Presents!!!

ahhh, favorite gifts! Michael received the Tony Hawk Ride game for Wii, which he can now play where ever he's staying. That kid on the skateboard is Michael, who is going for the skater look this year in a big way. He's got the hair in his eyes, the knit hats, the skater tees, and took to the Tony Hawk game like he'd been playing all his life. I did try it- it's a bit like snowboarding, so the steering wasn't that bad for me... if you see me play games that require steering, you would know that's a major accomplishment! And how did we know this was his favorite gift? He slept with the skate board controller in bed with him... but don't worry- he had his new night vision goggles in there, too, so he could see where it was!

The other picture is of two handmade drop spindles Charles put together for me. With my silly obsession with spinning, this is a great way to throw a small project in my bag for when I'm on the go without having to pack and unpack my spinning wheel. And as you can see, they work!

Holiday news

Well, the crazy month of December is almost over, and I'm sure we are all a little poorer! Christmas day was actually not as crazy as usual for me, and Charles was working at Sunday River. He's attempting to keep the attention of a few bored little kids who just want to strap on skis and go down the mountain. I headed out to do farm chores for tow of our farm sitting clients, and off to town to pick up Michael. Then we headed to work at Petco. The problem with a pet store is that the merchandise needs constant maintenance! We met Renee there at the store and spent about an hour and a half spreading Christmas Cheer to the critters that didn't go to new homes for the holidays. Then off to Grandmas for the traditional holiday pig out. Spiral ham, Delmonico potatoes, Grams rolls, sweet potatoes, and yummy roasted veggies. Followed by lots of desserts, of course! We did practice a little self control by waiting a fair amount of time before digging into the dessert.

After opening gifts, playing games, and Charles arriving for leftovers, we were off to farms again and then home for Christmas at our house. Because Charles celebrates Hanukkah, I get him a gift for his holiday, and he gets me a Christmas present. We have a Hanukkah shrub in the living room, and Santa brings us all stockings. With building the house, we've opted not to go crazy with stuff for ourselves over the holidays, but Michael made out with a Wii and some cozy sweatpants among other things. All in all, not that hectic- can you believe it?

epic fail

well, with everybodys job changes and the holidays, I am sad to say that the wolf mountain blog has been sadly neglected :o(

so without further adieu, I bring you Decembers updates!

More exciting News!

We're just full of pictureless news this week...

Charles has been hired by Sunday River to be a ski instructor this winter. He'll be teaching 7-14 year old kids every weekend and all the vacation weeks, and I'm sure he'll be picking up whatever else he can during the week. We're all excited because if he's not working in the winter, he ends up there anyway. Now he gets paid to be there!

Quick Announcement

Sorry- no pictures for this one. However, I am pleased to announce that I am the new Companion Animal Manager at Petco in Auburn!!! The stars lined up with this job interview, and I am very excited to be able to go back to doing what I love AND getting paid for it. This will also mean less driving, being in a town where I know people and where I'm going, and none of the crazy midnight and o'dark thirty work schedules. Westbrook has been fun, but I was due for a change, and this job is like my dream job. So I hope to at least see some of you there soon :-)

Spooktacular Dinner

So, this halloween dinner seems to be a developing family tradition right up there with Thanksgiving...

We enjoyed a delicious Halloween dinner in Bolsters Mills this year with a rather repulsive sounding (but totally delicious) menu. The table was adorned in orange, the feetloaf (aka meatloaf) sat bleeding in it's pan, and the traditional "Grams Rolls" were served (hmmm..... someone seems to have cut themselves while preparing the dough...). There were toasty buzzards feet (chicken drumsticks artfully sliced to allow all the meat to be peeled to the bottom of the bone for toes), crisp cucumbers with snails (pictured above), and bubbling potato volcano. And for desert, Michael and I baked up a batch of witches fingers. Although there were few trick or treaters, we all enjoyed plenty of food and a movie after.

Have you herd about Michaels story he has been working on at school? It is called the Italian Job. IT is awesome.The characters are JAKOB, MICHELLE(MI-SH-EL),DANIEL,AND KACEE.

School's Out For Winter

Yes that's right- winter. And that's dog school. Charles managed to get as picture himself with Desi at dog class in Naples. We've finally found a dog trainer that gets Desi's breed and isn't intimidated by him, so they've been going to Amys classes for two summers. Amy runs Boulder Ridge Kennels in Otisfield and breeds Mastiffs. She also has been really good about not reacting to Desi's rabid dog immitation that he does when either I or Michael is around. Neither does anyone else in the class, mostly because this class is geared toward dogs that are "reactive" in different situations. By reactive, I mean act like an idiot. Desi's previous class instructor didn't get this behavior, and it made other people with rude dogs in the class nervous so he was asked to leave instead of dealing with the issue. In this class, all these dogs and hmans get together and do things like go out for ice cream, go to the beach or the park, walk up and down the causeway, and encounter other people, dogs, and all sorts of situations. Desi, I am please to say, has been an almost perfect gentleman. He still has issues with the rest of his pack being around and his need to defend us from almost everything, but he is learning that when he's on the leash and we're out in public, we can handle ourselves without his help. And should we ever be in a true situation where somone should try to do something to one of us, we have the utmost confidence that Desi will scare the life out of them.

