Month: December 2020

Late Autumn Walks to Winter Storms

Over the weekend, it was light jacket warm for walks in the National Forest at the Pond and up at the Conservancy.

Our mountain is an alluvial field from the last ice age and there are many boulder fields. Farms that grow hay and corn for their cattle have had to clear rocks and boulders to be able to cultivate. On some trails, you may walk through wooded sections with few visible rocks then go through a boulder field. In the boulder fields you often see a tree that looks like it is eating a rock, a tree that has come up under the edge of a boulder and then grown around it. They fascinate me as a biologist.

After getting home from our hike yesterday, it was warm enough to sit on the back deck and shell the dried beans saved for seed to be used in the spring garden.

Many of the pods were empty or held only a couple of seed, some full with 8 or more seed, plenty for two plantings in our garden and granddaughter’s garden as well.

As the temperature dropped overnight, it rained and rained. The culvert still has not been opened by VDOT, so the driveway took another hit. I refuse to grade the driveway again until the culvert is opened as it will be futile. The high for today occurred just after midnight and has fallen all day. As the rain ended, the wind picked up and has ripped at the house all day. The chickens came out in the rain this morning, looked for scratch and retired back into the coop for the rest of the day. We are facing a frigid night and a winter storm on Wednesday. Winter storm = freezing rain, snow, sleet, ice (they don’t know), it is a safe term to use in winter when it is going to precipitate and be cold. The prediction currently is 2 to 7 inches of snow with several tenths of an inch of ice. We will just hunker down and build fires in the woodstove and fireplace to help keep the house warm and hope the ice doesn’t take the power out. This early in the season, whatever falls won’t last more than a day or so before it is melted. About a dozen years ago, we got 22″ of snow on the last day of school before winter break and it wasn’t gone when we got another 18″ about a week later. That is not typical here, especially that early in the winter.

Hopefully, we are going to have a socially distanced meet up on the weekend with Son 1 and our grandson, maybe DIL if she isn’t working and hand off soap I have made for them to use as gifts and their Christmas gifts as they won’t be spending this Christmas with us.

The seed catalogs have begun to arrive. My go to one, the first to arrive. Granddaughter and daughter have been tasked with deciding what they want to plant this year so that I can begin planning for the two gardens and getting any additional seed that I haven’t saved from last year. Maybe by garden time, we will have been able to get COVID vaccines and I will be able to help or at least visit her garden. Garden catalogs make for great winter reading and dreaming about the goodies that will be grown for the next year. Now it is time to hibernate and listen to the wind howl.

It isn’t getting easier

Yesterday after the snowy morning, followed by a bit of rain, then more flurries, we drove the dozen miles to Joe’s Tree Farm and found a tree for the house. About the time we got home with it, the temperature that only got up to 36 f started falling. The tree was put in the stand and watered, hubby built a fire in the fireplace, I got a pot of stew started using left over pot roast and it’s gravy, made myself a mug of hot cocoa, and set to work decorating the tree. Putting the tree up, the huge Starfish, we got on our first cruise about 7 years ago, on as a tree topper, lights on and lit didn’t bother me. As soon as I opened the bin of ornaments, the history of our life together, I just froze, tears welled up and I didn’t want to continue. Beginning in 1977, our first shared Christmas, we purchased an ornament for our “Charlie Brown” tree. Each year, another ornament was added. Years we had a new baby in the house, there was a Baby’s First as well as the annual Hallmark ornament. At some point, the ornaments came from craft shows, or if we took a vacation and saw an appropriate token that could be the ornament, we added that and all are dated. There is a ceramic bell from Mexico, several carved/turned wood, pottery, and painted gourd ones. There are a few given us by others that have significance. As I brought them out, I cried more at the loss of family members, the isolation from our children and grandchildren. The tree is up, the house is decorated except for hanging two blown glass ones, that require some ribbon.

It isn’t getting easier. There have been 53 cases of Covid in our rural area in the past week, that is 15% of the cases since the pandemic began and in just 7 days. A neighbor told us yesterday that he had had it a few weeks ago, yet we still are seeing few masks. We waited to get the tree on a week day to avoid a crowded situation at the farm and the attendant that cut our tree said Sunday they had the lot full and a field adjacent as an overflow parking lot. We were one of three cars today, but two women arrived back from cutting their own tree as we arrived and without masks, entered the shop and stayed in there until their tree was brought in from the field, tied, and labelled. We stayed out in the cold to avoid them until our tree was ready for us to pay. There was no consideration of others, the older woman stayed near where we needed to be to pay for our tree.

We avoid going in any building we can. The online grocery order picked up Sunday was lacking several items from the list. There was no notice that the items weren’t available and we didn’t pay for them, but it means I will have to go in the grocer to get them. The curbside is nice, but certainly not perfect. I am having emotional burnout, but I can’t become complacent.

Covid has caused the Noel Nights event at Wilderness Road Regional Museum to be cancelled. I am sad that I won’t be able to vend, but feel bad for the Museum as this is a fund raiser for them. I am hoping that the Program Director who may have been exposed stays well. If you are still shopping for gifts, if you favorite an item in my shop, you will receive a 20% off coupon, many of the items ship free, there are knit and woven garments and accessories, salves, beard oils, yarn, and more. Check it out.

Worth?

I have been asked many times, “How long does it take you to spin that yarn?” That is such a difficult question to answer without just saying,” it depends. ” Four ounces spun Aran weight or Worsted weight takes much less time to spin than Fingering weight or lace weight. The type of fiber makes a difference as does the fiber prep. Also, whether it was spun on the wheel or on spindles. Then comes the internal argument about how much to price it if it is being sold as yarn and not knitted or woven into a garment or accessory.

Saturday morning I started spinning 4.5 ounces of a soft unknown wool, I believe it is Merino, but it wasn’t marked when it was given to me. I didn’t spin continuously, but did try to track about how long it took to spin and ply it. It spun to 17 WPI, so fairly fine. The fiber wasn’t in the best condition, there were small pieces, some matting (not quite felted). My estimate is about 10 hours to produce on the wheel. I ended up with 313.5 yards. If I knit it into a simple lace asymmetrical triangular shawl, it will take another 10-15 hours. To price the yarn at a price it might sell, I would charge 10 cents per yard for basic wool, and at that price, I have to accept that the time I spent on it was basically recreation, as my time would be only $3/hour. This particular fiber was given to me, often I spend $25 for 4 ounces of dyed roving which then negates anything I would have earned and it basically just provides money to buy more wool. If I knit it into a shawl, it would list for about $40-45 for 25 hours of hand spinning, then hand knitting work if it sold. If it was purchased roving at $20-25 for 4 ounces, plus 25 hours of my time, I would be making less than a dollar an hour to create a one of a kind, handmade item.

I typically only use my handspun yarn for garments I knit for my shop, once in a while a gift skein or trade skein will be used, but I have to value my time as therapy and recreation as this region won’t support the true value of hand spun, hand knit items.

This is the skein I produced, it really is quite pretty, soft and with nice drape, but I definitely can’t use this photo in my shop. I don’t know what you see, but I see a huge turd pile. I guess I need to work on my photography skills.

And in that vein, this is what I saw when I woke.

It isn’t much and it won’t last, but it is pretty now. Again, I need to work on my photography skills.