A yummy lunch

My friend Maria had a birthday a couple of weeks ago and I invited her out to lunch - any place she wanted - she chose Cafe Akroteri, our local Greek Restaurant.

We generally only see each other a couple or three times a year, and then with a big group of people, so it was a treat to have it be just the two of us. 

Cafe Akroteri has long been a favorite of mine, but The Shepherd doesn't care for Greek food, and they are a little slow to go there for lunch during the week.  So we went out on a Saturday when we could spend the extra time.  . 

Sorry I didn't get a picture of the combo appetizer plate before we decimated it... ha ha - it was delicious.  I love feta cheese, and there were huge chunks of it, along with tasty kalamata olives, dolmathes, spanakopita and tiropita.  Plus pita bread and tzatziki - and I got extra pita bread to eat with my calamari (which comes with a little Greek Salad)  How could you ask for more.  Oh, yum...

(I think my spanakopita is better than theirs, but their tiropita was delicious.)
 

Well, actually, we could have asked for quicker service - I think it took about 45 minutes before we got our food, and they were not busy - and maybe a waiter who knew what was in the tzatziki sauce...(of course I know what's in tzatziki sauce, but I overheard another diner ask our waiter, and truly, he did not know - "yogurt and something", he said..).

How could somebody work in a Greek restaurant and not know what was in tzakziki???  Maybe I expect too much...


We also shared a piece of baklava for dessert, but it disappeared before I could get my camera out. 

We had a great time, and declared that we needed to get together more often - isn't that how it always goes?


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We're on MOUSEBREATH!!!!!!

Hello Effurry Body and Effury Kitty -

We are thrilled over the moon because we's been interviewed for MOUSEBREATH - What's MOUSEBREATH, all my "non-kittyfied" friends are asking...

MOUSEBREATH is an Award Winning Lifestyle e-Magazine written by cats, for cats and cat lovers.

Think LIFE magazine, for Cats...

How cool is that?

Our furriends the Funny Farmer Felines are reporters for MOUSEBREATH and write about different Kitties every week.  And this week, it is US!

And we get to proudly display this badge that will always link to the article.  Woo Hoo.  

 

So we say HELLO to everyone who has come to visit.  We hope you'll stay a little bit, check out the farm, find a recipe that you want to try, and maybe leave a note for the kittehs - they love having visitors!  

Saturday's Simple Pleasures

 Last Sunday was the annual "Around The Corner Cafe Summer Picnic"  This small restaurant was only open for a couple of years in the early 1990's - but the friendships made during that time have endured 




We have watched each others kids grow up, have grand kids, or grand cats - what ever -








Many thanks to Maria (in the blue shirt) for keeping us organized.

The day had dawned sort of cloudy and cool, but the clouds quickly burned off to a lovely afternoon.

Denise was the last to arrive, with her legendary chocolate cake.  (she mentioned this year that she had tried bringing something else one year and was kindly (or maybe not so kindly) reminded that the chocolate cake was her responsibility -  Ha, ha - and she believed us!!

In the very foreground is Jo's spaghetti & cheese casserole - Like Denise's chocolate cake, we all look forward to her addition to this picnic.  Maria generally brings chicken wings, but this year she brought a chicken, grape & pasta salad.  It was delicious!

I'm kind of a wild-card - this year I brought Marinated Five Bean Salad (I'll tell you more about it later this week) - There were chips and hummus and a wonderful margherita salad with homemade pesto! 

Look at it and weep -

Do you see why we ask Denise to bring her legendary chocolate cake year after year???


So, another year's summer picnic in the bag - it was great to see everyone, and we'll all look forward to the Christmas Cookie Exchange.






Meanwhile, back at home, George is taking in the simple pleasure of stopping to smell the flowers.

And Bella does what Bella does best - lay right in the middle of the driveway and take a dirt bath.

Oh, you wanted to use this road?

No, sorry, I own the road - you'll have to get out of here some other way. 

Thanks, Bella. 




Have a good weekend everyone! 



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A Heartfelt Gift

I have been doing the monthly newsletter for my spinner guild, The Spindrifters for about four years now -

I enjoy doing it - you get to meet all the new people, and keep in touch with old friends.  And, you are always "in the know" -

So, I was surprised when I got an email from our guild president saying that she was sorry I had missed Dye Day because the guild members had made a present for me. 


Since she and her husband are landscaping customers of The Shepherd, she would send it home for me the next time he came over there to work.  So last Monday after dinner, he handed me this pretty bag.

Inside it was THIS -

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The only place I could find to lay it out to take a picture was on our front deck - and then I still couldn't get a very good picture of the whole thing, so I've broken it down into bits. 

Bits of hand spun, woven, crocheted and knitted love and affection. 

And it came with a little envelope of the notes and cards that came with the squares before they were put together into my beautiful blanket. 

All the colors of the rainbow . . .

Thanks to everyone who had a hand in making it. 

