Fran Sale Stafford

Our Day

Some people don’t like Valentine’s Day, a related contact on social media posts a meme of Cupid face down with an arrow in his/her back every year. I love Valentine’s Day, the day my love and I married 44 years ago. He picked the date, 6 short weeks after our engagement. Over the years, we have gone out for nice dinners at some fine restaurants. When the kids were small, my parents or a babysitter if it was a weekend would take over their duties so we could go out. Sometimes when it worked out, we would stay overnight in a hotel to extend the evening. Later when the kids were grown, we would often go to a B&B for the weekend closest to our anniversary.

Four years ago, we took a cruise to the south Caribbean, swam with dolphins and skates, took a tour of Belize City, another of Tulum, and rode horses on the beach in Honduras. We did the Chef’s tour on the ship one night and ate all of the tiny portions they kept bringing out until we were miserably stuffed and then were treated to an anniversary dessert.

Last year because of COVID restrictions, we bought BBQ dinners from a local restaurant and ate them from Styrofoam boxes in the car sitting by the river. Tonight we will go to a local, nicer restaurant that is limiting seating to 50% and eat out, something we haven’t been doing much lately. And my love gave me a gorgeous new spindle as a gift.

It is a special day in our lives and I hope there will be many more.

Yesterday, I made two batches of soap that is saponifying in the utility room window.

The little dish on top was extra from one batch and will be used as a travel bar if travel is every on our agenda again. Later today, they will be unmolded and cut into bars to cure. One batch is for a friend to have part of, the other, my go/to bath/shampoo bar.

Last night, during the Super Bowl, I sat and wound the 4 ounces of wool that hubby gave me for Christmas into a ply ball, then plied it on my wheel so it would be one nice gradient skein instead of 4 smaller ones that I would have to have to ply on my spindles. It ended up a fine 18 WPI yarn before it is bathed. My experience with this breed is that is doesn’t bloom too much, so a light lacy scarf pattern will be selected once I wind it off and see how many yards I am working with.

The spin started with the dark end of the gradient and ended with the lighter end, so it plied in reverse with the darkest part on the outside of the bobbin. It is a perfect color of wines and should make a pretty scarf.

There are more fibers to spin, several spindles to spin on, now 3 gifts from the man I love who indulges my hobbies.

Happy Valentine’s Day to the lovebirds out there. May you have many, many more happy years together.

Market Day

We have snow showers in the forecast for tonight and tomorrow morning. They salted the roads yesterday which will send everyone scurrying to the grocer to buy up all the bread, milk, and beer (it is Super Bowl Weekend). I don’t drink, don’t need milk, can make my own bread or get it at the Farmer’s Market, so I will avoid the grocer. We supplied up on dog foods earlier in the week, but are having difficulty getting hubby’s preferred cola. The shelves have been stocked with lots of options, but not caffeine free diet and this has been an off and on problem all fall and winter. I don’t drink soda either, but it is his preferred beverage. I’m not braving a grocery today for it though.

My preorders were be ready at the Farmer’s Market and I scanned the other vendors to see if there was anything else I want. The Market was a zoo, too many people for my comfort level. Hubby wanted one thing for breakfast out that could be picked up and eaten in the car, I didn’t want that and figured to just get breakfast at the market. All of the lines were too long to wait, the local coffee shop near the market had people out the door, the local bagel shop near where we drop off eggs was mobbed. Fortunately, after trying two other places, we found one that I could get a bite and coffee. Weekly eggs were delivered, we took our walk and came home. There are a few chores to do like vacuuming, but there is an obstacle in my way.

The old guy won’t get up on his bed, but he does use it as a pillow and since we have to use a beach towel under his belly to help him get on his feet now, I don’t want to disturb him.

