So far behind

I had a wonderful, (if cold medicine filled) weekend with Jess up at the Hancock Shaker Village. We were part of...wait, we WERE...the spinning demonstration for the end of National Spinning Week. Aside from being a great excuse to go up and see Jess, and hang out with her (very fun) family, and chill in her wool-filled house, this was a heck of an experience for me, even in my cold medicine stupor.

I had never spun in public before.

See, I've never had a class, or any spinning instruction beyond that very first day I sat at a wheel. And with all that I was doing that day, I really haven't the foggiest idea what I was told, except "draft and twist/draft and twist/draft and twist." (Which I finally got after several long moments of questioning my own intelligence).

Anyway, here I was, with Jess The Experienced Spinner sitting behind me. Me, out front, with all the curious staring at me. Need I say I was terrified? I prayed no one would have a clue that I had no idea what I was doing. For the most part, they didn't. I was able to prattle on when asked a question, and so long as I didn't have to name a part ("Oh, that's a doohicky. No, really. That's its name. Really") most people were just looking at the very basics, like how we can all be making yarn with different kinds of wheels. (My amazing fright aside, this really is the kind of thing I want to do. I'll suck it up, I promise.)

When I came home on Sunday, guess what I found? (If you guess "home" you're right! I made it all the way home with no directions from Jess' lovely home in the middle of freakin' nowhere far from the sound of highways with only my wee mind to guide me. Yeah, I was sweating bullets.) No, really, what I found when I got home was this:

BUNNY!*



This was one of the very first pictures we took of him, though it isn't really the best. He's still a bit nervous, here

Why, what did the kitties think of him, you ask? Misfit was the first to see him, through the glass door between our kitchen and mudroom (where he lives). He was NOT interested in meeting him face to face, though. Olive gets that distinction:



Olive the Wild Bunny Chaser is surprisingly not interested in eating chasing this one. Instead, she hangs out with him. There's a bench next to his cage, which was for *us* to sit on when we're in there. Olive, though, will take a nap there if given the choice, happily stretching to touch noses with Bunny whenever the chance arises. While I thought this was cute, and all, my real fear was what would happen when they met in the wild (ok, the front yard).

Mr. Cygknit built a foldy-up sort of pen, about 5 1/2 feet across, for Bunny to play in. It seems that when he saw Bunny's natural habitat in Vermont, there was much frolicking about in the grass, and he wanted to replicate such a thing here:



Don't I look healthy?

The odd thing, again, was Olive's lack of murderous heart for this little creature. We were all out there for over an hour, with Olive ranging around the property. She'd see him hopping about, and the movement would make her crouch. She'd run about half the distance to the pen, see it was him, and turn around, disappointed. She didn't care. She chased squirrels, instead (for the record, the squirrels always win).

Misfit, however, was not as amused by the bunny.



CrankyPants

For the most part, he just leaves Bunny alone, which is just fine by me. Bunny got his first free range in the house yesterday, after I blocked off about half the kitchen. Misfit pawed at the screen (a handmade room screen) a bit, and then resigned himself to whining. When Olive finally woke up, she whacked the screen over, and joined Bunny. At least he's getting the litter training down.

Finally, a Gratuitous Bunny Shot:



There are plenty more where that came from. Maybe tomorrow?

*We're in a bit of a dispute over names, here in the CygKnit house. Mr. C likes to call him Senor Pantalones (and has several songs he's created to the tune of "I Have A Little Dreidel.") I prefer Juniper, a suggestion from Terry. It is looking like Juniper will be his "Official" name, and he'll be known as Pantalones in the home. I'm not sure how I feel about this.