ten years ago today...

...a litter of three black and white border collie puppies was born.  At the time I had just started looking for a puppy to surprise Chris with, since Jadzia had turned out so bonded to me even though she was supposed to be his dog.  Little did I know what I was about to find, and the amazing treasure I would decide to bring home.

This is the first picture of Curzon that I have, taken when he was two weeks old.  It's an actual physical print and is one of two that the breeder sent me when I inquired about the puppies when they were about five weeks old.  His eyes aren't even open yet in this photo, we didn't know he existed or that he would be ours when it was taken, and all I can see when I look at this picture is the promise within those fat little puppy legs.  Curzon more than lived up to that promise, and he set a high bar that all dogs we have in the future will have to work hard to meet.

Last weekend was the Auburn tournament, the one where he debuted at 1 year 2 days of age in 2004, and the one where he should have earned his Iron Dog title and award this year.  Several other dogs who debuted with him nine years ago got their titles on Saturday and Sunday, with one more planned for next month.  My friends put the memory pin on their black lab as he ran his retirement and Iron Dog races, so that Curzon got to share that run in some small way, and that was incredibly lovely of them.

Today is Curzon's birthday.  Happy birthday, my beautiful boyo, and I hope you know that I still love you and miss you and I hope that you are happy and free from pain, wherever you are.

should have are the saddest words in this language

No cute pictures today, unfortunately, as today's post is a short one about Curzon.  It's now October, and it's been five months since we had to send him off into the long night to release him from the pain of the cancer that riddled his body.  I knew October was going to be very hard for me, and that is indeed turning out to be true.

He should have been here to earn his 50,000 point title.
He should have been here to turn 10 years old and race in a flyball tourney on his birthday (October 20).
He should have been here to earn his Iron Dog award at that same tourney.

And mostly, Curzon should have been here to watch his baby brother grow up.  I'm not sure how, but Martok is showing so many behaviors that his big brother displayed, things that he couldn't have seen in their short eleven days together.  Martok has been rearing up to go outside, and bounds and leaps and curvettes like Curzon did.  He's been waiting outside my bedroom door for me in the mornings, just like Curzon did.  He initiated a game of hide-and-seek around the living room / kitchen wall last night with Chris, just like Curzon did.  Most days it's a comfort, but some days it's just a painful reminder.

Curzon should have been here to see all of this.

But he's not.

And that still breaks my heart, and it may always do so.  I miss you, my darlin' boyo.  So much.

cross-stitch and a growing puppy

So thanks to my friend, I've decided to pick up cross-stitch again, at least for a Halloween-themed project.  This isn't my first one, as I completed a pretty good-sized one in the early 2000s and have a smaller one that I did about half of a few years back, but it will be my first one on linen and first time using hand-dyed fabric and floss, so that's kind of neat.  We started on Saturday, and I've spent a lot of time working on it since then, even though I had to buy a pair of reading glasses to see the fabric better and have to have a nice bright light to see by.  So far I've completed the pattern grid (it's a Halloween sampler, with one letter per grid space) and about a quarter of the lace border (with bats, skulls, and spiders).  I love it so far!

When I'm working on it in the evenings, Martok usually ends up curled up near me to snooze, and last night I let him climb up and curl into my lap while I worked.  He did very well, sleeping quietly and not interrupting my stitching - pretty impressive for an (almost) seven-month-old border collie puppy.  There was even a stretch of time where my pattern sheet was resting on his head, and he didn't notice or care.

Chris got me an adorable little "My Little Demon" plushy dragonesque stuffed toy from a Kickstarter campaign, complete with "Danger" wrapping and a personalized Demonator certificate.  Of course, I had to use the Danger wrapping appropriately on my young border collie puppy - they SHOULD come with "Danger" warnings after all!

