A couple of weeks ago, hubby took a motorcycle safety and driver test class while I went to play in two friends yarn shops and to take in the scenery along the Blue Ridge Parkway. He passed and really wanted his first bike to be a Harley. Wiser, more experienced rider friends urged him to get a lesser bike until he felt very comfortable on a bike and tonight he purchased his new toy, a 2005 Honda Rebel with low mileage. He is as happy as a kid in a candy store.
Fuzzy butt, Buttercup and Buffy are the last two to lay and both have finally figured it out. Now if they will just socialize with the other girls and Cogburn when they go off to free range, I would feel better about their safety.
I’ll spare you the gory details.
From this to
This, 75 lbs of chicken in the freezer.
And this to 6 winter dinners.
Eldest son and our eldest grandson, his 8 year old arrived today for the long weekend. He came to slaughter the 15 stinking meat chickens that I have been raising for the past 9 weeks.
We all took a pleasant walk on our neighbor’s much larger farmland, through the woods and across his cattle pastures with a stop to chat with him, watching one of his cows who appeared maybe to be in labor, then home for a Mexican fiesta, a favorite of hubby and son.
I had been frustrated, not able to print a pdf knitting pattern that I had purchased online and his computer ability corrected that problem, finally made my printer wireless for both of our laptops and found and downloaded the driver for the laser printer, so that is also an option for my use on my Windows 8 laptop.
While he was being our computer technical guru, I wound a skein of yarn designated for a baby sweater, only to have it kink up and then sat and hand wound the same skein, unkinking all of the knots. Now I’m set to start knitting again and can print wirelessly from my recliner.
Now here are my questions for my nominees and though I read many blogs each day, several are so widely published that the authors would not participate and several are ones that French Yummy Mummy also tagged, so my list will not be 11 long.
1. Why do you blog?
2. If you craft, what is your favorite crafting, if you don’t, what might you like to learn?
3. If you had the means to go anywhere in the world for dinner, where would you go?
4. What would that meal be?
5. What is the favorite book you have read?
6. Where do you live?
7. Are animals part of your life, if so what you do have?
8. What is the highlight of 2013 for you so far?
9. What do you hope to do in 2014?
10. How do you relax?
11. What is the best job you have ever had?
Now for the blogs I read and wish to nominate for this award.
http://sarahwilsondogexpert.com/
http://smilingthroughtearz.com/
http://cjtittle.blogspot.com/
http://c-knit2gether.blogspot.com/
http://rockthekasbahafrica.blogspot.com/
http://shellysm.blogspot.com/
http://bluedollarbill.blogspot.com/
http://mommytarymadness.blogspot.com/?wref=bif
If you have not previously read these blogs, I hope you enjoy them, and thank you Muriel for the nomination.
This has been another slow week as far as farm chores go. My garlic for the garden still has not arrived, so the garden has been neglected. A few beans have been picked, just enough to eat, not to freeze. The broccoli is ready and needs to be harvested and frozen.
The meat chicks have mere days to gorge, and indeed that is what they do, before they all go to freezer camp this weekend.
They don’t quite look like small turkeys this time, but several are substantial.
The daily egg hunt continues to amuse me, especially when 1 is very round or very pointed or speckled, this girl had a faulty dyer yesterday.
My shawl is coming along. I’m on the last lace panel and it will be done. I’m hoping is blocks out larger than it appears now. I’m considering adding a final border to make it a bit larger.
Life is good on our mountain farm.
Peach sky, crescent moon, crisp air.
Beautiful Autumn night
Rain beating on a tin roof;
Clouds scuttering along the mountain tops and valleys from west to east;
Wind whipping the dry leaves from the trees;
Blessed relief from the past couple of days of unseasonable heat;
As the tropical storm from the Gulf of Mexico blows itself out across the mountains and plods toward the shore.
Having been married for more than 33 years and being retired together, this couple is always together. So goes one, goes the other, especially when one car is unavailable. Occasionally, this couple tries some alone time adventures, and they have very different fun things to do. Mister half of this couple has become the more adventurous half and the most recent adventure is to learn to ride a motorcycle and eventually motor across the country. The area in which this couple lives is very conducive to riding with parkways and mountain roads to explore. Missus half of this couple has absolutely no desire to share this adventure on her own cycle or behind mister, so if the cross country trip ever happens, Missus will follow along solo in a car some time later, towing a trailer or renting one on the west coast and bringing Mister back home.
Missus is more conservative in her senior years, preferring walks, hikes, the horseback riding if the stead is well broke or enjoying the knitting, spinning, gardening, soap making, and chicken raising.
This state encourages new motorcycle riders to enroll in a 2 1/2 day long safety and learning to ride class and that is what Mister is doing this weekend.
Missus elected to take a longish drive several counties over, along the Blue Ridge Parkway (a National Park area, closed except for the actually roadway, due to the government shutdown) to visit a friend, who owns Greenberry House, a yarn shop and to purchase local cabbage, winter squash, some corn meal and more Ashe County cheese. The drive was beautiful, the day is gorgeous, blue skies, light breeze, mild temperatures. The visit was very enjoyable, seeing her new shop, visiting with one of her dogs and her chickens, and having a very pleasant chat. The produce and other goods were purchased at the Poor Farmer’s Market, and included a couple extra heads of cabbage for a friend. Another delightful drive back with a stop at another friend’s yarn show, Green Dragon Yarn, see who was knitting there today and to visit with the owner and knitter friends and luckily deliver the cabbage just bought. She came out to the car to get her cabbage and said, “Oh, you bought grits, too, I love grits.” Oh no, Missus’ inattention in the very crowded market, had picked up the wrong product. She got a very welcome gift, half of the grits purchased, as Missus’ year’s supply was purchased about a month ago when sister-in-law was visiting.
It feels good to share . . . even when it is unplanned.
When we began our property search, we had no idea how much 10 acres really was. I had grown up in what is now the suburbs of Virginia Beach, on a couple of acres surrounded by other properties of several acres and a river on one edge of my families land. It was then a Burrough of a county, more of less rural. As I grew up in that home, many housing developments were built along the road back to our home and when I was in high school, the area consolidated to become the City of Virginia Beach.
While looking for land, we started with the idea of about 10 acres and looked at a log home development in southwest Virginia where each lot was 5 to 10 acres. It was not what we had envisioned. The plot we ended up purchasing for our log retirement home ended up just a fraction under 30 acres.
A year after the purchase, I moved to a university town near where we were building and took the lead counselor job at the high school in the adjacent town. After a year on that job, I was asked if I would consider taking on a counseling intern for a semester and after refusing the first time I was ask, I accepted the following year. My first intern was from the region I had moved from and he was a city kid and a football player at the university. He said he had no concept of how big 30 acres was. I could relate to that, as we had tried to visual it in suburban blocks in our neighborhood. By this time, I was living in our new home and had the idea to relate the size of our property to something that he could relate to, so I told him that our land was roughly 22 1/2 football fields with end zones. This amazed him and his reaction amused me.
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Cabin Crafted 