Belated Birthday

Michael had almost a month of birthday parties this year. One of the few benefits of having his parents divorced and remarried, I suppose. We had Michaels friends over this year for a party he pretty much planned himself. Luck, Gem, Xavier, and Michael enjoyed the festivities that included hiking with Uncle Ricky, making pizza, lots of chocolate cake, and tye dying tshirts. Everyone left with leftovers and t shirts and had a good time. When Michaels cake came out, the boys got Michaels keyboard out and they all played and sang happy birthday... wonder if they'll start a band.

I'd like to say thank you to my mom who was kind enough to bake a cake and design the ferrari logo for the top of it out of sculptable chocolate (who knew there was such a thing???). Also thank you to Uncle Ricky and Grampa Dude for helping out at the party.

We have...

a basement! Our floor was poured, and the walls and "roof" are being finished. Plans are to button it up for the winter and start work on the main floor in the spring. For all of you who like the details, the concrete floor is set up for radiant floor heat (zip tied a lot of the tubing myself). Dimensions are 30X40 feet, with the long side facing south. One short side is designed so that we can install two patio doors on the end, as well as one around the corner. There will also be a window or two, plumbing is in for a bathroom, and we plan to be able to live in it if need be. Eventually we will have a den/library type room, a place for the dogs to be going in and out of their pen when we're not home, a bathroom with a walk in shower/dog wash and a laundry room down there.

Our friends Kevin (with Calico, his dog), and Phil are helping Charles with the labor part of the framing while his friend Nick has taken the job of technical advisor. It's nice to have such handy friends!

More house pictures soon...

Desi's best buddy

Well, it's time for another introduction... Meet Milo, Desi's kitten. Yes, our big dog has his own kitten. Started out as a joke really. Charles and I joked about Desi needing his own kitten after he took to putting our friends cat in his mouth. The cat really didn't seem to mind, and it was kind of funny. So, when I brought home a kitten from someone at work, it became the dogs. Milo has pretty much grown up in Desi's mouth, getting wet and sticky and loving every minute of it. Milo frequently sleeps on our bed with his head hanging over the bed while Desi sleeps on the floor beneath.

A Sad Farewell

It is with great sadness that I announce the passing of Catapult. For those of you who came to see me in my shop, he was the true owner of the place. After being thrown from a moving vehicle and rescued from a local shelter by myself and my friend Betty in 1997, Catapult made himself at home at The Little Jungle until it's closing in 2005. After that, he resided with Charles, Michael, and I in our home and with his cat, Peekaboo. Catapult adopted Peekie and her sister Hoppy from a feral colony in Lovell. And although Hoppy went on to join Betty's family, Peekie remained his constant companion. 'Pult was as patient and pleasant as could be for a cat. He put up with animals and people parading in and out of the store, rescued cats, little kids, and so much more. He could be demanding of his dinner, and towards the end of his life, spent time sharing supper with our old dog, Tinkerbell. Cancer was his last battle, causing him to become thin and frail. But he still found our lap, loved Peekie, and demanded dinner until the very end. He will be greatly missed, but in our hearts, we know he has joined his many animal friends long since gone.

Peace be with you in your eternal catnip patch, old friend...

Latest Addiction

CORESPUN YARN!!!

(sorry- had to yell)

So this had become my latest passion. A corespun yarn uses a core thread, yarn, string, or wire. You spin your fiber around this core, which makes the fibers twist perpendicular to the core material. This is a great way to

show off the materials in a batt of fiber that has a lot of different fibers, texture and such in it. So far all my corespun yarns have been made with string, but I'm itching to try spinning on wire soon. This particular yarn was spun using batts from a mini batt swap with Natasha from Gritty Knits.

And of course, all the yarn has so far ended up at my moms as it probably should be knit into something and I'm not getting a lot of that done!

I should also say that VelmaLikeVelvet from Ravelry gets the credit for all this corespinning excitement because she posted a cool instructional video on how to do this on YouTube. Thanks Velma!

