Some people are not sheep

I love how individualistic fiber people are!

    at SAFF 2011, the weather was perfectly cool for wearing wool. I saw not only miles of fibery goodness, but great numbers of spinners, knitters and weavers parading past wearing their fabulously individualistic hand work. Sure, I did see numerous iterations of certain shawl patterns that are very popular on Ravelry right now, but it was obvious that none of them were in kit form. They were different from each other not just in yarn choice, but in many little adaptations and special touches and colors so perfectly suited to compliment the wearer…sigh…it was truly inspirational.

Sadly, I have no photos, I took my camera, but Susannah and I were so busy in our booth teaching spinning that I didn’t have time to get it out. Which brings me to the second most marvelous thing about both SAFF and “Fiber in the Boro” which I attended this weekend (a wonderful show, kudos to the organizers!) There is a huge upswing in people interested in learning to spin!

People who want to set down their gadgets and get down to something that is really real. Learn something that allows you to use your own two hands, while touching something that was grown out  on 4 feet that don’t do much else but eat grass and bask in the sunshine…..Ah, it does the old heart good!

      

Now this is a little unrelated, but I came home from the fiber festivals with lots of little balls of uneven yarn from demoing the spindolyn. This happens every time, lots of little snippets of demo yarn. I show one of these balls of yarn here riding on the back of the strangest trombocino squash I have ever grown…it looks sort of like a long neck goose.

     

The trees above looked like this one day, and naked the next, after a big rain and wind storm..yep, winters on it’s way.

Autumn Spinning, Knitting and gee, time to get out the woolies!

I believe I mentioned that I bought some lovely rainbow roving  top last year at SAFF, and it took me almost a year to get around to spinning it, should have started sooner, as it is a super-wash merino, not at all compacted, spins like a dream and is my current favorite thing on the spindolyn.

 

Actually, I should have bought more of it, but although I can remember the location of the booth of the talented dyer at SAFF last year, I lost the card that came with the fiber, and can’t remember her name. Finding her (hopefully) again this year is one of my quests for this year.   I leave in about 29 hours…am I ready? Nah, still polishing spindolyns and packing…so why am I blogging? .needed to put my feet up for just a bit, and am just too excited to be quiet.

It really is a fun fiber festival, all that inspirational wool walking around, not just in the booths, or on the backs of the attending fiber animals, but being worn by talented attendees, lovely work every where you look. Sweaters and shawls and hats and vests, oh my!

What was I saying.. oh, so I divided this top into by splitting it in to two equal strips.Weighing them to make sure.

I have spun the first half up on the harmonic spindolyn and have a good start on the second one already…

but you know how when you are spinning and daydreaming about what you will knit, you get a hankering to go ahead and knit…this little lust was dancing around in my head while passing through my LYS and I couldn’t pass up this merino singles, so soft, so yummy and with those autumn colors…and so I started knitting this basket-weave something or other….(I think it is going to be a cowl)

And now that I have gotten that going, I can merrily go back to spinning!

If you come find yourself at SAFF, do come by and say howdy!, Susannah and I’s booth is near the front door, across from the restrooms.

Sneak Preview New Spindles for SAFF!

     Autumn is here and we can start looking forward to a wonderful winter of cozy spinning and knitting, but first…..the fall fiber festivals!!
        I will again be at SAFF (South Eastern Animal Fiber Forum) in Asheville Oct 21-23 and am busy, busy in the wood shop making spindolyns in cherry, walnut, tulip poplar as well as oak, and in many different sizes.
        It has been a particularly fun time, as pressure always makes me have new ideas, and I have been trying out some new spindle designs and new base designs to accommodate the new harmonic spindolyn size.

The weather has been lovely, the leaves are starting to change, I have a really pretty sock on the knitting needles and there is a pumpkin sitting on my table, what could be better?

If you come to SAFF, drop by and say hello!

Mo Bigger! the new Harmonic Spindolyn!

Well, finally!
I have been fiddling with a bigger diameter spindolyn for a while, and kept running into weight issues slowing it down.
I have also been wanting to make a spindolyn out of tulip poplar, one of my favorite woods, but it is too light weight.
Can you see where this is going? duh. Sometimes we can't see the forest for the trees, but then two things happened.
My friend Lisa, a new spinner, sent me this photo of her lovely beginning efforts, and I was stunned at how much she was able to stack on to her spindolyn, and I thought, man! I really need to come up with a bigger spindolyn for plying, and quit just thinking about it.

