Sunday Musings

The trek to better health kicked off with a bang on Monday when I hiked with Daughter and her two kiddos. It was a great morning that reminded me what a sluggard I had been all winter. Over the past couple of years, I have let a few pounds settle around my middle. My BMI is still normal, but the pictures of me on Monday and the many stops to catch my breath on the ascent caused me to pause and re evaluate. Every weekday this past week and today, there was a good walk taken, my diet again cleaned up of bad habits I was slipping into such as grabbing a few Wheat Thins or a graham cracker a couple times a day, going out for ice cream or making popcorn too many nights a week, not drinking enough water. I don’t need those snacks, I’m not hungry when I get them. If I get hungry, I will eat an ounce of Pistachio nuts that I have to crack from the shell and wash them down with a HydroFlask of water. I’ve started carrying that bottle with me all the time now. In less than a week, progress is being seen. I can again walk up the hill to the mailbox without stopping part way to catch my breath. I have seen a few pounds slide back off my frame. There are a few more to go.

Yesterday was Market day and though I didn’t need much, we enjoy the change in routine on Saturday’s. I had preordered some more garden starts and to reach the minimum sale order, added a bag of lettuce mix and a bunch of salad turnips. The starts were my cabbage plants and some leaf lettuce from which you can repeatedly cut for salads or sandwiches. They were tucked in the bed that will eventually have the popcorn and winter squash at the other end, the longest of the new beds, and covered with the floating row cover over the new poles. They get light, water, and a barrier to the cabbage moth that lays her eggs to produce the little green cabbage worms that make lace from the brassicas. The row cover protected the other lettuce, spinach, and kale from a hail storm on Friday. Last night they were well watered in with heavy rain storms. While I was tucking the new plants in, I noticed at least a dozen raspberry canes coming up in and around the blueberry bed which is next to where the failed barrels that had contained the raspberries had been sitting. They were all dug out and I will have to be vigilant to continue to remove them until the runners all die off.

It took the hens less than a day to remove every blade of grass in the temporary pen. This morning, I took one of the rolls of fencing that I have yet to remove to storage, mostly because the tractor still hasn’t been returned, and enlarged their temporary pen. I’m sure by nightfall, it will be barren too. I may try again tomorrow to open it and see if they will return to that coop by nightfall. I can’t keep them penned in there forever. I really should purchase a 100 foot roll of electric mesh and just move them around each day or two to protect them from domestic and wild predators. That way they are in grass each day but safe.

I finished spinning two breeds for the Breed Blanket Project. The official one for the month was North Ronaldsay, a sheep breed from Scotland and the Orkney Islands. They roam the coast, will eat seaweed, and get sand and other material in their wool. Much of it is processed in a small mill in the Orkney Islands. It wasn’t too bad to spin, and it knit up nicely, but I sure wouldn’t want to wear it next to my skin nor knit it on the edge of the blanket.

The second breed is Finn, dyed in dark colors. It is spun and plied and I just began my first square of it last night. The smaller blanket above the squares is using up the scraps, each breed marked with a deer antler button on which the breed is written. It will be for display use when done and probably will not contain all the breeds in the big blanket.

Pandemic Effects

It has been over a year and though you can find toilet paper in the grocery again, it took forever to get the garden seeds that I ordered and didn’t buy locally because of the desired varieties.

A year ago today, my post on social media was about having been totally sequestered for a month and making our first foray into town for supplies from the Natural Food Store before they began doing curbside pick up, and getting drive thru lunch. I read fear in that post as it also contained information about folks knowingly going to work or about their routines after testing positive. We are now fully vaccinated and though I will go in the Natural Food Store, Grocer, or feed store, I make my visits quick and masked and still note those that refuse to wear a mask or wear it incorrectly.

