My fiber is here! Let me take just a moment to sing the praises of Nistock Farms www.nistockfarms.com They are fabulous. I've ordered several types of fiber blends from them and not only is the fiber wonderful, the customer service is unsurpassed. So, I'm back on the Tour de Fleece, and am cautiously optimistic that I'll finish in time. I do need to finish up the yarn for Grandma's socks before I can go back to spinning the lamb/alpaca blend, but I'll whip that out tonight.
The mailman also brought some very upsetting mail today. My primary care doctor is leaving private practice. I'm not sure I can adequately explain how disturbing this is to me. I've always had a fear/distrust of doctors, and prior to the past 5 years, I really never had a primary care physician. I saw my OB/GYN faithfully for nine months during each pregnancy, but other than that, something had to be broken or falling off for me to seek medical attention. Somehow, by the grace of the positive powers in the universe, when I desperately needed medical/mental help 5 years ago, I lucked upon Dr L. She has been such a steadfast positive support in my life, one of the pillars that held me up during the beginning of the estrangement from my boys. As if that wasn't enough to deal with, I also had cervical cancer spreading deep into my cervix. If it hadn't been for Dr L, I never would have had the procedures necessary to find the cervical cancer, already progressed to stage one, let alone the necessary surgeries and hysterectomy that I needed to be completely cured. (Ladies, please don't be as stupid as I was- have your pap smear every year. Cervical cancer can be cured so easily in its early stages, it is so slow growing, there is really no reason to let it progress like I did) See, she not only helped save my mind, but my body as well. If this is the right move for her in her life right now, I wish her a world of success, peace and joy.
Now to change subjects before I tear up! Here's the silkies:


they are getting nice a plump. I'm nervous that I'll mess with them while they are trying to shed their skin, so for the rest of the weekend, I'm just going to add leaves and not try to clean out the container too much. They should be ready for the first instar change in the next day or so. If disturbed while shedding, they can get stuck, and die. I moved them into a larger container last night, so for the next couple of days, it's hands off! I'll be sure to post any pictures that I catch of the shedding process, and in a couple of days I should have some pics of much larger, plumper silkies!