A Day of Challenges

Today's challenges have not been monumental.  They are just challenges.  But for some reason, they bug me today.  The heat, the air quality, the sock machine, the silk worms, the grass to cut, the weeds to pull, the motorhome floor to finish, the kitchen to finish as well as painting the house so we can sell it.  That's all. 

Today, the heat has been oppressive and the resulting air quality has made for a difficult day for John with his emphysema.  Working on the motorhome floor is impossible after about one o'clock in the afternoon.  He is so eager to get the flooring down and it is discouraging for him.  He pushes himself further than he should and this is a concern for me. 

The sock machine and I had a round today.  I am using a new / different yarn and am having a terrible time making all the adjustments.  I've knitted and ripped out more times than I can count!  As I have said before, this is a HUGE learning curve.  On the positive side though, I have found the perfect number of rows to fit my foot.  The first socks were too large for my feet, but the last pair.....just right.   What is so funny is that as I was ripping out a sock for the umteenth time, I was thinking that maybe I should get my spinning wheel and spin.  I had to laugh at myself.  When I was learning to spin, I would think that maybe I should just go felt something.  Nothing like wanting to take an easier road.  

The silkworms.....I have three very stubborn fellas.  They just don't want to stop eating those mulberry leaves and make their cocoons.  I have had cocoons for four days now, but these guys keep hanging on and eating.  I still can hear these three chewing on the mulberry leaves.  At first, as wee babes, they needed the youngest, most tender mulberry leaves.  Now they enjoy the large, mature leaves.  When I go out to cut more branches, I see those young, tender leaves and thing, ooooh they will like these.  I put the leaves in the silkworm container and what do these fellas want?  The old, hairy, tough leaves.  I guess my love of the spring mix for salads does not equate here.  I love the young and tender.

You can see the two coocoons and the worms here. 

I am tempted to reduce the amount we are cutting.  With the price of gas, I feel it is a waste of money.  It takes a lot of gas to cut 5 acres every 3 or 4 days.  The grass is still growing at a speedy rate and with most of our grass being out of sight, why not? 

And the weeds.  I just wish everything were level and we could just cut it all down....The woes of summer and home / mini farm ownership. 

We did have a cool visitor today.  I really do not know what it is.  It looks a bit like a dragon fly, but I don't think it is.  "He" was resting on the side of our house and I saw him as I was sitting at the circular sock machine.  Maybe you will be able to tell me it's name. 

Dinner is ready, time to go.....God bless all tonight~!

Catching up on Home Duties

Laundry and other chores are about completed.  We are working on the mowing and oh my gosh, the rain brought out the weeds.  How it makes me long for the open road.  Let the highway road crews mow and take care of weeds with their huge tractors and bush hogs.  You go fellas! 

I've been looking at inventory and checking it twice....to order more inventory.  Hum, vicious circle, isn't it.  We have a short break until the next show.  This affords me to get fiber artwork done for art shows and to work with the circular sock machine......knitting socks.  The dye pots are also coming out.  Lots of  work to prepare for the coming shows. 

It has cooled off a little and I am thankful for that.  We actually were able to shut down the air conditioning and open windows to sleep.  I love a fresh breeze as long as it is cool. 

The silk worms are growing, and growing.  We have increased the size of their habitat four times.  The runt died yesterday.  He had a case of failure to thrive or something.  He/she just did not grow.  So, now we are down to 26.  The day is coming that they will be spinning their cocoons of silk.  Then the cycle will continue.  They survived the traveling.  Mulberry trees are everywhere, so we had a good supply of food for them. Collecting stems of Mulberry trees created quite a few questions though, and the critters had quite a few inquisitive observers. 

Good wishes go to Marilyn and Ed, The Happy Wanderers /www.mytripjournal.com/travel-607759  You can read about their RV fire and see the photos of the damage. 

Thanks to God for the successful surgery of Gene Woodard.  Gene's wife, Barb is a fellow sock machine cranker and had asked for prayer.  Gene's surgery was yesterday and he wants to go home today~!  God is good!

Blessings to all, God speed till next time.   ..............