Spring is sprung... I think...

[altivo]

Thursday, I swatted the first house fly. In the house. Yuck.

Friday morning, I swatted the first mosquito, also in the house. Double yuck.

Friday afternoon, a huge flock of grackles and redwinged blackbirds arrived and shoveled all the seeds out of the feeder onto the ground.

Saturday morning, a redwing was sitting in the top of the maple tree by the boys' yard singing like crazy, trying to warn others off from "his" territory I suppose.

There's still ice and snow on the ground, but the water levels here are definitely dropping. The Kishwaukee River a mile downstream is over its banks, though.

The ground hog lied, but six weeks are up anyway. The equinox comes on Friday, daylight saving has already begun, and the daytime temperature has broken the freezing point every day this week.

In other news, last night Gary helped me break into a stash of various animal fibers we had left in the garage for several years. It contained cat and dog down, rabbit wool, and sundry other stuff. As it turned out, it also contained moths. Total loss. They had reduced most of it to the consistency of dryer lint. In more recent times we have stored wool in closed plastic bags placed inside closed plastic bins. There have been no signs of moth damage there, thank goodness. I've bragged for years that I never had a problem with moths. Oh well, I guess it was my turn.

This month's study group assignment was to "do something strange you haven't done before" and I was going to make cat fur yarn. Guess I'll have to use the horse fluff from last spring that I was saving. That was in a ziplock in the house and is still safe.

Comments

[doco.livejournal.com]

There's a number of ladybirds popping up here as of lately. I still haven't found out where they're hiding, but they keep gathering under the desk lamp just like last year.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

We get those all winter, a few at a time usually, whenever there's a warmish day. They go dormant in crevices and cubby holes under buildings or in attics and walls, and wake up when it warms a bit. Then they seek out the warm spots, which often means going through cracks or crannies into rather than out of the house. They tend to congregate on the ceiling in my study/workroom, probably because the computers make heat that rises to that point.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

Cat fur yarn?? *grabs his tail*

*looks with interest at the redwings and grackles, then sits there trying to bite the flies*

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Not just any cat. The fluff I had saved was the undercoat of a couple of Persian cats Gary had when I first met him. The cats are long gone, that was 25 years ago. Now their fur is gone too, alas. Ordinary cat hair won't make yarn. It just falls apart and sheds. The same is true for dog hair. But some cats and dogs have double or triple coats, and the very soft downy stuff from the undercoat can in fact be used to make practical yarn.

I ended up using the horse fluff instead, which worked unexpectedly well. I'll be posting some yarn photos later today, I hope.