Tornadowood-Weaving Rainbow Academy (TWWRHS)

Mixed Day

Sad day: we lost Goldie, she was old-old-old, maybe 16 or 17? Was going to see about bringing her to the vet in the next week or two for a look over & to see what she thought, but sometime this morning, Goldie just died in her sleep... she had arthritis, couldn't see or hear too well, was grey around the muzzle.. still was eating okay as of a couple of days ago...

We love her & will miss her.

I found out when I went to the boys' room to close the door & saw she was just laying there. Somehow I knew she was gone. I asked Micah & he confirmed it. A little while later, Evan & I went to work on getting the hole dug for her.. I talked to Gary & he said to bury her by the rock shed. I would have loved to bury her near Opus, but we aren't sure exactly where he is & I didn't want to find any old bones, so buried her on the other side of the rock shed from where the others were. The grass was green there & it was fairly easy to dig in (thanks to all the rain we've been having) and I got the hole started & Evan came out & finished it up... brought her out & I brushed her one last time.

Pixel had gotten out & she was in a playful mood but she stopped when she saw Goldie & pawed me a couple of times. Not sure what to think of this since Pixel hasn't always been very nice to her; she has food aggression issues & has attacked her a few times over the years.

We're down to 4 dogs now & fortunately all of the dogs are closer to Pixel's size & Daisy (our 3-1/2 to 4 month old lab puppy, who was found by Harrison on Halloween) WILL be larger than Pixel in a few months. Emma will be our smallest & she's at least 40 pounds... they'll all be able to hold their own against Pixel.

Anyway we'll miss our little princess Goldie with the purple tongue, long golden fur & her little dance and hard nose when you stopped petting her before she was ready! She also had a habit of climbing onto a chair, across 2 computer desks to get to the kitchen counters for something interesting to eat that might've been left behind... (this was at the last place we lived)... lately she would come out with us for doggie potty walks & we would carry her back up the steps. (She walked down easily but wasn't good at going up... we still have cinder blocks for our stairs... that's high on the list of priorities for fixing up around here... fence first, though!)

She's frolicking around at Rainbow Bridge now...

Christmas isn't our holiday so it hasn't "ruined" Christmas in any way. I'm sort of relieved for her because she was showing signs of "this is it" and my youngest said last night that he thought we needed to take her in to the vet to be put to sleep...
I kind of prefer that an animal die in her sleep than to have the vet do it... although if that needs to be done, I'm fine with it...

Would I take in an older dog again? Hell, YES, if it needed a home! Sure we miss the cute puppy stage, and we don't have them as long, but they're no less special... we had Goldie from May 18, 2006 until today, so that's 5 years, 7 months & 7 days...

When Evan & I first found her in the parking lot of the swimming pool/rodeo grounds/2nd Monday grounds in Bowie, TX, Evan said "we're about to get adopted" and I said "no we are not".. famous last words. We were going to check to see if there were any signs saying when the swimming pool would open & it was already hot & we were ready to go swimming... we got out & checked & Goldie came up to us.. couldn't just leave her there. We kept an eye out for any signs of a missing pooch, called the animal shelter, got her scanned at the vet... Jennifer, one of the shelter volunteers told me on the phone that she would love it if we would keep her. We were ready to, just wanted to make sure no one was missing her. Never saw any signs or anything... one of the sheriffs was ready to come over to have a look & I said "oh don't worry about it, I was just wondering if someone called with her description". Nope. For several months I got the feeling that she was missing someone... she eventually got over it. I suspect that she was either with a family who moved & couldn't take her (or couldn't find her when it was time to go, she had a tendency to try to sneak away occasionally) or with an older person who either had to go to a nursing home or similar... just got a feeling that she was missing SOMEONE.

Naming her was a challenge: originally we were referring to her as Her-She and that just didn't feel like the right name. Eventually we settled on Goldie...

Rambling here... I'll miss her... guess I'll go knit or warp the rigid heddle loom or something...

dogs & a little about our cats...

A friend posted something on Facebook that brought me back to thinking about my first dog, Hlao Roo.. she was an awesome dog. I had her from 1978 until 1994, she would have been 17 if she kept going, but she was old & had had it...

I was pregnant with my first 2 at the time & her health was failing...one morning she couldn't get up & we called the vet & we knew it was probably time. It was. She's buried near our rock shed.

