This has been a rest week after last week’s marathon mowing of the 30 acres. The garden is waning, with only beans, broccoli being harvested and waiting for the cabbages to head and reach cutting size.
It needs weeding and a fall cleanup, but I was hoping my garlic would arrive soon and I could plant it at the same time.
The chickens are funny animals. Whenever they see me in the side yard, they gather under their coop then follow me to whatever end of their pen I am working near, yet they won’t let me touch them except as they exit their coop in the mornings.
Cogburn and his harem getting some free range time, their favorite time of the day as they forage for bugs, seeds and fresh grass.
They are consistently providing us with 3 plus dozen eggs each week, yes one of them is green. The last pullet to mature appears like she may add another to the 6 to 8 we get each day very soon.
Yesterday’s soap making solo, seems to have been successful. The two molds, a simple mold from Michael’s Arts and Crafts and a silicone baking pan, produced a generous number of bars, now curing on a mat for use in 3 or 4 weeks.
My needle crafting has been in a doldrum until this week. I was making my daughter a black lace sweater to replace one I made last year that was ruined. I’m not a fan of lace knitting, nor knitting with black yarn, so I procrastinated, knitting very little on it this summer, but it was finished, washed, blocked, dried and shipped off to her this week. No pictures taken. Perhaps, she will send me one of her in it. Once it was finished, I picked up the Traveler’s Companion Shawl that I had been working on and seem to be making pretty good progress on it. It is being knit to go with a long travelling skirt I own.
Author: Cabincrafted1
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A Week on the Farm – October 3, 2013
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Soap Making Solo
Last week was soap making 101, taught to a class of one by a friend who has been making her own soap for years. My interest began a little more than a year ago and not wanting to get too involved in equipment until I was sure it was a homecraft to be enjoyed and appreciated by the family, only a simple mold, a few pounds of melt and pour soap base and a small assortment of essential oils not already in my supply were purchased. Several batches of that soap were made, once with daughter here to assist and learn. That was fun, but it just wasn’t quite there. The ingredients of the melt and pour were still a bit sketchy, not fully revealing what it contained and certainly not satisfying the Obsessive Compulsive Disorder part of my personality. Making soap from 100% pure oils and fats, lye, water and essential oils for scent was exactly where my goals were taking me. It was enchanting fun to carefully measure the ingredients, mixing them at just the right temperature, stirring until it resembled pudding, then pouring into the molds, covering with lids and towels to cocoon them in for 24 hours while the chemistry magic of turning oils, fats and lye, saponifying into soap. Fancy craft fair soap. After a full day, it is removed from the molds, cut into bars, and placed on a mat that allows air to circulate around the bars until they are fully cured, in about a month. No, it isn’t instant gratification, but the process and the anticipation have me hooked.
From my lesson, last week, I did get a couple pounds of soap. We did two different 6 pound batches, mostly dedicated for her daughter to sell at a fall craft fair. I understand now why it is so expensive at the fairs and at the Farmer’s Market, but the satisfaction just isn’t there when it is purchased. The morning lesson was fun, educational, and having someone with me both made it social and alleviated my anxiety about trying it myself. No one is perfect and my personality has it’s flaws, usually well hidden, but there. The OCD has abated or I’ve learned to control it more as I have aged, but the anxiety at trying new ventures has gotten worse. It is perhaps that I struggle with these issues that I do tackle new things, often on my own, having taught myself to knit, spin, make baskets, pressure can, make jam and now soap, and taking horseback riding lessons.
Today was the solo attempt, making a special soap for eldest son and hubby.
Tomorrow the two molds will be uncovered, unmolded and we’ll see how the solo venture turned out.
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Where is the color?
This is often a favored season. Cooling temperatures, vivid leaf changes, the start of the holiday season. This year just isn’t right. The temperatures are cooling, 40s and 50s at night, but still reaching mid to upper 70s during the day, but the foliage isn’t doing it’s part. Instead of vivid colors, the leaves are browning and dropping from the trees.
The large maple that is usually the first to show bright gold and orange is barren without ever turning. This year was unusually wet after two years of dry conditions. Perhaps that stressed the trees. Hopefully it doesn’t mean that huge tree on the edge of our woods is dying. Under that tree is where we camped the first summer we owned the property. It provided shade for our brand new 9 week old grandson, our first. It sheltered our tents and picnic table as we met with a soil scientist for the perk test and interviewed several well drillers to get water for our planned home. We were sitting under that tree when we met our first neighbor as he and his son came down the tractor road to get his half of the hay that had been mowed with his equipment by his cousin. That tree has been the focus of many photographs from blogposts.
