Spring is finally here.  Our nights are still below freezing some nights, but all in all things are warming up.  Nearly 60 degrees today, into the 70's by next week.  Soooo glad!

Daughter and I will be starting our seeds today.  I don't like to buy the same supplies year after year, so thanks to another blogger at Rural Revolution, I have borrowed her idea.

We've been saving the empty tubes from bathroom tissue.  Peel off as much of the paper remnants as you can.

Then fold the tube long-wise in half.  Turn it and fold again, so it is approximately a square shape.

Measure 2 1/4" all the way around.

Cut at this mark.  Your two halves should be just about the same size.

Mark the little pieces at one end 1/2" all the way around.

Now take your scissors and cut each corner up to the line ... do this just on one end.

Fold the four sides inward to form the bottom of a 'box'.











As seen here, these should form little boxes which we will be adding starter mix to and planting our little seeds in.  Not everything needs to be started indoors, so probably just a couple tomato plants, and maybe something like eggplant or peppers that need a little longer growing season than we usually have up here.  I will be posting pictures as time goes on and we can all see if my 'borrowed' experiment is working for us.

April 1 and spring has arrived.  The past week has been so glorious and warm for north Idaho.  In the upper 50's and even lower 60's.  It feels so good to be out in the sun even if the wind is blowing and cold.  Our skies are the deepest blue, the forest that surrounds us is green, fresh and healthy.  We are so blessed to live in this beautiful place.

Sometimes it seems like so much work to keep things up.  My yard isn't nearly as well-kept as is has been in past years in other places such as living on the golf course.  But we have so much freedom and it is so quiet up here.

I wouldn't trade it for anything now.  See, here's our first daffodil of the year already.  Always starts right behind our old metal wagon wheel at the end of the porch.  And its always just before we start weeding.

Finished my pygora scarf.  The fiber was from our little pygora goats, LoverBoy, Toby and Snowball.  I had the mill combine them all so I can't really tell who's is who's. 

After washing and ironing it came out soft and beautiful just like I'd hoped it would.  What a difference ironing while still slightly damp makes the woven items.

Its funny how it looks like it is a soft plaid.  The pygora was space dyed blue and lavender while it was still in the hank (a circular way of dyeing with different colors).  Email me if you want to know how to do this.  www.WovenDreamsFarm@wovendreamsfarm.net

As I said, the first of April was gorgeous.  Now we are getting a pretty big storm ... wind, rain, cold temps.  If you watch the weather channel it looks like a huge snowstorm is heading this way, but our local forecasters tell us not to expect snow up here.  Just down south of us.

So please don't think this is Alaska or the Northeast, folks.  We live in the banana belt of Idaho.  I keep telling you this, you just don't believe me :-)

Happy and blessed Resurrection Day to all.  This is the wonderful day we celebrate as our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ rose from the grave after defeating death. 

He willingly went to the cross to suffer and die, not for his own sin as He was sinless.  But for our sins.  And folks, not just for our sins we have already committed, but for our sins we haven't done yet. 

He knows everything.  He knows how weak our bodies are.  He knows what we need and it is Him and only Him.

Thank you Lord for your sacrifice on my behalf.  Thank you for your mercy and your grace to me, a hopeless sinner.  Thank you Lord for dying in my place so that I don't have to.  Thank you Lord for loving me so much you want me to be with you for eternity.

Praise the Lord, oh my soul.

Nearly finished with my pygora / rayon scarf this week.  I've finished weaving it and just have to hem the end, then cut it off the loom and twist the fringe.  After that washing, ironing and its done.  It is pretty and I hope it will look nice when finished.  Pix later.

We worked out in the yard a little today.  I was telling a friend how much I loved being over in the pasture today, walking the fence line with the dogs, checking out the barn and everything else.  We've had several deer over there nearly every day and saw a lot of deer sign (poop) in various places.  We also saw some poop that looked similar to deer but much larger and a very light color.  Wondering what might have been there.  Whoever (whatever) it was had to jump the fence (about 5' tall), so I don't think it was a moose as I've seen them step over our fence when we had a lot of snow, but never on bare ground.  Checked the internet to see what kind it might have been and I guess it is moose.  Unsure how it got over there though.  

