Bunnies, Knitting, Spinning, no biking!!

7:30 am

                Lovely Thursday. I can do anything at all I want all day today. Well, not quite. I have a lot of work to do as in revise the lab for next week and of course there is grading. But maybe I will also do some spinning. I have just one more ounce of the lichen dyed stuff and it will be very nice to finish it and move on to something completely different.

                It has been a rather discouraging week at work trying to get the respirometry stuff ready. Turns out the O2 sensors are starting to fail and need to be reinvigorated for quite a chunk of money and of course it takes time. We can’t do it for the lab this year, we will have to go with them being futsy and then get them done for next year. And of course there are the computer and program issues which I spent a while yesterday resolving. It will all happen one way or another.

                I did spin the next to last ounce last night while listening to Radiolab. It was quite nice. And I’ve been knitting up several Calorimetry headbands from the Knitty pattern. I like how they are turning out, and it is a good thing to do with not too much yarn, though I’m not sure a single ounce skein would do it. might if it were a finely spun ounce, the ones I’m using are all bulky. Gotta remember tomorrow to actually bring my knitting in case I can make it to knitting at work. I went last week just to say hi but I did not have anything to do!

                I have basically found homes for all the bunnies I had available. I was thinking, since I got the male and female satins, that I would not keep my fawn male, but his coat is growing out very nicely and I think he would be good to keep around. I decided to try breeding him to the satin female. Keep the red color intact but get some longer, less guard-hairy coat out of them. But he is young and inexperienced and she would have none of it. I finally gave up on it and put her with Dylan who made pretty quick business of it. Took no guff from her. I’m not sure if she will actually kindle as she is 4 years old. If not, I will try to find another home for her. She is very pretty but unfortunately not especially pleasant. I put the 2 together twice, I guess I’ll do one more today. I would love to do more breeding right now just to see what I could get from some interesting matches, but I don’t really want a ton of baby buns to deal with late fall. Too busy.

                Oh, I also signed up to teach 2 LSSE classes in March. One for kids – 5 meetings Monday afternoons, and one single Saturday adult class. We’ll see what happens with them. It will be crazily busy what with all the 200 grading I’ll be doing. And if I decide to do another class for their “spring” session, I will have to decide and set that up before these classes run. Now I must decide if I will offer to have a booth at Apple Harvest. Which is this weekend. Obviously it is way past any deadline, but I’m thinking they may have openings since they often do have empty booths. I think I will call them today. Not my absolutely favorite idea of something to do for my birthday, but I biked all day last weekend, and it seems like it might be a good idea. I did no fairs at all this summer. Gotta get ready for Hartsbrook, then the BBBS fair. And I have not heard anything from the NE Fiber fest, I’m on their waiting list.

                I am feeling peaked, I think I will have a nice fried egg…..

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More Biking and a bit of Fiber

6:30 am

                Lovely Thursday. I will not go into work today, though I do have plenty of work to do. I must get a very solid start on grading the first assignment that the students handed in this week. Besides that, I would like to do some cooking (roast some eggplants, start some sourdough bread, maybe make more crackers). And I need to see about driving up to the new fiber crafty store to get a linen hand towel woven by a friend to give another friend for her wedding. I would have preferred buying it directly from the friend, but she had none, having put them all at the store. I decided also to make a hot pad which I knit last night from some of the dark/variegated colored wool. It looks very nice right now, I will cross my fingers that the felting goes well. I think there is enough yarn to also make a few smaller coasters to go with it.

                The wedding is Sunday and I am a bit nervous about it. I was feeling very anxious bc I had set aside Sunday, but the invite referred to an event Saturday evening and I wasn’t sure if my friend would  be expecting us for that, also. I finally, yesterday, emailed to let her know and she responded right away and didn’t sound at all annoyed, so that is good. Now I just have to figure out WHAT TO WEAR! Oh dear, not as if I have lots of dressy things to choose from, and I am figuring it could be quite chilly, being right on the coast.

