those fuzzy jackets

When I last wrote, I was hinting that something enchanted would come home with me from the yarn and spinning store. I was sorely tempted by a spinning wheel, but I held strong and came home without it. I have been interested in the new "Mach 1" wheels; I love the treadling motions of this wheel but hold out hope that something that costs several hundred dollars be slightly better made..and come with actual written instructions? Also (a big point) I already have FOUR spinning wheels!

I was jostled into realizing that we are being visited by both my father-in-law and my parents this week. Things needed some serious tidying up. In fact, I believe everyone's office needs an overhaul every five years or so, right? This is my desk with my new flat screen monitor...after cleaning. It was so clean that I couldn't work there (I'd never make it as one of those bank managers with the empty desks) so it is already somewhat less clean.

My knitting worklife has involved ripping up a bedsheet...I did that right after cleaning my office so I could stop feeling quite so restrained and proper. This ball looks small. The "yarn" is actually a 2" strip. I'm knitting with size #19 needles. Yup, I can take a knitting adventure without leaving home, let me tell you!

Again, to get away from the cleaning frenzy, I did some cooking. Here's a hazelnut apple chocolate chip cake, straight out of the oven. The yellow photo? My homemade lemon curd, complete with...baby corns to match. Actually, these were grown out at the university's farm research site and they are a bit too big to be called baby corn. One of the biologists suggested calling it "late adolescent" corn. How about college student corn? Anyway, it's ours to be eaten when I come up with something suitably exotic for it.

The blur of cleaning aside, things haven't been all that stimulating over here. Well, except for...the fuzzy coat! I ordered a merino/ecofur dog coat for Sally our shorthaired pointer dog. (we got parkas, didn't she need something for Canadian winter? All she has now is one hand-me-down sweater I cut down for her.) Ecofur, by the way, is short hand for Australian Brushtail Possum. This invasive species is overrunning New Zealand and destroying the native Kiwi habitat. The solution is a "harvest of the invasive animals," in which the fur from these possums is used with wool to make a luxury fabric. I ordered this fancy coat, which comes complete with a turtleneck with a hole for the leash and velcro closures that go around the chest. It fits Sally, who tolerated the modelling session.

Harry (our long haired, setter mix dog) was primping and preening to try this thing on. He sat on my foot. He pranced around. He looked jealously at Sally and barked for his turn. It seemed ridiculous, because he has plenty of fur....but I let him try it on too. He did his burlesque impression, his drama queen pose, and beamed at me. (I'm so sorry I don't have a photo of this one!)

When the professor got home, I redid the modelling session with Sally to show him the new clothes...and Harry again became a celebrity model wannabe. The professor laughed. I laughed. Then I went upstairs to my outrageously clean desk and ordered Harry his own coat. How can one live without one's own Merino/ecofur fuzzy coat, I ask you? It's so hard to be a dog around here...