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.