In spite of the government shutdown, I will venture up on the Blue Ridge Parkway in route to Meadows of Dan on Saturday, to visit a friend and to purchase some corn meal, winter squash, and Ashe County cheese. As the elevation is slightly higher than here, perhaps, there will be at least a glimpse of fall color. -
Sunday Thankfulness – September 29, 2013
Almost 9 years ago, we began looking for retirement property. I wanted a cabin in the woods and for Christmases, I received a picture of a cabin in the woods by a lake, a cabin birdhouse with a sign in it’s yard that read “Cabin in the Woods” as my wish list always started with Cabin in the woods as item 1. We began internet searches for about 10 acres, originally looking in the Charlottesville, Harrisonburg, or upper Shenandoah areas of Virginia. Those areas were getting much more per acre than we wanted to spend. The summer before our search, we spent a 4 day weekend at Rocky Knob CCC cabins on the Blue Ridge Parkway in the south west part of the state and we loved the area. Land was more reasonable and it seemed plentiful, but often in plots much larger than the 10 acres we sought. We spent a December weekend, many, many hours being driven around several counties and nearly every plot was 30 or more acres. This piece of heaven was one of the earlier plots we viewed and we fell in love, though it is 30 acres, not 10 and mostly hay fields, not woods. We have large trees in the hay fields and woods surrounding us. The 10 acre lots we saw, we realized put us closer to neighbors than we had envisioned. It would have been plenty for the house, gardens, orchard, even a few farm animals if the area permitted. That is not an issue here. We are surrounded by mountains, woods, and farms. Our fledgling homestead had no house on it, no well, no electricity, and had been perked for septic, but too many years prior to still be valid. We made the purchase and started a new experience, building a house from 5 hours away. You see, we still lived in the home that we had raised our children in, in Virginia Beach. Our eldest son and his family moved to this area so that he could be the general contractor and he with a patched together crew, did all the finish carpentry, stone work, built all my kitchen cabinets, did all the tile work, and made all of our interior doors. We sold the coastal home, moved into a rental for a year, then I moved to an apartment in the mountains and unretired for 3 1/2 years and hubby stayed in an apartment in Virginia Beach with youngest son and started a 3 year process of winding down and selling his law practice.
It took a few years to work out the kinks of how to homestead. Son had put in a large garden, that helped get me going. I learned to can and bulk freeze produce. We forage for berries to make jam. This year, we added chickens for eggs and meat. Feeling the need to start small and learn farm management and animal husbandry a bit at a time. A year ago, we began horseback riding lessons and joined a Horsemaster’s club to gain more experience. We chat up our farmer neighbors every chance we get regarding beef cattle. We certainly have the space for horses and cows and the grazing will help reduce the area that must be mowed. We will likely still have a neighbor hay for us for a hay split, as adding that much farm equipment seems unwise. Each spring, it is hayed for us, each fall, we brush hog all 30 acres. That process has been on going all week and was finally completed today for the season. There may be one or two lawn mowings before the frost.
I am ever thankful to my husband for making this life change possible and to our eldest son for his skills and ability to run the crew; to his life partner for her work on our home and for mothering our firstborn grandchild; to our beautiful daughter and her family and our youngest son and his family for sharing their children with us and including us in their lives.
Life is good on our mountain farm.
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A Week on the Farm – September 27, 2013
Getting yarn dyed especially for me to match a hat I designed, now I need to design the scarf to go with it.
Learning cold process soap making with a friend. Now I can do it myself, but it is much more fun making it with a friend.
Mowing the 30 acres for fall. There are still 4 or 5 to do and a gorgeous weekend to get it done.
An end of week harvest, more beans for dinner and the freezer, the first two heads of broccoli also for dinner and one for the freezer, tomatoes for the freezer. A dinner that came entirely from our garden except for the ground beef from the farmer’s market.
A daily 6 to 8 eggs from the flock, but oddly, they will line up to use the same nesting box when there are 6 from which to choose, occasionally one will use a different box, but not often.Life is good on our mountain farm.
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Homesteading Fun Day
We are in the midst of mowing our hay fields for winter. The summer rains have produced very thick grass and the mowing seems to be taking longer than usual.