                Other very nerve-wracking event coming up: the big ride on Saturday. I am extremely nervous about that. I have never biked 70 plus miles in my life, and the hills on this are pretty extreme. Last weekend we biked up to Conway and so encountered some major hills. We did ok. It ended up being 50 miles and I was pretty beat. One of the things I am quite concerned about is the cold. Or rather the cold and heat. I am not sure what I am going to wear and how to adjust things as the temperature changes. On the ride last weekend I was ok on the hills, but froze on all the big downhills. It was very uncomfortable. Tues I biked into work and went over the Notch from the north – a first for me. I was very proud of myself. I brought some warm stuff, including long pants, a fleece and a windbreaker. At the bottom of the hill I took off the pants and fleece. It was fine. At the top I put the windbreaker on and that helped with the chilly downhill. Would have helped even more if I had zipped it… so I guess I will go with something like that. I will probably not do any riding today, I did not ride yesterday. Yesterday I instead ran at the gym. I even managed to do it before lecture which was a tad tight, but worked out. Tomorrow I think I will bike in again. Oh brother. Part of me will be very happy not to feel like I must be “training” which is how I’ve been feeling for several weeks. We still have the big ride up through CT in October, but that will be on our own time and only 40-50 miles per day. And pretty flat as far as I can tell. Though probably chilly. But again, on our own time so we can start when things warm up. On Saturday I hope to start really early to give myself more time, which will mean getting to Look Park about 6:30 – 7 when it will be dark and cold.

                Enough of all that. Another fiber project has been to knit a Calorimetry (from Knitty) headband out of the purple lichen-dyed fiber sandwich stuff. I spun one ounce fairly thick and plied it with thread to help hold the bits in place. It is looking very nice, though I have nearly run out, so last night I spun another ounce. It is now drying so I will add that in. after that I will have 2 more ounces of that stuff, which I think I will spin up the same way.

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Not Much

7:30 am

                Thursday lovely Thursday. I THINK I will be able to not go in today. I still have a lot of work to do, but I think I can manage to do the rewriting of next week’s lab here. Before I do that, I have the firewood folks coming to deliver wood at 9, then I am meeting a friend at 10. I emailed her last night to ask her to bring some of her woven linen towels so I can choose one to buy for C’s wedding. That seemed like a good gift. Maybe I can add in something that I make myself, but I can’t really think of anything that would be appropriate to a couple.

                Yesterday was a very busy day at work. Not as exhausting as the day before when I biked in, met with the prof, taught lab, then biked home. K had a client in town so I put together supper for when he got back, but I made the fatal mistake of having a snack of crackers that I had made Monday night, and cheese and some wine. Uh oh. It made me so groggy that once we ate I had energy only to crash and finish reading Before She Met Me which ended rather dramatically and depressingly.

                I have my new satin buns settled in. I gave the male a dose of vasoline last night as he has not been eating much. I do need to go through and do some solid brushes and see who needs a pluck. I think Ethel is due for one. I have gotten several responses to my Craigslist and Ravelry ads, but the problem is getting people here to look at or pick up bunnies. One person is coming from Ct and one from Bennington. And now I have heard from someone else interested in the black one, don’t know where they are from.

                Ok I guess I will now meditate. There was an email message re a group meditation Friday afternoon. They said it would count as the afternoon meditation, no need to meditate again when you get home. Ha. As if I do it every morning and afternoon… it is more when I manage to. And rarely in the afternoon, just too busy then. Oh, tonight we will go to see Science Mystery Theater at Cinemark. It should be fun.

                Nothing more to say. Sorry. I knit up some little wrist cuffs with the fiber sandwich skeins. They are very small. Not enough to make full wristers, and I’m not sure how these will go over. I have the skein that I did thicker and plied with thread, I think I will knit that into one of the Calorimetry headbands. I may not have enough, so I will spin another ounce of the same stuff.

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Biking Biunnies and Blueberry Jam

7:30 am

                Lovely Tuesday except it isn’t as I have lab today. This semester it will be lovely Thursday instead. But at least there is no lecture so I do not have to go in so early. Yesterday I biked and did manage to get there in plenty of time to change and wash up a bit. So that was good. Left here just past 7 and arrived just past 8. Today, as long as the rain holds off, I will bike again, leave here around 9. I have a meeting with the prof at 11:30. Other than lab I must work really hard to rewrite the lab for next week describing how to do the stuff using the Vernier equipment instead of the biopac. I finally got it all to work yesterday.

