Wednesday, July 02, 2025

Wheel woes





Since I just went to a fiber festival, you might be thinking spinning wheel. While I do have one, it's been years since my Louet S10 has seen any action; my Jenkins Turkish spindles are the yarn producers around here. (And yes, I got another one at Black Sheep Gathering, the one that completed my collection.😉) No, our wheel woes are much more troublesome, and expensive....

Rick's current vet truck has been a lemon – trying, it seems, to live up the Ford acronym taunt "Fix Or Repair Daily." He has been pondering a replacement, but late model pickups big enough to handle his vet box, extra equipment, and mileage are obscenely expensive, so he keeps patching his 2002 Ford F350 back together. Early last week another major problem presented itself, putting it up on blocks, so to speak. Fortunately our old '94 Ford keeps on truckin', so he makes do with that when his vet truck is sidelined once again. At least the shop is finally to a useful/useable stage:

Last Wednesday evening on our way to agility my car dramatically lost power. In order to prevent further damage, I had it towed to the nearest VW dealership, in Salem. The diagnosis was grim; the repair would cost more than the car is worth. So we hauled it home where it sits, awaiting its fate (still undecided):

Between the fleeces delivered to buyers at BSG and the two shipping out tomorrow, almost half my clip has been sold. Now to skirt and advertise the last eight.

Yesterday Rick was given four tickets for tonight to the St. Paul Rodeo. We haven't been to it in years, and I can't say I'm looking forward to it, except for the fireworks at the end. The risk to man and beast is real, and I sit in dread of something bad happening, especially to the animals (I figure the human participants go in willingly with eyes wide open; animals don't get a choice.)  This is not a hypothetical fear; Rick and I saw a bucking bronc break its leg in the middle of the run, then get shuffled off to the stock pens to wait until Rick went and demanded humane measures be taken. My parents witnessed Lane Frost get gored to death at the Cheyenne Frontier Days rodeo. Praying there are no accidents of any kind tonight....

To end on a more hopeful note, our garden is still going great guns (but for the beets and carrots). The snowpeas and bush beans have started to bloom. I've harvested three cucumbers so far; soon we will be enjoying tomatoes, sweet peppers and eggplant, too.




Inside, my littlest orchid is budding out (again!) as my African violet blooms fade:

And last night's sunset was a lovely one!



That's it for now from . . .