Who wouldn’t wake up in the morning and think of spring cleaning after looking out her door at this?

Snow on March 16, 2015

Believe it or not it is starting to melt. Yesterday about another half inch of snow fell around here. I hear people saying that since we have had so much snow this winter they hope we get a little more so we can beat the past highest snowfall record. Snow began to fall yesterday as we were exploring the Mattapoisett/Marion MA towns which are on Buzzards Bay. It started as we came across this 40 foot tall seahorse.

40 foot tall seahorse in Mattapoisett MA

I love roadside attractions, the hokier the better!

But despite the snow my mind knows it is the middle of March and wants me to spring clean anyway. As usual I have made a much too long to do list for the day- vacuum the car, tidy up not only the hen house but also around it, and more fun, go order some quartz countertops to replace the laminate chipped ones. But of course there are fiber tasks too and I never mind doing them:

1) Continue weeding out fiber files. I have a file cabinet drawer full of fiber information and have been trying to be strict with myself and recycle the items I can find on the internet. I like the feeling that only the most crucial remain and will be used, and won’t just sit there blended in with unnecessary paper clutter. Since I love to weigh fiber so I know what I have, I decided to weigh the papers I am getting rid of and so far have weeded out 8.5 pounds of paper including the file folders. I’m not done yet!

2) Get these fibers ready to take to Sage Yarn in Falmouth MA.

Yarn, Batts, Rolags and Locks

We lived there for two years and now are 45 minutes away so can visit easily. Jen still sells my items there. It is a beautiful store and well worth the visit!
Which brings me to my Gulf Coast sheep of the month activities. Last week I had pictures of the fleece of Henna the sheep both natural color and dyed. Here is Henna on combs:

Very sharp dangerous looking things, and indeed there is a story that a bishop named Blaise in Armenia in 316 performed miracles and was attacked with wool combs and then beheaded because he would not renounce his faith. He was made a saint, Saint Blaise. What a horrible way to get sainthood!

Here is Henna combed.

Here is the rest of  fiber after combing.  It is called “waste” because it is not good spinning material. The fibers combed out are very short and any vegetation in the original fiber has come out here. I don’t like to waste anything anywhere so I save it for stuffing the pillows I weave, felt for cat toys, and more.

I will blend Henna with something not yet decided and make a lovely one ounce batt.

Here is my last Gulf Coast fiber, a washed pound of Fernando. I have used parts of his fiber for other things and now plan to put the rest through the picker when it visits at the end of the month. Wool combs look benign compared to the picker. You will see!

Fernando

I don’t remember how much I had initially. If I did it wouldn’t sound like much compared to a whole fleece which before washed can weigh 3 to 8 pounds and much more. My spinning friends and I  buy fleeces together at fiber festivals and then split them up. Choosing together and sharing are fun. It gets each of us more variety of fiber, and relieves some guilt over buying more which we don’t need but can’t live without.

So, off to spring clean. Who cares if it still looks like winter? It feels right and that is what counts. I will also day dream of gardens lying under the snow. In Mid-January when we had no snow my friend Sandy and I started to plan co-operative gardening. We now live an hour apart so it won’t be a shared plot but we will help each other with the spring tasks of getting them up and running. I got my Fedco seed catalogue and started a list, and then the snow began. I’ll put reading it today on my to do list!