And then I was pushed over the edge to jump up from my computer and go out to the shop and just "do it" when a lovely customer, and member of the Ravelry Spindolyn Spinners group, Annette, wanted to add to her spindolyn collection and asked ever so nicely for a bigger spindolyn.

And so the "Harmonic" Spindolyn was born, and I can't stop spinning on it long enough to do any knitting. I am a happy spinner!
It is made with tulip poplar, and is 3 1/2" in diameter.

 

 

And it holds ALOT!

 

Hot Weather Knitting

We are not daintily perspiring here, we are dripping.
Frequent cold cloths to the face have been necessary in order to not just flat out keel over.

I have hit the age where my facial skin is now "tender" (awww)

I am also at the age where I found myself griping like an old grouch when I went to pick up a couple of new wash clothes to replace my old, holey wash (face) cloths...."sheesh! they don't make them like they used to!"

 The wash cloths I found were either too thick and heavy to ever dry out in our southern humidity, or they were just plain scratchy.

I ask you,  how does cotton get scratchy? I think there is more in that cotton than just cotton..

I guess labels these days lie, just like politicians

On the very day that I picked up a ball of cotton to knit my own washcloth, a knitting friend of mine emailed me, saying she wished people would knit something more challenging than dishcloths. 

Unbeknownst to her, I felt duley challenged.

 I made it more difficult on myself by promptly misplacing my yellow dishcloth yarn, found an alternative (but ugly) brown, cream and green ball of peaches and creame, and scoured Ravelry for patterns that offered some spicyness of language when you loose your place in them.

I picked 4 patterns from Ravelry, and present 3 here in order of most challenging to least.

   I began with the pattern called "vortex six" by Rebecca Hudson..she has a series of neat vortex dishcloths..meditative, but I admit, a bit more challenging in the heat than I was looking for, I stopped mine after 5 rounds, instead of 6, cause the yarn was ugly (photo A) and I was hot.

Mine does not look like hers, I will go back to this pattern in cooler weather and with two colors of yarn at a later date.

photo A

Next, I decided that some thinner cotton in a bit more open stitch would dry quicker in the terrible humidity, and got this yellow varigated mercerized cotton purchased from my LYS Traditions in Lafayette, TN, for which I promplty lost the ball band or I would tell you the brand....I like the way it knit up, but the varigation had lovely orange, yellow, white and ....gray??  this would be very pretty if they left out the gray varigation, as it makes the cloth look "pre dirtied" However, the mercerized actually does make a nice, soft, quick drying wash cloth.

The cloth is smaller than it looks, because the rubber ducky is actually a "mini ducky" The pattern is the Petal Dishcloth by Susan Esser, it is knit list archived. It was a little easier to follow whilst one is daintily dabbing ones forehead with the previous cloth.



I totally screwed up on this last one, but it is a great pattern, easy peasy, it is the Starfish Cloth by Dione Reed of Sew Funky. I intentionally used a little bigger needles, thinking quick drying again, but I went a little too far and it flops around like a jelly fish rather than a starfish. I also decided that I wanted it to be anatomically correct (to a starfish, that is) and so only made 5 arms rather than the 6 the pattern calls for, so fudged the rows a little randomly to accomodate than, and one of the arms looks like it was whacked off and grown back, which is also biologically correct to starfish, so that made me feel closer to the ocean, which just the thought of those breezes has a cooling effect, so that was worth it.

 It is also not as big as it looks in the photo, as the hat is very small..You could, however, soak the cloth, squeeze out most of the water from the middle, drape it over your head and let the drips come down the starfish arms for a cooling effect....?

A dumb idea and a new beginning

So, I save things. It is not as bad as hoarding, but it is a problem.

I was not raised during the depression, but many of the people that I have admired the most in my lifetime, and considered my bosom friends (sadly, all gone now) were raised during the depression. Maybe their influence? Maybe it is genetic? Maybe it is just an inventive mind that sees on opportunity in every object for re-purpose.

It is with great effort that I exist in a state of re-training away from my natural tendency to allow the foot of my bed end up looking the way my much admired, beloved and dearly missed Granny's did.