Last weekend was pretty quiet and calm, so much so that I ended up buying a new shelf to organize all of my fiber craft stuff.  I went to Storables and found this shelf, which perfectly fits six of the Sistema bins I use for yarn/fiber storage per shelf, and I bought it immediately upon realizing this.  It does add some clutter to my room, but it's providing a lot of useful storage and has allowed me to collect all of the fiber things together (instead of strewn about the place), so that's a worthwhile tradoff.  Plus it just makes my organizational heart happy.

One of the things we did do this weekend was pick up our RV trailer after it's long stint at the dealer, where it had various small repairs performed and also had slide rollers installed.  These are like little awnings for the slides, which protect them from weather and minimize any dirt/debris/water from being pulled back into the RV when you close up for travel.  Plus they dampen the sound of rain on the slides, since the rain will hit the awning and not the slide roof itself, a big bonus in this climate!  I'm super excited and can't wait to use it again for a tournament this weekend.

There are a few things that I am keeping in mind these days, of course, with the primary at the moment being Martok's shoulder.  He's demonstrated a bit of limping twice in the past few days, and since this is the age when OCD (osteochontridis dissecans) will present plus his sire has thrown pups who have had it, I'm now a little worried that we could be seeing that with him.  OCD is basically a cartilage disorder where a piece flaps or breaks off within the joint, causing inflammation and pain and later joint damage if it's not resolved.  Martok is exhibiting no pain, full extension and flexion of both shoulders (both manual by me and spontaneously by him while playing), and the stiffness seems to pop up after a nap after exercise, which is different than typical OCD presentation.  So it might be growing pains, as it does seem he's doing nothing but growing legs right now, and that's what we'll hope for, but I'm still waiting to hear from the vet about whether we should bring him in for an exam and radiographs.

My other nearly-constant thought companion is of course our lost Curzon.  Time is helping heal that wound, but it's still definitely a wound and it's not healed over by any means, nor do I think it will be any time soon.  It's hard to make plans for the tournament next month, which would've been his tenth birthday, his ninth anniversary of racing flyball, and his Iron Dog award, all in one weekend.  I'm not looking for him quite as often as I used to, but I still miss him so much, especially as little Martok in all innocence displays so many of the silly border collie boy behaviors that Curzon exhibited.  Ah, well - if I hadn't loved him so, if he hadn't changed our lives so deeply, then it wouldn't hurt to have lost him - and that is something I couldn't bear.

summer vacation at the beach!

Last week was the summer shutdown for my place of work, and so we took off for the Oregon beach as we have done for several years now.  This year we went almost to California and spent the week in Gold Beach, OR at the Turtle Rock RV Resort which is on Hunter Creek.  It was a nice place, with an easy walk under the 101 out to the beach, and the "creek" is more like a small river that's more than wide and deep (and calm!) enough for swimming, even when it was windy and the waves in the ocean were crazy.  Lots of pictures were taken as you might imagine...here is a selection in no particular order.

I always have to have a posed photo, and the large rockpile between the creek and the beach worked out nicely for that purpose this year.

Our friends who have Martok's littermate Sirius came to join us for our last day/night, and the little boys had a great time wrestling and playing biteyface for hours.  I particularly like this lucky shot I got of them chewing on each others faces!

On July 4 we went for a long (5.5 mile) hike up Humbug Mountain, as it was so windy that going to the beach was not fun for anyone.  Martok did really well, although he was definitely tired by the time we were done!  I managed to get this shot of all three of them while we were on our way back down - I didn't move them into this pose or anything, just caught their attention and took a few frames quickly.

While we were on the hike up the mountain, we passed by a small stream which Jadzia promptly used as a cooling bath for her hot self.

Jadzia swimming in the creek by the beach.

Martok running about to fetch his ball right on the edge of the waves.  He didn't have any problem with them, and almost swam a bit during the first day or two, but after the wind picked up on our third day and the waves got bigger he wasn't too interested.  That's fine, he's still rather little after all!

Cold, wet, and freshly bathed puppies are awfully pathetic unless you turn them into a burrito with a towel and snuggle them.  The girls weren't pleased at being left out, though, as you can see in the background of the photo.

