[Tonight's fundraiser: beautiful men with purses collect pledges during dinner. Thanks, Adam and Charles!]I wish there was time to personally enjoy this gathering. Here's what today looked like, roughly:7:30 - (slept in late) tea8:00 - breakfast and chat with a friend9:00 - bookkeeping: processing expenses10:00 - bookkeeping: processing income11:00 - strategizing and finding volunteers for tonight's

The apprentice has surpassed the master, so to speak. Tower is learning the ropes of weaving from me. His first project has been to learn, set up, teach, and oversee a community weaving fundraiser. He is doing amazingly well at every part of it!He has taken a few simple suggestions on potential techniques and turned them into beautiful rugs. If he chose to, I think he could make a decent living just

[Pile of clothes turning into strips][8 rugs, waiting to be cut off]The gathering is going well. People are having a great time. The last few days involved lots of little tasks: finishing and distributing our newsletter, managing the finances, collecting registration forms, working on proposals for our semi-annual meeting next week and most exciting, distributing fly parasites.This was actually the

[Rug weaving demonstration and silent auction]Today has been slow and pretty lazy. After yesterday's ridiculous stress I really needed to take it slow.I woke up late and took a long time to find people to help move the rug weaving operation down the hill. We loaded it onto a cart and hauled it all down, getting it set up by about noon.Then I strung a new necklace. It's funny. This happens about once

[Infinity pool, Wolf Creek style. Fed by the spring, it makes hot days bearable if you can find the time to use it.]This day turned out nothing like I planned. I woke up ready to hold my Purse Queen office hours, set up the registration scene and move the rug weaving operation down to where people can see it for our fundraiser.I got down the hill and didn't even have a chance to drink my tea before

The main purpose for acquiring the Sanctuary was to host gatherings. In the beginning, people came together for a week or two to prepare the land for each gathering. Over the years that has shifted so that nowadays people expect to arrive and find everything prepared for them.This is an immense amount of work. I mean, it's a big enough chore to keep things maintained "well enough", but to add the gathering

I haven't really written in a while. This is for several reasons.First, production weaving isn't all that exciting to write about. It involves weaving the same thing over and over again. Sometimes the colors change, but not much else.Second, my vision for a crafts monastery is ramping into high gear. I've stepped into a more active role in the Wolf Creek Sanctuary community with my eyes always on the

The last month has been interesting. I'm teaching folks here to weave, starting with my apprentice, Tower.The project is simple and fun: we're taking old cloth that accumulates around the land and turning it into rugs. Torn bedsheets, old clothes, nothing is safe from our high-speed cutting machine!The resulting rugs will be sold at the big summer gathering to raise money for our wintertime utilities.

[Dracunculus smells like rotten meat.][Sunbow on a hazy day][A pretty sunset last week]