The foot of her bed was a completely personal pile of interesting reading, newspapers, books, letters and clothes that were "in waiting". Clothes that were not quite dirty enough to wash, but not clean enough to wear to town, so waiting to be worn out to the garden. To wash too often would be wasteful. My Granny was very short, so the growing pile did not interfere with her sleeping. When the pile spread around and up the back side of the bed, she would deal with it, but it grew again, and again. She had the most delightful laugh when confronted with it.

My projects do this, spread like this. My spinning and knitting; I start too many, finish too few, have interesting ideas and diversions in the middle. If I lived in an ordinary sized house, there might be room for this "spread". Or if I was not also running the business of knitting anyway in addition to "living" and working my projects in this small of a space, it might not be a problem either.

I offer here for exhibit to examples of things that I should have thrown away right from the start.

Exhibit A)
This very cool and tough banding that came around the bales of shrink wrapped alfalfa that I bought this winter to supplement one of my goats that was frail.

I saved every band off of every bale. I thought it would be so cool woven into a tote bag or something.Stiff and strong... Imagine my chagrin when I discovered this exact same banding made into totebags on display at walmart (spit) pooey. I haven't thrown it out yet, but soon....

Exhibit B)

Our rescue dog is a border collie cross (crossed with something very, very dumb. Bless her heart.)

Anyway, J.B. brushed her daily for a couple of weeks this spring and out came lovely clumps of deep, dark, almost black, soft undercoat. He would peel it off of the brush and toss it willy nilly out in the yard somewhere, wherever he happened to be. Later, I would go around and gather it up, sometimes with dew on it, sometimes I had to fight the kitty for it.

Now really, I ask you, am I seriously ever going to get around to spinning these clumps of dog hair, which when all added up probably is only a spindle full?????

Oh, the new beginning..that will have to wait to the next installment.

The Meaning of Vacation

So, I was able to get out to the shop with me crutches, and J.B. helped me move one of the tools to a lower table so that I could sit at a stool for part of the process of making spindolyns. When I sat down, I had an overwhelming sense of..."ohh, I do really like doing this" I do really enjoy working with wood, it was good to be back in my shop (crummy as it is)

It got me to thinking about that feeling you get of happiness and contentment when you reunite with the familiar after a seperation, even if you had been ragging on it quite a bit before you left.

And isn't that what a vacation is all about? we think of it as the activity itself, the trip, the tour, the leisure, but when it is all said and done a good part of the lasting effect is not the memories, but the coming home and appreciating where we left off, we see the familiar with a fresh and newly affectionate look.

If we come back to a job or place and we only feel revulsion, then it is probably a wake up call that it is time to move on.

My accident provided me with an unexpected vacation in the dictionary sense; "time away from work devoted to rest or pleasure" Now, my planned vacation (kayaking near Chattanooga) won't happen this year because of the resultant medical bills, but I am amazed that the time of rest (ok, not so much pleasure) had the same after effect as a real vacation. My woodworking and crafting seems rosier and I feel more motivated all the way around after my unplanned period of rest.

So I looked up the origin of the word vacation, and I especially like the reference to "empty"

Word Origin & History

vacation

late 14c., "freedom or release" (from some activity or occupation), from O.Fr. vacation, from L. vacationem (nom. vacatio ) "leisure, a being free from duty," from vacare "be empty, free, or at leisure" (see vain). Meaning "formal suspension of activity" (in ref. to schools, courts, etc.) is recorded from c.1456. As the U.S. equivalent of what in Britain is called a "holiday," it is attested from 1878.

Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper

We get empty, so we can feel that satisfying feeling of filling up again.

          So, lets all raise our rested spindles in a toast and fill them up again!

testing a prototype spindolyn

Emergency! knitting and spinning.. OR making sure we are prepared

Please note: if you are waiting on a spindolyn shipment, I apologies most sincerely for the delay, I am still unable to walk after the accident, but hope to be out to the shop by the end of the week (more info below this post)

My sis in law and I talk often about what I think of as "girl scout orta's" 
Habits we "orta" keep that can make us more prepared in the event of an emergency.
There are your basic emergency kits, then there are your "emergency fiber kits"
Their house fire taught me that a person aught to keep their purse on a hook right by the exit door. If you have to go to your safe place in the event of a tornado or flash flood, you will know where it is to grab it to take it with you. To have to replace your drivers license, glasses, etc is a drag. But even worse, if your car keys are in your purse, and you can't find it as you rapidly exit the burning house, then you can not move your car and it burns up with the house.

