I will need to be satisfied with the November appointment-in the meantime I continue to gain weight-which mentally I can not deal with it--I am close to going on a liquid diet for awhile. ok sorry finished with my rant-lol

   For my beverage share:  One really hot day this past week I decided to make a root beer float-hadn't had one in awhile-did use diet everything-no sugar added frozen vanilla yogurt and diet root beer. Yummy-one of my favorite treats for the summer.

Happy T Day everyone.
   so glad you dropped by

T Stands for Tuesday and Spinning Bison Roving Again

   Wow another Tuesday is upon us. This is where we share a drink related post with friends. You are most welcome to join us. Please visit our hostess Bleubeard and Elizabeth at the link in my right hand column.

  This last week was pretty much spending lots more time watching the Olympics. I really enjoyed the winter Olympics this time around. I had picked up the sport channel nbcsn in my satellite package so I was able to watch so many more events live and many many events not shown during prime time on just nbc Allot of exciting sports to watch.
   I did receive my Olympic pin and my Twilight movies in the mail last week, but not my light box. I got a notice late last week that it just got shipped and should arrive tomorrow (Tuesday)  
    So since I am still waiting for my light box to get here, I have still not been working on my fabric art journal. I do have several ideas to finish up my February pages though.

    I ended up stitching up just 5 of my hexagon rosettes while watching the sports. I have another one laid out ready to stitch but decided I needed a break from hand sewing. Soooo I grabbed my big bag of bison roving and started back on hand spinning some more. I would like to get it all spun before I decide what I want to weave with it-pretty much thinking some warm scarves.

This is really fragile to work with-breaks easily so this is getting spun a little bulkier. I am sure a more experienced spinner would get nicer yarn but I am happy with it. Makes me smile when I spin it and it is soooo soft.

We have had so much rain over the last few days-huge puddles of water every where and our long driveway is rougher than it was. Much flooding all over in my area.

    I did get a photo of a nice visitor-the young 4 point buck stopped by over the weekend with a doe. It was early in the day so no corn left for them. They walked around a bit and then left right away I was happy that just happened to look out the window while they were here.
  The green poking up is a thick row of daffodils that so much need to be dug up, seperated, and replanted-someday haha

This next photo was taken on one of the rainy cloudy days.

   Sunday I decided to make a blueberry upside down cake on top of the stove. I will share how I made it on my cast iron Friday post

   March 1st I will be walking in the virtual race for Yellowstone Park's birthday. I signed up for 3 miles and have not walked that for several months now.
   The weather today was in the mid 60's f so a perfect time to enjoy a walk. I guess I am so out of shape again that it took me an hour and a half instead of my usual hour. The air here is still quite heavy so that was part of it I think.
   I bought a hiking stick, which really keeps me from tripping on vines etc and is much lighter in weight than a tree branch-which I was using before.
   I brought along my water bottle-that was a gift from my author friend Peggy when I was in Yellowstone last May  So this is my drink I am sharing this time

And Miss Calico had to check out what I was photographing haha

Happy Tuesday everyone. So glad you stopped by

Fun Mail--Bison Yarn

 Good morning, I thought since I was so thrilled with my yarn that arrived I would share a photo.

  Mostly do to my upcoming Yellowstone Park trip and cause my mind is usually drawn to the 1800s lol I am into bison right now.

  Last year I found a shop on etsy that sells bison roving at a very affordable price hers is half of what I have seen at most sites.
   . My first purchase was a very small amount of cleaned bison fiber that I found on ebay-but really too pricey. I just wanted to see it at the time.
    The bison down is labor intensive as this is the extra layer of down that is grown for the winter's bitter cold. When spring arrives it rubs off on the bushes etc and needs to be hand collected.
   I hadn't realized that there are several bison ranches that sell the meat, and also the roving for spinning and yarns.

   I had found the Buffalo Wool Co online located in Texas and they offer lovely yarns and roving too for spinning Ever so often I stop by for eye candy lol and wow they were having  a super sale on some of their bison blends. The price was just too good and they have free shipping so bought some. This Happiness blend is bison-merino-bamboo. Very soft and I am think strong too. Love the color for sure.

(photos will enlarge just click on them)

       This yarn is a little finer than I had imagined. The skeins are 50 grams or 200 yards so I have 800 yards total to work with. When I purchased this I was thinking of weaving a warm scarf  I will need to figure out how far 800 yards will take me in a project.

  A couple days ago I over did it with the firewood stacking and then jumped on the ladder to work on my bathroom walls-and of course my lower back went "out" on me--so it is now painful to sit, stand, lay down etc.  as a result my bathroom project is at a standstill for now. sigh. I do this all the time to myself and should realize by now not to over do with the wheel barrel and firewood lol

   Soooo last night since I was caught up on my reading, I grabbed a bag of roving and my drop spindle to play with spinning. I still am a very beginner and may always be as my yarn is not real even still. I do enjoy the process though, and with several bags now of these practice handspun yarns I have plenty to weave with and also use in the tunisian crochet.
    Once this skein I am working on now is a little more even I am going to dig out the bison roving and see how that goes.

My friend Barbara  an artist in many things hand spins, knits and then felts it down-I think I want to try that out too.