I will treasure it. 

Concatulations to our Furriends

 at  THE KATNIP LOUNGE

for the occasion of their 1000th Post! 

These are some of the 13 fabulous, fun & funny kitties that live at The Katnip Lounge with their Mommy Trish and Daddy Scott in a posh enclosed cat lounge in the wilds of the Mojave Desert outside of Henderson/Las Vegas Nevada. 

 They are having a big PAWTY!

Make sure you stop by to tell them hello!  For every comment you leave (one comment per blog please) Mommy Trish will donate 50 cents to the Nevada SPCA!

So, click HERE TO GO TO THE PAWTY!

And tell 'em that Tina sent ya.  See ya there! 

Well, that was FUN!

Saturday night we went to The Blue Horse Gallery & Cafe for a CD release concert for one of our favorite Bands - a group based in the Seattle area called Pearl Django,

We have been following these guys for about five years, ever since we first heard them at our friend's 20th anniversary party.  It's been about a year since we've seen them though.

The band  has been together for about 18 years - there have been a few personnel changes, but the music is still the best - 

Neither one of us had been in this Gallery for many years, especially not since they'd added the cafe.  It was a really comfortable place and I'm sure we'll be going back again.  

Here's our friends Curtis & Felicity, that 20 year "Anniversary Couple" - today - they will have been married 25 years in August.

Thanks for introducing us to the band you guys!






Pearl Django doing a few licks to warm up before the concert starts

A busy Saturday

This past Saturday we went to Monroe to participate in our friend Gretchen's Fiber Frolic. We had hoped to sell some nice Shetland fleece or roving, but alas, everyone was keeping a tight reign on their purse strings. We did make a lot of contacts and got a lot of "hands on" the fiber - so maybe next time...

When it was over at 4:00 we had to scurry home to get ready to go to our friends Lydia & Kurt's for a Concert at Meadow House -



This special concert, a coming together of three very talented women, was one of the nicest events that I've attended in a long time -

Lydia McCauley is an artist that The Shepherd and I have followed for the past 18 years - To our delight, over the years, we have gotten to know Lydia and her wonderful partner and husband Kurt, and try to not miss any of her concerts.





This evening Lydia joined with Nancy Rumbel and Jami Sieber (both internationally known artists who are from the Seattle area) for a very special concert called "River"














Jami Sieber plays electric & acoustic cello. Amazingly -

We first met her a year ago when she opened for Lydia's last concert. She is an amazing musician and vocalist - It is hard sometimes to distinguish the difference between her voice and the voice of her cello - they are that close.

One of her life's projects is protection of the endangered Asian elephants, which she came to know about after a trip to Thailand in 2001 - You can read more about her work with these beautiful creatures here.






Nancy Rumbel has performed with The Paul Winter Consort and for over 25 years with Eric Tingstad as Tingstad & Rumbel.

To quote the bio on her website: "NANCY RUMBEL is a professional composer, recording artist,performer and teacher. Her primary instruments are oboe, English horn, double wooden ocarinas, clay ocarinas and keyboards."

She even has a CD out of her ocarina music - fancy that!



And speaking of CDs - Look what I won -

My very own copy of Jami's CD "Hidden Sky".


What a great evening it was.

In Memory of Rascal

Rascal - April 1, 2000 - July 1, 2010

Heaven has a new star tonight. Our good friend Rascal went to the Rainbow Bridge this afternoon, and my "eyes are leaking" - for I know his family will miss him dearly.


We've known Rascal since the fall of 2006 - I think he left a message from a Weekend Cat Blogging post - and we soon found out that his mom and I had a few thing in common - like the love of "sheep furs" and spinning.

Rascal's mom was so adept at keeping his blog, she was his voice - but you could imagine that he was sitting down to the computer with her and narrating his stories - like his snoopervision of his mom's projects or just doing the catly thing and cat-napping.


It was fitting that Rascal was born on April Fool's Day. His Box Reports were always entertaining - actually most things that he did were pretty darn entertaining.









Then they found the lump - that turned out to be feline lymphoma - after surgery and months of chemotherapy he seemed to be in remission - a little older and wiser, but still good old Rascal.

I think he was very proud when Kathy in Arizona named one of her new kittens after him.




Last fall, Rascal's mom & dad realized a life long dream and found a house in the country. Since then Rascal has made it his duty to stand guard over the new farm - checking every inch for pests and critters that might be harmful to his family.

When his lymphoma returned their V.E.T. and his mom didn't think it would be fair to put him through more treatments, that they would keep him as healthy as possible until the time came. That time was today.

Rest easy little guy. I'll miss you a lot.

Say HI to Neelix and Jaxom for me, OK?

Fleece in Our Hands

All too often, an “anticipated event” fails to live up to any internal or external hype that may have been built around it. Not so with “Fleece in Your Hands”, the three day workshop that I took two weeks ago from Judith Mckenzie McCuin. (for this essay, I’ll refer as JM)

We were greeted with piles of different fleeces – the first day we worked with some primitive fleeces, such as Icelandic and Shetland.

