Let the Woodstove Season Begin!

We have arrived once again at that time of the year when we stock up the wood pile and enjoy the warmth of the wood stove! Yesterday was spent dragging down wood off the hillside out into the field where I can cut it without doing my mountain goat impersonation! While we managed to haul in enough wood for several weeks, it wasn't without "incident". I did manage to get hit in the face and broke my glasses, stabbed myself in the gut with a tree limb, and twist and hit my knee which is now black and blue. (Guess it's a good thing I enjoy cutting wood!) Besides stacking in a pretty good store of firewood, I also managed to set aside a pretty good pile of nice spalted oak and dogwood that I will use in the wood shop. All in all it was a good day but I do have to admit that the pain today is more than I expected. I guess manual labor on the weekends is rather rough after standing at a printing press all week.

After getting cleaned up and having supper, we spent the evening watching a new DVD from Interweave Press that I bought called "How I Spin" by Rita Buchanan. Susie and I had the pleasure of taking a class with her several years ago at SAFF and I for one was rather intimidated and in awe of her, although she appeared to be a very down to earth person. (Part of that was probably being "male" in what tends to be a primarily female craft) I think the thing that interested me the most in her DVD presentation on her approach to spinning is how alike her technique and Susie's are. Neither of us realized that, since during the class, she didn't really do much actual spinning. I was also interested to find that Rita has only been spinning a few years longer than Susie has! (And her studio is the stuff dreams are made of!)

Tonight's feature on the DVD player is another set I recently purchased called "Spinning Luxury Fibers" by Judith MacKenzie.......stay tuned for an update on it as well!