I've had the pleasure of going to my mom's 90th birthday this month.  There were nearly 50 family members that attended.  I think she looks just beautiful.  Happy Birthday Mom!

While I was there visiting, my daughter got to feeling sick.  We took her to the doctor when I got home a week later and she has been diagnosed with acute kidney failure.  She is now on dialysis and will remain so until a suitable donor can be found.  Please pray for her.

Since things have been so busy here most of my spinning / weaving has been put on hold.  I have plenty of fiber so no worry about what to do with myself these days.  The alpacas are in the process of being re-homed as I don't think I can care for them properly by myself.  My niece is such a huge help but she will be returning to her parents in the near future.  Plus with winter coming on sometimes we can't get over to the pasture with the deep snow and spend a lot of the day just digging out.  This winter our snow is predicted to be heavy and our weather colder than usual.  Our snow blower does a great job but there are still areas to shoveled by hand.  I have been fortunate for the past several years to have great neighbors to help plow us out too!

Here is a picture from a couple years ago when we had over 100" of snow.  This big guy (and six more like him) was inside our property.  The snow was so deep they simply stepped over our 6' fence.  This one saw me and tried climbing up on the roof when I ran upstairs!  They were down here eating my shrubs and fruit trees because the snow was too deep higher up the hill for them to find food.

I finally got yarns and fiber ready to send to Kentucky!  They will be displayed in a farm store there.  I'm hopeful folks back there will like them more than they seem to here.  These two are hand painted, then carded with some glitz and glamour for your spinning pleasure :->  The blue one is a batt, and yellow is roving, both done on my little Strauch Petite carder.  It is time consuming to turn the crank by hand but the results are nice.

I'm working on more.  I hope to be able to spin up some of the batts I'm making.  I try to tie each bag with a sample of the yarn.  Its much better than feeling the product for sale, as hands have a certain amount of oil and dirt than eventually will make it off-color.  The spindles I use for teaching are perfect for sampling.  Take a spinning class from me and I will give you one with your fiber.

We are trying to get our wood in today.  The weather has turned much colder, with rain off and on for the last couple weeks.  This morning it was a brisk 33 degrees.  Brrrr!   But of course winter is just around the corner.  We usually have snow between Oct 31 and Thanksgiving.  Maybe this winter will be kinder to us and we won't have that much, although everything says we will have lots of snow again.  Oh well.  More time indoors to do fibery stuff, in addition to keeping the paths clear of snow and wood brought up to heat the house.  Love that woodstove!

Mom's 90th birthday is next Wed.  If you'd like to say Happy Birthday, give her a call on Oct 13th or email me for her phone number.  Happy Birthday (almost) mom.