In a bit of a spin

I asked a friend to visit last week with her Mum. They’re Scottish and full of fun.

My friend brought her spinning wheel with her – and one for me to borrow. A neighbour has given me about three large bags of alpaca fleeces and two large bags of woollen fleeces as she has a shed full of the stuff.

It’s always fascinated me, spinning I mean, and now after a couple of hours of learning I think I might keep going. My friend can spin fleece into the finest of thread and yet it’s so strong. My efforts are well, um, kind of rustic and textured. Yes, textured is a good way to describe it, with lots of lumps and bumps etc.

You have to start by sorting the fleece. You don’t want the scraggy bits from around the bum area. That’s good for compost if you can persuade the local birds to leave it on the pile and not steal it for their nests! Then, prior to spinning, you have to comb it. I think that there is a different word to describe that action but I can’t remember it.

Once it’s all soft and combed it’s time to spin. My friend started me with hands only and she span the wheel with her hand. I’m right-handed so I held the new piece of fleece in my left hand, along with the thread on the wheel and using an up and down motion with the right hand along the spinning thread, proceeded to join both together. I tried that for a couple of hours and then we had a break for lunch. After lunch it was time to add the feet to the picture. I used to watch my mother with her old treadle sewing machine so I had a faint idea what I was supposed to do. Ahem, I’ve come to the realisation that it’s pretty tricky coordinating hands and feet and producing wool at the same time. A bit like Tai Chi really.

But it was fun and again the sense of “I made that” (never mind the lumps and bumps) was extremely pleasurable. So I aim to continue my practising, whenever I have the time, and hopefully produce enough wool to make something. I’ve been told that a “beanie” is usually the first item to knit after spinning – we’ll see.

I still don’t understand how Sleeping Beauty” pricked her finger on a spinning wheel and fell asleep for one hundred years until her handsome prince happened to pop in. There aren’t any needles involved with spinning wheels. Perhaps it really was a fairy story…….

Jan

‘Occupy Wall Street’ Issues First Official Declaration

 

• Since the occupation of Wall Street first began on September 17th, the mainstream media has criticized the general assembly for its lack of a cohesive list of complaints or demands.

Not to be rushed by expectations of corporations and the elite they serve, the Occupy Wall Street action took its time fulfilling this demand.

On Thursday night, Occupy Wall Street participants voted on and approved the first official “Declaration of the Occupation of New York City.”

It it reprinted in its entirety below.

As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.

As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.

They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.

They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.

They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.

They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.

They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless nonhuman animals, and actively hide these practices.

They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.

They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.

They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.

They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.

They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.

They have sold our privacy as a commodity.

They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.

They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.

They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.

They have donated large sums of money to politicians supposed to be regulating them.

They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.

They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantive profit.

They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.

They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.

They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.

They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad.

They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.

They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.*

To the people of the world,

We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.

Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.

To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.

Join us and make your voices heard!

*These grievances are not all-inclusive.

_______________________________________________

Almost Done!

There’s just a little bit of tweaking (technical term!) to finish off. It took six men to get the plastic covering over the framework yesterday and I must say I think that both M and the customer breathed a huge sigh of relief once it was done. The weather was crucial and although it looks pretty cloudy the sun did come out and the air was warm with no wind. The wind was the critical factor as the roll of plastic was long and heavy.

But it went up without a hitch, and all involved went home with a feeling of immense satisfaction, particularly M. You can just see the outline of the boat inside. The hoop house (M has decided to call it that) will be able to grow fruit trees never mind vegetables inside because it’s so tall and, if kept empty, an entertainment area during Tasmania’s long cool winters. Another idea of M’s!

You may remember from a previous post that this is what it was like under construction:-

 

And now it’s nearly done.

He’s already started the next project, in fact it’s nearly finished. It’s the prototype of one of his ideas and will be sitting in our front yard as advertising, sigh. There goes the pretty flowers, again.

Jan

ps. Just a note that I’m having problems with blogger. I can publish comments but when I try to reply, blogger doesn’t recognise me. I could be working on the problem for a while…….

My apologies.

I Love Volunteers

(click on photo to enlarge)

These are all heritage tomatoes from last year. I’ve already potted up over one hundred of them and I have an idea to sell them on to neighbours (if I can). Mind you, I’ll have to call them “Lucky Dip” tomatoes as, naturally, I have no idea which heritage tomatoes they are as I had about four different types last year in the same tank.

In the top photo on the right hand side are two “Gardeners Delight” tomato plants that I left in the tank over winter in the grow house – and they’re already flowering.

So – tomatoes for Christmas ……

Jan

Boathouse to grow house

This is the latest project that M has been working on.

A local guy had come around to see him after hearing about the construction of grow houses that M has completed for various neighbours.

