After all this time in my life, I am getting a different message these days…there is no hurry hurry hurry…now it is all, be patient, wait, slow down, slow done, calm down, gently, slowly, calmly…yeah, ok, so yesterday it was hurry up and buy some rabbit stuff so you know and I know how important the rabbit thing is…but overall…it’s that the rabbit stuff had to make a show in my life…not yet the rabbit. I am still waiting to hear from the rabbit rescue. My little baby buns from the breeder will still be there in April when I go to pick them up, should they survive that long (please let them). Patience is a virtue. We all know it’s just not mine.
Providence stepped in today. Remember me complaining that I couldn’t find anything or anyone really local …or really angora related? Today the local homeschool events calendar sent out a notice of those families who homeschool who also own their own business. One of them is Fluffington Farms. I sent her an email just to make contact. I tried to keep my enthusiasm down. I am not all that sure I succeeded, but we’ll see what sort of response I get in return. I am holding myself back from asking about buying any bunnies from her yet. Not just because of the April two I have on reserve…since I am nigh on certain at this moment we are becoming breeders, sooner than we suppose, but because I am so certain that taking in two rescue rabbits is the best way for us to start. The rescue rabbits will be the house mascots. The others will be our breeding stock. Size of our herd? Flock? Will depend upon how much work bunnies are for me alone and how much I can handle.
My patience. I am being patient waiting for the right pair of bunnies to come to us, to for us to find them, whichever comes first at this point.
My spinning wheel came in yesterday. I did not open the box then. I did open the box today. My beautiful New Zealand silver birch wood spinning wheel. Which came to me flat, in a box. It needs to be put together. Sigh. This is not really the part that I am good at, putting things together. Even though if it came down to it, I could and I would put it together myself. I simply feel better and more secure if R does it.
I took all those beautiful pieces of wood out of the box. Removed the white paper in which they were wrapped. Laid them out where I could see them all as individual pieces. Stroked more than one of them w admiring fingers. Pulled out the instructions—the instructions came in a folder, a folder full of stuff. There are two different copies of ‘The Wheel’ Ashford’s Fibercraft Magazine, New Zealand. A ‘learn to spin on an Ashford wheel’ pamphlet. An Ashford wheels and looms catalogue. A business card for Janey Cunliffe, the woman who’ proudly packed’ my wheel—for which I am grateful, ma’am. Thank you. The intricate instructions – full of pictures, very clear pictures – that also include trouble shooting not just the wheel itself, but also your spinning, should you have issues. I so love this company now—they have my business solidly from now, as does Paradise Fibers, from whom I purchased the wheel.
Now, one of the first things the instructions say to do is to finish the wood. They recommend waxing the wood, or you can lacquer it in any way you choose. I did not have my camera w me today, or I would have taken pictures of the soft, almost white wood pieces that I set out in the middle of my living room floor. I don’t want my wheel lacquered, but I do want it protected. So, we went to the hardware store today and bought some tung oil. There is nothing I love more than getting into the piece by piece process of some things. Oiling this wood was one of those things. Each and every piece, every nook, cranny and lip, I rubbed with an old rag, scrubbing the oil into every pore of the wood, until that wood gleamed. Some of the wood turned a beautiful honey golden color. Some of the wood, a gorgeous reddish color. It was breath taking. The tung oil takes a minimum of 12 hours to dry, although it may take longer, since it rained today. So, I left everything laying out, drying.
Although I truly want to shove my wheel together and sit to it and spin, I am not feeling rushed. If I were feeling rushed, and if I had given in to that feeling, I would have already put the wheel together myself, instead of waiting for R to do it. R bowls on Tuesdays. Yes, we are still waiting for this season to be over, so we can go next season. E is not going to let him forget his promise there. Patience. Tomorrow my wheel will be properly assembled, once R is off of work.
I tore out the top part of N’s sweater this evening. Because I had rushed through the yoke part without reading ahead in the directions, I had bound off the neck too tightly…and even casting on w an 11US needle (the sweater is being knit on 9US needles) there was no way that sweater was going over my boy’s big fat head. It was so much easier—and more satisfying, to rip the whole thing out and start over. Patience. I am learning.
I have about 100 books to read, to finish reading. I am waiting for more rabbiting books to come in. I am most amused by the fact that I was able to walk into my basement today, look directly at the bookcase I needed (my books are all organized by category—I am so loving that) and pull out three books that I have owned –for years—that include rabbit raising information. None of it seems to be angora specific at first glance, but still…it is simply more information for me to have on hand. More resources from which to draw. I like that. The more I read, the more I know we will be breeding rabbits. I see the logic in breeding pure bloods as well. That will not stop me from adopting rescue rabbits and treating them like family. Not that my breeders will be treated like dirt either, but there’s a difference between you sleep in the house and you sleep in the rabbit barn. I am not hopping up and down (oh, I think pun intended here) to build that barn right this minute. I can keep a small set of rabbits in the house, in the basement. I am not about to start breeding on a massive scale at any point soon. Slow and controlled, my methodology at the moment.
So many plans. So much time. The negative part of my life lingers yet, but it is no longer in control of anything. There is nothing the old and the past can do to me, except depress me and anger me. That I can completely let go of, without regret. It is this in between state in which I find myself. My friend is having a similar issue. She makes jewelry. Not low end jewelry. Not high end jewelry. But beautiful gorgeous amazing pieces that come from her hands and from her heart…what she calls mid-level work in comparison w the rest of the world. She is not denigrating herself. She is seeking out that middle ground, that fair place, where there is the perfect market for her to sell her wares successfully. I think that is what I am doing w my life now. The manic years are over. The peaceful years are coming. These are the years of building, not frantically, not frenetically, but w consideration, w even steps. I am not the woman once I was. I am someone far superior these days. I may hold the same ideals, but I am now in a position in which I can do something about them, make them have value, see myself through.
My longing for ‘the old life’, me who was born this wrong century—or perhaps the very right century, for it is people such as myself who will keep the older arts alive. The self-reliant, self-sufficient life. I never wanted to be madly rich. I never wanted to be famous. I never wanted to be the end all be all of anything. I want what I want—to have enough to do what we want to do and enough to do what we need to do…when we want to and when we have to do it. I want my own little niche where we live and thrive and grow…a place of peace and calm, an oasis in this mainstream drama that has never done much of anything for me.
Here now is the time where those seeds so long ago I did plant have finally begun to struggle to the surface, to show they have strong roots, and have been waiting with longing for the sun. Here I am, never the patient one, learning patience, and a different sort of humor. I am blessed. I know this. I am more than grateful for this blessedness, as well we all know. Strangely enough, I am happy. That alone is so much, more than enough, since it’s not something I have long known nor am used to experiencing.
There are more blessings here than meet the eye. Amazing.