And have had several more dogs since (10 puppies & their momma, Theresa in 2008... we lost 3 to parvo in December of 2008, gave 3 away to rescue & gradually lost the other 4, one disappeared with his momma when we moved to the place we stayed for 2 years, one had an accident & the other 2 disappeared in 2010)..
We have 5 dogs now, 4 are rescues...2 we had before the fire: we found Goldie at the Bowie swimming pool parking lot in May of 2006, we got Pixel a month after we lost Opus in the summer of 2008, one is a lab (mix?), we found Indy on the road on July 4th 2010 (story about him in the July 2010 entries of this blog)... Emma started following our boys around town a few months ago & now she is ours and on Halloween, a puppy (Daisy) showed up at the boys' friend's house. Daisy is mostly a good girl with puppy teethies. She wants to please & she wants to play, as the others do.

I decided to write this post instead of totally hijacking my friend's Facebook thread, so here I am! :)

When Gary & I first got together, I had Roo, he had Kat & his sister gave us Daphne. Daphne was another awesome dog. She got run over.. broke our hearts! She was trained by Man's Best Friend & we took her to a training class, but she was headstrong...

I was going to talk about dog training, but I can't remember the name of the trainer I like so much. I need to ask someone else.

Might as well mention the cats as well! Our newest cat is Crookshanks, who just walked into the house one day & when he saw we would feed him, he kept coming back. He hasn't made himself at home yet. He won't come into the main part of the house but will come & eat & talk to us & go. He's long haired & we think he is still a kitten. At first I thought he was a she, but all that fur...

Boomerang is doing well, but we keep him in our bedroom as we don't feel comfortable letting him go outside because he no longer has a tail. The others are.. the others! :) Our oldest cat, Slug/Loveslug was born into the family a few months after a friend gave us Nikki (we didn't see her after the fire)....

Other Stuff

I won't talk about art or knitting right now. Suffice it to say that I pick up the needles every so often to knit & had a great time at drawing group on Monday & hope to be able to go next Monday as well...

I found my camera a few days ago, but am hoping to be able to get another, smaller camera with more megapixels... I'm thinking the Sony when I can afford it...the camera in my phone is so-so... I need to get a mini-SD card for it...but would prefer a stronger camera for most stuff!

Sunset Volunteer Fire Department Fundraiser-October 22, 2011

Here are some pictures from today's Fundraiser:

Sorry about the crappy photo quality, these were from my phone... one of these days I'll start carrying my camera around again! Or maybe I just need a smaller camera... mine's a Kodak 813c or something like that.

Good food-smoked brisket & sausage, beans, potato salad, dessert (which I skipped as I figured the potatoes were my "cheat" for today) and sweet & unsweet tea... YUM!

Music!

Some pretty cakes:

A gorgeous wooden cane:

I drew this picture to go with the cake that I donated to the auction:

It's based on a drawing from Alice in Wonderland...

Weaving

Once I get over the hurdle of how to get one of the looms warped, I'll probably weave a few things on the rigid heddle looms. Still have a couple of warps from when the looms got here. I finished one of the warps on the loom & will either put a scarf with a few different greens on it or may do a handpainted scarf... will people buy wool scarves? I don't wear scarves, but might wear a cowl (and I may try to do some cowls on the loom, mobius style...)

Emma

A couple of weeks ago, this girl-doggie, Emma, started following my guys around when they went to visit friends, etc... Micah told me about her about a week or 2 ago... I went out & looked & told him to bring her some food... since then, we got to know her, she's gotten comfortable about coming inside & has just plain become a family member. She didn't give her a choice & that's fine!

She's mostly quiet & shy, but has a bit of a playful side & is sweet. I can only cuddle with her if Pixel isn't in the room...

H'ere's a couple of pix I took on my phone... eventually I'm sure I'll get some better ones.

We think she is either an "everything" dog or maybe a basenji or part basenji.. (what other dogs weighing 40ish pounds with a lean compact body has a brindle coat?) except she doesn't have the characteristic curly tail & she is heavy for her size, figure 40ish but she is smaller than Indy & Pixel, not as tall or long..

About one of the pictures (the one with very LONG human legs next to Emma).. could have cropped the legs, but I left them there to get a sense of Emma's size. We don't have skirting yet but we will eventually get it & probably plant some perrenial herbs there...

Report on Indy-he's doing very well, the vet is very pleased with how he is healing & we have an appointment in 4 weeks to have another look... depending on how he's doing, the pin may come out then. We'll see! I haven't been pushing him to do anything in particular, mostly following his lead & keeping him in a small area so he can take it easy & heal that femur..

Weaving

Took out my tapestry loom & was starting to color in the owl cartoon I made & when I went looking in my tapestry yarn box, I found another smaller copper tapestry loom that already has a warp on it.. not much else, started weaving a header... I think I'm going to do one of my Girl Blob tapestries on that warp... (and I need to write about Girl Blob... I know who she is in my head...)

