...though I'm sure ya'll think I tried to.

I'm still here. I'm still alive (well kinda ) and I'm still knitting... though not so much this summer as I do in the winter. But a LOT of fiberyness has gone on here in the past few months that I haven't been posting about. I'm sure I'll talk about most of it eventually.

As far as the garden is doing, I didn't keep my word. The deer have (so far) stayed out, thanks to an impromptu fence that Dad helped me rig (I was planning a better fence, but this was a "There was a deer in the garden this afternoon but it's 1am and I won't be up to chase them out again at 5 in the morning" fence). So the deer stayed out - and I never showed you pictures!

The lettuce, peas, chard, and beans have all done (or are doing) great. The zucchini on the other hand, well, I only have 2. The two I have are very cute little zucchinis, but who's ever heard of a person with 6 Zucchini plants and only two zucchini squashes?!. There's something about that fact that just goes against nature. Only 2...?

At least I won't have to be sneaking onto any doorsteps in the middle of the night to get rid of them...

The pole beans are probably what's done the best in the whole garden.

See them there in the left of this picture?

The a few days after I took this I had to go and tie up the tops of the poles, they were all falling over with the weight of the beans and I couldn't get between or under them to harvest.

See all those cute little beans?

We have a pound of green beans sitting in our fridge waiting to be used along with 8 oz or so of the last of the snap peas.

My lettuce has been providing us with salads since July. I only pick off what leaves I want when I want them, so it's hard to tell how much I've taken in, but it's produced pretty well!

It's been so much fun to finally get a garden! I've wanted to grow one since I was 9... It took me a while, but I finally got one!

But my garden isn't the real reason I came out of lurkerdom... My real reason is far cooler and much fiberier.

This is my reason for posting:

These are wool carders.

These are very old wool carders.

These are my great-great-grandmother's wool carders.

These are my great-great-grandmother's wool carders that my grandma tracked down.

These are my great-great-grandmother's wool carders that my grandma tracked down and my great-uncle sent to me!

(I'll stop talking like this now to save myself from sounding like a Dr. Seuss book)

A few weeks ago my Grandma called and said she'd been thinking about my spinning and whatnot and had been making some calls to track down my great-grandmothers wool carders. She had found them and my great-uncle was willing to ship them to me! Upon talking to my uncle it turns out that these are actually my great-great-grandmother's wool carders but were also handed down to, and used by, my great-grandmother. After her no one in the family had any use for them. They fell into my great-uncles hands and were packed away into a box for a really long time. They're actually in incredible condition for their age and will be really useful for merino, cashmere, angora and other lighter weight fibers! The teeth are really fine, the women in the guild wondered if they were originally cotton carders, though it's obvious that they have been used successfully for wool or the teeth wouldn't be as polished and shiny as they are now.

Another thing we noticed about them is that one side the teeth are just slightly coarser and stiffer than the other side... anybody happen to know why? And if this was common in older carders?

I'm really excited to use them! I need to get to a fiber festival or a spinning store and pick out a nice merino fleece that is just begging to be carded...