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.
Author: Cabincrafted1
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Confidence Restored
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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. -
A Week On the Farm – September 20, 2013
Fall harvesting
Pasta sauce for the freezer
Free ranging and learning that my best layers are the Red Stars, not the heritage breeds. Hmmmm.
Doggie walks off the farm
Wild Asters
and Bee BalmThe week has been cool and gray with more rain tonight and tomorrow. A horseback ride on a different horse, just reminded me how little I know, I guess I had gotten comfortable or complacent riding the same well schooled gelding all the time. Some doggie walks and another session with the doggie behaviorist, still trying to get the big guy comfortable again with strange dogs. He loves people and cats, but not so much, new dogs.
Life continues to be good on our mountain farm.
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Fall Bounty
Today dawned quite chilly, only 43f , gray and again foggy. The sun peeked out briefly and it had risen to the low 60’s with another 40 something night expected. We will awaken to a frost soon, within the next couple of weeks. The stinky young meat chicks seem to be handling the chilly nights, still benefitting from the heat lamp and partially covered chicken tractor. This breed will not go up on the perches, they huddle on the ground, so the partial cover will likely remain even after the heat lamp is removed, just to provide them some protection from wind and rain.
In spite of the very cool nights, the fall planting of bush beans is providing and still blooming and hopefully will continue to do so until the frost. The only remaining tomato plant is a volunteer of a heritage variety of plum tomato that I planted last year. It came up just outside the bed where they were planted, a bed that is now the grape bed. It is providing me with a couple of hefty sized plum tomatoes every couple of days, which I accumulate until there are sufficient numbers to peel and freeze.
Today’s harvest, beans, a few tomatoes and 7 eggs.
Tonight we will feast on fresh pasta from the farmer’s market, spicy Italian Sausages, also from the farmer’s market, and a big pot of homemade sauce, entirely from our garden harvest. The onions, garlic, peppers, tomatoes, and herbs picked right out the side of the yard in the farm garden or from herb pots on the back deck. There will be plenty to enjoy and enough to freeze at least a couple more meals worth for our enjoyment later in the season.
A handful of those fresh beans, sauteed with olive oil and garlic and we will feast like royalty.
Life is good on our mountain farm.
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Fall is upon us
Though officially still a few days away, fall has come to the mountains. After a cool, rainy summer, we have had a dry spell of several weeks, today is chilly and foggy with a slight chance of afternoon showers as another front moves through. It is unlikely that the colors will be stunning this year. After two years of dry conditions and the stress of too much water this year, the trees that normally color first are browning and dropping their leaves instead
There are hints of color change, the emerald greens of summer are now dull, hints of rust and reds appearing.
The weather lore is that the morning fogs we have been experiencing for several weeks portend early and heavy snow. Last autumn, we had a school closing snow in October. Hopefully that won’t be the case this year since I went to the effort of putting in a fall garden. We have only lived in the mountains for 8 years and I have noticed that none of our farmer neighbors put in fall gardens. As I was pulling spent summer plants, weeding beds and dumping the weeds in the chicken pen, I wondered if by now, they are just tired of their gardens, or if by experience, they know that the weather will win. Most of them don’t work to keep the weeds at bay after their plants are established. They till it all in come spring, or they put down huge sheets of black plastic, punch holes in it and plant through the holes. I don’t want my food growing in beds that have plastic leeching into them. I will continue to weed, mulch and hope for the best. Perhaps, one of the huge round bales of hay should be spread around the trees in the orchard and over the fallow beds and aisles soon. -
“Turtle on the Half Shell”
For my farm readers, this one is a craft post.
“TURTLE ON A HALF SHELL” HAT
Choose your turtle by the color of the mask. This hat was engineered after seeing a picture of a similar hat at the request of my Daughter in law as part of Halloween costumes for grandchildren. Now I just need a little girl or boy head to model it on instead of a doll.Hat
Size 20” head and 22” head. Larger size is in parenthesis.
The hat is a knit beanie, the mask is crochet, both using Ella Rae Superwash or a similar worsted weight yarn. It can be knit on circular or double point needles.
CO= cast on
K= knit
K2tog= knit 2 together
Cast on 88 (100) stitches using a stretchy cast on such as long tail on a US 7 16” circular or double points. Join to knit in the round, placing a marker at the beginning of the row. Knit 2 X 2 rib for one inch, continue in stockinette stitch for 4 ½ (5 ½) inches. On the next round, place a marker after 11 (10)stitches and each multiple of 11 (10).
To complete the top of the hat, you will knit the following decrease pattern, switching to magic loop, two circs or double points when needed.
Row 1: *Knit 9 (8), K2tog* repeat to end of row
Row 2 and each subsequent even row: Knit
Row 3: *Knit 8 (7), K2tog* repeat to end of row
Row 5: *Knit 7 (6), K2tog* repeat to end of row
Row 7: *Knit 6 (5), K2tog* repeat to end of row
Row 9: *Knit 5 (4), K2tog* repeat to end of row
Row 11: *Knit 3 (1), K2tog* repeat to end of row
Row 13: *Knit 1, K2tog* repeat to end of row (skip for larger size)
Row 14: *K2tog* repeat to end of row (repeat this row for larger size)
Cut 6” tail and draw through remaining stitches. Secure tail on the inside of hat.
Mask
SC= single crochet
HDC= half double crochet
Make 2
With size G hook, chain 15 stitches, join with slip stitch. Chain 1 (does not count as stitch), 25 HDC in ring. Chain 2 and join to first HDC with slip stitch. HDC in next 10 stitches, 2 SC in each of the next 5 stitches, HDC in next 10 stitches. Join with slip stitch, cut off tail and pull through last stitch. Sew the two eyepieces together at the bridge connecting about 4 stitches.
