Counting Down

Thanksgiving weekend, and I'm being very thankful. Work is winding down for the season, but I know they want me back next year. I've managed to keep up with everything else I wanted to do, and enjoyed almost every minute. Plus, I'm as excited as a kid at Christmas, y'all. Only 4 days or so (and 3 days of work) until I leave town and start on the road to Rhinebeck for the NY Sheep and Wool Festival! So happy I get to go this year, (and have a little more room in the budget to enjoy than previously)! All the reservations have been made, and tickets bought, shopping list and packing list made, and American money taken out at the bank to cope with the said shopping list ;)

Four of us in the car, myself, my mother, Chantal, and Francine, who's new to the whole experience, and we are gonna have a blast. I  love introducing new people to the festival - it's so much fun to watch them go into sensory overload...

Friday we've got reservations to tour the Vanderbilt Mansion in nearby Hyde Park. Mom and I went the first year we did Rhinebeck, and I'm looking forward to seeing it again. Italian formal garden, marble foyer, tapestry-hung bedrooms...not my idea of a comfortable summer home, but nice to look at! Depending on what time we hit town, we may also get a little antique shopping in, then dinner, and off to bed to be ready for the main event. 

On the subject of wool and counting down, here's something I found posted on Ravelry today. A Kickstarter project (which I gather is a little like crowd-funding, but they have to raise the whole target amount to get the money) to restore machinery in an old woolen mill in BC for local processing needs. I think it's a great idea, so I've pledged help. Only a few days left to raise the money though, so take a look and pass it on to people who you think might be interested.

Birkeland Brothers Wool Company, BC

Post-Thanksgiving Postmortem

We were fortunate in having a gorgeous Thanksgiving long weekend, warm and sunny. Made everyone want to get out and do stuff.
Mom and I got back home Saturday afternoon, which left just enough daylight, after a snack, for me to pick about 3 cups of pokeberries and put them in the freezer, sort laundry, and get the first load washed and hung up. We planned out Sunday after supper, while the pumpkin for the pie cooked. It needed planning - my sister and her boyfriend arriving, Mom working at an auction, Dad working on the shed,  me planning wool washing and dyebaths, Thanksgiving dinner...It's amazing what you can do when you need to, though.  By lunchtime Sunday, everything was under control.
Three pies were cooling on the woodstove, (scratch lemon, homegrown pumpkin, and mixed berry from the summer's harvest) beside a thawing ham and a homegrown chicken. Mom and I tag-teamed the pies before the auction, and she got the coleslaw and the stuffing made as well.

The clothesline was full of clothes, taking advantage of the breeze and the sun, and the first bag of fleece I had from Kim this spring was found and soaking in wash water.

Four jars of Japanese indigo leaves were harvested and simmering.

And the porch had some ornamental piles of squash with apples from one of our trees for contrast.

By the time we sat down to dinner, I had a pile of fleece drying on the lawn, and some of it was blue from the indigo. A batch of walnut dye was in progress, and yielded 5 skeins of warm brown wool for Mom. Most of the laundry was washed, and some was dried and folded. Andrea and Erik, when they arrived, had time to do some homework, go on a beer run, pick flowers for the table, and help with dinner - Erik got volunteered to peel the squash. And Dad got the mudroom section walled, and started on the pantry-to-be Monday.

It was a good thing we got everything done before supper. Because after Thanksgiving dinner, no-one really wanted to move much. It's always a good meal when most of it's homegrown and homemade.