Chapter 20: Oh What a Tangled Weft

A few of the Vegans were still having problems with the idea of eventually being forced into wearing leather.

When the men were sent on what the Cheese called "the Great Kotex Hunt" and Jimmy called the Bloody Cunt Hunt, they found some mountain goat and sheep wool.

Evidently those wools had the scale (little hooks) necessary to grab each other and be spun. If they could find enough undomesticated goat and sheep wool, it would be possible to spin yarn ... if one has a spinning wheel. Yarn can be woven into cloth ... if one has a loom ... both loom and wheel would be a great leap forward as the construction of each requires the construction of tools to build the parts.

Once upon a time, many moons before, Shredded Wheat box dividers had diverse information on the construction of "olde tyme tools." Most of the cards were pretty good and a few were pure bullshit. The Local Library had a collection of such cards.

The Cheese, having read every book in the library by age 13, moved on to the stacks and discovered the cards, and read them, well enough that he remembered the basic premise when Jo, a blushing new bride, asked for a wheel and loom.

"Cheese, honey, lambiepie, sweet cheeks?" she begged. "I'd like to learn how to spin. Find me a spinning wheel?"

"I can do that," said the Cheese and proceeded to not only build the wheel he also built the tools. But that was then and this now was a whole new ball of wax. The Vegans wanted to spin and weave.

The gears in the Cheese's mind started turning and he thought, 'the hard part is going to be the metal to make the knives to turn the spindles to make the legs of the table and the spokes of the wheel. I need to return to the old coot's village, there I will find the metal ... but all the carpets are out. When I succeed in making the tools to make the parts the Veggies will need raw material. I wonder what other hair has the little hooks?' Checking what's available revealed muskox wool has hooks, Mammoth wool has hooks. We're set.

The Cheese asked Lori to fly over a mammoth and gather some wool, or pick some from a favored rubbing spot. Muskox are really fast and dangerous so she should leave that for another time or person. Lori delivered. "Thanks Lori, that was sweet of you."

"You're welcome, Cheese, I'm pretty bored, potty training sucks."

"Oh? How you doing with it?"

"I have the theory down perfectly ... the practice, however ... eww!"

The Cheese meandered over to one of the Veggies tipis. He scratched on the cover to get attention, "Hi, Joanne, may I come in?"

"Sure Cheese, what do you need?"

"It's what I can do for you. Will this spin? It has the little hooks."

"What is it?"

"Mammoth wool."

"Damned if I know. I can try." She brought out a drop spindle used for spinning wool into thread. She shifted in to 'instructional mode' and explained the parts.

"It has a weight at the bottom called a whorl and a hook at the top. I'll show you how it works."

She took some of the mammoth wool in her fingers and twisted it into a a string by adding fibers. When it was long enough she gathered more wool and began to spin the weighted spindle, she "cast" on the wool as it twisted, the little hooks on the wool caught and twisted. She kept casting on the wool. When she had a yarn of fibers about three feet long she picked up the spindle and wound the yarn on the spindle.

"This is pretty nice. What else ya got?" The Cheese retrieved a bunch of goat hair and handed it to her. She picked up a second spindle and began twisting, casting and winding. "This is wonderful, anything else? Oh, that's sheep. I know how that spins. It takes so long to spin with a drop, a wheel would be great."

"I'm working on that. I need metal so I can make the tools to make the parts. I need one of the carpets. We have to wait until the girls come back."

"What do I owe you for doing this?" she did a Groucho Marx waggle of her brows.

"I want to learn Tai Chi and you're the best practitioner. Will You teach me?"

"That's it? No humpy humpy? No head? Just teach you Tai Chi? You really are a marvelous fellow, Cheese. Jo said you don't cheat."

"I play, but she has to be part of it. If she says no ... that's no! I'm getting old, it's hard to keep up with Jo and Vickie."

"23 isn't old."

"Think so? Ask one of those 10 year old boys if 23 is old."

"I see what you mean," agreed Joanne.