Another introduction

I had a request for more introductions of our critters. So here's Lucy's turn! Lucy, aka Melucine Eden Severu is our female Czech Vlcak. She's Desi's big half sister (same mom), and is a little more than half his size. Even though she acts so serious and leary in public, this picture shows her lighter side. She posed for us on Peekaboo's cat tree (she's the cat in the picture), and is quite content to show of her skills by hopping up on rocks, furniture, and most anything else we ask her to. A favorite for us is to tell her to get up on the couch. She hops up and stands on the back of the couch and leans down to make sure you get slobbered upon.

The cat tree was built by my friend Bryan of R6Meows.com. It's made of real wood (trees and plywood) and has all kinds of great scratching surfaces on it. The cats adore it, and after have it for more than 5 years, there's hardly any wear. I'm adding Bryans website to the list of links- it's great, Maine made stuff if any of you are cat lovers!

Our Soon To Be Cellar

Well, our house on Frost Hill is officially underway... finally! We'll be able to get the foundation poured and capped this year, which is pretty good considering how the weather has been. The walls are actually poured and we're (meaning Charles) getting all the supplies together for the floor. It's going to be a floor with the potential for radient heat, so there insulation, tubing etc. to be procured.

Todays big undertaking was hauling all the insulation back from the concrete supply place in Auburn with a mini van, a pickup, one little brother, and a boat trailer with a deck on it. The pallet of insulation was about 8 feet high... we were looking at the trailer and the pallet and wondering how on earth we were going to pull this off. Well, after some creative stacking, we got half of the pallet on the trailer, and split the other half between the van and the truck. After tying down the back door to the van to keep the pile of insulation from flying out the back, we took the seat we had removed and slid it on top of the foam, stood the spare tire in between the foam and a side van door, and loaded all the blankets, tire irons, and other stuff that was left into the passengers side floor area. And we were off to BJ's to run a quick errand.

Picking up a few things at BJ's would not normally have been an issue, but when we returned to the van and went to place our purchases in the back, we discovered that we could not simply place the items on top of the insulation because they would roll out the partially open back door of the van and into the road... so the items were creatively stacked next to the spare tire in the little space we had left. And to think we were going to just bring one vehicle!

Hopefully we will be bringing you updated pictures of the cellar with a floor soon.

Population Explosion

Let me tell you a little story... Before my divorce, Michael has this wonderful guinea pig named Peanut Butter & Jelly. She was the most adorable cream colored abby- the ones with all the cowlicks. When she passed away, Michael missed her terribly, and now that we live in a bigger house, I thought it was time he have a pet of his own again. One of my co-workers gave me Isabella. She purchased two"female" guinea pigs from a pet shop and ended up with 8. Excited to surprise Michael, I brought her home, set up Peanuts old cage for her, and kept her a secret until Michael came over again. He was thrilled, and has been taking excellent care of her. However, a few weeks after her arrival home, I noticed that Izzy had that distinct pregnant pig belly that they get right before they have a litter... the belly that looks like the pig ate a football and it's lodged sideways in their belly. Oh boy...

Izzy did not disappoint- on July 3rd she popped out 5 very adorable babies. We unfortunately lost one (Michael named her L'il because she was so tiny), but the other 4 are thriving nicely. There is one girl, Amber, that will be able to keep Izzy company. The other three, Burton, Dakine, and Camaro, are boys and going to have a big pen of their own this week.

Sigh... me and my bright ideas...

Jewel Weed Dyepot

I found a use for the truckloads of jewelweed we have in our raspberry patch! This picture is of silk and wool roving in my dyepot being dyed with jewel weed. I love the cantelope color of the wool and the yellow of the silk is my favorite yellow yet. This was so easy... boil the plants in water for an hour, add some alum as a mordant, throw in the fiber and 20 minute later you have beautiful colors. This summer is the summer for natural dying- I'll post more later on my purple lichen, green black eyed Susan, and yellow yarrow.

Welcome To Wolf Mountain Farm

For those familiar with Maine, you may ask where exactly Wolf Mountain is... It's actually an imaginary place with elements of places we've been, places we are, and places we wish to be. It's moveable, it's ever changing and fluid, and it's always beautiful.

The first picture with this post is from Hayes Ledge on Noyes Mountain (where we really live now). This view is what we discovered while hiking with my son, Michael. It's very similar to the view from our yard, just a different direction.

So, I have to introduce the dog in the headline of this post as well. That is Desi... all 95 pounds of him. And no, he is not a wolf. He is the purebred dog that is the national dog of the Czeck Republic, a Czeclosovakian Vlcak (pronounced veal-chuck), which translates to wolf-like dog. We call him a chucklehead. Desi's registered name is Quad Eden Severu, and he and other vlcaks can be studied in depth by clicking on wolfdog.org on our favorite links list below.