burn baby, burn

...my skin, my muscles...the sunshine and a full weekend of hard labor has me wanting a cool bath in a tub full of aloe gel...and then hot packs after that...but i think i'll just settle for a good night's sleep.

it doesn't look like much, but:

The plot for my herb garden is tilled. Later this week, we'll be raking in manure and compost and if we're feeling frisky, will start directly sowing seeds into this and the veggie garden plots...just the hardier stuff, as we may still have a chance of frost. I have starts brewing for the rest.
I have been raking all week and weekend...there seems to be endless debris from last fall to clean up to give the grass and bulbs some breathing room, and all manner of sticks and stalks to clip down.
Timing is not everything, but is much in these matters, so I failed dismally in meeting my personal quota for MDSW and Farmer's Market prep. It just seemed really important to be digging in the dirt this weekend...and Saturday was site clean-up day for the Farmer's Market...a community effort to get the market site all cleaned up from a brutal winter and for all the vendors to choose their spots for the season. I was at the bottom of the list, having not been a full-time vendor before, but there really isn't a bad spot at this market. I have a very sunny six-foot site for my booth, so will have to be creative in construction for maximum display space as well as maximum shade. We have this week to design it and gather materials, and then we need to build it this coming weekend...a whirlwind, really, especially since C is working all week and I have my appointment for my bridge (finally...I will be whole again!) this Friday.

So...no website update tonight, but...I did get some spinning done this week...and some over-dying, too! I don't want to use acid dyes anymore, because our waste-water gets dumped directly into the watershed, so I had given them all away...but I still have jars of dye I had already mixed. I was craving a session with the kettle, and so overdyed a bit of pink merino top...which was a new experience for me. I was terrified I would felt it, but it came out great. It's the purple in the pics below. This summer I'm going to explore some truly non-toxic dying options...
Anyway, here are the results of the overdye:

Ectoplasm and His Purple Friend
a matchy little pair of singles, spun a very sport-ish weight...

And now, to sleep off my sunburn...