I picked up some dye today and some very cheap white wool roving to try my hand at dyeing it. I am trying to decide whether I should buy more roving to justify mixing up 2-3 colors of dye or buy one of those big bags of T shirts that they sell as rags at the thrift stores. I don't know why they don't sell them, but often the T shirts are perfectly good and usable as shirts. There are generally a lot of basic white T shirts, so I go through the bag, pull out the white shirts and the ones we can wear and use the remaining shirts as rags. Then we can tie dye the white T shirts.

I have connected with a couple of other ladies who like handspinning and fiber arts. There are several groups for spinning/fiber arts in this area! I am looking forward to going to the next meeting. :-)

And....I've been neglecting the clay, which is about as far away from wool as you can get. I do have a couple of ideas I'd like to try out, and should check on my angler fish...it should be fired by now.

And I haven't painted for weeks. I don't know why. I have not painted anything since starting work. I hate to sound this way, but it's true: working surrounded by people sucks the creativity and energy right out of me. I love having a job but I hate feeling dulled. So...maybe I should be moving in a different direction than I was planning on. Sigh. I know what I want to do. I want to farm, not in the sense people think of, not raising corn or wheat or dairy products.... But having an organic apple orchard and raising sheep under the trees and angora goats somewhere FAR away from the trees and maybe a few select annual crops is still farming. I don't know how much it costs to feed a sheep over the winter or for a year compared to a dairy goat, but dairy goats eat a lot of grain. Fiber animals do not need much grain and they can graze from spring through fall, unlike dairy goats who ideally should have alfalfa hay available to eat year round in addition to pasture and grain. I need to get a realistic idea of how much it will cost to keep a sheep for a year, how much the meat, pelt and wool from her lamb would bring in, and how much from her own wool. Free range lamb is even more expensive than the conventionally grown type.

But....I get no health insurance working for myself, farming, even if I could find land to lease. And health insurance is pretty important. :-/