Death of Van

Dead but still moving. My beloved. long suffering van has finally wheezed it's last breath for this family and has moved on to vehicular heaven in a mechanic's yard. After faithfully serving various members of the Thomsen family for 582,000 km, it's time came and it went peacefully. It was me who had problems with the peaceful part. My whole life turned upside down for a week after taking the van in to have a small thing checked and being told that it wasn't road safe and the whole front end was ready to fall out. Talk about unprepared. After madly searching the papers and kijiji for about 48 hrs, I risked driving to Edmonton, with the kids, through the worst snowstorm April has seen in 20 years and after being snowed in for 3 days, and shovelling some mammoth sized snow drifts, I arrived. Yes, I feel like I have truely arrived. I now drive a 2006 Nissan XTrail, probably the fanciest little wheelie thing I could ever imagine owning. My life feels complete. I have named her Alska (an Albertan derivative of the Swedish word for love). MUST POST PICS! (I'm having major problems getting camera and computer into house at same time)

The new doula-mobile has arrived just in the nick of time cause I would be pretty choked to miss my doula course this weekend cause of car trouble. Hence, the frantic race to buy a new vehicle. Ever since I decided to become a doula, it is true providence the way things have come together. It's like watching a path unfold before my eyes and simply having to step into all the wonderful things set before me. I will be taking a 3 day course this weekend, a piviotal point in my certification process, then I hope to do a little volunteering at the local hospital before my client's due dates arrive.

All this focusing and preparing and studying for the doula course has really brought out some creativity in me. I have a new love for being a woman and experiencing the joys and strengths and pains that are unique to WeMoon. But don't think I'm gonna start wearing pink! Speaking of pink, I have a dyer's problem with pink. It seems to occur far more often than planned (do I ever plan pink?) that my dyepots bubble along nicely, then suddenly turn pink. Well, it's not that sudden, but, for example, today I wound out a lovely white warp of slubby shiny wool and threw it in the pot with visions of Spicey Plum, Berry, and Nutmeg in mind. What comes out? Cotton flippin candy pink. Aaaaaarg! Dammit pink! Just leave me alone already!

Yak Fibre

I apologize first for my lack of blog, you see, my camera goes missing everytime I want to blog on, which means no lovely pictures of my latest work. I guess I'll have to use my imagination cause, yes, my camera is missing again.

So, I've been working with some local yak fibre and it is the absolute softest stuff I have ever felt (the handspun stuff that is) It is such a dream and my husband is getting really sick of me describing this to him so I will share it all with you. The fibre I got is dark brown, although yaks can also be white and the extra special exciting part is that we might look into getting some yaks of our own as part of our 5 year plan. We have some beautiful land across the creek from us that is only suited for really independant and predator-free animals, yaks come to mind don't they? I think it could be fun, look out the window over the valley and close to the house the goats and chickens peck and graze, then the llamas and horses wander down in the valley and across the creek amoung the trees, yaks.

I also wanted to post a pic of my new tapestries that I've hand-dyed and handwoven. One tapestry in particular I love and I named it Northern Lights. A couple others have names like Spring has Sprung, and Sparkling Sea. They are part of the collection that I am frantically making for my up-coming venue at North Country Fair, June 20-22.

I am also teaching an intermediate weaving course starrting May 6 that I'm trying to prepare for as well as study for my Doula Course that I am taking May 2-4. Then there is the Rocky Studio Tour July 19-21 and my little log cabin studio is such a disaster right now cause I am shuffling looms around while trying to prime the walls for painting. Not to mention the house, no I' won't even mention the house. Then, I'm looking forward to acquiring my new angora doe who is being bred for me and will be ready the end of June. I may also be getting some more llamas (more llama! what are you thinking!) they are of a good breed stock and my herd could really use some improving. Oh yeah, and my dairy goats will be kidding sometime in June too and I need to give my 2 llamas hair cuts to get rid of the nasty surface fibres before shearing next month.

I know, I'm babbling on and on but it's just me ranting I guess. Did I mention that we are also now WWOOF hosts and would love to have people come and stay and work with us. David will be gone to Lac LaBiche for May and June so really, I need all the help I can get, maybe I already mentioned that.

Just remember, all this is coming from someone who swore they would never become a workaholic. I just enjoy new challenges thats all. Remember the nasty hen-pecked chickens from a couple blogs ago, well they're finally laying! And they look great although they are still very flighty. I built new nesting boxes and started adding Diatomaceous Earth to the water and feed. If you've never heard of this stuff it is defenitely worth looking into. I have started drinking it myself as it is very high in silica (good for hair, skin and bones) as well as many other minerals Now all my animals get a bit in their daily rations and it should keep the flies from breeding in the manure too! It's a natural insect repellant and the best part is, you can buy 25kg for only $30. I don't know why people aren't raving a bit more about this stuff cause from the research I've done, it's pretty incredible. Try googling Diatomaceous Earth, DE, health, animals, insects, properties, you'll find a whole whack of stuff.