The chicken project is yielding 6 to 8 eggs per day, with one pullet still not producing. I thought that number of birds would produce an excessive number of eggs, but find with the availability of fresh from the nest eggs, that we are using many more than when they came from the grocery or farmer’s market. One dozen is dedicated each week to one of our farmer neighbors who is always willing to help us when we need it and any other extras are gladly purchased by friends with whom I knit or spin. The meat chicks continue to grow at an alarming rate. The breed grows so quickly that some of them are already having difficulty supporting their own weight and they have 2 1/2 more weeks before they go to freezer camp. I have decided that I would rather grow a heritage breed, maybe a dual purpose breed that will produce eggs and later meat, even if they take longer to mature, but will have the sense to get up on perches out of the weather.
Today, one of those friends, invited me to have a cold process soap lesson. I made two six pound batches of soap under her supervision and now feel confident to make my next batch of soap by this process instead of the melt and pour process that I had originally learned. It is so great to know exactly what goes into the products that we use for our personal use and for the household cleansing. From these two batches, she sent me home with two molds of curing soap. The rest of the batches will go to her daughter for a craft fair or for her personal use.
The day ended, knitting with the group of friends that meet on Wednesday nights at a local coffee shop for some social time, dinner, and knitting.
Each newly learned skill brings us one step closer to independence.
Life is good on our mountain farm.
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Farm and Fun
After our Horsemaster’s Club ride yesterday, we both arose sore, facing a 10 a.m. lesson. A biscuit and newspaper in town to fuel our bodies and minds, we arrived a bit early, knowing which horses we were riding today and mine being Daisy that I rode yesterday, in the top field, I dropped off hubby at the arena, grabbed a halter and rope and drove to the top field to get her. Yesterday, she was at the top edge of that very steep field, today since I was at the top, she was at the bottom, requiring a scramble down the slope to get her. The roan in the paddock with her wanted to be my friend today and tried to put her head in the halter, then followed me like a puppy as I led Daisy out. Our instructor arrived and we worked on some skills, both complaining of being sore, so she went and got a horse and tacked up and we took our first trail ride. Our first ride out of the confines of the huge enclosed and roofed arena. It was so much fun and once at the top of their property, realized that we could see the power tower that is closest to our house. As the crow flies, we couldn’t have been more than a mile from home.
A few errands to get chicken feed and we arrived home to farm work. As it is fall, the locals are either doing a fall haying, in some cases, their only haying this year due to the summer rain, or as we do, mowing the now very tall grass down for the winter. It will make better spring hay. Today was the day we began to mow our fields. This is always bitter sweet as we will now be able to walk our property, we will be able to see the deer and turkey, but the mowing takes out thousands of white Queen Anne’s Lace, Daisies, and clover; purple thistle and red clover; golden flowers of the hated stickweed and goldenrod; and the cornflower blue of Chickory. The tall seed heads of the grasses standing above the tops of the tall rear wheels of the tractor.
A dinner break of a homemade pizza with tomatoes, basil, peppers and onions from our garden, hot Italian sausage from the Farmer’s market and a couple of lumps of fresh mozarella. It was delicious.
After dinner, some more mowing as the sun deepened the shadows as the sun dropped below the west ridge, leaving the eastern ridges still glowing from the setting sun.
Life is good on our mountain farm.
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Confidence Restored
One of my flaws is a reluctance to try new things. The anticipation of a new experience often causes several days of anxiety, loss of sleep and weird dreams for several days in advance of the experience. About 11 months ago, hubby convinced me to begin horseback riding lessons with him. He had taken one set of 4 lessons first to see if it was something he wanted to pursue. The only riding I had ever done was in a close ring or on a controlled trail ride where the horse follows the horse in front of it with the experienced guide being the only person in the group that really knew what they were doing and even then, I often chose to take a hike while hubby and a couple of the kids rode instead. I entered the lessons with some degree of anxiety and reluctance and was assigned a fat little paint that you practically had to put a mark in the ring to see if he was even moving. From him I moved on to a gray gelding that became my go to horse. I got comfortable with Doc. I advanced through the skills with a level of comfort in control and even with a bit of goading by hubby, started cantering. Each new skill brought anxiety and then exhilaration as it was accomplished.
We decided that maybe it was getting to be time to start looking for our own horses. We went to look at one Tennessee Walking Horse, who was a nice ride, but so very thin we were concerned about his health and as his shots were not up to date, he couldn’t be boarded where we ride. More looking found another Tennessee Walking Horse, a young mare, up to date on everything and reported to be a good ride, but a bit difficult to get out of the field to tack up. We were in the process of getting info on her and arranging a time to go look, taking our instructor with us, when we had last Monday’s lesson. I wanted to ride a different horse and chose an Arabian mare. She was friendly and easy to catch and tack, but by the end of the lesson, my confidence was shot and I was truly questioning even riding again. I wasn’t thrown, bucked, or ridden into the fence, but I just didn’t have control with her and constantly felt off balance. We even cancelled the visit to look at the mare.
