Popcorn on My Mind

 I'm not much of a farmer.  I don't know how these chicken things work.  But, I think it's a bit like popcorn.  It seemed to take forever for those young hens to start laying eggs.  Hubby would be all happy when he came in with 4 in the morning.  Then, 6...then 7....then 12.  I think the chicken house is like a big popcorn machine.  Once one of those hens starts to lay, there is a chain reaction and all those hens are bouncing off each other popping out eggs.  Anyway...it's January, it's cold, and I'm running out of egg recipes.

Okay - I used 2 eggs to make some chocolate chip cookies.  I follow a couple of blogs that often have recipes.  I'm always overwhelmed by any recipe that has more than 6 steps in the instructions.  But I'm inspired by my fellow bloggers.  I also needed to prove to my daughter that I know how to bake cookies.  And, of course, I blogged the picture so that I could go back and prove it to her later again when she denies I ever baked her homemade cookies.

 Don't expect me to print the recipe.  Go buy a pack of Milk Chocolate Chipits...flip over the package...there's the recipe.

 I feel like Betty Crocker.

My friend Joanne sold her gift shop that she ran for 30 years in our small town.  She found this text book in the basement of the store as she was cleaning it out. Knowing that I'm into textiles, fibre and books, she gifted it to me.

It was copyrighted in 1925, although this copy was printed after that.  It apparently was a text book that young women were taught from. 

It's got some very interesting pictures in it regarding fibre production around the world.

In the glossary, alpaca refers to a textile, not a fibre, that is used for suiting and can be woven from mohair with a cotton warp.  In a section describing fibre-bearing animals, they write of the 'Alpaca Goat',a goat-like animal.

In books written today, a reference to alpaca textile would only mean textile made mainly of alpaca fibre.   Alpacas now are known as new world camelids, as they are related to the camel family (along with llamas, guanacos and vicunas). 

To be fair, in 1925, alpacas would have only been seen in the mountains of Peru, Bolivia and Chile.   Alpacas are ruminants (multi-stomached mammals that chew their cud) like goats.  However, alpacas are sometimes called 'modified ruminants' due to their 3 stomachs (not 4) and their soft-padded feet (not cloven hooves).

One of the great pictures in this book is of a caravan of horse-drawn wagons loaded with wool, crossing some great plain on the way to the mill.  I'm not sure how many days that caravan would have travelled to get to a mill.  I wonder if it was a lonely trip or a party caravan to celebrate the end of shearing season.

Cut to 2010, when I crammed about 100 pounds of raw fibre, along with my overnight bag, into my PT Cruiser and headed south to the mill near Kingston.  Having that much bagged fibre in my car, is like having my own crash-cushion.  Mind you, the rear window is obscured and I am constantly aware that at any moment, my windows might blow out with the force of all this fleece.  That would really make my little car look like a popped kernel of corn, wouldn't it?  All that fleece makes it difficult to find room for the bottles of wine that I pick up at the LCBO along the way...but I manage.  I always make time to visit other alpaca farm friends on my 'fleece delivery to the mill' weekend.

Have a good weekend.