Louisiana Bullfrog

Here is a picture of the bullfrog. They are very loud at night. Very beautiful anytime. The kayak just drifted toward this one until it was just a few feet away.

Alligators in Cross Lake

When my daughter visited from Michigan in May she was asking if we ever saw alligators during the day. We said No, just at night they will come up to the pier (dock for Michiganders). We sometimes see alligators about 4-5 feet long at night. We almost never see them when we go kayaking unless we are very quiet. They probably see us long before we see them. So we were sitting out in the backyard at the picnic table discussing why we never see them during the day when my daughter's friend, Jay said, well, there's an alligator right now. Sure enough, this one was about 10 feet long, in broad daylight. Had to grab the camera. It was a little unnerving when the gator turned around to look at us. It was a couple of hundred feet out. Then it calmly swam away. A few minutes later we could hear excited fishermen yelling from boats out in the bay. They had obviously sighted it, too. Yes, there are alligators in Cross Lake up on the north side. It was probably looking for a tasty turtle.

So, what did we do next? We jumped in kayaks and went looking to get a better picture. We did get some great pictures of birds, though - and of a beautiful Louisiana bullfrog.

Louisiana Spindling

I bought a beautiful hickory butterfly spindle from Wendy, who makes these gorgeous pieces of art. It spins beautifully. I am spinning some romney and alpaca that I mixed together. Of course, there is a bit of Louisiana in the background. This is my newest "portable" spinning wheel.

Here is a leatherback turtle that was laying eggs in our yard a couple of days ago. Don't know if she has been into my flowerbed but the crows were sure interested in her eggs as soon as she laid them. These turtles are as big as hubcaps out here. Very interesting. Lots of turtles on the move right now.

This is the turtle we caught eating my impatiens. We started picking the flower petals off his shell but then thought we would get a picture of the culprit with the evidence. Ha! Bad Turtle.

Turtles are eating my impatiens

I started out with a beautiful flower bed but the impatiens have been doing poorly at one side. The flowers have been disappearing from the stems and then the stems were being chopped off. I thought maybe there was a rabbit around although I haven't seen one this year. This "disease" has been slowly spreading from the south end to the north end. I couldn't find any evidence of insects. This is along the back side of my house so I thought it was odd. Now I could understand if there was a turtle living in the flower bed but we caught him red-handed, er, I mean, with impatien-breath. Ah ha!! Well, actually he was high-tailing across the lawn with impatien flowers all over his shell. I asked my daughter what she thought he was doing in the impatien bed. Well, that's obvious - eating them. Good grief - I guess he didn't care for the hostas, fatsias or sedum we had in there. Now what do I do to keep a turtle out aside from putting up a little fence which I think would be tacky. I like turtles, but I like impatiens too. We have had lots of turtles coming out of the lake to lay their eggs in our lawn. Another daughter took a picture of a leatherback turtle laying eggs in our lawn yesterday. A few minutes later, the crows were trying to get to the eggs. I thought all the holes I have been finding in the lawn were due to skunks trying to get at grubs. Life is different living on the lake.

This what the fleece looked like before I washed it. It was a beautiful silver and taupe. It makes a beautiful heathered yarn.
Lizzy's fleece before washing

This is a skein of yarn from each of 2 different Romney fleeces I am working on. They are both heathered yarns. The fleeces are from cmwools in Oregon. They are very soft.
Yarn from Frosty and Lizzy

When my kids were little I gave them a "sitandspin". Nowadays when someone spins they usually mean a form of exercise having something to do with a contraption that looks like a bike going nowhere. This is my favorite place to sit and spin. Times change - or maybe they are reverting back to the "olden days". It is strangely comforting to realize that my great great grandmothers probably spun their own wool, and their mothers before them and their mothers before them. Wish I could get a sheep or two now but no "farm animals" allowed in our subdivision. My daughter says tell the neighbors it's one of those fancy new dog breeds. 

Look at the beautiful color and luster in this wool. It has such a nice feel to it, too. I'm not sure what to make with it. I have one more skein of this to ply. Not enough for an adult sweater but maybe a shawl or a scarf and mittens.  

This was the beautiful romney-mohair mix that I bought off ebay from cm wools. They have such beautiful fibers. It looks so pretty sitting there on my mazurka. 

I was trying to take a picture of my beautiful romney-mohair mix when MacGyver decided to claim it as his own.  

Romney-Mohair mix

Here is the newest yarn I have been working on. It is SO pretty. I'm sure the raw materials have a lot to do with how this turned out. This Romney-Mohair mix came from cmwools in Oregon. It was beautifully colored, soft and has lots of luster. I have to buy more as I just finished this bump. Every skein looks better than the one before. I think I am getting the hang of this. Sure wish there was a spinning guild around here. I think the closest one is about one and a half hours away in Texas. It's supposed to rain for the next couple of days so I guess I will be getting more spinning done. I bought a couple of rose "trees" to plant. I will have to take pictures of those as soon as I get them planted. I didn't plant a garden last year (our first summer in this house) because I was too busy with other things and when you can look out and count 20 squirrels in your yard at one time (I know - I have too many bird feeders) I figured the garden would be for them. Hmmm, wonder what I can plant that squirrels won't like. Maybe I need to get a dog.

My third yarn. Spinning is fun. This from some alpaca roving I bought. This alpaca is SO soft. I just ordered some more. Not sure what I will do with it yet. It is supposed to be too warm for a sweater. Maybe scarf or hat. Maybe mittens.

Two skeins of my second yarn. This came out really nice. I think this was from some Copper Moose roving that I got. Still just a tad bigger than I want - almost a bulky yarn. Practice, practice, practice. 

My first yarn. It turned out way bulkier than I wanted. Made out of corriedale. 

Blogging

Starting my own blog. How cool is that? It has been raining here all day in Louisiana. I suppose that's better than snow. We are supposed to get a cooldown within two days. I love this time of the year. I was worried that when we moved to Louisiana we wouldn't have the leaves changing colors the way they did in Michigan. I love fall colors. Louisiana is every bit as colorful as Michigan - we just don't get the snow very often. That's okay. I can do with just a couple of weeks of cold weather and the chance to plant flowers for the winter. I have to get busy and get my winter flowers in the ground during this next week or two.