I'm Dyeing To Know

I had perhaps the most bizarre dying experience EVER the other day. I posted the pretty tulip picture first because the others are not so pretty. Anyway, I had a huge day of dyeing, getting ready for Maryland Sheep and Wool Fest. My dye workshop is in the basement and I leave the double basement doors wide open to let the humidity out from the dye pots. Mid afternoon I turned off all the dye pots and went upstairs to print out patterns. I heard our two retrievers downstairs and it sounded like they were wrestling. I went down and shooed them outside. Back upstairs to print. Five minutes later they were down there again making noise. Back downstairs to shoo them out. But Tasman was acting weird, the hairs on his back raised. So I slowly looked around our messy basement and in the far dark corner was a critter. I thought it'd be some sort of rodent. I also smelled this absolutely horrible stench. I squinted my eyes and saw......... a VULTURE!!!!!!! I screamed like a girl and yelled, "Holy Shit! There's a vulture in our basement!!!!!" I ran upstairs to tell my husband who was in the office working. I said, theresafrickinvultureinthebasement!!!!!! He barely looked up and kept type, type, typing. He's not the vulture, rat, bat (yep, we've had em all!) removing guy. So I ran outside where my oldest son was talking to his girlfriend on the phone. I said "You gotta come help me get a vulture out of the basement!" He told his girlfriend, Hon I gotta go get a vulture out of the house like he was gonna go make toast or something. So down we go to Wild Planet to make our basement a vulture free zone. Aramin grabbed a mop and I grabbed a long pole and we poked it a bit to try to convince it to leave the building. That didn't work so well. It took off flying in our 7' tall basement and with a wingspan of about 4', it wreaked havoc. I screamed like a girl again, ducking out of the way. Of course it flew over to my dye kitchen and knocked over a huge jar of dye, spewing green liquid everywhere.


He/she? hopped over to the dye pan and stood in the water. Luckily it was no longer hot, just warm. At this time, I ran upstairs to get my camera. Vulture bird stood hunch backed in the warm water, hissed and lifted one wing to ward us off.




Aramin tried to get vulture bird onto the mop. He/she put one leg/claw on the mop but just wouldn't get on.


It walked over all my open dye jars as I held my breath, hoping that no more jars would fall.
It took off again and got its beak caught in my white yarn. I had to get close and unhook the yarn and it finally got out the doors and we watched as it flew over the apple tree and headed west. Phew! But what about that horrid smell? I grabbed the Oust and sprayed nearly the entire can. An hour later it still smelled so put out a bowl of vinegar. I left the doors open all night hoping vulture bird didn't come back but the stench would not go away. I put out some charcoal thinking that that would do the trick. But days later, it just smells like vinegar, charcoal and vulture. Ewwwww!