Fabric Dragon - not dead...srsly
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not dead...srsly
i know i have been off line, but i am NOT dead....if i was dead several people would have to dig me up just to yell at me, so i can't die right now.
i FINALLY made it back down to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) keastree for a few days. we didnt get everything done we had "on the table" but we did get a lot done. mostly we drum carded the endless Romney fleece.... well... most of it. i left my drum carder at kea's so the family could use it...
The main thing we did was drum card. a LOT of drum carding. i had already agreed to bring my drum carder down and leave it a while.. as i dont have much more time prior to pennsic to do any carding.. so why shouldn't she and her kids use it?
kea has a fine toothed carder, very nice. it works beautifully on things like Mohair (ask her about the ... ummmmm.. "unusual" combination of fibers she was carding together... we all liked it, but most spinners would call us sick fcks..) and mine is a medium tooth.. which works better on detangling serious tangles, and handling Jacob, and etc that i usually work on.
the Louet medium tooth turns out to be the best one for the Romney fleece..
about the Roney fleece.. you see, Kea helped someone sheer the "romney the size of a mid sized car" (apparently really huge, very nice, matted, Ram.....) and in gratitude the owner of the Ram gave the sheering lady a fleece from (as far as i can tell) his sister, the Smartcar Romney.. and the shering lady gave it to kea for helping her sheer the Toyota Ram....
nice fleece.... but.. but..omg huge.
so it being unsuited to kea's fine tooth drum carder, and she being busy with the "experiment" drum carding.. i was drum carding the Romney. i had help, her kids are great, (although being kids, they have attention span issues.. and that is the pot calling the kettle black, yes)
anyway, as usual, when you drum card something a LOT you either fall in love or hate with it.. i fell in love. i dont even LIKE romney fleece usually, but this was a gorgeous grey fleece that drum carded up like a dream.... so...
as it happened in the great boot try on, i had discovered that my "good boots" (cowboy style, solid black) didnt even come close to fitting me. and i THOUGHT my combat boots were a bit snug... they were. so i gave the cowboy boots to kea, and the combat boots to her daughter (whose boots were having issues) and kea let me take home the Romney i had carded up to that point. which turns out to be 52 mumble ounces of finished carded, ready to spin romney... i have visions of sweaters and shawls.....
and we were not done
i figure about 1/4 or maybe 1/3 is left to card (kea is keeping that)
big sheep they have out that way....
we were also laying out, picking and washing sheep from the farm where Nicky, the "Skywarn sheep" lives, we had Nicky's fleece, the fleece of a big girl named Moth, and .. well.. if anyone tells you that they have "enough fleece" i have a new benchmark.. keastree. Kea has "enough fleece" ....no one else does unless they own a flock. we were laying them out, picking them over for vegetable and other matter, and then washing them. i have now seen "assembly line fleece processing" in action.. its impressive. if kea can keep this up she will have a literal TON of ready to card fleece in short order.
i took one unwashed fleece home.... the sheep is named Fern, i forget what her ancestry is, and i met this fleece "on the hoof" last visit and said i wanted some.. so now i have to set up to pick, wash and etc this fleece.
there was a fleece that i was supposed to bring home, and it got left at keas.. and that is a whole separate sheep saga.
we also got a bit of other stuff done, made a couple earrings, shopped, ate too much, didn't get any time on the treadmill (but walking around a farm must count as some exercise, right?) and proved that the camelback (water reservoir in a backpack) that my hubby bought me was a GREAT idea..
i ALMOST got heat exhaustion again, but my "working plan when feeling warm and sick" proved to work....
it was just as i was leaving kea's house, and had to rummage around in the car trunk... after standing out in the sun sans hat (it was already in the car) trying to get the trunk issues dealt with, i realized i was feeling feverish, and sort of dizzy....... uh oh... this is the same short amount of time i was out in the sun and heat (at the same end of the car) last time i went down......
so i got into shade
now, at home, when i had this happen the last time... i just went in to shade and had a glass of water, figured i would be fine.. right? then fifteen minutes later as my temperature went UP, not down, i fell over and had to sit in a cool tub for two hours... and etc.
so THIS time i went into shade... i had one of the kids go get me a glass of ice water, while i pulled my t shirt up to the bottom of the sports bra, dropped the pants to "low rider" position, and pushed the legs up to above my socks..... exposing most of the skin i could without stripping...... then dropped ice into various parts of the bra, rubbed the back and front of my neck and my armpits with ice, drank half a glass of ice water and dumped the rest on my head..... (ow, cold) kea said i wasnt feeling that hot to the touch.. (yup, but last time ...)
sure enough the aggressive response knocked the temp down enough that a ride home in the air conditioned car pretty much took me back down to "normal"
so aggressive "over reaction" on first noticing symptoms, while embarrassing, seems to work. and it saved keastree the trouble of having to kill me for falling over of heat exhaustion at her house.......