We may or may not leave the house tomorrow depending on whether we get a dusting or several inches, there is no need at our ages (or any age) to risk going out on snowy roads when unnecessary. I can always make chili for lunch or dinner. And since I got fresh cornmeal last weekend, corn bread is always favored, hot from the oven. I once ordered a tiny skillet of cornbread that was topped with goat cheese, it was maybe the best cornbread I have ever had, but have never been able to duplicate it.

This afternoon is Zoom day with the spindle group. A visit with them is in order as I missed last weekend because we went into town to get a pizza from a small chain restaurant but when we arrived the line was out the door. There was an indoor track meet with 4 Universities over last weekend and three hotels within walking distance. As we sat in an Asian fast food drive thru line instead, the waves of college students swarming around our car was a good indication that we had chosen the wrong night to get the pizza.

The month is almost half over, we will celebrate our 44th anniversary on Monday. Four years ago we were on a cruise to celebrate the 40th. Maybe someday we will be able to safely travel again. With only the couple of weeks behind me, I have already nearly finished my batt of colored wool that was my February spin challenge, have finished 25 grams of another fiber for my second blanket, knit two breeds on to the blanket. I have picked another fiber sample new to me to spin and it and plying the fiber below and the one for my blanket will occupy the rest of the month.

A relatively quiet weekend, just the two of us.

Mouse traps

As you can see from my header photo, we live on acreage. The house sits in the midst of fields that in the past have been used for grazing, but mostly used to grow hay to be cut for local farmers use with their cattle. The upper part of the farm above the barn in an alluvial dump from the last ice age and is littered with rocks and boulders too large and too numerous to move and has been left alone since we bought the property. The prior owner had a herd of miniature horses and donkey’s here and they grazed down much of the brush and cedar trees. The area has a creek that is very dependent on rain across most of the width of the north edge of the property that joins with a creek that has never totally run dry since we moved here that serves as a water source for the house to the north of us and as it meanders back and forth under the fence line that divides us from the farm to the west, serves to water cattle before the two creeks merge and disappear into a sink hole below a rock face. The old creek bed runs just off the west edge of our farm and in heavy rain still carries the water that fills the lowest part of the sinkhole faster than it can disappear into the ground.

The first thing we did after the land was turned over to us and the horses and donkeys removed was to plant daylilies and River Birch trees along the top run off creek to help stabilize it’s path and keep it from running out into the road beyond our house, and about a half dozen trees in the alluvial field, though I am unsure any of them survived, the Birch trees are gorgeous. But by not having grazers on the land, the alluvial field has filled in with volunteer oaks, Tulip poplars, cedars, maples, and some less desirable scrub like Autumn Olive and blackberries.

The fields are hayed each spring and mowed or hayed each fall depending on the summer weather, but as hay fields, they harbor groundhogs, field mice, chipmunks, rabbits, squirrels that run from one rock pile to another as each rockpile has one or more trees growing in it.

The rodents except the mice stay clear of the house, because of having two large dogs in and out and a flock of chickens loose during all daylight hours. But the mice sometimes find their way into the house and evidence of them found usually in the cabinet under the utility sink in the laundry room, but very occasionally, one makes it into the main downstairs part of the house. This requires that they be removed. I am not putting out poison as I don’t want to kill the birds that might eat a poisoned mouse, nor will I use glue traps. If you have ever seen a mouse caught in a glue trap, you know that that is not humane at all. If I caught them in safe release traps they would just turn around and come right back in again. That leaves snap traps. Now PETA would have a fit, but a snap trap is quick and rids the house of the disease carrying rodents, but snap traps are tricky to load. I have never had one snap down fully on a finger, but have had them snap in my hand. Right now, there is a wily one that has gotten the bait off two traps without getting caught. This morning, rebaiting them I did catch the edge of finger on the nail. No permanent damage, but WOW, that stings a bit. I know PETA would say, serves you right. Let them live with mice in their houses, I won’t.

You might say, have a cat, but when daughter and her family lived with us for a couple of years with 2 cats, there was no change in the number entering the house, and when we had a barn cat that slept in a box on our front porch, her food seemed to attract more than she caught.