Thekla McDaniels

Linen makes a very strong warp string.

I have woven rag rugs on cotton warp, but cotton fails much sooner than linen.

You can find linen warp (string) sold with other weaving supplies, whether on line or locally.  Weavers are very particular about fiber that goes into their projects.  It should not be any trouble at all to get all natural fiber.

I’m thinking about your rocks, Rebecca.  Would you be able to sell any?  Maybe after you built some artsy gabions?  Get some money for materials for another project?

Did Jay already suggest utilizing them in a structure?  A shed, a chicken house?  A root cellar?

Or work trade to get some more muscle moving your project forward?

Why is it important? Plenty of reasons, take your pick!

I have been obsessed with health and longevity since my mother died in her early 40s when I was a child. So for me, finding joy is key to bolstering my health. I wrote the post above at bedtime last night, and I spent some time on it, meaning I spent some time dwelling in joy and describing joy.

I slept very very well last night and I attribute that to the time I spent writing the post and contemplating personal joy.

I was a lifelong insomniac until the age of 72. I discovered yoga nidra and practiced it every night at bedtime and anytime I awoke during the night. After two years, I became a competent sleeper! YAY!  I don’t do yoga nidra anymore, but contemplating joy as I end my day brings me restorative deep sleep.

I have a lot of animals at my place… my chickens run to me when they see me coming, that’s joyful.  In the morning I open a part of the barn where there are some favorite nests and 2 or 3 chickens dash in!  I wonder if they have been standing with their legs crossed, desperate to lay their eggs, wondering what will they DO, where will they go, if I don’t show up soon and open thae door.

The guineas are part of the chicken flock, they shout deafeningly loud when any thing out of the ordinary occurs.  They behave like thugs, bullies, cowards.  I love them.  They’re as funny as the hens.  Just guineas being guineas.

I love to see the chickens being chickens- fulfilling their chicken natures, cats being perfectly cat, dogs being dogs, sheep being sheep.  

I love to see the mountains being mountains too.  I guess if I thought deeply about it, I would get joy out of the mud in my driveway being mud.

I’m not saying I don’t train my animals!  I have a ram, and he is sweet tempered, but someone put the fear of rams in me, so I am wary.  He’s last year’s lamb, so quite young.  He was protective of the ewes, should I spell that possessive last fall during breeding season.

When the ewes lambed, he was quite attentive, and seems to keep an eye on the lambs.  I have no idea what he would do if a stranger showed up in the pasture, but it appears he accepts my presence, all the sheep come to me in the field.  If I am out there and the ram touches me with his forehead, I rob him of his dignity… I grab a couple of his legs and make him end up on his back.  He needs to understand I am not a subordinate member of the group.

But he is sweet and kind, and clearly he feels a bond with the other sheep, and to me he is fulfilling his ram nature.

This community of animals brings me joy.  I enjoy the inanimate mud and rocks and gravity and mountains and sunsets, but the living beings that show a fondness for me, that fills my heart.  They allow me to observe their private lives.

When I go out to the pasture, the dogs come too, and the cats.  The cats constellate themselves a casual distance from me, they keep watch on me while they do whatever else they are doing.

When I walk to the mailbox, about 1/3 mile, the cats accompany me down the driveway and then they take cover in my neighbor’s woodland next to the road while I continue on to the mailbox.  But they wait for me, and accompany me home again.

It brings me joy to write about it.

Samantha, I would love to know how to tan a sheep skin with the hair on. I had a ram slaughtered and not knowing what to do with the skin. I froze it and it is in the freezer still, I haven’t wanted to buy a commercial toxic tanning solution and I have worried that softening the hide would be too much work. Just how hard was making your sheepskin rug?

Thanks

Addendum: I gathered the stems when they were young and tender. I removed the leaves and cooked it like fresh asparagus. When I am gathering fresh asparagus, I collect as much of the stem as snaps off easily. When it gets older, it also gets tougher and doesn’t snap,  it seems woody or vascular fiber develops with time.

Did anyone suggest milkweed?  The showy one is edible according to the edible weeds and natives reference I saw a few years ago.  Some milkweed are toxic but some are not.

I have eaten the stems of showy milkweed….🤣 and lived to tell the tale

Here’s a link
https://www.foragecolorado.com/post/foraging-and-eating-showy-milkweed

I had another idea this morning, for non poisoned pallet wood.

I have a post hole auger for the pto on my little antique kubota tractor.

I plan to drill holes and then pack them full of pallet boards.  All nails removed.

If I am wanting to divert the flow of water down a broad low spot in my pasture, I would leave them poking up a few inches. If I want to ease the waters penetration into my pasture, I would make the ends of the boards flush with the ground or two or 3 inches lower. Just not an ankle breaker.

And speaking of ankle breaker holes, I have a robust population of prairie dogs in the lowest part of my pasture. I sometimes use the auger to drill into where I think their passage might be. I could also put boards down their entryway. I don’t necessarily want to kill them or murder them all, but I would like it very much if they found it more inconvenient to live in my field than elsewhere.

I like it!

If you have a source for raw wool, there’s always felting.  There are videos on youtube.  It’s not complicated but depending on the size it can be strenuous.

I made a nice mat that is about 1/2 inch thick dense felt.  I love standing on it, but the cat has usurped it!

I have seen but haven’t tried yet, a rug that looks like a sheepskin, but on the I back where the skin would be is felt.  Remarkable really.

The mat I made in a plastic water tub because it was winter and didn’t want to work outside.  I put 5 layers of hand “teased” wool one after the other in to the bottom of the tub.  It could have been carded, you just need to fluff up and separae the fibers some.  If working with roving, I would have laid the fibers perpendicular each layer perpendicular to the layer immediately below.  

Then I sprinkled some grated soap on over it, poured boiling water onto the fibers, and pressed the mass down, until the wool was all wet.  Then I pressed and rubbed the wool. I just did yhat until I got tired of it.  The next day I poured the soapy water out, gently, leaving the felt undisturbed on the bottom of the tub.  Then repeated the boiling water process.

There is a fair amount of shrinkage with the agitation and the temperature shock makes the scales on the surface of the individual fibers make the fibers take hold of each other, which is how it becomes felt.

This prototype is an oval.  A larger rug could be made if I had a square or rectangular tub and could make pieces to stitch together.  Or, in warmer weather I could use a larger water trough and walk on it to agitate it— that would be an outdoor project.