Aide dog tasks

Can Reggie mop an entire floor? No, but in his day, he could take a mop and wipe up a few spills here and there. While this is not a common aide dog task, my guys are multi task dogs and trained for quite a few jobs. Reggie could do over 100 different commands and Bo and McCarthy surpass that amount now.

What is an aide dog?

When I speak of working with an aide dog, many people have very little knowledge of what this is all about. I am physically and visually impaired and my aide dogs work at the specific task of service/guide work.

Besides being my eyes, my dogs are trained to work at many other tasks such as retrievals, helping me to dress, move around, and other tasks that may surprise you. They also do medical alerts for me such as seizure and migraine alert.

Below are photos of some of their task jobs.

McCarthy taking me down a ramp and avoiding the stairs

McCarthy guiding me in a mall

Bo untying my shoe prior to removing my shoe

Bo flushing the toilet

What's up?

What's up indeed, as I have been very busy lately and there are changes to this blog as well as the addition of a new blog, From Ewe to You Storefront.

At the top of the page, you will find a button labeled "storefront". Clicking on that button will take you to my storefront blog where I will be showcasing what I have available for sale.

For now, it consists of rovings which I have dyed and carded. As you can see from earlier posted rovings, these are moving well and have sold out. Tonight, I posted a new listing, so be sure to go and take a look!

Having a separate "storefront" will be of help for those who want to see what I have for sale without having to read through my posts to this blog and hunt up what's available.

It will be of assistance to me as well, because I can delete old listings as they sell out. No sense in having to read through the "sold outs".

To return to this blog, I have added a link from the storefront. I near drove myself silly trying to figure out how to do links and design a button, but it works and that is what matters.

Boa scarves and a fun spindle

I spent the weekend knitting eyelash and fun fur boa scarves, the fashionable skinny ones! See my new spindle design? Fun and just right for the upcoming holiday--Halloween! Ohhhhhhhh, can you just see children wanting to learn to spin with this spindle? Bet 'cha haven't got one of these in your collection! Hurry, hurry, if you don't get yours from me, you will just have to sit in the pumpkin patch and hope the "Great Pumpkin" comes along and gifts you with one!

Rovings for sale

Yes, I do sell my rovings (as well as rugs, scarves, hats, yarn, etc.) and the price for roving is $4.00 an ounce. Here are a few samples of what I have on hand at this moment. From top left we have "Raspberry Cordial", "Summer's Blue Skys", and "Peach Daiquiri". The next row down shows "Playful Pixies at Dusk", "Sunlight on Pumpkins", and "Peacock Feathers". The bottom row shows "Autumn's Fallen Leaves" and "English Rose Garden".

I haven't weighed these yet, but if you have an interest let me know and I can go and weigh all of a color that I have and give you the total ounce weight and price. Do feel free to ask for a verbal description of the colors as my video camera doesn't give justice to the colors.

I am still trying to figure out a way to show what I have on hand and not have to list everything and change it as needed. This will be a challenge.

My Silly Boy!

Here is my McCarthy, a red male cattledog, doing his "dead dog" routine. Isn't he just too cute?

Miss Fairchild

Here is one of my two harness floor looms. She came to me with the name of Miss Fairchild and her name remains that. I use her to weave dish cloths, towels and fine linens.

My Bumble Rug weaving loom

This is my Union Loom, the workhorse of the weaving world. This loom has woven hundreds of rugs of all shapes and sizes. The photo shows it the day it arrived at my home and before my husband and son carried it into the house. My floor looms are arranged one on each side of the fireplace downstairs and I think they work splendidly at "balancing" the look of the room.

I use this two harness room to weave my "Bumble Rugs" and the Union faily leaps with joy whenever I approach it with warp and weft at hand. It truly loves to weave!

My Bumble Rugs are woven with Pendleton wool selvage which I purchase at the Pendleton Mill in Oregon. They have many bags of this "waste" that is sold to weavers who weave it into beautiful and functional rugs. The selvage is the waste that is cut off after the weaving of blankets and material at the mill.