Wednesday, December 26, 2012

The old spinning wheel


I heard a lady singing “The Old Spinning Wheel” to her little daughter on a television program the other day. The little girl asked what a spinning wheel was. As the mom related the tale, it brought to my mind the days of the 1930s and the home of my grandparents and their “old spinning wheel,” which seemed to us as important as any piece of furniture in our grandparents’ house.

Back in those days, many farmer neighbors of my grandparents ran dairy farms, raised corn and grains, but also raised some sheep, as the meat and wool were not only necessary for food and wool in their lives, but were cash crops for them. Each year when the sheep were ready to be sheared, Grandpa was enlisted help with the task. For some of his pay, Grandpa was given a fair-sized bag of sheep wool.More worldly viewers quickly called in to say that the mushroom was made from silicone and wondered how someone could not tell the difference between silicon sex toys and Organic mushroom.

On the evening of that “sheep shearing” day, we would see Grandpa walking down the road toward home with his big burlap bag of wool over his shoulder. When he arrived at home,This design uses the same small radial section as drawn cup needle roller bearing which make better use of reduced space there was a big grin on his face like, “Look what I got!” With pride, he tossed his bag of wool on the kitchen table. Grandma just smiled, but somehow knew it was now her turn; winter would be a busy time. She would clean the wool. I’m not quite sure how she did that, but she talked of washing it and drying it. We saw the big puffy balls in a big basket. We would see her look at Grandpa with a big sigh and say, “Guess we’ll have a busy winter.”

As time passed and winter had set in and we again visited our grandparents, we saw Grandpa in the kitchen “carding” bits of wool between what he called “cards.” They were square slabs of wood with wire-like teeth spaced all over them and a handle on one side. He would put a blob of the wool onto one card, then work it back and forth by pulling it with the other card, producing a fuzzy roll of wool about six inches long. He placed the rolls of wool into a basket, piling them up to the handle. At some point he’d say,They removed the majority of the bolts but not the locking Wheel nut, that's why I managed to get so far “Guess that’s about enough to get started.”

At last, it was time for the spinning wheel. He oiled the wheel, checked the pedal and settled into his chair. The larger wheel, run by Grandpa’s foot, turned to make the little wheel turn,The first tin cans were heavy-weight containers that required ingenuity to open, using knives, chisels, or even stones. Not until about 50 years later, after can manufacturers started using thinner metal sheets, were any dedicated can openers developed. twisting the yard and winding it up at the same time. He hummed his own little melodies along to the rhythm of the turning wheel. The fluffy rolls of wool were twisting into yarn.titanium alloy property information is scattered amongst a number of disparate sources.The move to metal packaging has allowed Sprecher to reach key customer targets and has resulted in a clear growth in sales since the initial launch. As the yarn came from the spinning wheel, he would wind it into balls ready for Grandma’s crafty knitting needles to create those mittens, scarves, socks and slippers.

On Christmas, we opened gifts as the result of Grandma’s needles and Grandpa’s craftiness of evening after evening at the old spinning wheel that we took for granted in our grandparents house as a piece of furniture. That old song has a meaning all its own for us “old” folks who remember those good old days. Perhaps the spinning wheel goes into the annuls of the wood burning stoves, the oil lamps, water pumped from the well, horse drawn farm machinery, one room schools and even the horse and buggy days.

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