Shawl / hair pins

Long time no post.. Sorry.
I have been going crazy, I apparently do not have enough hobbies. I collect things.  I love old bottles and am always fascinated by what might be found in a rubbish pile at an old farmstead.
Yarn...can never have enough beautiful lovely wool.
Cats seem to congregate around me as if I were a magnet.
I want to learn to spin fiber into even more lovely yarn.
I garden
I throw myself into random fields of study for the sheer joy of learning
I have a small collection of beads
and now
I have taken up carving.
Carving branches into hair sticks or as some call them shawl pins.
It is therapeutic, caving out stuff and finding something beautiful left in the wood or at least I find it beautiful and really that is all that counts at the moment.
I had been watching a prune growing in the backyard. I have randomly chopped at it shaping it to a less bush more tree shape and one top branch started to grow in awkwardly. it was too thick for its natural placement so it was removed. I look at these trees as I would a bonsai.
another wannabe hobby
This branch I set aside to let dry and had a fight to keep people from tossing it out in the garden refuse. This time I left the  skin on the wood.  I took the leaves and made a tea from them to dye some wool. This was the wool I had mordanted in the copper solution.
Just a few days ago I was took a piece off and started to whittle it with a small knife. I am using this as a learning situation.  I once read somewhere that to learn to carve get a log and sit down with a knife. To learn how to use the knife turn the log to tiny bits of shavings. By the time you have finished shaving the log to nothing you should have learned what you need to know.
I am loving the prunus wood and attempting a gratefruit branch. 
Did you now that when you wet citrus wood it turns green?
I do not have good news about Gabrielli, it seems the eye will need removal. So now I need to find out how to work chip in. The estimate is from $687 to $817.  She is now getting 2 different eye thingss a drop 4x a day and an ointment 3x a day.
I still need a root canal but I can wait on that. Gabrielli does not seem in pain but she is now scanning and even though she wants outside she stops at the door. i think she is starting to realise that outside is not a good thing anymore.
To help fund this I am selling calendars and the hair/shawl pins I carve.

Does it ever end?