Category: Farm

Olio-March 3, 2024

Olio: a miscellaneous collection of things or thought.

Yesterday was not a great day. When we were out for breakfast and the Farmer’s Market, we stopped by Lowes to pick up hardwood floor cleaner and restorer. Once home, we put the German Shephard outdoors and I moved the dining room furniture, bench and antique sewing machine from the hall, swept, vacuumed, and set to work. The floors were thoroughly cleaned with hardwood cleaner and when dry, the restorer was applied. It takes an hour to dry, so a short break was taken. Once it was dry, the living room furniture was moved, the old worn out rug was rolled up, but too heavy for me to remove it to the porch for disposal. Help has been requested to get rid of it. That floor was then thoroughly cleaned and the restorer applied. The floors look so much better now.

Since the dog’s nails were well past time to be clipped and since she was still outdoors, I tried to tie her to the front porch rail to do her nails. She really hates the process and usually we either take her to the vet or work together to get it done. I failed to put the mesh muzzle on her and when she totally freaked out, she managed to bite through my fleece and tee shirt and break the skin on the back of my upper arm. I won’t post the picture of that. It was cleaned up, treated, and covered. I still haven’t forgiven her, but I didn’t harm her. From now on, she will be muzzled to do her nails or brush her, which she also hates.

As I was preparing the dough for our pizza, I noticed that none of the chickens were visible in the front or back of the house, nor could I see them under the coop when I looked out through the garage. That sent me out on a quest and as soon as I opened the side garage door, the Cooper Hawk flew out from under the Forsythia bushes and my last Buff Orpington had been killed under there. It was such a fresh kill that the only damage was the kill injury. I finally rounded up the remaining 5 hens from around the property and secured them in their run. Since the beginning of winter, 4 of my hens have died or been killed.

This afternoon, we went by Rural King and I purchased 2 Calico Princesses, 2 Buff Orpingtons, and 2 Black chicks which are now in the wire dog cage in the garage with a heat table, food, water, and a perch.

The Calico’s already have wing feathers, so they may be a week older than the other 4. It wasn’t really my plan to raise chicks again, but I was losing hens too fast.

A few days ago, the tomato and pepper seed were started in small pots. They haven’t sprouted yet. Tomorrow is supposed to be another warm day followed my mild rainy days. The spinach, some onion sets, and strawberry plants are going to be interplanted in one of the boxes. Today the huge cardboard box from my recliner was cut open and placed in an area or the garden that had too many weeds and no desired plants and covered with some of the old hay. The garden is beginning. And the workbench in the garage cleaned up and organized yet again, and the garage and workbench swept down. A fair amount of work done for one day.

Olio – 2/25/2024

Olio: a miscellaneous collection of things (thoughts)

It has been almost a week since hubby was released from the hospital for the second time in 3 weeks. Diagnosis has been all over the map, from Covid related, to pneumonia, to autoimmune disease. The tests mostly ruled out pneumonia and tilt toward autoimmune issues likely caused by immunotherapy treatments. We see our primary tomorrow with lots of questions as the various test results come in.

The hospitalization required me to miss a week of personal trainer, but a return this week to a serious kick butt lower body workout. I found muscles that walking and stair climbing miss, but hide in the thighs and hips.

The stress is causing the shoulder with bursitis and a torn bicep tendon to tighten up. This happened last year at the fiber retreat and my yoga teaching friend did a Vulcan Death grip on that area and it magically released. I will have to ask Megan, my PT for a stretch that isn’t already in my workouts that might help with it as my friend lives more than 3 hours away.

The sit and wait times last weekend and this week sent me back to a Sashiko panel I started over a year ago. Some time ago, I had the idea to make the panel into a Turkish Spindle case. Night before last, the stitching was finished and yesterday, a case was made using pre-quilted white fabric as the interior. Pockets were stitched and each shaft for a spindle has the thin end protected by a length of rigid soda straw.

Often, I am dissatisfied with project like this, but this time, I am very pleased.

Also while sitting in the hospital room with hubby, and in my spare time at home, I finished spinning the wool blend he gave me for Christmas. The entire amount was spun on the tiny Jenkins Finch spindle he gave me for our 45th anniversary last year.

The finished skein with the tiny spindle now working on a different fiber. The spindle lives in my bag with some wool. In the spindle photos, you can see the soda straw that protect the fragile end of the shaft when it is removed for travel. There are other spindles that get pulled out for use, but I seem to migrate to this one most often.

I have one more 6 block Sashiko panel that I finished long ago and plenty of the white quilted fabric, I need to figure out a project to use them, maybe a case for my fixed circular knitting needles or crochet hooks. And the skein of yarn to be knit into something requiring about 400 yards of lace weight yarn.

