what followed me home

I appreciate the few guesses that came in. (I will clearly need to sweeten the pot next time to something that will motivate people to guess. My stash is somewhere in this mess -- the living and dining room pictures still look just like that -- and I can't locate 90% of it. The 10% I can find, Heidi doesn't want!)

But it is irrelevant anyway, as you are all wrong.

Abigail is not a cow.

She is not a goat.

She is not a chicken, or a sheep, or a cat.

In fact, she is not even an animate object.

She is my new Ashford Joy travelling wheel, which was a very very early Christmas present from my long-suffering parents.

Isn't she pretty and compact and cute? Here she is all folded up and ready to be put in her her handy-dandy over the shoulder carrying bag:

Based on the amount of spinning that I get done in a year, I really didn't need another spinning wheel. However, I am a pretty productive spinner away from my house. Make of that what you will. But my poor Ashford Traditional wheel was getting pretty beat up being taken to this 4H fair and that spinning workshop. She really isn't built to be lugged around like that and she suffered a pretty nasty gash last year. She is a special wheel -- too special to be injured. She was my mother's wheel, and has been in the family for as long as I can remember. (I think my mom got her soon after I was born, but she hadn't done any spinning on her in quite a while. In my defense.) She came to live with me when I somehow acquired a sheep farm and needed to learn the ins and outs of spinning to help market our fleeces. The rest, as they say, is history. My dad eventually went out and bought a replacement wheel for my mom so she could get back to spinning. She has built up an impressive stash of roving just by accompanying us to fiber festivals and calling dibs on fleeces while she is skirting them.

Now before you get on my case about naming a spinning wheel, I know. I KNOW. I used to be firmly in the camp of people who didn't understand why other people named their spinning wheels. I really didn't get it. I thought it was an odd little habit -- and then I got a second wheel. I started thinking about the differences between the two, and then out of nowhere, my brain spit out "the Traditional is definitely a Kay," and I had to agree. Sturdy, not too fancy, little more than one speed/syllable but utterly dependable. It didn't hurt that it is also my mom's middle name, so doubly fitting.

From there, the new one's name was just a google search away. Abigail means Joy. (See? I told you the name was a hint!)

It's all summed up by Terzo's surprised reaction, when he noticed the second wheel sitting in the family room: "Hey, Mom! You got anudder one of dose!" Exactly, little boy. And that is why I have to name them to keep them straight.