New Toy

IT CAME! It came, it came, it finally came!!!

I'm talking about my new spinning wheel - an Ashford Traveller.  This is a double treadle, single drive castle style wheel.  It actually arrived on Wednesday around noon and as luck would have it, my husband was in Smiths Falls at the time so he swung by the shop and picked it up for me.  Secretly, I don't think he could stand me bouncing around the house like a six year old on Christmas Eve for another day.

I'm not sure how I was expecting them to ship this, but I didn't expect a flat pack IKEA style box.

Honestly, that just made it even more fun.  I chose the natural unfinished wheel so I could finish it myself.  I didn't do anything fancy, just applied a light furniture oil finish on Wednesday evening - got the oil into all the little nooks and crannies and had a really good look at all the pieces.  Then I left it to dry overnight.  The next day was Thursday, my usual work from home day so at the stroke of 4:30 the computer was closed and I was downstairs looking at how to actually assemble this thing.  As these things go, it was pretty easy; it took two hours but that includes taking time to find the drill bits.

And then it was time to try it out - and it worked.  It spins effortlessly, beautifully and is a real pleasure to use.  I'll post pics of the singles when I have them.   In the meantime, I know it is tradition to give a spinning wheel a name.  I'm at a bit of a loss here - I realize it doesn't have to have one, but it's a fun tradition.  Thoughts?

In other news, the garden is starting to grow.  Asparagus and rhubarb are both up.  I can harvest only small amounts of the asparagus this year as the roots are only three years old.  Next year I'll be able to take more. Some of the herbs survived and have started to grow again (sage and thyme), mint, chives and oregano are up but so far, no sign of the lemon balm.  I like to blend it with the mint for tea.  I also was shocked to find five heads of radicchio!  I know it is a perennial plant in some areas, but I didn't think it was hardy enough for my zone 5 garden - especially since I didn't do anything special to help it winter over.  I also planted lettuce and arugula last weekend and the arugula has sprouted.  My goal is to get the carrots, peas and rutabagas planted this weekend and start putting the tomatoes and cucumbers that I started in March outside for a few hours.  The blueberry shrubs don't look too good though - one might survive, but the other doesn't look good at all.  One Crab-apple tree will have to be taken down and one requires major surgery.  It looks like something really went at the trunk of the tree above the first set of branches.  So the bottom two branches have leaves and are obviously alive and the rest of the tree is dead.  Odd.  Three of the five Saskatoon berry slips I started last year survived and appear to have doubled in size.

This is probably my favourite time of year, it's busy but I love this work.  Knitting will be back soon - promise.