Many of the stupid things I do are marked by a "Note to Self..."  Here is the most recent one.  Note to Self - even if you are tired and it's been a very long and totally wonderful Roc Day celebration, please remember to take everything off the porch and put it in the studio.  Especially if rain is expected.

The grand total is 1 7' triangle loom with stand, one basket of cotton yarn wound in balls for the tri, 10 tubs of fiber all in plastic bags, 6 cotton punis carefully carded and ready to spin, 1 trash can, one upholstered chair on wheels and several wooden chairs - all somewhere between very moist and dripping wet.  Yuck. 

I went to bed last night happy and exhausted.  Roc Day was wonderful.  We had several people I had never met before, several more that I knew only slightly, good friends who had never been out here before and lots of friends we see regularly out here.  It was a great group and I had fun.  I hope everyone else did too. I woke up this morning about 6 am to pounding thunder, flashes of lightening and pouring rain.  I didn't once think of the studio or the porch or anything else except  how nice it was to have the rain and how glad I was that all the gates were open so all the animals had shelter to go to.  Then I rolled over and went back to sleep. 

It wasn't until nearly 10 am when I was dressed and had had my first couple of cups of coffee and I was on the way out the door to feed when I saw the tri sitting on the porch.  Wonderful. 

<Penny kicks herself mightily and rushes out to check on the damage.>

Not much damage, actually.  The tri has come into the studio, been dried with a hand spun towel and will sit to finish completely drying before we start on the next shawl.  I'll need to take the balls of yarn and put them back into skeins that can be washed and dried or they will end up smelling musty.  It's only four balls of cotton yarn so it won't be too difficult.  I fear the cotton punis are a total loss but I'll lay them out on some towels and see if they dry well.  If not, into the trash they will go.  The fiber in plastic bags should be fine.  I've dumped them all out on the floor inside the studio to dry and I'll inspect them as they go into large trash bags for the trip to our next fiber festival in Oxford, MS.  I'm hopeful the upholstered chair will dry out without smelling horribly musty.  We'll have to wait and see on that one.  The wooden chairs have all been moved back against the wall of the porch where they are protected from the worst of the rain.

There are also several bedraggled skeins of newly dyed yarn hanging on the line by the dye studio.  Peggy worked very hard yesterday during Roc Day to get  lots of yarn dyed and took all but the wettest of them home with her.  The last  7 skeins are still out there hanging on the line.  I'll give them a quick wash and hang them inside the dye shed to dry.

Here we are drying out fiber bags in the studio....

We have two bits of evidence indicating we have life below ground.  When we first moved out here the mounds of new dirt were obvious.  They are everywhere all across the property.  They are several inches tall and 8" or larger in diameter often with a horseshoe shape and a divot toward the center.  They are easily distinguished from fire ant mounds which look much more granular and dangerous.  We also have tunnels that run just under the surface and can be seen by the dirt pushed up but not really broken.  Like any newbie to the area I asked people at the feed store what these were.  I was told one was a gopher and the other was a mole.  The gophers make the dirt mounds and eat tender plant roots so they could destroy my garden, and moles make the snake shaped tunnels and they eat earthworms and grubs so they are good to have in the garden.

I took these pictures on my morning walk a couple of days ago.  They look undisturbed because I didn't disturb them.  The interesting thing is when you happen to step on either the dirt mound or more spectacularly the tunnels, they cave in.  It's not like prairie dog burrows that are large and deep and you could break your ankle but it's somewhat startling to have the ground disappear beneath your feet.

I haven't had this happen to me before so I think it may have something to do with the long drought followed by the rain we've had recently.  Now that it's happened quite a few times, I'm not startled by it.  It does leave unsightly holes but the next rain should smooth them out.

When I got ready to write this blog I decided to do some fact checking on gophers and moles.  The term gopher can refer to several burrowing animals including ground squirrels and prairie dogs so the more correct term for what I have is Pocket Gopher.  The pictures look sort of like the odd body parts the cats leave for me.  Of course, that makes for a difficult comparison in any case.   I know I've never seen an animal that looks like the pictures of moles, in pieces or not but since they do make the kinds of tunnels we have here I can only assume my cats haven't brought me any.

In the interested of having a beautiful and flawless yard, it would be nice if all the gophers and moles would move next door.  But this is a working ranch so flawless is never a goal.  As long as the holes and tunnels aren't large enough or deep enough to hurt any of the livestock, I'm more than happy to live and let live.

Oops!  I should have mentioned Roc Day much earlier than this.  We will have our annual festivities in honor of Roc Day this coming Sunday January 8th from 10 am till 4 pm here at the Sky Loom Weavers studio in Cat Spring, TX. 

Ron will make us some warm soup and we'll have sodas, coffee, tea and some munchies.  Please feel free to bring a snack to share.  Bring your wheel or spindle or just come and watch.  You can take a fling on any wheel we have here and on any of the looms.  We'll have lots of fun and funky fibers for you to try.  And hourly door prizes.  Please come.

For those of you who aren't familiar with Roc Day, also called St. Distaff's Day, let me explain.  In the history of northern European cultures the women were the ones who did the spinning and weaving.  They did not work during the 12 days of Christmas or the following day of the Feast of Epiphany.  The first day after Epiphany, Jan 7th, marked the day they went back to work.  The men, however, did not have to return to their work until the 8th of Jan and felt it important to harass the women.  They would try to set the flax in the distaffs on fire.  Expecting this, the women were prepared with buckets of cold water to put out the fires and to douse the men.  Frivolity ensued.  It's a story described in a poem by Robert Herrick (1591 - 1674) called "Saint Distaffs day, or the Morrow After Twelfth Day".

We won't have any setting the flax on fire and no buckets of water but we will have fun and laughter and food and comradeship and a wonderful beginning to this new year.  We would love to have you!  Call if you need directions - 979-733-8120.