BD and W keep a "bug out bag" or "zombie apocolypse bag" handy by the door with survival stuff in it.

My mother kept a "hospital bag" that she could grab if someone went to the emergency room and she had to go sit. It had clean undies, socks, her own non allergenic soap and toiletries, something to read and write with and her knitting.
This was not her regular knitting, but a ball of dishcloth yarn and appropriate needles, just left there, waiting for the next emergency.
The last time S.i.l. had to go to the emergency room after the tractor accident, when I called to ask her what I could bring, she said; "please! something to knit"
And it got me to thinking I aught to get together an emergency bag, with toothbrush, knitting, spinning, etc. But I did not follow through with my plan, and in this last emergency, there I was, waiting and waiting, because I did not grab my current spinning or knitting project as they were to big, bulky, hairy, messy or disorganized to take along.
And that leads me to the point of this post.
 A person should plan their emergency fiber kit ahead of time, and decide if they are going to make it an entirely separate project from your current project, so that you can grab it and go and it will have everything you need and you won't have borrowed out of it or scrambled it.
I realize that some organized and tidy person's current project is perfect and complete and ready to go at a minutes notice, but mine is never that way as I am a  little scatterbrained and scatterproject. In addition, some of my projects are just not appropriate for public (no, not adult oriented, but as mentioned previously too big, bulky, hairy, messy or disorganized)
So, for myself, while I am confined to this position with my foot up, I am pondering what this emergency fiber kit should contain...and when I get mobile again, I have made myself  a promise that I will make it's assembly a priority. I am thinking......

• 1 spindolyn, but which fiber would be easiest and most contained? what fiber is best for a stressfull or sad situation?
• 1 small, simple knitting project; complete, simple, contained. But what? Mom always took a dishcloth, but what if my hands are too tired for cotton? is there a stretchier cotton out there? what else is mindless small and comforting...maybe just sock blanks...wristers?

I will think on this some more, when I can think straight.

Ok, here is what happened, if you are faint hearted, stop reading here, and know that I am recuperating as fast as I can, and am trying to rustle up some help to get back orders out. WARNING! graphic details below.





You might not want to  look at the photo of big old dirty nail in the barn that I stepped on which went all the way through the ball of my foot  to the top between the bones and tendons that operate my toes.

Flood prep, running behind and big hoe

Edit. note; I wrote this post before the tornados last night in the deep south, but even more now, I encourage you to donate to the Redcross.

First, a disclaimer; my problems are small compared to those in other areas of the south who have lost lives and homes and communities to these wretched, seemingly unending storms. So if’n  you’re so inclined,  Y’all donate to the red cross, mm’kay?
Ok, on to my little aggravations. I try hard to fill orders on time. Of a coffee and idea sparked nature myself, I understand impatience to “get on with it” so it pains me to know that someone is waiting for a spindolyn or a knitting machine tool, and I might be standing in the way of some spinner or knitter and fiber progress! Fiber progress, is, right now, one of the “lovely comforts” that we can lean on in difficult times.
Excuse me, I have to go dig a ditch, be back later……
Ok, that right there is the problem. The rain and storms.
When the NWS said we might have 7-9” of rain, I went into preparation mode.
We learned from last years May flood that devastated Nashville and surrounds that you need to get everything away from the creeks that might be picked up and carried on down to clog up a culvert or bridge, even if it is not your culvert and bridge, because wouldn’t you feel stupid if you were to recognize a board or trash can or part of a feed trough that had been carried by the flood on down the creek and has now clogged up a culvert and caused the road to wash out and it is your junk that was not on high ground that has made it so that you and and your neighbors can’t get to town (that didn’t happen to me, of course, I am just saying.)
It is just that we (citizens of a planet undergoing climate change) are not used to this much rain, even in the spring season, and we are not used to the creek getting up that much, so people put lots of things in the flood plain, like my neighbor who had just built a low bridge over the creek for his tractor, and it caused our road to wash out to impassable for over a week until the county could get big equipment in to get us out.
So yesterday, planning on being well prepped, I spent part of the time I should be making spindles lifting up fence crossings and moving temporary bridges and pulling out downed trees from the last storm so they would not be swept away and add to the debris dams. I also dug ditches around the garden and house foundation, cleared the culvert and rearranged the the wingwall rocks. Every trouble spot that appeared in last years flood I tended to in preparation for this years flood. Good thing I did.
Except.
Except this year, something was different that I didn’t take into account. The pasture is on a hillside. The goats follow the sheep (that’s right, the sheep are smarter) and the sheep followed the mule, and the mule had set paths around and down to various pasture locations, and a switchback sort of way to get to the barn.
After the mule was gone, the sheep (Edwina, she is the leader) was happy to be the one making decisions, and changed the route to the barn. Showing that sheep are not as smart as mules she chose a hell bent for leather straight shot to both the barn and the front shed,
Edwina’s new straight shot tracks changed the route of the sheets of rain running off of the pasture. Turns out, having a mule prevented erosion, who would have thunk it?
So this morning, I woke to a spindle shop with water racing across the floor.dirt floor. Damn.
Wood was wet, some ruined, thankfully, no tools where on the floor, but there was a big mess to deal with and some walnut and oak to mourn.
So, part of today that would have been used for making spindles, had to go to salvaging wood and ditching and rerouting the water. Then when I got that done, the next round of storms came through with lots of lightening, and I don’t feel cool at all about working in a wet dirt-floored metal-walled building with lightening all around….so here I am blogging…but told you all that to tell you this.
Give the water a place to go, a lot of flood damage could be prevented if people kept in mind that water wants to go where it wants to go….and
Life is about having the right tools. These are my preferred ditching tools.


