Molly Bee's Attic

Another needle basket... I always suspected I'd end up like this..... whiling away the hours making baskets, drooling and lip-diddling in the corner of a tiny room with 80 cats.... I got the cats part wrong. It's an 80# dog. And we're both drooling..... But we're peaceful and content..... May you all have 'enough' ...

Friday was one of those stellar days when all the moons aligned. I garnered an unexpected $500 bonus. I got a two rebates in the mail to the tune of $55. I even pressed my luck and bought a scratch off lottery ticket, which I NEVER do, and won ANOTHER $50. Work was productive and went by quickly. The kids behaved. Traffic was good. I found out that MY TayTay (Taylor Hicks) has a new CD out. All was right in my world. I shoulda known. When things come that easily, you know you are in Karma's cross hairs for sure. I woke up at 1:30 Sunday morning to the smell of dog poo. One of the three of us who live here this week (Ben and I aren't pointing any fingers, Grendel ) got into the garbage and had tummy trouble. I cleaned it up , dumping it and the paper towels into the toilet, thus clogging it solid. I was amazed at how alert I was at 1:30 AM. Why I could creatively string cuss words together like a pro even at that early hour. I spent the rest of the night unclogging, scrubbing...

RE: The Drive Home From Work Today Dear Molly Bee, In your head, when you are seat dancing and singing to the top of your lungs with the car radio, you are the coolest, most talented, uber guest guitarist/ soloist to ever grace the stage at a GoGo's concert. However, outside of your head, you appear to other motorists to have some kind of a seizure disorder, which is disconcerting to them. They are not your 'fans', 'screaming for more'. They are screaming into their cell phones to the 911 operator about a potential multi-car pile-up. Furthermore, that guy in the van is not your 'fan club president'. He was smiling because he was partaking in an odd looking cigarette and besides, smiling while shaking ones head sadly is not a sign of approval...even if he was waving his lighter back and forth at you and mouthing the words 'Free Bird'. Just sayin '.... Safety Consciously Yours, Molly Bee

Nothing says spring like a trip to A to Z farms to see the new babies! I got there right when they opened and it was crowded already. Guess a lot of folks learned their lesson from trying to go later last year too. It was LAMB-DE-MONIUM in there ! As you can see by the tally board. They were in high gear. There were lambies: And piggies... (Who quite frankly looked like their mama mighta kicked it up a little with the Holstein kids' dad one cold night in the barn! Shhh! ) There were bunnies and chickies and turkeys ... And best of all!!!! TREASURE! Confetti batt from the Frene Creek Farm vendor. It's 2 oz of a mixture of 'many types of wool, camel, tussah silk and firestar' sparkley stuff. That's right! Melted peacock colored, soft as kittens and shiney. Don't get much better'n that! Hello spring!

First of all, lest y'all be thinking that with all the goings on with the manatees and wallabies and tigers(Oh My!), the basketry, the sunburns and all of the other shenanigans lately, that there hasn't been knitting going on. No Sirree! Don't you fret one bit...there's been knittin '. I took my mini mitten kit bag with me to FL so there was lots of mitten knittin ' on the flights and in airports. True to form, here is an ill-lit photo to prove it. I have 15 pairs total so far-right on schedule. If you haven't stopped over to Kate's Chronicles of a Country Girl site you should go over and check it out. Right now. I'll wait. Dumdedumdedum. What didja think? Not only is it a wonderful site, but she's having a mug giveaway. Apparently mentioning it here is called 'pimping a giveaway'. Doncha love that?! So I'm pimping away! But don't win it OK 'cause I'd really like it for me! Friend D. and I went to lunch on Saturday and ...

A friend in Florida makes absolutely gorgeous pine needle baskets. Here is the one she gave to me: Isn't it gorgeous?! The pine needles in Florida are Jurassic- sized and are everywhere. A lot of of folks use them as mulch. So I picked up a handful to bring home and try to make my own basket. I watched a little bit when my friend was making them but didn't have much personal instruction and didn't try it while I was there, so I just kinda winged it. First I poured boiling water on the needles and let them sit a couple of hours and then laid them out on a towel to dry a bit. Then I just started making a spiral. The blue thing is a little piece of soda straw to keep the needle bundle a uniform size. My friend had a metal gauge but I didn't know where to get one so I improvised...Thank you Culver's ! I sewed it with some artificial sinew that I got at Michael's craft store. After the bottom was as big as I wanted it I started coiling up the sides. I only brought ...

