See this pile of bags of fleece? This is what was waiting for me this morning by the mailbox of the man with the friends with the alpacas with the haircuts.

Very kindly the man put the bags out by his letterbox last night. Very unfortunately it rained down lots if rain last night, and the bags were only loosely twisted shut, and were not watertight. So now I have a van boot full of bags of damp fleeces. Looks like I am learning to wash and dry fleece faster than I thought.

Tomorrow I am going to pick up I don't know how much alpaca fleece from the roadside letterbox of a man I have never met who is the friend of my friend, and the man's other friend had fleeces going begging. So I am taking the big van in case there is a lot of fleece.

I will have to get up to speed on the details of washing, preparing and spinning alpaca fleece. I really hope that someone skirted the fleece and I don't have to freight alpaca turds. I also really hope there isn't too much vegetable matter in the fleece. And I hope that they were well shorn and the fleece is nice and long.

But mostly I hope that the fleeces are lovely, because bringing a fleece, much less multiple fleeces, will be a challenge - where am I going to put them all????

I'm going to have to spin like the wind. I will swap handspun for babysitting hours. You keep my kids busy and happy and there will be a skein or two in it for you. On the assumption that this freebie fleece of unknown quality is lovely to work with.

Watch this space.

I started spinning some purple and tan wool roving into a low twist single yarn last night, but the colour really wasn't doing it for me. This afternoon picking the kids up at school, I saw a tree with the exact same colours in it's dying autumn leaves. Caramel and a warm lilac, just like the yarn. Hooray for keeping my eyes open to the gorgeousness around me wherever I go.

The other day I was walking past the table, and despaired about the amount of mess that always seemed to be there. But then I looked a bit harder and saw that everything on the table was related to someone making or doing something.


See if you can find the following things

• a cardboard box house that was built for a small plush dog. This house has sleeping rooms, a mezzanine with a ramp, living areas and a toilet
• small plastic containers that had spilled sequins and little beads, ideal for sticking onto things to make them very beautiful indeed
• a toddler who has been drawing with textas
• a sheet of example writing for a school aged lad who wanted to write a letter to his best adult friend telling him how much he loves her
• a wasp made out of a coco pops box, made by a lad who is very scared of wasps, and is trying to find out more about them to help him beat his phobia
• sticky tape
• a Footrot Flats book, and a fantasy dragon type book, both of which the kids are loving reading at the moment
• string, pencils, cut out paper, a flower made of paper and a pipe cleaner
• a vase of flowers (ok, so you can't see the flowers, just the vase) that The Love Of My Life brought home one day just because.

So instead of getting all crappy about the bloody mess all over the table, it made me feel like the clutter was really worthwhile, and evidence of what we value in our family. Hooray mess! Hooray constructive clutter! Hooray kids making stuff from the things around them and not needing instruction or help or a manufactured kit! Hooray creativity!

I am a tardy blogger. And a very busy woman.

I have been making stuff all over the place, but I tell you, this whole Catholic Church Pope Benedict Child Rape cover up scandal has been giving me the shits. Apparently it has been giving Tim Minchin the shits as well, because he has written and recorded this most excellent song which expresses my feelings exactly.

Thanks Tim. You are always fantastic.