Current Location: home, not dead
Current Music: all you zombies (in my head)
Tags: fleece, heat exhaustion, nicky, not dead yet, romney, sheep, skywarn, spinning, wool
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Fern is...wait for it...a Registered Romney. So, I assume that the Romney Marsh Sheep is now invading your psyche.
And I am dead. damned. PROUD. of that Katadhin-Mohair blend. Thanks!
I figured out where that matted crud on Blake's fleeces was. His butt. The stains match up. I recommend segregation from the main body of the washing on that one.
And Blake is muchly improved, perky, and even happy. Took him on a long walk in the orchard today.
And finally, everyone should become Nicky's fan on Facebook. He's the coolest ram evah, and I had the privilege of sitting on the hill in the shade with him today. We polished off a pound of strawberries together(because Nicky is cool enough to eat strawberries).
i am glad he is better!
if, and yes i mean IF, you get to washing him..... (like you run out of other fleece to do lol) then by all means segregate or trash whatever you see fit....
whenever i can pick him up i will segregate that section, assuming i dont just toss it as too much trouble.
and apparently these romneys are much nicer than the romney i was buying a few years ago. because that stuff scked.
i want to see how that blend spins up, you know....
nicky is better i see.. up to mooching strawberries.
Nicky is actually the mooch of mooches. Always has been.  Strawberries excited him almost as much as the yogurt did. Weird, wunnaful wam dat he iz!
HAve any interest in working Alpaca? I know where you can get full blankets for dead cheap...
i loves me some alpaca.... good alpca is wonderful. heck even bad alpaca isnt bad.
i was getting a lot from evil Abra, who sells beads at Pennsic, but she is culling her herd...
I'm glad you're feeling better.
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/38765883/2190878) | | From: | miri_me |
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| Date: | July 11th, 2009 09:06 am (UTC) |
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Reading about your 'to not die of hot' treatment left me shivering hard! But then, I'm not good at getting or retaining heat, so Kit's laughed at me a few times recently as the sun's gone down and we went from muggy 25-28 degree C days to 17-20 degree C nights and I've described the night as cold, and had the icy feet to back up the statement..! (Then tucked me up and cuddled me, and let me warm my feet up on his legs - it was confused and surprised laughter, not the mean kind...)
well if it had been cold out, that treatment would have sent me into hypothermia, and flared my Reynauds.. but it was hot out...
and i can treat "shivering and bad circulation" in a warm day by running or walking around a lot, or not running the AC in the car, but the overheating will drop me.
i did sort of shriek at the water over the head
sounds like a lovely day. You know, you could use GSE in the water as you wash for the icky parts....I went and got one of those kiddie pools for the first pick through...hot water in the sun with dawn...and then transfer to the washer (no agitation) once done. It worked well, better than I thought...I still have 28 of the 30 pounds of fleece uncarded. I hand carded two pounds and spun it up...very coarse...it's Icelandic. I have some corridale and some llama to spin up too. Lots of work for the winter coming up.
Grape seed Extract?
where do you get it......?
yes, i considered the kiddie pool, but i have limited flat space. so i thought the way Kea did it would work well with my yard (postage stamp sized and uneven) namely after picking the fleece for debris, divide it into mesh bags (laundry bags) and soak in 18 gallon or so tubs...
oddly kea has the room for a kiddie pool i bet.....
that was the way i was told to wash antique (fragile) quilts... orvis paste in a kiddie pool.... lay the quilt on a bed sheet bigger than it is, and lower it into the water, soak, then let water run in one end from a hose and let it sploosh out until the water runs clear. a lot.. no agitation, no moving the quilt
Glad you made it back in one piece. Also glad to have (finally) met you in person. Don't be a stranger. -yew
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/90928435/11773444) | | From: | wandrinyew |
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| Date: | July 12th, 2009 01:50 am (UTC) |
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I've seen it on soapmaking supply sites.
this is always something to be glad of....
likewise
certainly not!
see you again soonish, but i likely wont be able to make much time until after Pennsic.
Odd question;
Does taking ibuprophen/asprin/tylenol help if you take it right away? Having dealt with a few illnesses with my kid, that's what I reach for first when he gets a fever. It generally brings the temp right down, but it can rise again when the 4 hour dose has expired.
And of course, in my household, Gatorade is considered a medicinal.
hmmmmmm. good question. you see they dont, afaik, reduce "temperature" but fever... and i am not sure if the overheating because my thermostat is broken would have the same mechanism... it might be worth a try....
the one issue with that is that usually (not this last time) by the time i get to "treatment" i am nauseous, and having trouble keeping plain liquids down.
so not sure if putting a pill down me would be good.... but i will have to consider it.
Gatorade is a medicinal.... btw... got my hands on the organic/non high fructose corn syrup version from whole foods... its very good |
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