According to the internet, some people even make earrings out of it.  Not me, thanks!   Eeeuuuuuuuu!

When I told my friend about how much we enjoyed being outside after a long winter and how one of my favorite things is the first time I can mow the grass, being the cartoonist he promptly sent me the following picture he drew.  He got it right on!  Right down to my hat, scarf, boots and best of all Bella sleeping on my bed.   Too funny.  Thanks Jerry!

My hand dyed pygora scarf is coming along, slowly but nicely.  The pink in the picture is where it was space dyed and it turns out like planned stripes.   The yarn doesn't feel quite as soft as I'd like, even though I used the black rayon accent yarn.  I'm really hoping it will soften up a lot after its washed.  But I always say that.  And it does.

I'm only able to weave about an hour a day, maybe three days per week.  So many other things to do now that spring is right around the corner.  Also a trip into town takes us nearly all day with errands.  Then we have to eat, of course.  We've discovered some really great places to eat this year.  Not all are restaurants, but more like the Costco food court.  They have got to have the very best pizza!  And hot dogs!  And berry parfaits.  Guess I'm hungry.

A received a gift of a mangle iron from a friend today.  No pix yet, I don't have it in my studio but it is an older model and works good.  This will save a lot of time when making scarves so I don't have to keep running back to the house to iron, then back to the studio.  We will be able to use it on woven scarves after washing them and also for silk scarves that we've hand painted.  I usually iron the silk ones twice, once to set the paint and the last time to iron out the wrinkles.

My daughter and I got our new chicken coop assembled.  I took this picture before I got the roof on but its very cute and the same color as our house and studio.  :-)

It said it was large enough for four chickens, but I'm thinking two, possibly three.  Two nesting boxes in the rear, the small section with the little door is for roosting,  the rest of it is open all underneath so they don't feel so much like they are locked up.  We put it in the fenced garden and I hope to let them out to run around but we'll need to put some chicken wire along the bottom so they can't get through those large squares in the field fence.  Right now we don't have any chickens yet and we covered it up with a tarp, since we are still having snow / rain / wind / sun / gropple (those little tiny snow balls that fall like rain).  No roosters this year so no baby chicks either.  We've got too many hawks that swoop down to eat our chicks.  A couple years ago we lost every one of our hens.  I guess those silly roosters (seven!) were too fast for the hawks because they never caught any of them unfortunately.  And the roosters wake us up at 3:30am every morning.  Waaay too early for me.  But we will have lots and lots of eggs.

Hopefully our egg storage will work out.  Don't wash off the bloom from the eggs, just the poopy if there is any.  Then rub them with mineral oil and they should keep a long time without refrigeration.  We shall see, I'll let you know.

Now that spring is right around the corner I'm feeling so much more energetic these days.  Finally finished tying some lace weight hand dyed pygora yarn to what was left of the merino / silk warp from my last scarf, the white one.  I miss my pygora goats very much, but they would call to us so early in the morning.  It is nice and peaceful these days without them.  But their fiber is beautiful and soft, much like cashmere. 


For once, I've remembered to take pictures as I progress with the weaving process.  Here's a picture of what is involved in tying a new warp to an old one.  I don't believe I will do this again as it seems so much more work than just putting on a new warp.  Since the old warp was just plain weave, I may be incorrect about that if it was an intricately designed project.



Also did more silk scarves this week with a friend.  Here is her scarf.  It always seems like an experiment when trying a new technique.  This was her first time painting silk.  She is the go-to person if you want to do any tie dye, but she was anxious to give the silk a try.  These scarves are hand painted, not hand dyed.  There's a huge difference.

Its about a two day process and you don't need to cook the paint like is done with dye.  Just a little drying in between to give the paint a chance to adhere well to the silk fibers.  Then iron to really set the paint, wash, iron again.  They are so soft and beautiful.

Got a shipment of some new interesting yarns today.  I'm thinking of doing some woven scarves of a plain color and using a few strands of one of these for an accent.  It will be a while before I do this as I'm still working on getting the merino / silk / pygora warp on my loom.  I'm not very fast but love doing it.

We had only a couple inches of snow last night but enough to cover up a lot of dirty areas.  We saw Bella laying out by the pool early this morning.  I think she thought it was summer.  She can make any place look so comfortable.

