Spitting cotton

As I start the final push to finish my workbook for Level 3 I have been wading into the world of cotton.  A person could spend a lifetime on cotton.  I need to distill enormous amounts of information to a very small fraction of the history of cotton.  And silk.  And ramie.  I am however getting better at spinning cotton on my charka.  As for everything involved in spinning it's all about the preparation of fiber.  All about preparation.  I have also discovered a gentle hand is needed.  Pinch, pull, tug, wind, turn, it is all a bit intuitive and defies description.  It's a bit like trying to teach a person to ride a bicycle from a book and expect them to be able to balance and ride successfully the first time.  It won't happen.  If you have never spun fiber using the 'long draw' method I will tell you it feels 'weird' when done right.  It feels like you're pulling on a bit of elastic, even though you are actually pulling on bundles of very short fibers.  It is a neat feeling too, because when you get it right you can make an incredibly thin and delicate thread.  It really is quite amazing.

On the Bacchus front, I think we have solved the jumping over the gate problem, accidentally, and I'm sure, temporarily.  Yesterday Tom was bringing in some big bags of dog food into the yard and as he was closing the gate he accidentally stepped on Bacchus' right front foot.  Tom feels terrible.  But he couldn't see the boy and he just got under foot.  Now his foot hurts too much to put too much weight on it.  With a batch of nsaids from the vet and some cuddling he should recover just fine.

Sassie is getting friendlier.  Spending time with her every day with brushing and treats is paying off. 

The school deal took another step today.  The county planning commission is recommending the change of use permit submitted by the school district.  They do have about 11 recommendations that they tagged on, including more parking, that they would like to see.  There is a 10 day appeal period and then it goes onto the county commissioners for approval.  It is a long and drawn out process but it's getting there.

Prescott property news as well.  Seems the original owner has given his son the power of attorney for the property in question and the son wants to settle.  When our friends bought the property the original owner was to pay them to lease the ground to continue farming wheat and put in an access road.  He continued the farming but didn't pay our friends a dime and never put in access.  He's been contesting all of these things for years.  We've been waiting for all this legal mess to get cleared up before we purchase.  We don't want any bad blood with neighbors and it sounds like the son just wants to be done with it.  Good news for us.  I think there was going to be some sort of court hearing on the 22nd of this month.  We'll see.

More finished objects.  Sent 3 baby hats to Hilary up in Canada.  They are above the arctic circle and the little ones needed some.

If you had an opportunity to vote today, I hope you did.  Our primary isn't until the 19th of February and then it doesn't count because we still have caucuses.  Do we need to have a national primary?  I don't like thinking that my vote doesn't count.  Makes for a frustrated voting public.  Oh well.