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Sunday 24 October 2010

good news - and sad news...

the photo above was taken yesterday afternoon - one of those brilliant autumn days with skies so blue and flaming colours all over! ok, not in that direction, because there are too few trees to chance colour much. but in our garden the leaves turn yellow or fiery red and some berries, late rosehips and even a late rose blossom peek out of the greenery... I love this time of the year!

and inside there's colour too - I've been messing with my acid dyes and sockwool skeins again:)) it's so much fun to do! no need to mix up large batches, no stirring like mad to avoid blotches and if the colour doesn't turn out quite as expected - what does it matter? the second skein from the left was supposed to be more blue than green, but the green beside it seems to have leaked some dye - which was picked up by the blue. this time the colours are truer to reality - only the one on the right is greener than the real one - which is blue to dark turquoise. right now there is another batch steaming away....
and I finished spinning/plying the batch of cotton/wool mix. I have 800 g now, which should be plenty for the project I want to start. first I have to dye it all though - green tones, but with procion instead of acid dyes, because cotton doesn't take the acids too well.
I am also still working on the school sweater for DS (boring....) and the table mat in linen/cotton, which is more fun because the colours change and it has the herringbone pattern in it.



the sad news is that on last friday our old dog Timmy (14, but pretty fit) was killed by the meter reader:(( he drove his wretched car over her - and didn't even stop to look!:(( I know that accidents happen, but nobody can tell me that you can drive over a medium sized dog that slowly - and not notice anything!  it was obvious that she had injured her pelvis as she was barely able to stand on her hind legs. we called the vet and he told us that not only did she have a broken pelvis, but also broken ribs and a punctured lung. we could see that she was very weak already and decided that it's no good to torture her more, so the vet put her down:(( the worst bit (apart from seeing her so badly injured) was that I actually saw the whole thing and couldn't do a thing to prevent it. especially sad is that her sister was killed by a car (someone else, we didn't see it happen at the time) in october of last year - deja vu down to the injuries:(( and esp. this time  we have a feeling (but no proof unfortunately) that it wasn't really accidental. why else would the car swerve directly into the dog's path instead of to the other side??? and there was nothing on the other side to warrant pulling over, I was there and saw nothing (it's not a road with traffic, we're talking about a narrow gravel road in front of our cottage...).

11 comments:

Delighted Hands said...

Beautiful job on the dyeing-just calling to be knit up now! I am so sorry about your dog-just a shame to have to make the call about putting her down. Hard to understand someone not stopping...

Sandra said...

poor poor timmy :(

Leigh said...

Oh Bettina, how awful about Timmy. I am so, so sorry. It's never easy to lose a beloved pet, but that would be an especially difficult experience.

I love your new header photo. I wish that was what I saw when I look out my front door! This is a wonderful time of year though. And your newly dyed skeins are lovely!

Helen said...

Bettina -what a horrible thing to happen to your dog and how very very sad for you. I cannot believe that anyone could drive over a dog and not notice so I hope you will take it further. It was a dreadful thing to do. I ma so sorry and send you all my sympathy and some virtual hugs. Helen

Kristin said...

Ach je, das tut mir so leid für Euch alle. Ein Tier auf diese Weise zu verlieren ist so fürchterlich unfair.
Fühl Dich mal ganz lieb geknuddelt und gedrückt.
Alles Liebe
Kristin

Woolly Bits said...

thanks for your kind words - I am slowly getting out of the bad dreams, but of course there's a "timmy sized hole" just now, which will take time to adjust to.
unfortunately there isn't all that much to do about it, apart from giving the guy a piece of our mind next time he comes along. it seems to be quite a common thing in the countryside here and of course, he'll just blame us that she was allowed out on the (private!) road anyway.... and whatever we'd do - it wouldn't bring Timmy back:((

Dorothy said...

How very sad about Timmy, it must have been a terrible shock, after 14 years together.

I think the job that vets do of putting animals to sleep is very kind to animals injured so badly.

Nina said...

What a horrible thing to have happen to a dear pup. I've heard of that happening and it's unthinkable.

I do love your dyed sock yarn. It's colours are lovely and lusciously yummy.

Janet said...

Dear Bettina - I am so so sad for you and your family over the loss of your dog. It is just incomprehensible to me that someone could deliberately do that. What is their mindset???

Even scarier is that I have heard of car drivers deliberately driving in a way to injure cyclists. That scares the wits out of me.

Woolly Bits said...

Janet, I have no idea why anybody would do this. but then I've seen mindless cruelty towards animals so many times here - some people just don't care:(( there are donkeys in the bog with hooves like clown shoes, but the owners don't do anything about it. a neighbour's dog had boiling water thrown at him, that he had to suffer terribly. I could go on like this, it's incredible:(( and yes, I actually know about people trying to get cyclists off their bikes. DS and DH were cycling into the next village, when one of the village rowdies plus pal tried to drive DS into the ditch on his bike! he escaped running into a stonewall, but only barely. the two drove off at full speed, before my husband was able to drag them out. when we confronted the bloke's mother, she actually had the gall to tell us that her precious son would never do anything like that! we rang the gardai, but were told that we had no proof, but they would try to keep an eye on the guys (well-known troublemakers in our area:(() it hasn't happened again, but I still worry when Stefan is driving around on his own. no choice though from next year onwards, when there's no school bus to his new school:(( some people aren't just inconsiderate, they are downright dangerous!

Anonymous said...

I just found your blog and read this post...it is so sad and I am so sorry for your loss! Some folks can be so mean and not even be aware of things going on around them. Peace, healing, and blessings to you and yours! Hugs!