This is a cement hoe, lets water through the holes, and my trusty pick/mattock.

Farming~ the romance and the reality

      Warning: this is a long, not informative, sorta personal reflective post, you can just skip down to the fun part (the video) if you prefer  : )
    I have never considered myself a "gentlewoman" farmer. Over the nearly 30 years that I have been raising sheep, goats mules, donkeys and angora rabbits, I have tried to put practicality first. If a critter didn't "lay eggs, make meat, grow hair or protect against predators" I have been disciplined about not bringing it home.
After all, the first goal is not to lose money. Especially when my children where young, that would have been like taking food out of their mouths. I think that is the definition of gentlemen or hobby farmer, you can afford to lose money, and farming is all about losing money.
             My second goal was to do the best by my animals, loving and caring for them to the best of my ability within my resources, and this has not always been easy, and I ended up sacrificing perfectly good knitting and spinning time trying to tend to the health and happiness of the animals.
         The third goal was to profit from this work and care in terms of feeding the family, enjoying the fiber, utizing the manure for the gardens, and if possible, maybe make a little money.
              Well, right off, let me just say I have just about broke even when it is all said and done, but I have learned a lot, had joys and disspointments and had to be ever vigilant and ever disciplined.  Sometimes the freedom of travel or the apartment life fleetingly is appealing, but it is gone with the first garden produce of the year, or the first lamb born.
            As I advance in years,I am finding that keeping up with making the spindles and tools, trying to make a living, trying to garden for food and find time to still knit and spin and weave (much less blog) just leaves less time for the animals. So this winter and spring I have downsized the livestock part of the farm considerably, and am enjoying the remaining sheep and rabbits more.
      Will I have more time to blog? not sure about that...I was up in the woods above the pasture yesterday on my way to the spindle shop and had the most interesting idea for a spindle base......you can't be on the computer when you have an idea burning a hole in your head....
Edwina had triplet lambs this year, so of course I had to make a lamb video.


 The three have such strikingly different personalities. Estella is the exuberient one in the video, she is even an exuberient eater. She has more white on her than the others, is more curious and the most bossy. Eloise is the somewhat shy lamb, when she is not playing with her sister, she stays close to her mother. Their brother Edward, the runt, was, from the beginning, a dreamer. He likes to spend quiet time alone, watching the wind blow in the trees, eating leisurely off away from the rest, exploring little areas. He had to have a bottle supplement for a while to get him up to speed, and he will probably always be a small whether, but his fleece is lovely and his health is good. Now that is more info than anyone wants to read, but there you have it!

Heart Chart (for knitting, that is)

Had this heart ready to post for a month, wanted to get it out in time February, but work got in the way. It is the chart that I used for the Machine Knit version of the Heartwarming Aromatherapy Keyhole scarf (coming soon)

The larger version to print out is Here It is 24 stitches wide so will work with the Magic Needle Selector wand, or punchards.