We took a great jetboat trip up the Rogue River one day, where we saw all kinds of birds (cormorants, vultures, bald eagles, and more!) and had a lot of fun swirling in the rapids.  I took one of my spindles with me to spin while waiting to reboard after a bathroom break.

Very windy...you can see Ezri's coat blowing in the wind!  Martok's short little puppy coat is pretty much unaffected, though.

As always, Ezri loved swimming in the ocean and had a great time even when she had to fight the waves.  Such a strong and smart girl!

~~~~~~~~~~

Of course, there was a small thread of sadness throughout the week as we took our first vacation without Curzon.  Going to the beach was one of his very favorite things, and he would stick his head out the window as soon as he smelled the salt air and would start dancing around in the backseat until we were there and he could race into the ocean.  I couldn't quite bear to leave him behind, so we took the small cherry box that holds his cremains along with his collar and brought them with us, where they rested in the niche in the wall for the duration of our trip.  I considered taking them out to the beach to take a photo, but ultimately decided against doing so as I don't really want photos of that, I'd rather remember him as he was on the beach himself last year - full of life and cheer after healing from that surgery.  One of my favorite photos of him from the beach last year is below to round off this entry on a happy note.

Such a happy boy to be playing in the cold ocean!  The temperature and waves never bothered him, he was more than willing to fling himself into the ocean after a ball or the suggestion of one...at the slightest provocation (or excuse), really!

learning to spin all over again

The Saturday before Memorial Day, I took a spinning class from Sarah Anderson at the Weaving Works in Seattle.  The class was billed as teaching drafting, which is something I can only do one way (short draw, sort of inchworm style), so I was very excited to learn more techniques.  I packed up my Sidekick and a lunch and went off for the day, leaving Chris to manage our farmers' market purchases and the dogs.

The first thing Sarah taught us was how to do thick-and-thin (aka slub) yarn on purpose.  The trick is to note your fiber's staple length, and then make the slubs just a bit shorter than that, so that the ends of the fiber are caught and spun on both sides.  I didn't particularly like doing this exercise, since I don't like slub yarn, but it was definitely valuable to practice paying attention to staple length and drafting and how they relate to each other to get to the yarn diameter that you want.

Next up was long draw spinning from the fold, using a soft prepared top with a good staple length.  This technique is SO COOL once you get it down, but it's also only going to work by spinning from the fold or from a rolag, which is why I didn't figure it out before.  The neatest bit is that as you draw back with your left hand and control twist entering with your right, the thicker spots will thin out to match the rest, and the result is a really springy yarn.  It's like magic!  I definitely need more practice with this technique, but I've got the basics down for sure.

After teaching the long draw method, Sarah passed out rolags she'd made ahead of time as well as offering short instruction on how to use hand carders to make your own.  I made mine in purple and lime green!  I don't plan to card my own fleece or fiber very often, but I do have a small and precious bag of Curzon's undercoat that I want to spin with some red wool to make yarn for a bracelet, so I'm glad to have gotten the practice.  Plus it's the best fiber prep option for doing the long draw method for a springy woolen yarn, so knowing the trick is pretty neat.

Later in the afternoon we tried spinning cotton for the first time, using these punis (basically cotton rolags) that Sarah made ahead of time using silk noil blended with the cotton.  We spun these using a similar technique to the long draw learned that morning, although with much more twist to accommodate the shorter fibers.

It was interesting to spin the cotton, and it was definitely a lot of work even with the "ease" added by the silk noil that helped bind the short fibers together.  I can see why there are so many specialized cotton spinning tools available (tahkli spindles and charkha wheels), as it was not easy to spin these well on my Sidekick!  I don't think this is something that I'll do much of in the future, but I'm glad that I got the chance to give it a shot.

The end of class was left with the option to work on whatever we wanted, including carding either wool or cotton, spinning with the additional fibers, flick carding wool locks, or playing with the luxury fiber Sarah brought along.  The brown is prepared camel down roving, and the silver is the most gorgeous extra-long-staple alpaca I've seen.  I really enjoyed spinning them both, especially the alpaca which was so long that I could spin thread nearly effortlessly.  It was also nice to enjoy spinning camel down, as my only experience with it so far was in a mixed batt and the camel down bits were horribly neppy and ugly and not at all pleasing.

The instructor also brought all of the yarn samples she spun for her book, The Spinner's Book of Yarn Design, and left them out on the table for us to examine throughout the class.  There are a lot of neat ideas and a ton of work incorporated into that table, and I enjoyed touching and learning from the different samples (even if I still think beehives are ridiculous).  Overall, I really enjoyed this class and I'll look to take another one from Sarah if the opportunity presents itself.

