Cabin Crafted

Author: Cabincrafted1

  • Homebody

    I realized after two weeks of suitcase living, first on shipboard, then in son’s home that I am definitely a homebody.  Not pathologically so, not to the extent of not wanting to leave the house, but certainly becoming more uncomfortable about the absence from home each day.

    Retirement is quiet, the daily routines have become so ingrained that each passing day away has increased the stress on my system.

    It was fun going on a cruise with son and his family and being there for Halloween and our grandson’s birthday. This is the first birthday since our son adopted his stepson.
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    This morning, hubby left to return to our home, to pick up our pups from the doggie camp where they have been for two weeks, to take over my chicken care for a few days. I left for Northern Virginia to help out with childcare as the eldest grandson is off of school for the next two days while his parents are not. On Wednesday morning, I too will get return to our quiet life for a while. While gone, there have been two nights of temperatures in the 20’s, so whatever was left in the garden is now gone. The garlic that was to be planted before the trip did not come prior to our leaving, hopefully it will have come while we were gone and there will be one last garden day to put it in the beds for the winter with a heavy mulch of straw to bed it down.

  • A Week (Not) on the Farm – October 29, 2013

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    For the past week this blog has been silent as we left home on October 19 to drive to Virginia Beach, spent the night at our youngest son’s home with his family and all left the next morning to drive to Baltimore, Maryland to embark on a week long Bahamas cruise together. Their two children believed that we were taking them home with us after their parents left on the cruise and were surprised when the ship horn blew to leave the dock with all of us still on board.
    Two days at sea followed by one day in Port Canaverel, Florida with an airboat ride siting 2 alligators and hubby getting to hold a 17 year old dwarf alligator upon our return, he was only about 3 feet long.
    The following two days were spent in Bahama ports of Nassau and Freeport. Very touristy, docked in industrial areas and requiring taxis to get to a beach, but an excursion on a semi sub over a reef by all of us was fun.
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    A short day in Freeport with a beach trip.
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    Another at sea day and a half and we returned to Baltimore.
    While away, our doggies were in camp and a neighbor chicken watched for all the eggs she could carry home. It was our first cruise, maybe not exactly what we expected, but fun and with the use of Bonine and Sea Bands, I only got queasy once when the ship was cruising at 24 knots in windy conditions.

  • Travelling Companion

    My favorite skirt for travelling and packing is a mid calf brightly colored crinkle skirt from TravelSmith. It can be worn with just about any color top you can imagine. Often when I am traveling and end up on a plane or in a restaurant, I get chilly from the air conditioning (we rarely need to use it up here on the mountain). About 2 years ago, I made a generous shawl that went everywhere with me and was used as a shoulder cover in restaurants, a pillow on a plane, or even a small blanket for my legs if I didn’t have on long pants or a long skirt. Within a couple of weeks of bringing the German Shepard into the household, she chewed two decent size holes right in the middle of it. The holes were too large for me to try to mend, so I pulled the shawl apart and began reknitting it in the same pattern. I just couldn’t get inspired to knit it again, and besides, it wasn’t very warm.
    After reknitting daughter’s black lace sweater, the one that was ruined a few short weeks after it was made last year, and getting it mailed off to her, I tackled a different shawl with different, very colorful yarn. The colors are very jewel like, the pattern, the Travelling Companion Shawl, the yarn, 5 different skeins of Koigu, a Canadian yarn. My attention to lace knitting isn’t good, especially since I often knit in the car when hubby is driving, or in front of the TV or a book on my tablet, rarely giving it my full attention and when I got to the last section of the lace on this shawl, I was surprised that my stitch count was dead on, the last section seemed straight forward enough and off I went. About halfway through the section of 23 rows, two of the three sections were off stitch count. I unknitted the row, counted the stitches and at this point had well over 350 stitches on the needle and the count was wrong. If I were a really meticulous knitter, I would have ripped back to the last point that I knew I was correct and started that section over, but instead, I switched to a simpler lace that had been used earlier in the pattern and kept right on going. After reaching the requisite number of rows, the shawl didn’t seem quite large enough for me, so I added another couple of inches of garter stitch to complete the shawl. The colors are perfect for the skirt, the shawl is generous and very warm. I love it.
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    Now on to the baby sweater in my queue for a December baby and then two sets of finger puppets to go with books for granddaughters for Christmas. Maybe someday, I’ll finish the socks that are about half done and figure out what to do with the yarn from the chewed shawl, plus design the scarf to go with my favorite hat with the yarn that was specially dyed for me.

  • Kid in a candy store

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    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.

  • Yay, we are all grown up now

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    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.

  • A weekend effort

    I’ll spare you the gory details.

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    From this to

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    This, 75 lbs of chicken in the freezer.

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    And this to 6 winter dinners.

  • The Visit

    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.

  • The Liebster Award

    Recently, one of my blog friends, A French Yummy Mummy in London nominated me for this award, to recognize and promote blogging and bloggers. I am very honored to have been nominated by her. The award requires you to answer 11 questions about yourself, ask 11 questions of bloggers you tag and tag 11 blogs you read and encourage those 11 people to tag 11 more bloggers with questions.  Here are the 11 questions that were asked of me.  I am thrilled to have new blogs to read and follow and hope that you enjoy some of the ones I tag.
    1.     Why do you blog?
             It started as an online journal, I type faster than I write and I had been encouraged to journal to relieve stress.
     
    2.     What makes you happy?
             Having my grandchildren visiting.
    3.     Where do you live?
            In the rural Southwest Virginia, but I grew up in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
    4.     What is your favourite food?
             Chocolate, dark and rich.
    5.     How do you relax?
             I knit, spin on an Australian made spinning wheel, organically garden, and watching my silly chickens when I let them out of their pen to free range, or take long walks with hubby and the dogs.
    6.     If you could jump in a plane right away, where would you go?
            There are many places I would like to see, I have never been outside of the USA except Canada and Mexico, so my list would include the UK, Greece, and Australia.
    7.     What helps you to write?
             I only write when I am moved to do so, but getting comments on my blog encourages me to continue. Often my blog revolves around a photo or several that I have taken related to our homestead farm or one of my crafts.
    8.     What was 2013 main highlight so far?
             Celebrating with most of my extended family for my Dad’s 90th birthday and the baptism of two of our grandchildren the same week in the same location.
    9.     What are your plans for 2014?
             Adding more critters to our homestead and traveling more, if we find someone who will house sit for us and deal with those critters.
     
    10. How do you see yourself in 10 years?
    In 10 years I will be a very senior citizen and hope that I am still active and independent then. 
    11. And finally, what would you do if you won the lottery tomorrow?

     

    Each of our children have incurred educational debt and I would give each of them enough to pay off their student debt and pay down or make a down payment on a house of their own.

    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.

  • A week on the Farm – October 9, 2013

    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.

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    The meat chicks have mere days to gorge, and indeed that is what they do, before they all go to freezer camp this weekend.

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    They don’t quite look like small turkeys this time, but several are substantial.

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    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.

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    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.

  • Autumn Sunset

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    Peach sky, crescent moon, crisp air.
    Beautiful Autumn night