We took to calling the last House Finch nestling Lonely because he or she sat there all alone for two days before flying off.

The next is now empty and hit has been removed from atop the pillar on the porch.

We think Lonely had a lot more than just siblings hanging around. One day while Lonely was alone in the nest, I counted twenty House Finches in the area. Today, I saw one bird that I think was a house finch. I think everybody was hanging around waiting for Lonely to fly.

In other news, Anna got her picture in this blog post. She was always a sweet animal for us and I’m glad she’s still being sweet for her new owners.

In fiber news, there has been spinning – not much and no pictures, but a bobbin is getting full of fairly fine singles.

All the other nestlings have flown. I suspect by the end of the day, our nest will be empty.

Our new house has these columns by the front door. We’re not really column people, but they came with the house.

The day after we moved in, Pam told me there was a bird’s nest over one of the columns and she thought we should take it down. I love birds and I love bird’s nests, but I’m not really fond of having baby birds right over the front door. I agreed.

I took the step stool and went to get the nest down. Instead of reaching for it to remove it, I decided to look inside. The stool wasn’t tall enough. I couldn’t see anything.

I went in the bathroom and got a mirror. Returning to the nest, I climbed up the ladder and held the mirror up to look inside.

Four fluffy nestlings.

Of course, it has taken a few days to unpack the camera, and it took time to get a really good picture of the nestlings. They’re larger now than they are in these pictures taken yesterday, and they’re much larger in the pictures than when I first saw them.

These are young House Finches. Despite my initial estimate of four nestlings when I first looked in the nest with the mirror, there are five. Both parents are tending them, but the mother tends to spend more time at the nest.

Today, one of the nestlings was standing on the edge of the nest, furiously flapping it’s wings. I guess it will be a few more days before I can remove the nest.

I’m back among the blogging.

Some people don’t write well when they’re stressed. Some don’t write well when they’re busy. Some can’t write and craft at the same time.

Put me down as all of the above.

Stress:
The principle stress is a new house. Yes, we really have been working on this new house SINCE MARCH! I wanted to talk about this house, to write about this house, to blog about this house. Yet, I didn’t want to blog about the house until I knew it would happen – and I wasn’t really confident everything would fall into place until I actually walked into the office for the signing. This house almost didn’t happen in so many different ways. This is easily the longest, most difficult, and most stressful home-buying process I have ever been through.

I couldn’t really allow myself to get excited about the house – I was very excited yet I couldn’t allow myself to be excited. I’d show my excitement and then remind myself I didn’t dare get excited. Planning for a new home is hard enough when you have excitement to carry you. Planning when you don’t dare get excited is ten times harder and a hundred times more stressful. I found it incredibly hard to plan for an event I really didn’t think would happen. At the same time, if I didn’t plan, that would guarantee it didn’t happen.

Simply putting everything together to make the house happen was hard. It seems like nothing was easy and nothing went smoothly. Finding the house was difficult. Negotiating the price was hard – we almost walked away – twice. Getting the required repairs agreed to and completed was hard – although I probably stressed more than necessary in this regard. I don’t think I’ve ever gone through so much paperwork for a mortgage … Really, I didn’t believe it would happen and I couldn’t get excited until we walked into that office for the signing.

I don’t think I realized just how much stress the house was putting on me until I spent the first night under my new roof.

Busy:
Let’s see. Why have I been busy? Shall I start with the day job where the new project is way behind and in the busy part of the cycle? What about all the pieces that have to be put together to make a home purchase work? What about moving? I could continue …

I don’t know how many times I interrupted my day job for an hour to talk to a mortgage broker or real estate agent or sign some papers – and somehow the hour took two or three or more – and I ended up working late into the evening to make up the hours. It’s the boon – and bane – of telecommuting.

Crafting:
Through all this, I have been crafting. I’ve been working on spinning Anna’s fleece. I have made many crocheted flowers – to the delight of stampers and scrappers trading raks with my wife – and I sat down with Pam to make 200 cards for heroes on Memorial Day weekend. I don’t think she’ll ever make a stamper out of me, but I will sit down and enjoy making cards with her from time to time.

While I’ve been busy, stressed, and crafting, life has gone on:
Georgia has a new cria, but she’s sadly blogless.
June has a human cria new baby.
Anna hasn’t had a cria, but she has a new cria in her pasture.
I’ve lost track of the Yarn Harlot, but I think she’s written three whole books since my last post …
Rise has a new (four-legged) cria
And the Knotty Girls have had all sorts of adventures – some of them involving lambs and llamas in the middle of the night.

I have been spinning. I really enjoy spinning – so much that sometimes after a long day at the computer – my new day job – I don’t feel like blogging. I just spin. And the next day, I’m working on all these intense problems at the day job and when I get off the computer – I just spin. Then, a week goes by – I just spin. And, another week, and suddenly it’s a month since I’ve posted.

But look, I’ve been spinning and look what I made!

Here are three skeins of handspun alpaca yarn. I’ve been playing with color. The base fiber in all three skeins is what alpaca people call dark fawn. You can see this in the center skein which is a two-ply with both strands spun from the same fiber. This particular fleece is a little on the cool side of the fawn color spectrum – not that fawn alpaca is ever really a cold color – I’m talking subtleties here.

The skeins on the left and right are “barberpole” yarns. That is, they are two ply yarns with each ply a different color. The black and tan on the right is very obvious. Even though the fawn looks darker in the black and tan skein that it does in the middle skein, it is exactly the same color, exactly the same source, same animal, etc.

I took these pictures by handing the skeins from a coat hanger and hanging the coat hanger from a hook on the apartment deck. It’s a good way to get accurate color by handing the skeins in full sun. I’ve got to wonder, though, what the neighbors thought of the objects – and the photo process.

The skeins are about 100-150 yards each, and fairly fat. The fiber is soft. The yarn is squishy. I’m thinking this yarn will make some wonderful hats or maybe short, thick scarves. I don’t have a project in mind, I’ve just been spinning.

I’ve got another skein in process. I’m working with some very smooth black fiber – tremendous texture, but a little slow because it’s rather short and slick.

Anna’s fiber is in process and I think that may be my next spinning project. I’ll have to vacuum everything thoroughly as I switch from black to bright white.