The Legion of Urban Homesteaders...
Apr. 24th, 2006 10:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
msfledermaus...I wasn't feeling well yesterday, so I called in dead to work, and spent some time hanging out with Ben and Petey and their Urban Chicken class.
I ran into an old friend of mine--Priscilla!!! Priscilla is an amazing person--she gardens organically and hunts pheasant with a bow. She makes interesting altered clothes and taught herself to knit from a magazine, like I did:) We drifted apart after a while because we were both so busy with work and school and her child and whatnot...so what a great surpise to run into her holding one of the new baby goslings Petey bought!! She's interested in raising a couple of chickens herself, and had come to hear Pete's lecture about Urban Chickens.
We got to catching up, and she told me that she bought an Ashcroft Saxon spinning wheel for $80, but didn't know how to spin yet. I was delighted to volunteer to teach her what I learned so far, to get her started. Hehhehheh...It's so good to share hobbies this archaic with a friend--you can spare your friends the glasec eyeballs when they foolishly ask you, "So, what are you up to lately?" and you tell them all about the merino-alpaca black and tan marl you just made which is sooooo nice and even, you're just so proud... It's serendipitous, I tell you!!!:)
Anyway, it was a great evening eating hot dish and cake and pork loin and admiring chicken books and talking about how cool it would be to bring our spinning wheels over to Ben and Petey's sometime and spin wool in front of the Segway tours that tour the Island they live on. We want to wear all our best Gothy-goth-Goth clothes. And cackle. Because we're just that easily amused, and it matches the Victorian houses in the neighborhood. Yeeeees, we'd be perpetuating the old Wiccan-as-potentially threatening force...but it would still be really fun.
Also, Ben brought out this great wheel of cow's milk cheese he'd made--aged for three months and wrapped in black wax. We'd tasted it, and agreed that though Ben said it was a Colby, it was more like a nice, salty-but-pleasantly-mild Cheddar. Then we wolfed it. Now we have to wait another 3 months for more:P
It's really strange--I never thought I'd be such a happy little proponent of Do-It-Yaself food and cloth and so on, living in the middle of Downtown like I do...(Okay, now that I think about it--what I really like about urban spaces is the small communities and interesting landmarks and weirdness it brings out...the city itself is just a nice side-benefit.) I'm just so happy sitting on Ben's porch and being surrounded by people making and doing all these great things. Next time I visit, I'm bringing the drop spindle at least...
And yes, Petey has lots of straw. No, I can't spin it into gold. Not even with the chickens helping me...
I ran into an old friend of mine--Priscilla!!! Priscilla is an amazing person--she gardens organically and hunts pheasant with a bow. She makes interesting altered clothes and taught herself to knit from a magazine, like I did:) We drifted apart after a while because we were both so busy with work and school and her child and whatnot...so what a great surpise to run into her holding one of the new baby goslings Petey bought!! She's interested in raising a couple of chickens herself, and had come to hear Pete's lecture about Urban Chickens.
We got to catching up, and she told me that she bought an Ashcroft Saxon spinning wheel for $80, but didn't know how to spin yet. I was delighted to volunteer to teach her what I learned so far, to get her started. Hehhehheh...It's so good to share hobbies this archaic with a friend--you can spare your friends the glasec eyeballs when they foolishly ask you, "So, what are you up to lately?" and you tell them all about the merino-alpaca black and tan marl you just made which is sooooo nice and even, you're just so proud... It's serendipitous, I tell you!!!:)
Anyway, it was a great evening eating hot dish and cake and pork loin and admiring chicken books and talking about how cool it would be to bring our spinning wheels over to Ben and Petey's sometime and spin wool in front of the Segway tours that tour the Island they live on. We want to wear all our best Gothy-goth-Goth clothes. And cackle. Because we're just that easily amused, and it matches the Victorian houses in the neighborhood. Yeeeees, we'd be perpetuating the old Wiccan-as-potentially threatening force...but it would still be really fun.
Also, Ben brought out this great wheel of cow's milk cheese he'd made--aged for three months and wrapped in black wax. We'd tasted it, and agreed that though Ben said it was a Colby, it was more like a nice, salty-but-pleasantly-mild Cheddar. Then we wolfed it. Now we have to wait another 3 months for more:P
It's really strange--I never thought I'd be such a happy little proponent of Do-It-Yaself food and cloth and so on, living in the middle of Downtown like I do...(Okay, now that I think about it--what I really like about urban spaces is the small communities and interesting landmarks and weirdness it brings out...the city itself is just a nice side-benefit.) I'm just so happy sitting on Ben's porch and being surrounded by people making and doing all these great things. Next time I visit, I'm bringing the drop spindle at least...
And yes, Petey has lots of straw. No, I can't spin it into gold. Not even with the chickens helping me...
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no subject
Date: 2006-04-24 05:48 pm (UTC)Sounds like you had a pretty cool day, despite not feeling well.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-26 02:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-24 06:31 pm (UTC)Word.
Hunting upland game with a bow takes great skill. Go Priscilla!
no subject
Date: 2006-04-26 02:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-28 12:42 am (UTC)