There are no big happenings to report here, but a number of little things are happening.

In regards the garden, we have harvested the first picking of mint. The tea is brewing. This is just a few tips in a batch of ice tea. We expect just a little hint of mint flavor, but it is the first of many mint-tinged ice teas for the summer. It also means I have grown and consumed items in my own garden in Wisconsin, Washington, California, Oregon, and now Alabama.

The calico creme roving has been plied:

As is obvious, this is still on the bobbin, but I’ll probably make a skein this afternoon.

Pam’s plant continues to recover from the harsh treatment during the move:

This new growth gives us real hope for eventual recovery.

Askimet has been implemented on this blog. Hopefully this will end my frustration with comment spammers. The two URLs responsible for the bulk of the comment spam are currently banned from the blog and they will remain banned for another week or so. Hopefully, the owners will get the message. I plan to continue moderating first posts. My dreams and visions for this blog and website are along the lines of spinning, alpacas, gardening, fiber arts, and occasional social commentary. I long for intelligent communication and comments. Link farms for cheap viagra, sex services, imitation rolexes, and penny stock scams simply don’t fit my definition of intelligent communication.

I cannot express my disappointment with comment spam. I came home one evening after a trying day at work to find twenty five new comments. Excited at the prospect of my blog having been “discovered” and ready to respond to my new commentators, I hurriedly sat at my computer to moderate posts. I discovered a disgusting array of link-farm spam advertising assorted shady businesses and not a single “real” comment. My disappointment was astounding.

Askimet, I have great hopes. Don’t let me down. Maybe now, when I see a comment, it will be real.

In addition to Askimet, we are looking at various other changes to the blog. If the blog comes up scrambled one day, please be patient with us. We will get it fixed eventually.

In just a few days, you can see the changes in our garden.

If you compare to the pictures in the first garden post, you will note the tomato has added several leaves.

And the mint:

Is growing vigorously and spreading to fill the pot. In just a few days, we’ll be able to pinch a few mint leaves for our ice tea.

You can take the boy off the farm, but you can’t take the farm out of the boy.

Even though we are currently living in an apartment, we decided to have a garden. Of necessity, it is a small container garden on the deck. The pots are salvaged from planting crepe myrtles at my in-laws’ a few weeks ago. They’re not much to look at, but the price is right and they’ll work just fine.

I planted our garden this morning.

Yup. That’s the garden. Two pots.

We decided on a tomato plant because, well, there is this old saying about love and home grown tomatoes.

And, we planted mint because this is the south. People in the south drink ice tea. We love mint in our iced tea. We planted peppermint because that’s what we found. When and if we find a good spearmint, we might add a third pot to our garden.

The mint was a little straggly, so I spread the spindly stems out and buried them. Mint grows this way naturally, so I figured I’d just give the plant a little head start. I tried to pick a variety of tomato that doesn’t get too tall because I’m not sure how to hold it up. I think I can fit the small-size tomato cage in the pot with this plant, but I’m not sure I want to.

I keep checking on the plants. They’ve been potted for half a day now, and haven’t grown a single new leaf yet.

Here is 2.4 ounces of “Calico Creme", a blend of 100% natural colored huacaya alpaca, converted to handspun singles.

It was fun!

I’ve got more of this blend somewhere. I need to dig it out and make some more singles with it. This yarn ranges from slightly overspun to really overspun – it needs to be plied. I was a little out of practice and happy to be spinning – and my happy feet really turned that wheel at times.

I’ve got alpaca fiber. I’ve got a spinning wheel. I’ve got handspun. Life is good.

This houseplant is one we call, “Pam’s College Plant". It has been with Pam for many years, through at least four interstate and two cross-country moves. It survived an ant invasion disaster in Monterey and cooking in the car on the way to Oregon. Of all the houseplants we had in Oregon, this is the only plant we chose to move to Huntsville. (Back to Huntsville from the plant’s perspective.)

Note that the plant doesn’t look good at all. This is a tender houseplant. It was bundled into our van in cold weather, then left in the van for the move which didn’t go according to plan. Pam was delayed a day getting out of Roseburg – the plant spent the 20 degree night in the van. Once she was on the road, Pam chased snow and cold across the country, and the poor tender houseplant spent several more sub-freezing nights in the van. On arrival in Huntsville, the plant spent time in the bright sun in the dark van – cooking once again.

Oh, and I should mention, that’s a big flower pot. When the potting soil is wet, the plant is very heavy. In order to lift the plant into the van, Pam allowed it to dry out ahead of the move. Poor plant went through this entire ordeal way too dry.

We thought we’d lost Pam’s plant. We were about to throw it away.

But look, down there at the base of the picture is a little green bump.

Here it is up close. A living bud.

Pam’s plant is not a casualty of the move.

Sorry, no pictures due to downpours and camera-unfriendly weather.

We drove – through some truly miserable downpours – to two alpaca farms in Tennessee to visit our babies today. We saw all nine and they’re all doing quite well. Cailin was obviously energetic and in high spirits – and not at all in the mood to be handled by two-leggers. We got up close and personal with all the others. They’re all doing well.

Georgia, Ipo, and little Emma have another new home. We met their new owners and saw their new home. It’s a good place with lots of grass – they’ll be happy.

We were happy to see our babies – those that have sold and those that are still ours. I miss our alpacas, but not taking care of them. It’s really nice to go visit and see how they’re all doing well.

We got a new digital camera yesterday. I’m excited – and easily amused. After work today, I went out and took some pictures.

I took this picture of a cardinal in a tree.

I could take a shot like that with my old camera. With luck, I’d see a red spot in a green tree. However, if I zoom and crop this very same picture, I get this reasonable picture of a cardinal.

If I’d zoomed with the old camera, you’d see pixels.

I also got this picture – it’s not great, but it is interesting.

Cardinals are one of my childhood birds, but they’re not present in the Pacific Northwest. We saw over 75 species of birds on or from our property in Oregon, but no Cardinals. We’ve been seeing them for a couple of weeks around the apartment complex which is a real treat. It’s probably been 20 years since I’ve seen a cardinal – or at least 20 years since I took the time to notice one.

[My apologies, but I have had to block comments on this entry again due to severe comment spam. If you can read this, I know you’re legitimate, so please post your comments on another entry.]

Our four male alpacas – our special boys and the first four alpacas born on our ranch – have moved to Ranch of the Oaks in California. Tom and Mette have a fiber farm and mini mill and we know they’ll love the fiber from our boys. In fact, I think Mette has been drooling over Sindre’s fiber since she first met him.

Tom and Mette are processing some of the alpaca fiber that had collected prior to the move. Some of the fiber will be processed to yarn. Others to rovings. Since I’ve never worked with a mini-mill before, I gave Tom and Mette room to make what they felt was the best product from the fiber. Oh, I gave some instructions and lots of suggestions – probably more than they wanted or needed. I asked to have some fleeces carded so I could spin them and I asked that some of the less soft yarn be made into something like my deconstructed sock yarn so I could someday knit my own work socks from my own alpaca fiber. It should be really interesting to see what Tom and Mette come up with.

Progress. See!

I’m not spinning in large blocks, but I am finding time to spin. You can see the progress on the bobbin.

I’m enjoying spinning. I like the progress. I’m starting to feel like I can almost justify the name of my blog again.