Making time and space for Machine Knitting

    Repairing a thoughtless error in my calculations on a knitting pattern this afternoon, I noticed I was neither hunched over nor hurried as I sat at the knitting machine.
     The greyish light of the winter afternoon rested softly on the needle bed and I felt happily contented, mistakes and all, and wondered why I had waited so long to set up the knitting machine this winter right in front of the living room window.
     Since fall, it had nagged at me, this desire to move the knitting machine to somewhere warmer, but not in the way. This house is too small for both of those criteria to be met, so I finally decided that "in the way" is not so bad, after all.
     In the summer, the knitting machine resides in the office, which is actually a poorly insulated enclosed portion of the original back porch. I can bundle up and assemble spindolyns or pack orders, but I simply can not abide being cold while knitting. It is somehow counterintuitive, and I operate on a 50/50 mix of intuition and logic. This winter has defied both of those, averaging way below normal in temperature and above normal in gloom. I have been doing more spinning and handknitting and just plain missing my knitting machine.
    So now, it is finally crammed into the living room, with 3 warming dogs, two cats, JB and his music studio, the wood stove, the tv, the stereo, the books, 3 computers and so on. Funny thing how that kind of winter intimacy either makes you want to kill someone, or drives you into a personal space that is actually more productive. The latter is working for me, with the mk right there at the window, every time I look out the front window to check on the sheep and goats in the pasture or the birds at the feeder, I sit down and knit a few rows (or more) the same way one might casually pick up their hand knitting.
      I was originally worried that the sun coming in the window would be a problem........ha. what sun?

What is funny about this photo? I am repairing my mis-calcuation by adding more on to the knitting on the machine, by knitting it on by hand. When the table and the chair are nice heights to each other, this is as comfortable as lounging at the kitchen table reading seed catalogues and knitting.

The shoemakers wife~the sockmakers husband

       As an old school feminist, the terms "husband and wife" leave me a little uneasy, but hey, when you are searching for a title, sometimes you have to stretch.
      But the point is still valid, even if convoluted. In this household, we are experiencing a serious sock deficit. ( insert horrified soap opera music here)
       Some winters in sunny Tennessee, just a few pairs of warm wool "home knit" (hand or machine) socks will get you through...this winter has been a frigid exception. Need---more---socks! feet are cold, socks are dirty.
        Will get on to that, as soon as I get these current spindolyn orders done, locate some more hay for the sheep and goats, find some dry firewood,etc, but in the meantime, will share some photos of socks that were kindly forwarded to me from a customer, Kay, (EarthKat) Thanks Kay for sharing!



Great job! her first Machine knit socks. The colors really move me.
She knit them using the pattern in my book Sock Options for Machine Knitters, and wrote some nice and head swelling stuff about trying other patterns and really liking the book but (blushing) I wont go in to that, other than to say it really makes me happy to think of happy feet,and inspires me to get cracking on some socks for my poor cold feet.

Melting snow and the warmth of human kindness

It has been a “hard times” winter for a lot of people. Around here, we have burnt up a winters worth of firewood and e’t up a winters worth of hay, and it is only the middle of January. A body could get right down and discouraged having to rub their hands together just to keep them warm enough to knit or make spindles, but you can tell that the days are getting longer…like right now, it is already 4:30 pm, and I still have enough light yet to finish this post, put on my snow boots and go bring in some more firewood.
There just has been a terrbile lovely sprinkling of human kindness down on me of late, customers saying nice things about the spindolyn, sending me wonderful photos of their spinning in progress on their spindolyn, or their knitted sock accomplishments from a pattern in the Sock Options for Machine Knitters, or making good marketing suggestions, and even sending  winter soup recipes! When you’re kinda fighting the winter blues, you just can’t ask for nicer niceness than that!
Mono commented on my last post about enjoying her spindolyn, which after receiving she quickly spun up some lovely fiber and posted it on her blog, which is a very busy and fun fiber blog to visit. Now here is a strange coincedence…about the time she had placed her order, and I was working on making her spindolyn, I was actually knitting a hat from one of her patterns from ravelry (which you can also find one her blog) “Tempos Headcoat” (can you hear the spooky music?)

Here is another pic of my shop (in the foreground) looks cold,doesn't it? you can't imagine   ; )