New Knitting and *Ancient Tiles*

Ive been working on a few things! Its been incredibly cold here so Im stuck in the house (cept for my ultra fast runs out to do feed!). Things get boring in here so Ive been fooling with my yarn and fiber alot.

Im knitting Shane (my bf) a pair of mittens, the type with the flip top fingers. This is my first like them. Ive knitted one pair of regular mittens and a few pairs of fingerless mittens, but never these. Theyre coming out well, though! Im using the German wool I spun. Its scary at first, using something Ive spun, keep worrying about screwing it all up. But Shane likes em and Im enjoying the job. Here they are -
Im also crocheting a sweater for my American Eskimo Dog, Puppis. I recently knit a brown and red striped one for my old man, Mike, and hes just so dang cute in it, I just had to make something for Puppi, too. Its my first crocheted garment. Ive made toys before, but never anything like this. Its coming out great, if I do say so myself...
Im also coming out of a funk that Ive been in for like ages. I get very depressed and then I come out of it for a while, then go back in. Its a cycle Ive been going through for as long as I can remember. Its annoying and tiring, but I dont beat myself up about it anymore. I just go with it now. Ive realized that this is how I am and thats ok. Anyway, I havent been cleaning...At all. I mean, Im certainly no June Cleaver, but I do like to keep things at least a little tidy. But when I get in these holes, I just dont give a crap about any of that. I have many pets in here (1o cats, 2 dogs, 3 chickens, a bunny, a cockateil and a turtle) and though they still get fed, watered and have their cages cleaned, well, other than that, I dont do anything. It gets overwhelming. But...with this cold weather and my inability to open up the windows (Im a freak for fresh air) Im starting to clean again.

I started in the hall. Ok, you see, my bf and I share 3 rooms here. Ones his (also for a little storage. No animals go in there), one is our bedroom and the other is for the computer and chicken cages. The three rooms are connected by a small hallway. I chose that because it was a least daunting. Now, we have a rooster living in here. Magnus, hes a great pet, but hes certainly not the most tidy. He lurves dry dog food and always ALWAYS spills the dogs dish. Youve seen chickens scratching around for food, right? Well he does that, but with the dogs food. It gets everywhere and we end up walking on it. Crunch crunch crunch! It collects in the corners and along the edges of things. Also, my bunny eats hay, so that gets everywhere no matter what I do. And my two dogs are unaltered males who sometimes mark. And I have male cats who are the same, so, well, all these things are on the floor and usually its just stuff I can sweep up.

But this time around one area of the floor it all mixed together. It was incredible. Ive read about other cultures who use mud/manure/hair/straw to build houses and things. I guess I never really thought about what those things were like. But I have a new found respect for those people! Its absolutely ingenious. The stuff that was on my floor was SO incredibly hard, it came up in tiles, large, flat pieces. It was so strong that I couldnt break it with my fingers and it took every ounce of strength I had to get it off the floor! Now some of you folks are surely thinking Im out of my noggin. But I dont care, I was fascinated. I even took pictures! lol!

This is what it looks like from the top -
This is the bottom of one piece. Its hard to tell, but its very smooth. Glossy, smooth even!
Is this piece you can see how it took an imprint of the floor. The X is where the floor tiles meet!This is a pic of one area that was on bare wood. It made an almost perfect cast of the grain!! I may be a total weirdo, but I had fun cleaning. I usually detest it. But it was like an archaeological dig or something, lol! I also found a missing piece of my spinning wheel, yay!!