~~~~~~~~~~

It's been five weeks and four days as of today, and I still want Curzon back so badly it hurts.  I've been working on the photo book I'm making for him, and last night was the first time I could do it without ending up crying at my desk while looking at the pictures.  I've been going through our photos one year at a time, last night going through 2009, and then putting them in the book and into an album on Facebook as well.  We decided to add more pages to have more pictures, so interspersed with the story pages are solid collages of pictures of that wonderful boyo.

Martok is continuing to be a comfort, even as he shows personality traits that he could have learned from Curzon, which both make me smile and want to cry at the same time.  He's such a bright and inquisitive little guy it's amazing, and the way he throws himself into everything (often literally) is a delight.  I so wish we could have had more time with both of the boys together...

all about the puppy

   

Yesterday was Martok's second time going to the therapy pool to learn how to swim, and he was a very tired little boy when we came home!  Of course, flyball practice in the morning followed by an hour of wrestling, chase, and bitey-face with his brother Sirius helped in that regard as well.  I took the tack that I used to teach Curzon how to swim, and had a whole bowl of cut-up cheese weiners as my ammunition to bribe Martok into coming into the water.  I did have to pull him into the water with me the first few times, then had him follow me around swimming to get more weiner bits.  He still didn't want to come in on his own, until I started taunting him with a flyball "reeeeadddddyyyyy?" call and a couple of toys, and after a bit of whining and shrieking he launched himself right into the pool!  After that first leap, he was good to go - fetched toys to me then turned around and swam away to get another, got out of the pool by himself and jumped in again, it was great!  Apparently he likes jumping into the pool more than going in by the stairs - perhaps a secret Curzon told him in their short time together?

Martok's had a few challenges in his short time with us so far, including his first ER visit two weeks ago after a friend's dog (who hates puppies for some reason) snuck up behind the gate and eeled through it as it was opened to go after him.  Martok had a nice puncture wound on the bridge of his nose and a few other abrasions, so off we went to the ER for three stitches and antibiotics and painkillers.  He did very well, including being smart enough to run away after the other dog was pulled off him, and was very good at being treated for his wounds both at the vet and at home.  He did so well that his stitches were popping out early and we had them removed...only for him to kick the incision open again the next day.  Crazy puppy!  A little superglue fixed that right up, and it's all healed up now and we'll just have to see if his fur comes back to hide it.

Sleepy puppy from Friday, twelve days after the bite - you can hardly tell!  Once the superglue and scab bits came off, there's not much left to see and it looks great.  Martok spent a few days being sensitive about other dogs not his sisters or brother, but he's doing fine now and even wanted to play with the brother of his attacker on Sunday (who looks very similar) so we're pretty sure he's going to pull through with no lasting damage of any kind.  Of course, we'd prefer it had never happened, but it was an accident and he's doing just fine, so we're moving right along as if nothing had happened.  And hey, all Klingons have to have battle scars, right?

The new crate tag that I ordered is complete and we'll pick it up at the tournament this coming weekend.  I'm planning to put it on the door below Curzon's nametag and leave them both in place, at least for a while and possibly permanently.  I still have a bit of a hard time sometimes putting Martok to bed in Curzon's crate, especially when the oval bed was in place - looking into the crate, all I could see was my boyo.  Martok doesn't like the oval bed very much right now and kept trying to sleep next to it, so I pulled it out this weekend and set it aside for the time being, and that is helping us both.

