HERE ARE A SOME PICTURES WE HAVE TAKEN IN THE LAST FEW DAYS!!!!!!!!

THE SURPRISE ITEM REVEALED IN THE FIRST PICTURE!!!! Yes, that's me spinning on a SPINNING WHEEL! Remember all the hints?? They are in fairy tales...some assembly required....Rumplestiltskin, Sleeping Beauty...etc., etc.

The spinning wheel is the item that lay in pieces until yesterday. We were oiling it and preparing it for assembly. I have wanted to learn to spin for years. I tried a drop spindle first, to no avail. Finally last year at the county fair, some ladies from the spinning and weaving guild were kind enough to show me how to spin allowing me to borrow their wheels for the day. My friend that owns Handweaver's knitting shop in Kalamazoo became a dealer and I bought this Ashford Traveler from her just recently. I went to Handweaver's yesterday for my first lesson! This was so exciting! I didn't produce quality yarn at first, but am improving after just two days. Today I attended the weekly meeting of the Weft and Wooly Spinners and Weaver's guild here in my county and one of my friends there helped me some more. By the time I left the meeting, I was really getting the hang of it. I made a few adjustments to the wheel as far as tension goes and things just started falling into place. The wool roving I am working on is a natural undyed wool from a brown Corriedale sheep. It's lovely. One of the ladies took this picture of me. My alpaca shawl made of hand spun, undyed alpaca is hanging on the back of the chair. I hope you were surprised by the surprise item!

The next picture was taken in our hayfield on Tuesday. Clint and I had been gone for the day and on our way home we were saying we ought to hurry and get a family picture done for Christmas. We were discussing how it would be nice to have the round bales done up to stand against. Got home and the farmer had baled the back acreage that afternoon! A quick call to him secured us one bale to pose by! He kindly left it for us until evening. We got this picture just before darkness closed in. He was there waiting for the one last bale while we were doing the photo shoot! I suppose he thought we were just a little weird with a chair dragged way out there and me holding flowers! It's the 70's coming out in me! I never was a hippie, I just remember seeing them around! We will put this picture on our Christmas cards this year, most likely!

I want to explain about the blog set-up here. Rhiannon tried to help me arrange the pics differently and for some reason we are not getting the various arrangements we wanted. We couldn't make the computer cooperate. So excuse the blocky format.

I've been thining alot lately about various things of a more spiritual nature that I want to write about in the next few days. Stay tuned tomorrow for more of those thoughts. Just wanted to get the surprise item revealed and also let you see the beautiful fall colors we are currently enjoying in our area. Today as I was driving I see the colors have just "popped" out in the last day or so. Very beautiful. Reminds me of God's great intricate love for beauty and His creation. Blessings, LORI