OH WHAT A TANGLED WEFTsome sex, sci fi, magic humor
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 ago, 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 Library had a collection of such cards. The Cheese, having read every book on the library, moved on to the stacks and discovered the cards, and read them, well enough that he remembered the basic premise when Jo asked for a wheel and loom. "I can do that," said the Cheese and proceeded to not only build the wheel he also built the tools. "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 spindle used for spinning wool into thread. It had a weight at the bottom called a whorl and a hook at the top. She took some of the mammoth wool 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 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 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."

"It's going to be harder and harder to stay alive here, the woods are jam packed with nasty things that will kill you and eat you for lunch. Muskox wool is supposed to be great to spin, but I'm not EVEN going to try and shear one." The Cheese snapped his fingers..."shears, I need shears. I need to make the tools to keep you Veggie girls dressed."

"Veggie? Girls?" she laughed, "Vegan, puleese."

"One thing you ladies need to remember, my mom is in her late fifties, or something like that. She calls all her card playing friends Girls and I know the youngest is 52. If girls works for her it works for me."

"I see, politically correct really doesn't fit here."

"Nope, we guys have to keep our breeding stock safe. It's a hell of a way to put it, but it's true."

"Where you going, Cheese?"

"Huh?" mumbled the Cheese, stumbling out the door. "Oh...if we're going to do this, I need to see if I can catch a sheep, yeah...I need a sheep....two sheep...this is going to get complicated. I need a nap."

She roared!

Building the sheep trap slash pen took several days, what with working in the garden, regulating the rice water, meeting the gang at the North tipi, riding out regularly for a looksee and generally lazing around. The Cheese built a sweatlodge too, a sauna was too damn hard. Everyone loved the sweat because the hotpool needed the carpets to get to it. Cold water poured on hot rocks in an closed tight space creates a lot of sweat, the heat opens the pores and the dirty oil that gathers with the oil comes out. Sweats get one really clean. Go jump in the river to cool off and you're good to go.

The funnel trap the Cheese built worked too well. The Cheese trapped a whole damn herd of sheep and a couple of deer, a few rabbits, a pissed off mountain lion, and other various and sundry creatures. The mountain lion just went in the funnel and out the backside in one leap. The rabbits went under the rails along with a whole family of upset skunks. The sundry was the ten year old boy from the old coots Village and one of the 12 year old maidens, who no longer qualified as a maiden. She was cute though, the Cheese said, "you need to go talk to Gran about this."

"Whoa, shit. She'll be pissed." She swayed sexy like, "you sure we can't work something out?"

"Absolutely, I can beat your ass with a switch or you can go see Gran...you choose."

She took off like a deer.

"You and I have to have a talk, young feller."

"What about?"

"About what happens to kids who become daddies."

"Oh."

"I'll be the first to admit it's fun, but there's consequences to screwing...children don't grow under cabbages, they start with a squirt from that rod you're carrying."

The Cheese pondered a bit, "this is my fault, the rest of us are fucking pretty much as we choose. I guess you can too," the Cheese propped one foot on a fence rail, snatched up a grass stem, and started chewing it. The kid did the same.

"What name to you go by, kid?"

"Don't got one yet. Kid works until I earn one."

The Cheese ruffled the kids hair.

"What do you know about sheep?"

"Nothing."

"Want to learn?"

"Not particularly, but I'm willing to give it a try. Maybe it'll keep me out of that damn garden. I hate pulling weeds."

"You're going to hate sheep worse."

"How's that?"

"You're going to have to carry water and feed to this bunch until they follow you around the pen."

"Oh? That sounds like a pretty big job, can I get help?"

"Sure."

"Good, the rest of us Coot's kids can do this."

"I'll be back"

The Cheese scratched on Joanne's door post, "busy?" he asked.

"What's up, Cheese?"

"I trapped a whole damn herd of sheep, you should come look."

"Let me find some clothes and I'll come."

"You look pretty. I just turned down a roll in the furs with one of the 12 year olds."

"You did?"

"Yup. she was doing the nasty with one of Coot's kids and I caught 'em. She didn't want me to tell Gran, and offered. Jo's been gone too long."

"I can help!"

"Nope, it's Rosie Palmer and her daughters tonight though."

"Gonna choke the chicken?"

"I sure hope she gets back soon, that little girl tempted me."

"Let's go see the sheep."

"I ain't EVEN going there."

She laughed so hard she cried.