Martok is a champion traveler so far, with two tournaments under his belt involving trips up to Canada and a third scheduled for this weekend.  He is behaving very nicely with the girls in the back of the truck, usually curling right up for a nap and snoozing with Ezri while Jadzia does her anxious dog thing over by the window.  He did figure out he could jump the baby gate in the RV, which is where he had to stay because he hadn't had his shots yet, so we'll have to work on showing him how that's unacceptable.  He got his first puppy shot last week (at 14 weeks and 17.2lbs), so he may be coming into the facility with us this weekend to get exposure to the tournament atmosphere.  Or we'll bring a crate, one of the two.

And to wrap up the post, Ezri's new custom collar came in the mail last week - it is from Ella's Lead and is the "Dragon McStolly" design with three dragon settings and purple rhinestones, all set on a thick deep maroon leather with a bright purple suede lining.   It's a beautiful collar and is perfect for my princess, even if her fur hides some of the pretty factor - when he's full grown, assuming he stays smooth coated Martok will have a collar from the same maker and show it off to even better effect!

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chris had to work an overnight manager shift on Saturday, and for the first time I didn't have my boyo there to sleep with me and guard me in the night.  Ezri took care of that job for me, and I love her but it just wasn't the same - Curzon would wait for me to settle, then lay down and snuggle up against me, but Ezri doesn't do that.  I miss him so much, and I'm still getting stabbed by this deep need to have him back, and this tiny belief that he isn't really gone and that I will have him back again some day.  I don't know if that's right, or if that's the desperation in my brain talking, it's all so confusing and upsetting in general.  I've been wearing my locket every day and that helps some, but it's not the same...even holding his collar or touching the box of his ashes isn't enough and it never will be.  It's all I have now, however, so I will just have to continue to learn how to deal with this as best as I can.

the magpie strikes again

Last year I learned how to spin, and quickly picked up several spindles and a wheel.  As I have magpie like tendencies, and some disposable income, this collection has grown quite a bit.  I'm up to about a dozen spindles, and yesterday my third wheel arrived - a Schacht Matchless double treadle, in the cherry special edition released this year for Barry Schacht's 70th birthday.  I'm a serious sucker for pretty wood and anything marked "special edition," and I'd been looking at a Matchless since last fall...and that's that.

 

Jadzia supervised the photo session after I was done playing with it for a while.  You can also just barely see Martok in the background by the patio doors, he was very interested in the wheel and nearly got his nose clipped by the drive wheel prior to this photo!

Special edition medallion - it says Special Edition - Barry Schacht - 2013 - 70th on it.  With a sheep!

The treadles had to be attached to the wheel when it arrived, which while not difficult was definitely interesting.  The wood of the treadles even has a bit of chatoyance, which can be seen when I'm using them to drive the wheel.  Really pretty, even in indoor lighting!  Also, those are dog toys on the floor behind the wheel, because we've got a house that's classy like that.

View of the back of the wheel, showing more of the beautiful wood and fabulous craftsmanship that went into the wheel.  The leather portions of the footmen needed oil already, so the break-in period is well underway!  I'm glad that I got "free" fiber with my purchase, however, as the double-drive wheel is definitely going to take some getting used to before I'm good to go with it.  I saw improvement with just a little time yesterday, as the wheel breaks in and I get used to working with it - plus, if it turns out I don't like double-drive, I can always switch it to Scotch tension.

Another shot of the back of the wheel, with more detail on the beautiful wood.  So, so pretty!

And finally, a shot of the serial number - which indicates that the wheel was made on May 16, 2013, and it was the 2nd Cherry wheel made that day.  Very cool!

