Washing fleece is better than watching bad soccer game

07.18.06 edit: I had forgotten to mention in this post what exactly it is I do with the washing machine. I actually only use it for soaking the wool in then to spin dry, but I never agitate. If you're interested in how I wash my raw fleeces, please go to my How to Wash fleece post.
-Ana

As hard as I find to believe it, I have shingles... for those who don't know, the chicken pox that most of us got as children don't all die off when we get better. Instead, they take refuge, or make themselves a comfy home, somewhere in our nervous system. Then, for some reason, maybe stress, maybe something else, they decide to get out and cause trouble all over again. The best description I've come up with for how it feels to have shingles is this: it feels like a gallon of tetanus shot vaccine is constantly being pumped into your body. There's a lot of pressure, and that horrible burning-twisting pain. Anyway, for some reason, the pain is bearable in the mornings so I am partially functional--good enough to deal with World Cup soccer and some wool, mostly they help take my mind off of the pain.

We are down at my mother's for the weekend and since it's a rare treat to have access to a non-coin-op machine, I brought down my last 2 remaining raw fleeces to be cleaned up. Plus, the weather is nice: hot and sunny and not raining.
So yesterday morning I picked through the Jacob fleece for washing in my mother's washing machine before the England vs. Portugal soccer game (which, btw, was won on penalty kicks). I really wish I had a washing machine at my place... anyway, here's a binful of dry and clean Jacob fleece:




In the afternoon, I put off picking through the Merino fleece just so I could watch the Brazil vs. France soccer game. You see, for a Brazil soccer fan, this was a very important game. Not only was it the quarter finals, but the last time Brazil played against France in a world cup, it lost miserably to France. It was a very strange game because Brazil had been playing really good soccer until that one game in 1998. So anyway, yesterday was Brazil's chance to prove themselves superior to France's soccer team. But you know what?! They really played terribly once more and lost, not even on penalty kicks or overtime, they just plain out right lost.

80 minutes into the game I just gave up watching the game all together and decided that picking through my merino fleece was time much better spent, not to mention much more satisfying. So, by the end of the day I had all of my remaining raw fleeces all washed and clean.


Moorit Merino fleece hanging under the sun to dry.

Mom and I placed the leftover wool skirting by her flower bed. I am hoping the bird living on the cherry tree by this bed finds it and uses it for her nest.



Before I got too busy to take care of them, I used to have quite a large collection of passionflower plants. These tropical flowering plants are my favorite all around. Their vining habit is great for covering entire walls or window frames and their flowers are beautiful. Here's a picture of a passion flower:



I gave this plant to my mother probably five years ago and it is huge. She puts it outside during the summer and once she even planted it in the ground, where it grew to gigantic dimensions. Now it sits, happily, in a big pot with a very sturdy wire frame to support it.

On a different topic, a few weeks ago I dyed some sock yarn for my mother and forgot to photograph it. So now that I am here at her house, I took a photo of it.



Hope yall have a happy 4th!