I'm tired. It feels like I've been on the run and not home for a week. Oh, my, it's kind of been that way. Between house hunting and having signed up for the Ontario Handspinners Seminar, this past week has been exactly like that. The seminar was in Kingston and it was an interesting trip. I loved the smell and feel of the wind, coming off the lake. The seminar was at Queen's university, with accomodations in a rather musty smelling residence and mattresses which weren't conduicive to a good night's sleep. Yawn..

While I told myself that I wouldn't buy much at the seminar, I put far too much $ in my pocket. I came home with several things. Among them was totally modern, brightly coloured roving called Wild Berries. I spun up a little bit last night and it's somewhat more subdued now, which is kind of nice. Right now I'm planning to spin it as singles and weave it into yardage for a sweater or vest. I learned a technique for varigated threads called Serendipity plaid, which this should work well for.
I hate it when a bag of fleece screams at you "Take me home!". That's because a 2 kilo bag of raw Romeny x Icelandic fleece in an incredible silvery moorit colour, with bleached creamy white tips and what so far seems to be little if any chaff, is really hard to hide.

In between I did accomplish a few things. First, I made sourdough bread: real sourdough, not like a Herman friendship bread. It is from a culture that was first started in 1847 on the Oregon trail. It was the first time I'd trusted a bread to rise without commercial yeast. It had a different texture that the bread I normally make from a generations old family recipe. It was however delicious and will become a staple in this household.

The poppies are blooming here. First the Icelandic or Arctic poppies have started budding out. This was the first but with the number of buds and new plants I'm seeing coming up, there should be many more. They have such a fine petal structure that seems to almost glow in the sunlight. The Oriental poppies have started as well. These pink ones are my favourites and are huge this year.