Over the weekend there were lots of little “ah-ha” moments, like finally understanding the difference between “woolen” and worsted (at least I think I understand)

There was a group of about 20 taking the class - from all over the area - our farthest student came over from Spokane and there were a couple of people from Port Townsend. It was a lively bunch with lots of good questions -




Most fun was that my friend Nancy G. in the class - (well, after all, we were at her house) - We did Potluck lunches (I brought my favorite Farmgirl Spicy Pumpkin Muffins the first morning and Cream scones the second morning - It was fun to have them to snack on before spinning.)













My doubts about the Icelandic fleece that we recently took down to Gretchen’s Wool mill were somewhat “quieted” as JM showed us the five different layers of these amazing fleeces – and how they can be separated out from the long, somewhat “wirery” outer coats down to the almost down-like layer that is against the skin. Look how easily she has separated these layers to spin into different types of yarn. I can also see how having all the different layers/lengths blended into carded roving or batts would contribute to the "itchy" feeling that some people get about wool - the different lengths would tend to poke out and cause the scratchys... hmmm










Lots more things to think about now when I buy fiber - like, "What am I going to use it for?" or how was it prepared - combed top? carded roving, batts, etc. I have always kind of let the fiber tell me how it wanted to be spun up - now maybe I can "talk back" and put in my own ideas of how I want to have the yarn look.













Even Nancy's horse was curious about what was going on -










There were many different wheels represented. One of the things that JM does is work with you to realize the potential that your wheel has - using the different drive bands or making use of a lace flyer to make ultra fine yarns.

Now I have new things I want, like a jumbo flyer unit for plying and maybe a McMorran Yarn Balance, and possibly a little Niddy Noddy for making sample skeins. I can see now that I'm going to have to clean off the shelves in the guest room to put my stash and my toys on.





I think one of the more surprising samples that I worked with was the CVM - I was amazed at how "springy" it was almost elastic. I have 8 sample skeins that I spun up - I finally got pictures taken tonight and will put them on here in a couple of days.








There was lots of show and tell - and lots of "tell" JM is a very good story teller and after the many years of experience that she has, she was able to answer most all of our questions.

Here she was showing us some plying techniques. On the last day she passed out little bobbins of mill spun singles so those who had never tried it could try triple ply (mine looked like "REAL" yarn!!) or even 4 or 5 ply.






Did I mention that we had a catered supper on Saturday night - Chicken Piccata, with salad, roasted fall vegies and rice. Very tasty and a fun time to get to know one another.










This is one of the biggest Shetland fleeces that I've ever seen. We didn't work with this one, but a lot of the spinning that we did was with fiber that we prepared ourselves with our hand cards or drum carder or combs.












She showed us a nifty way to get the batts off of a drum carder by wrapping them onto a paper sack.












I didn't have enough courage to try this comb set-up. But it looked like it could do a serious amount of damage if used incorrectly. Sounds like a plot for a good spinner mystery...













Click on this picture to biggify it - check out the crimp in the creamier colored fleece on the far right. I think she said it is from a domestic Corriedale bred with imported Australian semen. JM demonstrated how to wash the locks individually by wrapping single layers in cotton material (like an old sheet) and pouring boiling hot water into the pan. (Ok, so you kind of had to be there - but I think she showed how to do this in a Spin Off article sometime in the past two years)




Lots of time spent "fingering" the different fleeces that she brought - some to share and prepare, some just to look at. I'll definitely shop differently the next time I go to a fiber fair.














It is good to know how to prepare my own fiber, but you know what? It's even better if someone (like Gretchen) has washed it and picked and carded it for me... maybe I'm just a lazy spinner.


























One exercise we did with some corriedale roving was to spin as many different widths of yarn that we could. I should have put something along with these samples so you'd have a perspective. The skinniest is about pencil lead skinny.


I have 8 sample skeins that I finally go pictures of tonight, so they'll be on in a few days. I've been reminded that I'm "neglecting" some of the other aspects of my blog and some of my readers are getting a little bored with the spinning stuff... Well, there certainly isn't anything to take pictures of out in the garden right now unless I could figure out how to do wind and weather. Bud I have read some good books lately and as soon as it stops raining (it will stop sometime, won't it?) I'll get out to take some pictures of the sheepies.



There is much made about JM and her classes are, I'm sure, always filled, with a list waiting. It's not so much that she is a fabulous teacher - which she is, but it is that she makes one feel competent with their skills, which in turn, makes you feel really good about yourself - rather than being "The Goddess", I'd say that she brings out "The Goddess"(or God, as gender may be) in each one of us.

Will I take another class from her - You bet, at the drop of a hat! I would hazard a guess that I could even take this particular class over and still learn LOTS - Thanks to our LYS for sponsoring this event. It was fun.