I don't go outside right now any more that necessary.  Our temps aren't freezing but its enough to make me want to stay inside these days.  I do go to the studio to check on my dye and paint projects.  After painting the first silk scarf I got the idea to paint some sik camisoles.  One green(s) and one sort of pink or salmon.  Guess I will have to check on my recipe for this, when I rinsed them out nearly All the paint washed out.  Probably forgot one simple little step of the process but I always do a couple trial runs before I ever attempt to do one for someone else.

The pink one might be ok but I think that green one that was so dark originally will have to be painted again.  No problem, it just makes it more interesting the second time around.

Ok, so here is the picture of them after I rinsed in cold water.  Uh oh, where's the paint?  

And I still need to wash in hot water after I iron them to set the paint.  Looks like back to the drawing board this time.

Trying out a new technique yesterday.  I had some 100% silk scarves I had purchased a couple years ago that I had been wanting to dye.  I also had purchased some silk paints that didn't go very well the first time I tried them, but since they were here thought I'd try them again.   This is my first silk scarf done with the silk dyes.  

Loving watercolor as much as I do I really like the way this scarf came out.  Not necessarily my colors but springtime-ish and cheerful.  They kind of look like waterlilies to me.  What do you think?

These colors are muted and not too bright.  I was surprised as they looked so much darker as they were being painted on.

In a more recent post there's a picture of a scarf a friend did last weekend.  I love it too!  We may decide to do a few projects for the craft show this summer.  You will only get to see the pictures if (IF) they turn out.

Stay tuned!

Have any of you ever wondered about all the chem trails in the sky these days?  We have been noticing them for months now.  When I got up this morning around 6:30 am I saw this out my window.  The sun was just coming up and it was really pretty, but how dangerous can these things be?  They float through the sky getting bigger and bigger.  These are not the old airplane vapor trails we used to see, but they keep enlarging until our blue sunny skies are over cast and gray.


Our Great Pyr Bella seems to be feeling better.  The surgical vet examined her this week and said both her knee caps were sliding off her knees going to one side or the other.  Usually they will just slide off one way, but her ligaments in her back legs are so weak the knee cap slides either way ... both legs.  No wonder the poor girl is in a bad mood from time to time.  That really must hurt.  He didn't think surgery was necessary right now.  He thought we could wait a while and we have put her on glucosamine, Boswellia Extract, collagen and an herbal supplement for inflammation with an emergency painkiller of rymedyl just in case she needs it.  She seems to be doing fine for the moment.

BTW, my white scarf is now ready to use.  And it turned out just as I'd hoped, nice and soft with lots of gentle draping.  This just may be a good one to enter in our fair this fall.

Well, I finished weaving my white scarf and yesterday removed it from the loom.  As I suspected it is a little stiffer than I want so after I get the fringe twisted today it will be washed and dried.  I did some washing of some yarn scraps the other day.  After drying them they were much softer than they started out.

Twisting the fringe used to be a huge task, one that I put off doing.  It would take a couple days and I always got a stiff back from sitting for so long.  So these days I use a tool that used to be sold to make 'braids' in hair.  Works perfectly.  Anyone who doesn't have one of these and wants to get one, you might find one on Ebay.  Don't think they sell them any more.  Here's a picture.

Feeling sorry for those folks in the northeast today.  From the pictures on the news it does appear they really got dumped on by the storm.  I would not live there for that reason, although we do have family members in NY and IL.  Give me the Pacific NW any time.  Our weather is a combination of the wet NW and snowy Rocky Mtn weather systems.  Which, results in beautiful weather both winter and summer, also fall.  Spring can be long and wet sometimes, but we are always green and fresh up here.

Had some bad news yesterday.  We had to take our beautiful great pyrenees Bella to the vet.  She's been limping every so often and was getting pretty crabby with our other animals.  That's not a trait pyrs usually have.  We suspected she wasn't feeling well and waking up a lot at night.  She sleeps in my room now so that was very disturbing.

Our wonderful vet, Dr Marnie, did some blood tests and xrays on her and has surmised Bella may need some surgery on both back knees and also possibly has arthritis in her hips.  Bella has an appt Tuesday with a veterinary surgeon to see if he thinks she needs surgery.