Another miracle happened yesterday - Ezri let Martok lay down on the same bed that she was occupying, and even stayed there long enough for me to grab my phone to take a picture!  She's slowly starting to warm up to him and accept him, although he's still got his puppy annoyance moments where I'm pretty sure she wants to knock him through the wall.  She played tug with him a few days ago, and he was well tired last night without any energy to be annoying, so she let him snooze next to her.  Martok and Sirius both had their first shots yesterday (parvo vaccine), and they got to play together for about five hours worth of tug, bitey-face, chase, fetch, and running, so both boys were very tired by the end of the evening!

~~~~~~~~~~~~

My memorial locket finally arrived on Monday, and it is so beautiful I almost cried.  I found the artist on Etsy, and she sets a bit of fur/hair/cremains in resin inside this small locket (it's about the size of a quarter) and then makes the nametag and crystal for embellishment.  She accidentally attached an orange crystal and is sending me a red one in replacement, as red was Curzon's color and is my strongest association with him.  It's not much, but it's something, and it's given me some comfort to wear it this week.  It's not strong enough to wear every day permanently, so I may end up hanging it next to my bed after a while and only wearing it on special occasions, but for now it's often worn all day at work.

I still miss him so much it's like a hole in my life, but the emotional gut-punches are slowly starting to fade.  The framed studio photos from about 2005 up on our hallway wall caught my eye last night, especially the adorable one of Curzon licking Chris' face, and I was able to study the photo and smile a bit without crying.  I still want him back so badly it's ridiculous, though, and I don't know if that will ever change.  *sigh*

the redhead is back!

Last weekend was the summer no-frills tourney hosted by the Dogwood Pacesetters up in Cloverdale BC, where we attended with two teams including our full A team of Ezri / Danger / Savage / Sprite.  Ezri has gone through a lot of changes in the past year, from adjusting to the loss of her sister and other teammates when our friends moved to Boston last April, to changing clubs in December, and of course the personal upheaval of losing her big brother Curzon and gaining a pesty baby brother in Martok.  With all of that listed out, it's probably no surprise that she hasn't run under 4.0 seconds since the last tournament with Indy, where she ran her personal best of a 3.84 and was part of a 15.69 second lineup.

That all changed this weekend.  My redhead is back, finally confident that she's safe in start position again, clicking very well with her teammates, and flying down the lanes.  She ran multiple runs under 4 both days, with a best time of a 3.92 on Sunday, and quite a few 3.94's and 3.97's on both days.  I got a lot of great starts, mostly in the 0.02-0.05 range with one 0.003, Ezri is so much more consistent when she's happy!  Our club even ran a new club best on Sunday morning of 16.243 over 10" jumps with that lineup - woohoo!

 

 
From left-right, Ezri, Sprite, Danger, and Savage.  Danger and Savage are littermates, and Sprite is related to them, and all three are border staffy mixes from down in Vegas.  Sprite is our height dog who sets 10" in NAFA and 8" in UFLI, and we're now considering taking a road trip to a UFLI tournament to see if we can push down below 16 seconds on the lower jump heights.  Plus, we earned second place in Division 2 both days, and made the top-seeded team work very hard to keep their position ahead of us - yeah!

I also got a new pair of flyball shoes on Thursday, as you do, these are obnoxious hot pink Merrill "barefoot style" shoes that I saw at Nordstrom a week ago and went back to buy for the tournament.  They are very light, with minimal padding/support and a wide toe box so the toes can move around like a barefoot runner, which I was interested to try after reading Born to Run recently.  As it turns out, I did run completely differently in these shoes than in my usual trail runners...and I'm sore in weird places today to prove it.  I think this is a good thing, I certainly felt like I ran faster (who knows if it's true), and my feet don't hurt at all which they usually do after a tourney on matted asphalt.  Of course, given that we're in Seattle these are not year-round shoes, but hopefully I can find some with gore-tex to use in the winter.

Several of our friends worked together over the past few weeks to put together these buttons for the tournament, in honor of our beloved Curzon.  It was incredibly wonderful to see so many people wearing them, and of course to have the chance to share good memories about the brave boyo.  Our regional director even called out the buttons and why they were around at the awards ceremony on Sunday, which was very kind.  Oh, how I miss him, especially at our first tournament without him, held in the location where he first saw and taught himself flyball at the age of five months.

