I have spent the past few days reading of everyone’s adventures and misadventures at the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival.  It has been lots of fun to live vicariously and I have miraculously managed to remain mostly not bitter.

I have been telling myself that I have enough yarn – that I really shouldn’t add to my stash until I whittle some of it away.  I have also held on to the thought of Rhinebeck in the fall – it’s a smaller event where I am less prone to cranky outbursts.  These thoughts combined have made me feel somewhat, if not completely better about missing the festivities.

That is until this morning.  Until I saw this.

Do you see that?

It is a mini.  A little red mini sitting happily in the field/parking lot.

Until now I have thought only of myself – how it was okay for me to miss the fun.

What about Onslow?  What about his feelings?  Why doesn’t he matter??

If I prick him, will he not bleed?

You realize of course, what this means …… yup 

I was away for five days.  Most of you know we were at a horse show.  This means that I had nothing, absolutely nothing to do for these five days.  Hours and hours of sitting around and knitting.

I fully expected to finish this sweater.  Well, maybe not finish but at least dazzle myself with how far I got.

This is it.

I am almost finished the back.  I knit about fifty rows.

I couldn’t understand this.  Why so few?  It felt like I was knitting a lot.  Except for the interruptions or the times when my fingers were too cold …..

I timed myself on a row. I thought it was taking me about 5 minutes per row.  Man, oh man —- it took me 18 minutes!! 

So those 50 rows represent 15 hours worth of work.  Not to mention the tinking back I had to do and the fact that I didn’t knit at all on the last two days there.

Why didn’t I knit at all on the last two days?

Because I was drunk.

mostly that and because I was stressing over this (click on right hand picture).

what does he have on?  you ask

that’s a face mask – we put it on him to protect his stitches.

yes — the horse ripped open his face right below his eye and required stitches.  Mr. Spencer is not the friendliest of neighbors and got into some kind of altercation with the horse in the next stall.

I am happy to tell you that it is healing beautifully.

I am also happy to tell you that emergency vets at fancy horse shows aren’t nearly as expensive as you might think.

***added later:  as Kathleen has noticed, lots of my animals seem to have eye issues.  I must be some kind of Medusa that they all seem to want to pluck their eyes out.

I would like all the lucky knitters who went to MSWF to answer a questions.  I would like to know if you saw this particular breed of sheep …. I saw them on television the other night.

what does it all mean?

did anyone see a PrimeTime  show the other night about the woman who had won an extreme makeover?  the kind that involves multiple surgeries? 

Before the surgery, they interviewed her husband.  I suppose the make over people wanted him to be salivating at the thought of his barbie-to-be.  Impatient to get his hands on all that silicone.

He was not as enthused as the producers would have liked. 

He said that he loves the face she has now –  her changing expressions, the visible signs of life experience, that he loves being able to see her mother’s face in hers.

After the surgery, and her ‘debutant ball’ and the dust settled, they went back to check on the couple.  The marriage is over.

She traded in that beautiful man for a mirage.