When my children were in cross country, they had a meet in Wood River. The bus driver decided to take a short cut over Trail Creek. As they zipped along the seldom used road, they were happy that they would spend less time on the bus. Until they came to the sheep. Shepherds were using the road for it's original purpose, to trail 5000 sheep from their summer grazing to their winter home. There was not time to turn around and drive the usual route, so the bus picked its way through several miles of closely packed sheep before speeding on to Wood River. The runners arrived just in time to get off the bus and dash to the starting line before the starting gun.
I started working at Joshua D. Smith Foundation with developmentally disabled adults and soon found myself in charge of weaving, about which I knew nothing. The client had been warping her loom one thread at a time. It took about a month to put on warp for one rag rug, and one hour to weave it. I was sure there was a better way. I took home a weaving book and discovered that this was true. The warp could be measured for multiple rugs and all put on the loom at once. I was gung-ho for the attempt. Reading from the book, I saw many steps for accomplishing this. One thing I did not understand was the need for establishing a cross, so I just skipped that step. Egad. I had 360 threads six yards long and they all became tangled. It took many days to lay them out on the living room floor and establish a cross so I could put them on the loom.
Yet I continue to do this. Given written advice from experts, I try to streamline the process and find myself draining the swamp. Someday, I am going to have a rousing success and be the expert writing the book. Likely story.
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