The two beautiful roosters no longer reside at this address. Between their noise, and the fact that one was aggressive toward me and the other young rooster encouraged me to send them on their way. A Craigslist ad brought a Ukranian refugee living with his daughter and her sons to pick them up. Whether they became part of a flock or part of a meal worries me not at all. The hens seem happier not to be ganged up on and eggs are back in good supply even though the youngest Marans was recently killed by some predator. The remaining 6 provide 2 to 5 eggs daily, enough for us and for daughter’s household.

Four of the hens are now 3 years old, I guess they will have to be replaced soon. Only one of them is providing more than 1 or 2 eggs a week. The carton for daughter has many more blue and green eggs than brown, though there are as many brown layers as colored layers. I don’t want 6 more chicks, only about 4, but you are required to purchase at least 6 chicks at a time. If I can find a local that wants a couple of pullets, I will buy 6 and raise them to coop introduction size and give away the extras. I guess if a hen goes broody on me this summer, I can let her sit false eggs for 3 weeks and introduce day old chicks under her and let her raise them for me. She will protect them and teach them if she thinks they are her own.

Yesterday, they predicted snow after a week of spring like temperatures. We got mostly rain with a little slushy bit added in, but nothing on the ground. The temperatures are again climbing to spring like weather after a night in the low 20’s. Another 3 or 4 weeks, it will be time to start the tomatoes and peppers seedlings. The Aerogarden was planted this week with mixed Romaine lettuces and a window seed starter has deer tongue lettuce and spinach starts. Soon they will go in pots to be nurtured until I can plant them out under some sort of cover. Since my little garden green house blew off and was destroyed by the wind, I need to improvise. I keep seeing an idea on social media to use plastic milk cartons, but I don’t buy milk in plastic, so maybe a mini hoop house can be created with plastic sheeting and later row cover.

Enough meanderings of my mind. Have a great week.

Musings of the Mind

We endured another health set back when DH developed a cough and high fever after his last immunotherapy treatment. The PCR test popped up positive, though they said it can do that for 90 days post Covid, the chest x-ray was cloudy, so he was admitted and treated for Covid and pneumonia of unknown organism. Sunday he was allowed home with three meds and instructions to follow up with the PC Doc and the Urologist. We immediately repeated the home antigen test as we had done one prior to the hospital that was negative and the one upon release also negative. It is likely it was just pneumonia, and probably caused by the immunotherapy treatment. Those appointments are scheduled. To help him regain his strength, we have done slow 1 mile walks the past two days.

Twice in the past, I have written posts about “The Chair.” In brief, he spotted a huge recliner in Sam’s Club about 25 years ago. Daughter and I managed to get it home and hidden for Christmas, a long story. That chair lasted for a number of years, moved to the mountains with him, and the faux leather finally failed to the point that I didn’t want to see it in the house any longer. It was replaced with a second faux leather chair that also failed, and a couple years ago with a slightly smaller real leather chair. Our mastiff used to climb in his lap in the old chair, totally off the floor, but otherwise did not get on furniture. He couldn’t quite fit in the newer chair, but would back up and sit on the edge with his front feet on the floor. (We miss the big guy and his antics.)

At some point, between the second and third purchases, we purchased me an imitation Ekornes chair and ottoman which was faux leather. It lasted a fairly long time, but about a year ago, the pleather began to peel off and now, there is only the ugly fabric base on the seat and arms and mostly gone on the ottoman. Today, we found a real leather recliner in my size on sale at a decent price and ordered it. It will be my anniversary gift from my love and should arrive right around our anniversary on Valentines Day.

Lessons learned about furniture purchases. The living room couch and chair that we bought about 1994 was real leather and has held up remarkable well. The basement couch is a Lazy Boy product that is a combination of leather and faux leather and has not held up as well, but is holding it’s own with the light use it gets down there.

While he was in the hospital, at night I would curl up in his big recliner with my blanket for comfort.

On a humorous note, we have our youngest son’s RV parked on our farm. Because the two auxiliary batteries are under the steps and it is open to the ground below them, I keep a mouse trap on top of the batteries. It is checked every couple of days, always with another caught mouse. The traps that I use are Vector traps and allow the caught mouse to be released without touching it. I generally spring the trap open as I fling it free of the RV out into a field, and reset the trap. Today on our way out for errands and walk, I stopped at the RV to check and as usual, had to deal with the trapped critter. As I flung it out, springing the trap open, the mouse landed on the hood of the car and slid down into the grass. Hubby laughingly asked if I was throwing dead mice at him and threatened to put it on Facebook. Life on the farm can cause amusement at times.