Also have some homeopathic ideas for her, herbs and other things.  A good friend gave me several things we're going to try before I commit her to surgery ... my last resort.  Also before we do the surgery friends have given me the names of two other vets that use other types of treatment, such as aqua-therapy and acupuncture.  Unfortunately, acupuncture won't solve the kneecap problem, but may give her some pain relief without drugs.  We shall see what happens.

Lastly, we had some excitement the other morning.  The dogs had been barking for an hour, wouldn't come when we called them and both were up just beyond our little pool.  Standing upstairs I had been watching to see if I could tell what they were barking at, all of a sudden a great big shadow moved ... Moose!  No wonder they were fascinated.  I think it was on the other side of our field fencing but it sure looked like it was in the yard.  We've had as many as seven at one time in our yard, so we sure didn't venture outside until he turned and walked up the hill.

I'm sure both dogs thought they were the ones that had scared him off.  Ha!  Here's a picture, sort of.  He's standing in between the two skinny trees but back in the shadows.  Can you see him?

I'm weaving a new scarf.  This one is made of some merino / silk from Henry's Attic.  I've wound the warp and was going to use it for the weft also but it fuzz's so easily I was afraid it would be too fuzzy and warm to wear.

So I pulled out some cotton / rayon nubby yarn I bought several years ago from Catnip Yarns.  They've got to have the most beautiful yarns made for dyeing.  I seem to be in a white mood (maybe because of all our snow?) so probably won't dye any of this.

Wasn't sure at first it would be suitable for the weft, but after weaving a couple yards, I'm loving it!  But I do hope it softens up after I wash and finish it.  Here's a close up of that lumpy-bumpy weft.

If it doesn't get softer, maybe I will use it for a table runner.  They can be approximately the same size, but not worried about it.

That leicester (lie-ster) longwool I spun and wove into a scarf was similar to burlap until I was told to Always wash and iron before making a judgment.  And I really love it now.

The only problem is the lumps and bumps take up a lot of space on these little shuttle bobbins so I'm always jumping up to wind a few more.  But that's ok, I really feel better if I move around a little when I'm weaving.



Our snow continues to fall and stay.  This picture shows the accumulated snow off our roof in the front yard.  I just hope it doesn't warm up too quickly and start to do a fast melt.  We have had frozen water, otherwise known as ice :-) ... on our front porch clean up to the door.  Not fun.

Winter goes on here.  The dogs always enjoy it as they love playing in the snow.  They could stay out for hours but we worry about their feet getting too cold.  At least Dexter's.  He isn't as long-haired as Bella and its not nearly as thick.

Bella looks like a sheep and I don't think she ever gets cold.  But she sure likes being in the house sleeping.  Maybe she's part kitty, as she sleeps All The Time.

Daughter was out trying to snow blow a path from the house out to the garage.  Our neighbor who usually snowplows for us wasn't available this week so she did it instead.  Usually its not too hard with this snow blower but take about half a day to do the entire thing.

The driveway goes from where the dogs were playing to down past that stand of trees in the first picture.  Our driveway is on a bit of a slope and coming back up can be tricky.  She got her truck stuck down at the gate the other day and it was a while before she could maneuver her way up.  One year we slid not just one, but two cars into the chicken coop (on the right of the first picture) and finally had to get a neighbor with an ATV to come pull them both out.

Oh the fun of living here.  BTW, Dexter thinks he's saving her from that noisy snow blower.  He does the same thing with the vacuum.

 2013 is here! 

HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone.  Ok, so I will start my diet tomorrow.  This was just too good to pass up.  Twelve different kinds of cheesecake.

Remarkably, I haven't gained a pound.  Well, probably more than just one pound.  We ate a few pieces each, then decided to save the rest for later in the month.

I sat it outside on our covered screened in porch where we eat in the summer time.  Frozen by the time we got up this morning.  Oh well, I was going to put it in the freezer anyway.



















And here's a picture of one of the pieces I ate last night.  All cheesecake, all sweet and soft, all soooo good.  But I haven't had one today (yet).







Just in case you don't believe our cheesecake froze out on the picnic table last night on the covered, screened in porch, here's some proof.  I took this picture this morning of our thermostat around 8:am.   It didn't warm up to the 20' until around noon.  Now its back down in the teens.

But its still 74 inside.   Lovin' it.