Be Careful What You Ask for..

     We had a quiet house last week with Rachel and her children down in Oregon for spring break. I had commented to Linda that I missed having Lance play with my spinning wheel. It seemed kind of sad that when I came home from work the wheel was always exactly how I had left it. Rachel and the kids finally got home on Friday night. Lance started making up for lost time the following day.  I had been spinning a lot on Saturday while I listened to two General Conference sessions.  As a result I had a lot of one ply wool on the bobbins when I left with my son-in-law to go the Priesthood session on Saturday evening. When I came home it was obvious that Lance had spent some quality time with my spinning wheel.  He had successfully transferred some of the one ply yarn into four little balls of yarn using my ball winder. (Pretty impressive for a four year old). He was less successful in plying two single strands into two ply yarn with the spinning wheel. It took me about a half hour to undo the rats nest from the flyer. I was actually quite impressed that he had paid enough attention to attempt to duplicate the specific activities he had seen me do. I consider the rat's nest a small price to pay for Lance's avid interest in my hobby. I should have taken a picture of the aftermath, but thoughtlessly staightened out the mess before I realized I had missed an opportunity.

    I really don't mind the grandchildren playing with the spinning wheel. There really isn't much they can do to damage the spinning wheel as long as they don't take a hammer or a hatchet to it. Usually I just have to put the belt back in place and every once in a while I lose a little bit of yarn or carded fiber. I love the fact that they're interested in the spinning wheel. I would hate for them to have memories of me being grumpy about it.

    I'm currently spinning some dark brown shetland wool that was a gift from a student in one of my bee classes. It is relatively soft and I suspect it will make good socks, hats, and mittens which is mostly what I knit. So far I've been given two fleeces by bee class students and three others by a member of our bee club. Between those fleeces and the goats I'm pretty well supplied with fiber to spin. Linda has been pretty patient so far with the four bags of carded wool currently in the loft.

     We are only a week away from package bee week.  I got some help today from several friends today as we're trying to get the trailer in shape for the trip.  Quinten Williams hauled the trailer to the bee store for me and Don Smith welded a new hinge onto one of the doors.  It's an exciting time, but I'm feeling a bit of stress.  The store has been really busy the past two months as we are continuing to do better each year than the year before. I pray for the success of our business and then stuggle to deal with the resultant growing pains.