Today marks four weeks since we lost him, and I'm starting to be able to breathe again.  There are situations that hit me just the wrong way, of course, and I had two of them this week.  The first was when we put Martok into Curzon's crate for the night for the first time, which made me start bawling as that was the first time his crate has been opened since well before we lost him (he was sleeping in our room for a month or so prior to that day).  And the second was Saturday night, when I was lying on my bed in the RV and looked at the fleece blanket I keep on my side, only to see all of those black hairs from when he and Ezri slept with me on our trip to Nationals last October.

This isn't easy, and really I wouldn't want it to be even if it was.  I miss him so much, and probably will for the rest of my life.  My beautiful, brave boyo, even twenty years with him would not have been enough to bask in the warmth of his bright spirit.

To not end on a completely sad note, here's a picture of Martok being crazy when he was chasing and playing with his brother a few weeks back.  He's growing like a weed, learning fast, and is generally a delight to be around when he's not being piranha-puppy with those needle teeth.  Another post this week will have more about him, he certainly deserves his own entry at this point!

bits and pieces, crafts and puppies

Today's post is a lot of photos, because I've done a lot of stuff recently and it's always more fun to post and write about photos than it is to just put together large blocks of text.  Plus, I've done that way too much at work recently and I'm sick of it!  So here we go, in themed order...

Dogs!

My irises in the front yard are incredible this year - there are TWENTY flower stalks up, all with multiple buds/blooms on them, and they are just phenomenal.  They're the only thing in my yard that really is amazing, and I am enjoying the heck out of them right now.  Jadzia wasn't quite so sure, however, but she gamely hopped into the flower bed for me to take a photo.  I think this is the year I need to split the irises, so that will be a new adventure later this summer or sometime into the fall.

Martok hasn't learned how to play fetch in the rotation with the girls, so I've been taking some walks with him to get both of us some exercise.  I have also been taking Ezri with me, much to her dismay, as Martok is preferring to walk thisclose to her, as the photo shows.  Ezri is also not a fan of being walked on leash, so she's been pulling a lot, so we got her a harness last weekend to help minimize the effects of her pulls on her own body.  We'll see if that helps!

Craft Projects!

Back in April, I finally got around to getting an ink pad and nice paper to do pawprints of the dogs, and after I was done I used one set of them to put together this frame.  The prints came out really well (and the dogs were surprisingly good about it), although it amuses me that their feet-fur shows up so much in the prints!  The frame is an inexpensive floating-glass frame, so I can easily add one of Martok later, remove them to put together into a bigger frame, or just make a whole new one in the future.  I really like having it up on the wall, it's across from the door to my office so I see it every day.

And of course, I've picked up more spindles, as they're just a big an addiction as fabric for quilting.  These two are Bosworth spindles, both special order.  The smaller dark one has a whorl made from live oak (and a shaft made from bocote) that was harvested in the 1700s and then kept in ponds for use in repairing the US Navy ships at the time.  These ponds were eventually forgotten about and reclaimed by the forest, until they were recently found and the wood reclaimed and used by various craftsmen.  The larger red one has a whorl made from flame box elder and a shaft made from cocobolo, and is stunningly beautiful.  I've coveted something made out of flame box elder for a while, and I am thrilled with this particular spindle.  Both spindles are great to use and have small Phat Fiber sample projects on them right now.

Just this past weekend I cleaned up my sewing room and pulled out the materials to work on Aidan's quilt again.  I have just one panel done so far, though all the pieces are cut out already, and I designed another panel this weekend and it's ready to piece together.  This quilt will be the sibling to Averie's quilt, done very similarly, and hopefully completed in time for his birthday in September.

I finished knitting two pieces in February and March and they're shown here after a wash and during blocking.  The cowl is made from a single skein of fancy variegated yarn I bought from a store going out of business, and I love how the colors pooled to form large blocks in a slanted pattern.  The scarf is made from a skein of Manos merino singles, knitted up on size 9 needles in a simple garter/stockinette pattern I came up with on the fly.  It goes well with our new flyball club colors, and I have a second (nearly identical) one almost done to give to one of my friends on the team.