I have gardened most of my adult life to some degree or another, having the largest most productive one here on the farm that provides most of our green vegetables, tomatoes, peppers, fruit for jams, garlic, onions, and cucumbers for pickles. What I don’t grow, I purchase from the local organic farmer’s at the Farmer’s Market, but so many people who never gardened before, or raised chickens before, are doing so now. This has been a boon and a headache for those businesses that sell related product, thus the seed delays and unavailability. Yesterday, I went to the organic feed and garden supply store to get floating row cover as they are the only one in the area that carries it, and got their last 9 feet. Barely enough to cover the part of the bed that holds my brassicas. They also carry long, thin, flexible fiberglass poles for making the supporting hoops and as the ones I bought many years ago had deteriorated to the point that gloves were necessary to prevent fiberglass splinters, I purchased 6 new ones. If we have another frost, I will use them to create the hoop house or igloo shaped house over the 4 x 4 beds to cover with plastic or an old sheet.

I still have gallon jars of staple dry foods that we filled prior to lock down last year and have kept them filled in case it happens again. Though I let them get empty or nearly so before refilling now, I was buying those items whenever they were available for the first half of last year.

So far, chicken and chick feed have been available, and necessary until the hens and chicks can all be free ranging again and feed used as a supplement. Chicks at Rural King and Tractor Supply were selling out within 24 hours of arrival, where three years ago, I bought some that were already beginning to feather, they had been in the store for more than a week.

The social isolation has made so many people wary of any interaction. It is pleasant when you can have a passing acknowledgement or a wave as smiles are hidden.

As a hearing impaired adult, the masks have made conversations with clerks difficult and I often have to ask them to repeat or speak up. I never realized how much conversation context I obtained from reading lips and facial expression. I am due for a hearing aid check up, a hearing test, and I suspect a second hearing aid.

As family members get vaccinated, we look forward to seeing them again. Having daughter and her children nearby has been a bonus as we visited on porches, masked until vaccines were in place, and can now have dinner together or hike together unmasked.

Hopefully, the lessons learned through this will help if and when another virus emerges or this one continues to mutate into variants with unknown effects. If the conspiracy theorist and vaccine deniers will just stop their nonsence and getting a higher percentage of the population vaccinated, life might resume a new normal.

More spring

I do love this time of year with the trees blooming, tiny leaves emerging, the drab color of the winter mountains changing. The Peach and Asian Pear held enough blooms during the two freezing days and nights that they are full of blossoms, so there will be fruit.

The Gold Finches are turning their bright summer color.

Last evening, I went over to collect eggs and one of the hens who refuses the nesting boxes in the Palace was sitting in the corner where several of them have been laying. I must have gone over just as she settled in to lay her egg, so I waited outside until she was done. It was quite a bit longer than I expected and when she was finished, she squawked past me and out into the yard.

I foolishly thought that nearly two weeks was long enough for them to return to the Palace at close up time, so I turned them loose into the orchard. At first they pecked and scratched around the base of the Palace, then suddenly almost as a unit ran flapping their wings up the field to the area of the pen and coop. They seemed quite distraught that they couldn’t get in the pen, thus into the coop. With some effort, I herded 4 of them back and shut the door. The other four are the more skittish ones that won’t come near me even if I have treats, so I had to rig a trap with a length of old fence and catch them one at a time, carry them back to the Palace and shut them in. Today, they will have to be content with the temporary pen I built in front of the Palace and it may be a week or two more before I try again. I really want them returning to that coop before I begin letting the littles into the other pen.

I mentioned that the littles will eat out of my hand. Still not all of them, but if a couple come over, more push in to see what is going on.

I realized that the closed up coop got too hot yesterday when the temperature rose to near 80 and two of the chicks seemed stressed. I opened the windows to let some air in and closed it back up at nightfall. This morning, though it is going to be somewhat cooler as we return to more seasonal temperatures, I opened windows on both sides. Late this afternoon, it is supposed to begin to rain for a few days, so I will close them again.

For the next few days, we will have to try to work our daily walks in between thunderstorms. It is important to keep moving and try to get my summer stamina back. Most winter’s I walk the hills around the farm to stay in shape, but this winter, I was a slacker and I’m paying for it now.

As soon as the weather stabilizes to warmer days, milder nights, and dry weather, I need to stain the south and east sides of the garage that are sadly in need. If you ever want to build a house, don’t build a log home. Though I love it dearly, the frequency it needs to be stained is a pian and it is expensive to hire the job out. Son 1 has done a good job of staying on top of it, but those two sides of the garage didn’t get done last time, COVID and a dissertation have kept him away.