On Monday, we rested up and nursed our sunburns after the Steeple Chase. We did a little shopping in town and I gathered up pine needles for a potential basket. Then we had an early supper and went back out to Pine Island for the sunset. It was stupendous. We had a couple of hours to walk the beach and y'all know how I loves me some beach walking! There were lots of little jellies washed up on shore. I asked everyone I saw if they were from the area and knew why the big die off happened. Turns out that no one in Florida is actually FROM there. (And it also turns out that if you point out all of the dead jellyfish, they won't wade with you anymore. Wusses! ) I finally found a guy from the area and it turns out he was a marine biologist! What luck! Not really. He didn't know why they were all dead. Kept saying, "They just got cooked, I guess..." which may be some kind of marine biologist tech speak that I don't know about, but I doubt it. Gulf of Mexico Black h...

On Sunday we were treated to a day at the Little Everglades Ranch Steeple Chase . This is a charity event that is held on a 2000 acre ranch in Florida's horse country every year . There were Irish and English jockeys, Jack Russell terrier races and craft exhibits. Lot of the ladies were dressed in their southern finery including huge hats like at the Kentucky Derby. Our host had a party tent right on the back stretch of the track. It was a beautiful sunny day as I proved by getting a sunburn despite SPF 55 lotion. I'm from Wisconsin, Y'all! I'm lucky I didn't burst into flames! Here is the tent. A lot of them were decorated with themes for judging. Guess what our theme was? I, of course, scouted out the animal ops. Here I am with a 15 week only tiger: We rubbed her tummy and feet until she fell asleep. I can honestly say that I've had a tiger by the tail now! Here is my new bestest buddy. She is a two year old albino wallaby. She ran right over to me and gav...

Forgot to show you this shot yesterday. I took it in Homosassas State Park. A blue heron, manatee and turtle in the same shot! There was a small woods near where we stayed and I had a great time grubbing around in it; picking up pine needles to make baskets and searching for wild tortoises. My searching finally paid off. The first day I only found active nest sites: But the next day, this guy strolled right out to have his picture taken! Friday we went to Pine Island Beach. Since Tampa is on the nature coast, there aren't a lot of beaches. They are mostly south, but Pine Island has a wonderful small beach with an unobstructed view of The Gulf. We missed the sunset, just got the melting cloud colors, but went back again on Monday and I got some great shots. I'll show you those later. Here is post sunset at the beach! Saturday found us at Swamp Fest. It was a craft festival with music and all sorts of exhibits. I got to hold a six week old otter pup but I don't have an e-pic...

Just got back from a week's vacation in the Tampa area with a friend. Tampa-80°...Madison-14°. Temperature shock upon walking from the Dane County Airport terminal to my parked car in just a sweater-100%. Vacation of a lifetime -priceless. We got so many unique opportunities on this trip it was amazing. We got great photos too, so I thought that for the next several days, I would take it a day at a time and share them. The first full day we went to Homosassas State Park to see the manatees. A person that had been there a few days before said that they didn't see any in the canal behind the park, but we saw 35-mamas and babies were so cute together. What good luck! There are 4-6 rehabbed female manatees in the park that they feed. We watched them being fed sweet potato slices and carrots. The park has an underwater observatory called 'The Fish Bowl' where you walk right down into the crystal clear spring and we got shots like this... There were so many other animals and...

I was so enthused with my time in the lab that I tried replicating DNA at home last weekend. I think I did something wrong. This doesn't look like Doug The Application Scientist's results at all. Is one BIG DNA worth a bunch of microscopic ones? It'll take a really long time to make enough to clone anything. It's 100% wool. Is this how Dolly the Sheep got started? (Pattern can be found on Ravelry : Baby's First DNA Model)