One of the things we did upon starting to ride, was to join a local Horsemaster’s Club. This was to give us more riding time, a discount to ride without an instructor, and to learn more about the breeds, problems, and management of owning our own horses. The club hasn’t been too active, but it did have a scheduled mounted meeting tonight to work as a group on riding skills. We RSVP’s and got our horse assignment via email with instructions to have our horse tacked and ready to ride at 5:30 this evening. I was given one of two horses, depending on how one was after the Pony Club mounted meeting just prior to ours. I didn’t know either horse to catch them in the field or to ride and my anxiety kicked in big time. One of their horses is a young mare that is still in need of training and she threw the owner’s daughter a couple of months ago, seriously breaking her arm. My dreams, when I slept the past two nights have involved that horse. My confidence was shot and my anxiety level was high when we arrived today. The mare I was to ride was pointed out to me by the center owner and she was as far away from the riding arena as she could be and still be on their property. I walked up the hill, easily caught her and walked her back down the hill. She tacked up easily, but didn’t want to leave the stall for the arena. Again, my anxiety mounted. Once on her, she proved to be a comfortable ride with a lot of spirit, but other than getting her to stop, easy to control. She trotted fast and even that was good. My confidence has been restored, just in time for tomorrow’s lesson. I will again get to ride Daisy, but this time, it was suggested that I grab a halter and drive to the top to walk her down and ride her back up after the lesson. I can do that. -
Girl’s Day Out
Today is totally abysmal. The windows on 3 sides of the house are getting rained on, as the wind can not decide which way to blow. Being retired, we find ourselves together nearly 24/7, unless I venture off to provide grandmom or mom support with one of our kids or grands and leave hubby to doggy and chicken sit. I belong to two groups, a knitting group and a spinning group and could, if other scheduling doesn’t get in the way, go out one evening and one afternoon each week solo. It doesn’t happen as often as I thought it would as we let other scheduling issues interfere, such as riding lessons together or sessions with the canine behaviorist that is helping us resocialize the big guy with other dogs that he doesn’t already know.
Several years ago, one of my two favorite indie dyers, accidentally created a colorway of yarn that she only had a few skeins. I fell in love with it at a trunk show. She was making a hat out of a skein of it and I bought the last one she had. With that yarn, I created a pattern for a hat that has become my favorite winter hat. It has a story that goes with it and as a result, a local restaurant is called the Mexican hat stealing place. I inadvertently left the hat on the seat when we checked out, realized it and returned immediately to retrieve it, to be told “No hat.” I asked the waiter, the busboy, and the manager and left devastated over it’s loss. Hubby offered to go in and I initially said no, but changed my mind. He approached someone and was given the same answer. Being a retired lawyer, he stated to them that it was one thing to keep something that was left in the restaurant, but it was another issue when the owner returned for it and was told it wasn’t there, that it then became a police matter. The hat reappeared almost instantly and was returned to me. Needless to say, I am much more careful with it now when I go out.
I have wanted to knit a scarf to go with the hat and preferred to knit it with yarn dyed again by Natasha at Unplanned Peacock ( http://www.unplannedpeacock.com). She has tried a couple of times and could not duplicate the color. Her hat had been destroyed by her puppy, so she only had a photo of mine to try to match and the photo showed the red, not true to its beautiful rich tone. This late summer, I asked her if she could just pick out a variegated yarn that picked up the color. She took the challenge to again try to recreate the original color. We have messaged back and forth with photos and discussions for several weeks and a few days ago, she let me know that she thought she had hit the color. We decided to have a girl’s day out, meet up at a restaurant part of the way between our houses that are almost 2 hours apart. After a delightful social time, good food and some visiting, we walked down the town street to The Wooly Jumper (woollyjumperyarns.com ), the yarn shop in that town and visited with the owner, Michelle, and had more social time. Natasha went and got the box with the yarn she had dyed for me and a selection of variegated yarns from her collection to try to match my hat, which I had taken with me.
I am excited that she hit it spot on and now I am challenged to design a scarf or shawlette to go with the Ruby Hat. It was a miserable drive in rain and fog home, but my enjoyment and excitment were not tempered.
Cabin Crafted 