I suck at taking photos... promised to put some up... would rather use the camera in good lighting than my phone for pictures, still need to get batteries for the camera! Maybe if someone buys some yarrrrrrrrrrn or patterns... hehe

rigid heddle looms

I've been talking to another weaver who has been wanting to downsize her studio or shop and she has the following looms for sale, still waiting for more info, meanwhile, I thought I'd post the photos:

This one is the Leclerc... heard that it's heavy, not sure if it's the Bergere or not?

Is this a Beka? If so, an older model, not one of the newer ones?

Not sure what this loom is, anyone know?

Sorry about the smudges on the photos, I did that to take off personal info...

If anyone knows anything about these looms, ease of use, light/heavy, etc., let me know! Thanks!

Art! Drawing!

Been going to drawing sessions & last night was the last one for a while... no pix yet because we need batteries for the camera & the cell phone photos don't come out too great. May see if some batteries I found still have some juice in them.

The models for all 4 drawing sessions have been great. Can't pick a favorite because that would be like asking which I prefer, oranges, apples, pistachio nuts or sunflower seeds! They are all different people & had their strengths. Last night's model got into some poses that aren't super comfy, but she did great with them... Friday's model held incredibly still and since it was one pose for the whole session, she got back into position each time almost perfectly. Last night's did also when she had to move briefly to relieve the discomfort from holding too still in a leaning or above head position...

I'll post favorites from my drawings after getting some camera batteries. Even if I had a scanner, the drawings would not fit.

Gotta scoot & do some things, so ta ta for now!

This & that

I haven't been doing art every single day, but I have been doing some. I haven't taken any photos of any of it yet (but suppose I could do that now)...

I went to a figure drawing group on Monday & it was awesome. it has been several years since I have drawn from a model. I haven't totally forgotten how (and some of the drawing I have been doing has helped as well). I surprised myself in that I WANTED to draw with charcoal. Hopefully sometime this weekend, I will get some more charcoal to draw with. I'm on the fence about whether or not to get newsprint paper, though. If something comes out good, I would like to at least have been drawing on decent quality drawing paper... so we'll see!

knitting

I've been knitting & have been making my son a button hat from this pattern and I'm having fun with it. One thing though, my son was supposed to help with the plain knitting but has been with friends. Even though I have several other knitting projects to work on, this one is compelling.

Why do I want my son to do some work on the hat? Less chance of losing it, maybe? Perhaps he'll appreciate it more if he had a hand in it, so I will try to be strong & leave the last 1-1/2 to 2 inches of plain knitting alone.

I would like another hat for this winter, but really would rather finish the Couldn't Foot It socks...

I made his hat with the Eggplant shade of Briggs & Little Handpainted Softspun yarn. Nex time I order from Briggs & LIttle, I'll get more colors. I'd like to have it on the website so that others can buy some as well as make myself a hat. Or maybe make hats to sell... they don't take long, except adding that to what I've already set up for myself to do...?

Still working on the "Can't Foot It" socks... not sure why I couldn't do at least a mid-calf version over that 4 day weekend starting July 28th with an extra day added onto that, and now it's taking me almost 2 months to finish. Maybe I'll get the leg finished today and get started on the cuff as I've got some knitting time planned. I also have some drawing time planned, so we'll see how much gets done.

Texas Wildfires

We're still under drought conditions even though we did have some rain (shall we call it big fat sprinkles?) but it'll take several weeks of this to get us back to normal. Some areas have already been reporting flooding even though there wasn't *that* much rain & it's because the ground isn't absorbing it well. Hopefully for the next few days, we'll just keep getting more of these sprinkles so as to prepare the ground for a good soaking.

In spite of that, some areas may not have gotten any rain. When I checked the fire activity map, it was showing fewer fires & NO red, meaning no new fires, so that is good news.

We have a bag packed & an evacuation plan in the event that something does happen and we have to leave again. So far the closest firest have been about 10 miles or so away from here. I've been on tenterhooks & have been trying to find a couple of things that made it out of the house when we had our fire in 2009... ugh.

Hopefully now that fall is here, we'll see much less in the way of fires.

Indy

Indy's been doing well, took him to the vet for a recheck on Thursday. She said she didn't feel any infection in the leg (he has a pin or rod in his leg since it was the femur & can't put a cast that high up) but since his temperature was slightly elevated, she put him on another antibiotic to be on the safe side. Looks like the pin/rod will be in for another 8 weeks... depends on how the healing goes! He's staying quiet, which is a good thing... he's a young dog so would want to be more playful, though at 1-1/2 years, maybe he's mellowing out? We're keeping him & Pixel apart since together they would be running all over the house!

This is getting long, so will scoot for now. Hopefully I'll have some photos later today or tomorrow.