My first sock has made it to the "turn the heel" phase, and there it languishes.  I'll need to pick up stitches as I continue on, and my pattern isn't very detailed about that so I need to pick up a book or tutorial to figure out how best to make that work.  It's pretty cool, though, and I love the needles I'm using (Signature DPNs), so I plan to pull this one out and figure it out soon.

Still spinning as well, and I set aside my interminable fine spinning of the brilliant red Targhee wool I bought at OFFF last year to ply these two batts together.  The yarn came out very well, one batt is dark purples and one was cream with purple and blue, and I think the overall effect is very nice.  These batts taught me that I'm not so much fond of spinning chunky things, especially uncontrolled chunky things like mohair locks, although I do think the plied yarn came out well.  I still need to wash it, however, as I plied it back when we were still deep into the rainy season.

The last craft for this post is one I did not do myself, but one which I will benefit greatly from - my friend Kristie made me a set of "Unpaper Towels" using the best cheesy Star Trek fabric you've ever seen.  The towels are made from terry backed with quilting fabric, serged into squares, and set with snaps so you can roll them up onto a paper towel roll, then use them instead of paper towels.  I have used them for a few days and I like them a lot!

Miscellaneous!

Between the nicer weather appearing through the last few weeks and my attempts to increase my step count, I've been taking walks along the waterfront at work during my lunch break.  Most days I also take a spindle with me and spin as I walk, garnering several odd looks but no comments as of yet.  Such beautiful views are just a small part of why I love to live here.

 

And then there was this - I had the bottom couple of inches of my hair dyed a rich vibrant purple.  I LOVE the effect, it's fantastic, and sadly it has already faded away to a pale lavendar after just four weeks.  I'm having it redone this weekend, and will see if there's anything else the stylist can do to help it last longer - I'm already not washing the ends and rinsing them in the shower with as cool water as I can stand.  If not, I will probably keep it up until I am ready to cut my hair again, then just trim it all off and go on with my regular golden blonde.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Today marks sixteen days since we said goodbye to Curzon.  Last Friday we picked up his ashes (or cremains, as they are called in the industry) from the vet, which was a very difficult thing for me to do.  I held him in my lap the whole way home, making Chris drive us, and wished so hard that I was hugging Curzon for real instead.  I know that won't happen, but the thought of that keeps hitting me anew every so often and it's like a punch to the gut every time it does.  For now the nice cherry box that his remains are in sits on top of one of the dressers in our bedroom, along with the blanket I made him when he recovered from his surgery and his collar.  Perhaps it is strange to admit, but I do talk to him even as I hate that he's in that box, and I have hugged the box more than once.  It helps, a very tiny bit, and that's all I can do now.

I've also been thinking more and more about the time we had between when we brought Martok home and when Curzon passed, that too-short span of just eleven days.  Curzon was so amazing with the puppy for the first few days, and we had such a good time with our photo session on that Saturday.  He had a great time at practice on Sunday, even as we realized he'd lost the sight in his right eye.  Monday was very difficult, but with more pain meds he seemed back to his old self and we had a good time all week.  Saturday was a beautiful day, and the rest I've already talked about.  I don't like to append too many human emotions or decisions to animals, but I also do think they are wiser and more perceptive than most people believe.  I'm coming to the conclusion that Curzon had been in pain for a while, and when we brought Martok home that was the signal he was waiting for to release himself from that pain.  Curzon had that wonderful Saturday where he played, saw lots of people he loved, and had steak for dinner, and I think that was his way of saying goodbye to us all.

It was too soon for me and Chris, and maybe it was even too soon for Curzon.  But I could never countenance his bright spirit suffering without hope of respite, and I would not want to hold him here in pain - that's why we had the vet come on that sad day.  I can only hope that his spirit will visit me upon occasion, and continue to inspire me in the future.