This year I've also decided to try Lunar Living in earnest. That means, planting, shearing, fasting, fencing, and all that stuff base on the astronomical positioning of the moon. I'm skeptical but interested so we'll see how it goes. Already I screwed up by planting my first batch of seeds in the BIG NO NO time of the lunar cycle when the moon was in aquarius. My next batch I'll plant with the moon in Cancer, Scorpio, or Pisces and see if my results are any different. These lunar times can be found in the farmers almanac or llewelyn's lunar calender or on this great website

Lunar Gardening

by the way, aren't you proud of me for figuring out how to post a link in my blog. I AM trying to learn all things...eventually!

Hot from the dye pot

I tried a new dye technique on cotton to see if I could duplicate on cotton what I did for my wool Kaleidoscope scarves. (you can see one here)

Kaleidoscope scarf

But the cotton didn't take up the dye like it thought it would so it's a little light, still useable though and I'm going to make a few different things with this warp, wall hanging, a variety of scarves, it's kinda fun to change plans midway, it challenges my creative forces. I like the earthyness of the colors though I was hoping for a brighter yellow.

I wanted to show off my beautiful boys in their handwoven vests that they wore to my brothers wedding. They didn't have any formal clothes and the wedding was just before christmas so it wasn't a great time to go shopping. Two days before the wedding inspiration hit and I whipped up these vests out of some old woven cloth I had lying around. I made bowties out of the cut out scraps and they were so precious! They certainly didn't inherit my camera-shyness. The little men can sure strike a pose!

Writers Block

Why is it so hard to write about myself, well, I mean, it's obviously not too hard cause then this blog wouldn't really exist, but honestly, I have to write a one page bio and I have tried and tried and tried and.... nothing. Give me a paragraph to write, easy, give me a novel to write, no prob, but one single page, aieieieieie. It's just NOT WORKING!!!!
AND I have to submit some photos, well, it feels like my life hangs in the balance of these photos. Why am I so stressed about this? What's with the huge block? I know, it's because it's something new and new things usually come with some degree of discomfort, but this is just silly. Come on! Just write the damn page already! But what should I talk about? My farm, my dreams, my inventory, my kids, my treehouse, my teaching, my car gages that don't work, my burnt bread (almost burnt the bloody house down today), my log cabin, my blue ceiling, my axe? Augh, the pain.

So faithful blog readers, help me out on this one. And what do youse think of these pictures. One of them will go into a brochure and it has to be the most eye-catching one.

So back to burning the house down, (David, maybe you shouldn't read this) I was happily making the most delicious breakfast bread that you could possibly imagine, including, but not limited to, bananas, eggs, flax seed, raisins, walnuts, cold-pressed olive oil, lemon juice, molasses, honey, and stone-ground flour. It kneaded up well, it rose beautifully, the loaves were perfectly shaped and I gave them just a liiiiittle extra time to rise (I'm usually too imatient for that) and they were thrown in the oven and promptly forgotten. Yep, I went outside, visited Grams, fed the animals, etc etc etc and 6 hours later came home to the smell of very burnt bread. Hard as bricks. Can you believe it, the goats still ate them. Yeah, hmmmm. So that was four loaves out the window, literally, and now I'm making one humble loaf so we have something to eat for breakfast tomorrow morning. aaaaah, brain! work already!

Ok now what the heck, my lights are flickering. The power was out for 2 hrs this morning, it was fun! I cooked the kids breakfast on the wood burning stove and we cleaned the house by the light of the gleaming dawn. I think we should have a power outage day once a week. No humming appliances, no tv, no internet, no music, no fans running, it was so peaceful, like heaven.

Faerie Fabric

Can you see the fairy? Ok, it's just me, but this fabric shows alot of promise and I'm excited about the possibilities. I'm going to make Fairie DNA by inserting wires into the weaving, then making a long cloth and twisting it into a double helix. I even have A-Ts and G-Cs embedded into the cloth (in a fibrey sort of way). After all, everything on the planet uses the same letters for their DNA, even fairies (dontcha know?)

I'd also like to make a fairy mobile (you know, the kind that hang in a window) and have a few of them ready for the studio tour that I'm getting pretty excited about. I will soon be on this webpage so look for Solstice Studios here!

http://www.rockystudiotour.com/

I got alot of my fairy inspiration from this site, which I love and visit often when I'm feeling too human

http://www.fairywoodland.com/

I have also just become Stumbled Upon, which is kinda a fun way to find friends, sites, etc. Here I am

http://solsticestudios.stumbleupon.com/

Don't forget to take a couple peeks at my Etsy store over there in the sidebar. I just got all my photos on line, the beautiful and professional photography is all thanks to Tribal Treats Photography (aka hubby). XOXO

http://www.tribaltreats.com/

It's alot of links, I know, my excuse is that it's marketing tuesday, as well as blog tuesday. Which also explains why I'm not out in my studio finishing the alpaca vests that are almost done! Good lordie, the spring winds are just whistling through my mostly finished walls. I need to put some fingerless mitts on. I might also mention, while I'm waiting for my photo to upload, that I just bought some of the nastiest, most hen-pecked chickens that you ever did see. They were cheap and were supposed to be companions for my lonely little hen, Chuckles, but so far, they just stink to high heaven and haven't laid a single egg. Just a tip, finding chickens through the classifieds is not a good way to go, and *sigh* you really do get what you pay for.