Sunday, 10:30 am 
Clean fleece and a four member team. 
Ready..
set..
GO!

  the first of many, in a five hour competition, quality is not the first order.. speed (and basic funkiness) is #1.

  two spinners, different wheels.. plying begins

  teamwork..
knitting, fringing, beading, and weaving in the ends.  Everyone takes a turn knitting until your fingers cramp and it passes to the next in line.

3:30 pm.

  Finished!

  cat wrangling…  when I asked my niece why her cats were so good and mine were so ornery, she answered: "If you want a good cat, give him a hat".  That’s why I ‘hired’ her.

  Surprisingly, Sam enjoyed all the attention.

I needed to empty rain water from my kayak. The kids had left it right side up and I had
been to busy to notice. That was when
the weather looked like it would clear and I would go kayaking. The day turned out like the past few, more
heavy showers, spaced out during the day so that just as it dried enough to get
on with whatever (beans, mowing, transplanting, kayaking…) another downpour
would let loose and on and on. Not that
the weather held me back. I carried the
still wet skeins (they were hanging on the line ‘drying’) I had dyed on Monday,
back to the barn and over dyed areas until I was satisfied. These are ONE TIME colors, I don’t think I’ll
try to repeat them. After lunch, still
hopeful, I hung them back up on the sunny line where this morning they continue
to be rinsed. Tomorrow, they will
dry. So says the weather man.

What I started to say, when I sidetracked onto weather and
yarn, was that at the water’s edge I found a complex of swimming pools, built
by my 9 yr. old niece, for her frogs. They
have mud walls and a mote. Nothing I can
save. I found the life preserver she
wears when she goes out in the kayak, and a path she made through a weedy area
where the frog catching was better. Things left behind from an all too short summer vacation. I remember the first year we built the
house. My nephew was six. He too caught frogs. The first order on the agenda each year was a
trip to the local general store to get mud boots. He was so excited, loved his boots. He wore them constantly as well as a tool
belt around his waist to carry ‘important’ things. As soon as he’d get back to the pond with his
new boots he’d test them out, going out further and further until water crept
over the top and filled them up. We’d
shake our heads, what were the boots for, anyway, certainly not to keep feet
dry. I still have the radio he made that
first year, a rectangular shaped rock, wrapped with grass. It had one long stalk of grass protruding
upwards, an antennae, don’t you know, that has since dried up and fallen
away. I keep it as a reminder of summers
past, and of children grown. This year,
it was cell service (or lack there of) that entertained him, not rubber boots
and frogs.