Olio May 20, 2020

Olio: a miscellaneous collection

Ruminations of a housebound mind: Do you ever hear a voice on the radio or a podcast and “see” that person in your mind’s eye, even if you have never seen that person before? I do that all the time and am usually so far off base when I see that person’s picture. One of the podcasts that I enjoy is “The Way I Heard It” by Mike Rowe, a face everyone has seen and I see his face when I listen to the podcast. Another one I like is “99%invisible.” Now this is where my mind’s eye played serious tricks on me. After listening to the podcasts for a couple of years off and on, I googled Roman Mars, the host and let me tell you, he doesn’t look anything at all like I envisioned. Funny now when I listen, I see the picture I googled, but it just doesn’t fit. If you have never listened to this podcast, do, but start with some of the very early ones that were short with less advertising.

Today is Day 2 of ugly weather, not drizzle, but downright miserable. It is cool, blowing from the northeast and cold, heavy rain.

Critter chores left me soaked in minutes even in rain boots and rain jacket. They are getting lots of use, last night about the time I was going to get ready for bed, the time the pups get their last potty run for the day, I smelled skunk smell. I was inside the house, so went down with a flashlight to see if I saw the critter in the front yard. The smell was really overwhelming on the front porch. There was no way those dogs were going out there unrestrained to have a meet and greet, so again, the rain boots and jacket were donned and the pups taken out in the cold blowing rain one at a time on leash to do their nightly business. The odor was gone by this morning, fortunately, I had feared the skunk had taken refuge under our front porch.

I had been reading a book that clearly is or will be a series. It was a free selection from Amazon Prime and the story was one of those that you were supposed to accept as believable, but no way could the actions in that book have gone unnoticed by law enforcement or be forgiven by law enforcement and the ending let you know that there is more to come. No thanks. A friend posted on Instagram that our public library is doing curbside delivery of books you put on hold. I will soon run out of re-reads here at home, so I may have to browse and hold a couple from the library.

This is my May, social distance spinning. Everything below the rainbow fiesta is spun on those three spindles. The red, orange, and yellow of the rainbow were also spun on the larger one, but I quickly tired of it and spun the green, blue, and purple on the wheel, then plied it on the wheel. I don’t know what I was thinking when I bought those 4 punis (rolags), nor do I know what I will do with 2 ounces of chain plied fingering weight rainbow. It is only 132 yards, maybe enough for a cowl or skinny scarf. It is not sturdy enough wool for socks, enough for fingerless mitts if I want to cut each color apart, then divide in half so they are more or less matching stripes. It is drying now, will be skeined and set aside until it becomes a plan.

Yesterday was fresh bread day. Two loaves started first thing yesterday morning and baked by noon of half whole wheat yeast bread for sandwiches. I love my cast iron bread pan that hubby gave me for Christmas and since I always make bread two loaves at a time, I ordered a second one which should be here before next week’s bake.

Before the pandemic, bread baking here had all but disappeared except for pizza dough and occasional biscuits. It was a staple in our house when the kids were growing. It is a pleasant activity to have returned to now that we are eating all meals in, and there is nothing better than the smell of fresh bread baking.

Stay safe out there as the world begins to reopen. We will continue to stay at home with a few curbside delivery outings as required, wearing our masks for your protection (and ours if you are wearing yours.)

The Yard (Wo)Man

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The grass was tall again, the morning beautiful, the mate still in bed, so after critter chores and breakfast, I took to the mower.

Front northwest. It takes several hours to mow what gets done on the riding mower. You can see the delineation between the hay line and the lawn line. This was the third mowing this year and should have been done a week ago, but it is done. There is hay behind that row of trees and hay to the northeast, east, and south of the mowed area. The hens had supervised free range time while I was doing the mowing. It stirs up bugs and they have a feast. After a break, I broke out the monster Stihl line trimmer, got it re wound with new line, fresh fuel, and worked around the culverts, the transformer box, and the well head. I still need to do around the mailbox and around the lower yard hydrant so the hay men don’t hit it.

Haying has begun in the region, but the guys that do ours either haven’t started yet or they are doing more distant fields, I haven’t seen any evidence of them being out. We are one of the last on their list so it is usually the second week in June before we see them.

The bearded Iris were gorgeous this morning.

Last night after dinner, I plied the two balls from my spindles. I ended up with a tangle on the lace weight and lost a couple grams of yarn, but got 109 yards, 19.7 grams of lace weight yarn from the shiny blue Merino/silk blend and 132 yards, 42.08 grams of fingering weight from the gray Shetland. Only one spindle has been started again, with the Rainbow punis that arrived in yesterday’s mail.

There are 4 one-half ounce punis in the package, 2 each of the red, orange, yellow and green, blue, purple. I am going to spin them in rainbow sequence and then ply them in the same sequence. It should make an interesting scarf or cowl from the finished yarn.

I guess I should get back to work and see if I can finish the lawn chores before time to prepare dinner. Different hats for different times of the day.

Day 3 of beautiful garden weather…

but it is going to end tomorrow, 20 degrees f colder and 100% chance of rain. I took advantage of the day to do the fencing work on the garden. The chickens lost about half of their run around the garden. The south edge of it was about 6 or 7′ wide between the inner and outer fence and had 36″ high fencing on the garden side, plus there were gaps beneath the fence they could get under. I also realized that there were asparagus growing almost to the fence on the north side, and the chooks could reach my comfrey through the fence on the west side. That section was only about 3 feet long. I secured them in their pen and and removed the inner fence, set better posts, shifted it away from the asparagus bed and reset it only on the north and east edges of the garden, a narrow open topped tunnel about my shoulder width and 48″ fencing on both sides of the run. They have scratched nearly all the weeds out already, but because of my shifting of the inner fence to narrow their run, I have some areas in the edges of the garden that now need attention. I put a “gate” at both ends in case one of us has to go in the run.

This morning, we drove to daughter’s house and picked up the post pounder and I set 3 T posts from our supply and used a guide rope between the outer two so that the inner two were in line (that doesn’t usually happen when I am fencing). The sturdy exterior welded wire fence was moved in the 6 or 7′ to the south edge of the area that I plant. After I move a few rocks, that area can now be mowed and the working garden is fenced.

The tall weeds and grass are the old fence line.

I didn’t get to the spoiled hay down today because it was recover and dinner prep time by the time I was done. After dinner, I hung the gate.

And pulled down the solar charger so I can get a replacement battery for one of the two we own. All of the extra fencing was rolled and stored. All of the short cuts were folded up to be taken to the “convenience center” where we have to take our garbage and recycling.

While I was doing that work, the tiny spindle I was awaiting arrived in the mail. I thought the spindle I used the most was tiny, but this one is as small as it’s name, Bee Humingbird.

The ruler is for scale. It came in a little tin with the brown alpaca for me to spin. Tomorrow as it rains, I will spin, knit, and recover from 3 days of hard work. On Wednesday when it is dry and cool, I will move spoiled hay to cover the cardboard and weed mat. I will grab some old deck wood from the barn and terrace the upper third of the garden and get spoiled hay down on that path as well. One more day of weeding and hay moving and then it is plant and maintain. If I work a few minutes a few mornings a week into summer, the maintenance shouldn’t be too bad. My garden plan is done, the worst of the prep work is done. Now to start enjoying the fruits of that labor.