Awesome graphic on food subsidies

Yowza. Now you know why I bitch about the meat/milk lobbies all the time. Get involved, folks.

Getting good at this

When my spindle was full and I had to wind off one cop of singles the other day, I weighed my bag of wool top (I didn't weigh it before I started, but I trust the shopkeeper to sell me very close to what I asked for -- and if there is a variation, it will be to the good). 3 oz., so I figured I had spun about an ounce. For the second cop of singles, I carefully weighed my top and made sure it was an ounce, since I wanted the cop sizes to match.

My spinning is regular enough that there was only about 9" difference in the two cops' lengths.

Oh. My. I am so proud.

Cheapskate lazy Kate

So I'm plying yarn, but after Friday's 4 1/2 hour plying extravaganza I did not want to do it halfassed or ... well, totally wrong ... again. (How do you do it wrong? All you have to do is assume a center pull ball will work ok for your singles if it is very very thin. Think sorting out a tangled jewelry box full of necklaces and angry scorpions after it has gone for a ride on the Gravitron. That's wrong.)

I don't have a Lazy Kate yet, but I admire the elegant simplicity of that tool. So I made myself a CheapsKate.

One dowel, a cardboard box, and two short lengths of PVC to act as spools made a dandy one. Mind you, it is untensioned and requires a lot of hands-on, but not the infinite suffering of Friday's marathon.

Witness the power of this fully operational CheapsKate.


'Course, it can be even simpler. While looking for a real Kate to link, I found a picture taken by someone even smarter:

Cry, little sister

Sad news. Corey Haim was found dead at only 38 years old.

For Pathy: some more jays

I didn't take this picture. But isn't he cute? Gray Jays show up in some of the places we go, but not tooooo close to home.

This fine fellow is, on the other hand, our very own California Scrub Jay. In our backyard. He's a cutie.


And here is one of the adorable Stellar's Jays that amused us last time we camped. Wait, no, time before last. He was at Big Sur and quite enjoyed the yolk from the seven million Easter eggs mom sent us camping with because it was Easter. Someone had to help us eat them.

Beauty! Springtime!

Scrubbles came and begged pointedly for suet whilst I was starting our lunch (boeuf bourginonne, oh yes), and I went and put some outside. He immediately came over to eat, loudly enching for his friend to join. When his friend arrived, both of them indulged in an orgy of croaks and creaks -- which are friendly sounds for blue jays.

(He fears me...)

(But will accept my offerings. Yum.)

While I had the sliding glass door open, I figured I would take a couple pictures of the goldfinches in the apricot tree, which is flowering beautifully. Yellow birds, pink flowers. Gorgeous. I got a couple of them, although they were shy of the camera beeps, and entirely missed the VERY yellow fellow except through the kitchen window screen.


Prettiest. Ever.


Blurriest. Ever. But also beautiful.

What I have failed UTTERLY to photograph are our two albino goldfinches, of whose presence I was totally unaware until today. Here's what they look like, images stolen from the web.

The partial albino looks a lot like this:


The seriously melanin-deprived "whitefinch" looks more like a white finch with a yellow blush and red eyes. I had a link, but I eated it. :)

Anyway, thought I'd share.

Ack!

Warren Ellis has horrified me with an image today.

Erm, that is all, really.

Edit: the link is broken for the moment -- leaving this here in case it resurrects. Think elderly clown, blood-red makeup caking up around his mouth, tufted clown hair, clown outfit, wrinkled neck, looking intently and... hungrily?... at you with wolf or owl eyes -- something without sclerae, very VERY yellow and inhuman.