                Lab went ok. Funny thing was that at 3:45 I was feeling very rushed to get them all to finish so they could go at 3:50 when lab ends. Ha ha. That is now, what? Five years since they changed it? maybe not that long but still. Lab now goes 1:15-4:05 not 1-3:45. So we had plenty of time and I could have been more relaxed. Well, it will be better today.

                I am, just like last year, feeling rather overworked. I’ve been staying really late many days. It is discouraging when everyone else is gone and I am still there. And that will continue for a while until I get all these labs sorted out. One thing that will be easier is that they will not be doing the independent experiments, but I am very fuzzy on what they will be doing. So I need more direction from Sarah on that.

                Funny how last night, after such a long and exhausting day, I still managed to: make blueberry jam, knead the bread and put it in the fridge in the bread pan to rise, and make crackers. I knew before I left work that G was going to be at home. She didn’t say way, just that she would be there. Then I biked to the farm to pick up the share, and from there biked home. At least this time when I ran into my neighbor again I actually asked her if she could carry the tomatoes and watermelon. She was fine with it, I guess it just never entered her mind last week… So I got home, and K had made lovely fish for supper. I was famished and it was delicious. Really. So it was not until after that that I could go up and see what G was up to. I brought her ice cream. We talked for a while, then I went back down to make the jam, rather crucial as the berries were starting to go bad. I think it came out fine. I did not actually can it, I just put it in the jars and I’ll keep it in the fridge. And I did the bread and made crackers. And it was still not too late when I managed to drop into bed.

                I will feed buns, take a shower and pretty much go. Yesterday I ate 2 eggs for breakfast before my ride. I may do the same today. I need to be sure I am eating enough, I get so extraordinarily famished.  I ought to hold the 2 new buns this morning. They are kind of skittish. They are Satins that a High School student could not keep – too busy with horses. So now I have them. They are lovely reds, and it will be nice to see how satins are. Oh, I heard from someone interested in the black boy, but I need to take some photos of him, since the ones I posted are pretty old now and he does have more of a coat.

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New Bunnies and Wristers and Derailleurs

7 am

                K has gone off to Trash to Treasure to drop off the 2 chairs from the rental house, in hopes that they will accept them and sell them. Sometimes they are picky about what they accept, so we shall see. I suppose the smart thing, if I want to meditate, would be to do that first while I know he will be gone so I don’t get interrupted.

                One of the big things I need to do today is figure out what to do about the bike derailleur. I guess I will find out when the bike store is open and see if they have hand grip derailleurs and how much they are. I think the one I have is kind of crappy and is getting worn out. Then the question is can I figure out how to put it on.

                Other thing for today – someone is coming at 10 to bring me two satin rabbits. Well the good news is that the woman finally came and took two rabbits – she bought Bathsheba and Excelsior so at least it is no net change. I still need to somehow move out the 4 guys. I had planned to keep one of the fawn males, but if I get these 2 (male and female) new ones, it does not make sense to keep another male. They are both reds. It will be exciting to get satins as I have never had them. .

                What the hell else? I guess I am more or less ready for lab on Monday, though after meditating I was lying there thinking of things we should do differently. So I suppose I had better write those down. And the garage…. I had better finish that up. I left a whole bunch of drill bits all over the bench waiting to get sorted. I should just decide which ones to keep and get rid of the rest. Oh blah.

                I knit one kind of little wrist cuff. It is probably too small to be an actual wrister with thumb hole, though it might work for a child. I am doing the same with the skein of the purple stuff that I plied with thread. It will also be small. I suppose I could combine the 2 to make longer wristers. Well, we’ll see how these come out. I am thinking that I might spin the stuff up kind of a thick single, then just ply with the thread rather than using 2 strands of the purple. If I try hard to slightly over spin the single, then I can ply carefully with the thread to better hold the bits in place. An idea.

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