But he wanted a grow house with a difference. He is currently restoring a boat in his back yard, (something I can relate to!) but the weather is holding him up. So he asked if a grow house could be constructed around the boat so he could work in relative warmth and out of the wind and the rain. The plastic is yet to be stretched out over the framework as a few warm sunny days are required to make it more pliable; there are tarps over the top of the boat at the moment to try and keep it as dry as possible.

Now I can’t recall the measurements but I do know it’s the biggest grow house around here! I have asked how the boat will be removed from the grow house at the end of the project, but after a fair bit of mumbling I was told that it would all be okay….. And then it would be a real grow hose with real vegetables.

This fellow, the owner of the boat and presumably one of the largest grow houses in the district, lives in a caravan on his block. He hasn’t even finished building his shed yet, which he later plans to live in whilst he builds his house.

Now considering this guy is around 65 years old and complaining of chest pains and vertigo, you have to admire his optimism.

I will post photographs of the finished product as they come.

Jan

Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible

I’ve been struggling lately. Maybe it’s SAD syndrome as the weather has been pretty crap – up until today which is glorious. But I have been driving M crazy as he hates my moods. He’s sympathetic at first but then becomes impatient and gets bad-tempered. I woke at 5am this morning and I think I’ve sorted out what’s playing on my mind – I just don’t know how to fix it – yet.

But today I’ve had a cry and that usually means that I’ve “peaked” and the long haul out of the black pit has begun. It was a natural cry as today M had to slaughter Lulu the chook.

Before we went away she had leg mites and I had treated her with Vaseline on her legs and that seemed to do the trick. But when we returned after a couple of weeks both her legs were badly affected and before long she became lame and stopped laying.

Lulu has always been the rebellious one, content with her own company and wandering off on her own (except when Ron the rooster picked her out for his special attention) and gave me beautiful dark brown eggs. But when she became lame it was heart-breaking watching her flap about in the chook house to get to the food and water. When she stopped trying to come out with the others – well, that decided me. It was time to go.

M watched “how to” films on the internet and today was the day. So he removed her from the chook shed and took her over to the willow tree and did the deed. The body is now cleaned and sitting in the fridge ready to be made into a beautiful stock. Ron looked for her, but once he realised that I was cleaning out the chook shed he became much more interested in that and the clean straw.

I’ll miss Lulu and her rebellious streak but I’m sure that when I replace her with another two chooks, their personalities will make up for the loss.

    Lulu is the one with the tail up at the front of the picture.

 

Jan

Back to reality

This was one of the gorgeous views at Port Douglas in North Queensland that we enjoyed. I can’t say that the actual town was impressive – it seems to be approaching the “Gold Coast” theme of buy, buy, buy. And most of it was cheap crap!

We had arrived in Cairns on the 13th August at 11.40pm and our two good friends were at the airport to meet us – and drive us to their home in El Arish (2 hour drive). A place I had never heard of before as they had always talked about Mission Beach. But their beautiful home and garden is a fifteen minute drive from the beach. Kathy is the gardener and obviously loves it. She even knows the botanical names of all her plants. She had lost six truckloads of garden to cyclone Yasi but you would never know. The climate in winter up there is very beneficial to restore gardens. As she said “you could put a stick in the ground and it would grow”. Sigh. It’s a very tropical garden and there are coconut trees, lychees and the biggest passion fruit I have ever seen. Her mango tree is flowering and she has a few herbs scattered around, like lemongrass. Her pride and joy though, are her orchids and I can see why.

                                   

The orange and yellow flowers trail gracefully over her pergola and can be seen from most areas of the house. I had a long walk around her garden and was wistfully commenting on the beautiful colours and lusciousness of it all when Kathy said that she was jealous of my garden. Now there’s not a whole lot of colour in winter in a Tasmanian garden (well not in mine anyway), but Kathy loves geraniums, pelargonium's and all the fruit and vegetables that we can grow. I suppose I forgot about all the blossom on the trees right now and the daffodils poking through and the little pansies scattered about the garden!

But what that walk around Kathy’s garden did do was to inspire me to get back out into mine and start planting seeds, ready for spring and summer. We were lucky that the weather was gentle for the first few days of our return so it didn’t seem like a chore. I am happy to report that I have since planted half a water tank of mixed radishes; a large pot of Drunken Woman lettuces; eggplants; carrots; peas; rock melon; tigerella tomatoes; moneymaker tomatoes; black russians; napoli paste tomatoes; spinach; rainbow chard and chillies. I’ve left them in the grow house and that way I will remember to water them regularly as I’m already picking silver beet and broccoli from inside.

The weather is cooler today and I’ve ignored housework for as long as I could but now is the time to drag out the old vacuum and attack the dust bunnies lying around. So I’ll get back to the holiday report another day.

Have a great weekend.

Jan