A funny thing happened a couple of weekends ago

Did you go to World Wide Knit in Public Day either on Saturday the 13th or the 20th? I helped to coordinate one for our county on the 13th. A group of us met at the county courthouse gazebo for talk, knitting, spinning and eating. It was so much fun to catch up with friends and meet new ones. I ended up spinning most of the time because I'm on a major spinning jag.

The rest of the weekend seemed charmed beyond all belief. On Saturday, before going to the courthouse, I stopped by the local farmer's market at the WWKiP event going on there. While there, I happened to see a great wheel at a tag sale. I didn't really look at it, just noticed that it was there.

The next morning, I drove by again and the wheel was still there. One of the ladies in my spinning guild collects antique wheels so I stopped and took picture of it and found out the price for her. When I called Kim, she said that she already had one great wheel so was going to pass on this one. I posted the pictures on an antique spinning wheel group on Ravelry and asked the members if they thought the wheel was missing any pieces, if the two breaks in the wheel itself could be easily fixed, and if it was worth it for the price. They said, yes, the wheel could be repaired and, no, it didn't seem to be missing any pieces.

I was still considering during the day and decided to drive by again before I went riding in the evening. When I went by, I saw that the people were starting to pack everything up. I only had $50 on me and offered it to the lady. Even though that wasn't was she was asking for it, she sold it in a heartbeat. I think they really didn't want to pack it up again. I continued to the barn, got the horses in, fed them, borrowed a truck out there, grabbed winter blankets and leg wraps for padding, and headed back into town. In 10 minutes, I had a brand new (you know what I mean) spinning wheel. According to the people on the Ravelry group, this wheel is a Pennsylvania Great Wheel. Right now, it is in the basement waiting to be moved to the living room.

The other exciting thing that happened that weekend was that I was offered a horse. Michelle, a fellow spinner, moved out to Colorado in January and their house finally sold a couple of weeks ago. She had reduced her herd of horses down to one horse that just wasn't selling. Ivy is a 3 year old Appendix (part Quarter Horse and part Thoroughbred) bay filly who hasn't been trained for riding yet. A couple of friends and I went to see Ivy on Monday. On Wednesday evening, we drove the trailer down to pick her up. (Our barn is just down the road from Michelle's.) She didn't want to load since we were a whole bunch of strangers. We borrowed another horse from the barn, loaded that one, loaded Ivy and drove off with both. Once we were at our barn, Ivy came off and Curtis drove the other horse back to her barn.

We let Ivy out with everyone else that night. It is always better to introduce everyone quickly rather than letting them injure themselves by fighting over fences. We let Ivy out first to let her have a chance to look at her surroundings before introducing everyone. Next, we let Java out to meet the new girl. He sniffed her and then went to get a drink out of the waterer. The next horse, Jazz, was in heat so badly that she didn't have eyes for any other horse than my gelding. (The girls have convinced him that he is a stallion.) Next, Bo was let go and he really wanted to be Ivy's friend. The last horse locked in was the head mare, Cali. She was slamming the door with her hoof, pinning her ears, and almost snarling at Ivy. Everyone got to a safe place and we let Cali out. She tore out of the stall and immediately put herself between Ivy and the other horses.

Ivy is to the left. The white horse in the middle is Cali.

They all ran around for a while. Cali was only able to herd Java because Bo kept escaping to see Ivy and Jazz had finally noticed the new horse.

By the next morning, Jazz and Ivy were joined at the hip. Both of them seemed perfectly contentent to come in the stall together to get fed and didn't understand when the silly humans wouldn't allow that.

Java and Ivy

After a little more than a week, Cali has given up on keeping Java away from Ivy. She has decided eating is much more exciting than herding her gelding around.