Pet Pictures

Carol S. was nice enough to share a picture of her cross-eyed child, so I figured the least I could do was to provide pictures of vacation pets.

Animals Galore
While staying with the Sister and Brother-out-of-law, we also got to stay with their daughter (Thaddeus' niece) and their three pets.

Poppy is their most in-your-face pet. He's a beautiful Golden Retriever who will actually retrieve tennis balls from the water all day long if your arm will hold out.


He's a wonderful dog who sometimes forgets he's not a miniature or toy dog.

Dolly is their lovely Clumber Spaniel. She's getting up in years, and has a lot of difficulty seeing and hearing, but her sense of smell will allow her to find a dropped crumb of brownie more quickly than Poppy.



Dolly is nothing short of an angel of a dog.

Finally, Heathcliff is their cat, and a very friendly cat indeed. He also doesn't eat my yarn. Thaddeus' sister's family used to have two cats, and when Heathcliff could entertain himself with the other cat, he didn't need humans very much. Now as a single cat in the household, he will constanty whore for attention.




Heathcliff was an excellent substitute for Gage whilst we were on vacation.

For a couple of days, Thaddeus' sister and family went off-Island for a wedding, leaving us to care for the pets. They all lived and ate well (Thaddeus loves to feed animals), and Heathcliff seemed to thrive and get VERY comfortable with us.



I swear we did not pose this picture. He was lying on the couch this way for about an hour. I guess a few less folks in the house allowed him to spread out a little.

Craving Spinning
Have you ever been somewhere and really missed one of your hobbies?

I remember I was at a party one time and someone had wrapped their gift with rainbow variegated Lion brand acrylic yarn. After I started to get bored, and I didn't have any of my knitting with me, I used a couple of pencils to make a quick swatch with the yarn.

It satisfied my craving.

On vacation this past week, I had an urge to spin, but I definitely hadn't packed my spinning wheel or any roving.

When I realized how much "roving" their dog Poppy produced, I tried twisting it manually into yarn, and it seemed to spin up rather easily. but I couldn't get it to stay twisted.

I quickly made myself a drop spindle using a plastic container cover and an old plastic paint brush and satisfied my urge for spinning.



Normally, I find the idea of spinning with dog hair repulsive, but I have to say, this fur spun up very nicely, and while I wouldn't make a balaclava with it (it would be both itchy and disgusting), I bet it would make some lovely rug yarn.