Here are 2 of the 3 items I picked up at the post office today. At right is a Potluck Roving (colourway Iris) and the small cones at right are from Village Spin and Weave and the rest of the cones came from the ebayer Walnut Creek Yarn Company a great source of mill ends and other good stuff. I also got 2 reeds for the 2 looms, a 6 dent for the table loom and a fine one from the big loom. They are spotless stainless steel. I washed some of the alpaca I have been flick carding yesterday and it came up spotlessly white. Someone on some group said you could add Napi-sam to wash water to get white fleeces really white. I thought that a bit drastic so I used Oxy Action with my dish soap for the first wash and shampoo for the second.What I had thought was fawn is really white--you just have to get it clean!

Speaking of getting things clean, I found out via some folks who are trying to get some clean Shetland fleeces to me that they haven't even been mailed by the mill yet. We were under the impression that they were shipped in May, but in fact that was only when the mill sent samples to the USDA for the certificate needed to send them here. I am trying very hard to not mention the name of the mill because it's the only one who was even willing to try this route of me buying fleeces, them processing them and shipping to me with the correct paperwork. Apparently the mill wasn't too upset about the fact that 6 months have gone by without a response from the USDA. So the Shetland breeders are trying to light a fire under the mill owner to get the paperwork. I called Quarantine here, thinking it might be in some backlog and they said (to my surprise because this is contrary to what their web site says) that if the paperwork is correct, they don't even sample, but just send it on. I have 3 Shetland fleeces and a BFL in the hands of the mill and 2 more fleeces set aside (and paid for) to see if this process works. I now have been waiting for a year for my fleeces to be processed by the mill but nobody else is willing to do this for me so here I sit.

I didn't have a good start to the day. When I took my handful of pills this morning, I think one got stuck in my throat and it must have been something that was not meant to dissolve anywhere but my tummy. My throat burned like I had swallowed acid and closed up painfully. I can still (at 6PM) barely swallow so I don't know what I can eat. And of course I've lost my voice. I hope things settle down enough so I can take my evening meds.

After housework (like vacuuming) I spent the day in the yard, ridding the driveway edge of ivy, mulching the beans (and the peas who decided it wasn't too late after all to come up even if they are 2 months late), planting some portulaca in a big terra cotta tub and adding one more tomato to the mix. I planted some melon seeds where I pulled out the going-to-seed silverbeet.