Dandelion

Tonight not even 10 minutes from parking the car i caught the little tortie girl.

She is now in a ferret cage bathed in diatomaceous earth to kill off the fleas that were bigger than her. Tomorrow i will give her bath. She is not as pretty as she could be at the moment but given time she will be a STAR. I chose the name Dandelion as the plant is a very strong and determined weed. it will be a name for her to live up to. she is between 4-5 weeks old.

I got her to take 2 ounces of electrolytes in kitten milk from a bottle. I am so happy that she is caught now i need to focus on the other kittens.

Her sibling and Ma Mere also Belly's babies which i am now told are 5 for Belly, but i think some might be Mini Fig's.

not much on the knitting front, working on ribbing on one project and just below the sleeves for the corons KAL.

redying and kittens

OK so i am not happy with the way the silk did not take the dye. i knit it up into a cowl to see how the dye job worked up. and realized that what little of the beet colour had been removed so it looked like blueish soot on drab silver.


Rather boring i think so i am tossing it back in to see if it will pick up more colour. knitting on drab was killing me. i had to force myself to finish the random patterning, it was either that or rip and re-skein and re-knit it. being frustrated i did not feel like doing that having already put a couple of hours into it. so here's hoping.

on the kitten front i saw them just a little bit ago. One is a torbie - tortie tabby too adorable and too skinny. she also looks like she might have a hurt paw by the way she runs. i think i will call her Dandelion. i would put her at 4 weeks maybe 5. her sibling is going to be a fluffy Siamese and is much bigger than her.
the other Siamese kitten is definitely not their sibling as Ma Mere hisses and growls at the angel.
also seen was a tiny brown tabby a fluffy black and much later a tom i had not seen before. the two possible daddies are him and Rue the red tom that has been hanging around for 4 years and is trap savvy, and i cannot forget the intact male Siamese that i have been told about but not seen yet.

playing with dye

After reading so many posts on Ravelry in the Plants to Dye for group I have attempted some Black Bean dyeing.
The first pic is on white Classic Elite Lush.(the smooth yarn) I did heat the beans and was to impatient to let it cool before I tossed the yarn in.
I let it set over night and got periwinkle!
The fuzzy yarn is Artfibre's Gypsy in natural, this yarn I had previously soaked in beet juice and sat watching it fade to an antique cream colour, in curiousity I put the yarn cake in the bean pot to see what would happen this morning I pulled out what looked to be a mouldy stone.
after squeezing out as much liquid as I could and rinsing them till the water ran clear, I un-caked the silk into a hank to dry. The bean juice did not go into the center of the cake and as you can see i have a faded ghost colour that is kind of interesting.
I definatly need to do this again with more patience

i heard something sad

Yesterday while i was at work i mentioned to my co-worker that i might soon be getting an Angora bunny, she looked at me and said she wished she had known i was looking for one as someone she knew just took all 300 bunnies she had and handed them over to a reptile shop as food.
This woman is a 4H leader and wanted new rabbits, so instead of looking for homes for her current rabbits she had them destroyed one of the rabbits was a grand champion. I have been crying since, i never met the rabbit but i am just sickened at the thought of what happened.
I know snakes need to eat too, I am aware that a lot of rabbits end up on someones plate. the coldness of it all not even trying to find a home with any of her 4H'rs.

I am trying to let this go but it keeps staying with me, i now want an Angora badly just to cuddle with and protect, hopefully i will get one in the next couple of weeks. i am looking at two that i have been talking with a breeder about one is a red satin buck the other is a black English doe. i really want to meet them before i get them so i will see what is brought to the show in October.

contemplation

As i sit here knitting and reading Ravelry, i am thinking.

i watch the cats walking past the window to the 'drinking bowl' water garden and wonder how their lives would be if i had not adopted them or had not let them move in.
Right now Lusitania could be the pampered princess of someone else. She could be a strictly indoor only angel with all her needs met. instead she has her garden and i try to keep her treats on hand. My little rock star Robber would probably ended up as a barn cat since he was afraid of every thing.

Dash and Oliver would still be in that parking-lot and most likely dead by now, Buttercup would be total feral instead of playing with the crew.
Gabrielli and Lakota would be unwed momma cats if they still lived Gabrielli would probably not have survived kitten hood. and my darling Mikael who was so sick as a kitten.

right now with the economy as poor as it is my plans are behind the timeline for moving them all north to what my Mother refers to as the prairie it is 20 acres of land where we plan on building a house with enclosures to keep the cats safe from the coyotes that already live there. I want to start my Bible garden in something more than bonsai and i do have a start on the rosary garden with OGR roses i even have a St. John's rose.

on Ravelry i saw a post for this, http://www.fiberfarm.com/2009/09/a-mighty-big-giveaway
and i wish i could enter but i am not in a space right now to care for them as they deserve. Now if i was already up north on the prairie i would soo enter the contest. then i could look into getting an angora bunny or 3 and start fiber farming to help supplement taking care of the kitty sanctuary.

Good luck to who ever wins they are super cute

New Momma

The other day i finally got a decent picture of the female that is coming around for food.

Tortie of Lynx point Siamese. Tiny, pregnant, brave she hisses at mikael when he went to close while she was eating. She also watches while we play with the Da Bird.

the little wench is also trap savvey. she avoids all food in the traps.

last night when i got home from work i was greeted by some of the regulars
Bettie of the injured leg - she is allowing me to pick her up again now that she knows i have bought RC Baby Cat, i am so glad that she is still with me and not dead as i was told, i do not know happened to her , but she was hurt and has lost weight.
Belly, i wonder when she is going to start bringing around her babies.
Rue -who is refusing to be caught.
and some of the house meows so before i got to far they were fed.

Later when i went to pick up the dishes i saw i pale shadow. so it seems that the kitties are coming back
from wherever they had been scared to because of the road work and the dogs. i went out checked the dishes picked up the empties and refilled one dish and got my glasses for a better look. Yep small pale cat of the Siamese persuasion with a very low slung belly could this be in truth Myst's mommy?
i guess i need to feed in the traps again.