For the ties: Pick up the first single crochet on the outside edge of the mask, chain 2, HDC in the next 4 stitches, chain 2, turn and HDC in the next 4 stitches. Repeat until tie is the length you desire. Repeat on the other side of the mask.
To assemble. Place the top of the mask, wrong side out, even with the bottom of the ribbing. Using coordinating thread, attach 3 or 4 stitches to the ribbing. The mask can be worn flipped up on the hat or down over the eyes.Copywrite 2013 by Fran Stafford. Please feel free to use this pattern, to sell objects made from this pattern, but do not sell or share the pattern without permission.
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A Week On the Farm – September 13,2013
As the week and the summer draw to a close, the fall garden is beginning to take off as the summer garden is almost gone. Today, we picked our first batch of fall bush beans and enjoyed them for dinner while preparing 8 more meals of them for the freezer to enjoy this winter when the days are cold and the snow falls.
The tomato plants are all brown, the last of the tomatoes ripening or being attacked by grasshoppers and stinkbugs. The only ones left are small yellow, orange plum and Roma tomatoes. The volunteer that is sprawled through the grape bed, is producing the best crop right now.
The potato growing experiment was less than successful. We tried growing them in half barrels putting a couple inches of compost in the bottom, planting the seed potatoes and then adding more compost as the tops grew a few inches. We were hoping for a couple of barrels full of nice potatoes, but only got about 10 lbs. They are tasty though, we had some mashed with dinner tonight.
Today, for the first time, the hens produced 8 eggs. That leaves only one who still hasn’t figured out how to lay an egg.
The freezer, in spite of the cool wet summer, is beginning to look like it will hold us through the winter months. If the beans continue to produce, the peas make it to production size, the cabbages and broccoli are heading nicely, the chard is developing this time, we will be able to put more away and enjoy some more fresh produce. Today only reached the low 70’s and it is going into the 40’s tonight. The weather “prognosticators” are threatening us with an early and snowy winter, I hope they are wrong for a while.
The 4 1/2 week old meat chicks are tightly snugged in the chicken tractor with a tarp covering most of it and a heat lamp on to help them through the cold night.
On the craft front, our daughter in law asked me to make two Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle hats for two of our grandchildren as part of their Halloween costumes. One of the hats is almost finished, pictures will follow next week once they are finished.
Life is good on our mountain farm. -
Dumb Chicks
No, I’m not using a perjorative name for women, I am referring to the 4 week old meat birds that I am raising for my son. The ones that so quickly outgrew the brooder that they had to be put outside in the chicken tractor with a heatlamp and tarp to give them more room. They don’t have the sense to go up on the perches in the top of the structure to protect them from wind and rain. It only took them 3 days to foul the area under them so badly that the chicken tractor had to be moved today. Unlike the other chicks that I have raised, these birds are ugly and stinky. Even when they are fully feathered, they have naked spots.
These chicks, don’t have the sense to get out of the rain. The hens and rooster get under their coop or inside their coop when it rains. The chicks just sit there and squawk. The chicken tractor is triangular in shape and about 8 feet long.
It has about 12 feet of perches located across its width just above the solid roof, but they stay on the ground in the wire covered area and get wet. It is currently pouring down rain outside. Mostly falling straight down thank goodness. Once it stops, I guess I’m going to have to go out and make sure they aren’t drowned rats.
Dumb chicks! -
Sunday Thankfulness/Week on the Farm – September 8,2013
This is a combined version of two of my weekly posts. This week just got by me somehow. We did get a weekly horseback ride, looked at and rode a gaited horse as a potential buy, mowed the yard and cleaned the house in preparation for weekend house guests.
Yesterday, we made our semi annual visit up the Blue Ridge Parkway to show our guests Mabry Mill. This is always fun as they have an old restored water wheel mill that served to grind grain and as a saw mill, a blacksmith shop, a cabin with a loom and several spinning wheels, a cabinet maker who demonstrates building chairs using only non powered hand tools. There are short walks through the woods back and forth across the creeks feeding the mill. Our fall trip always allows me to stock up for the winter on locally ground grits, corn meal and buckwheat flour. The photo is of the mill, but an earlier trip with our daughter and two grandsons instead of this weekend’s guests.
From there, we ventured to the Poor Farmer’s Market in Meadows of Dan for our annual apple purchase for the freezer. Peaches, white sweet potatoes, and cheese we also purchased. We made a stop at Chateau Morrisette for a wine tasting, purchase of a few bottles of wine then back to the town of Floyd, we stopped for a light late lunch at Dog Town Wood Fired Pizza and tap house for a shared pizza and a pint of their own brew.
Because of our previous night discovery that our grill no longer works, our dinner was all prepared in the oven, roasted veggies, pork chops and we were supposed to have beans that we had purchased at the farmer’s market earlier in the week, but they proved to be old and tough, a disappointment as they came from one of our favorite vendors. We ended up pulling a package of the beans I had frozen and subbed them instead. One of the bottles of Chamboursin was opened and enjoyed with our meal. After a busy day, the evening was spent visiting and playing with the pups, but otherwise just chilling out.
Our guests had requested that we make reservations for brunch today at Mountain Lake Lodge. A bit of strolling the grounds, some photos for them to show that indeed, Dirty Dancing was filmed here, we found out that with the new management,the weekly brunch has not been held this year except for Mother’s Day and was just being re-instituted this week. The spread was much reduced from prior years, but the food was varied and delicious and none of us left hungry. Our guests left after brunch to return to the coast and I moved on to prepping the goodies for the freezer and getting some of the other neglected tasks accomplished.
Just prior to their arrival, we realized that the 15 three and a half week old meat chicks had seriously outgrown the brooder box they were in. They really are too young to put outside as they aren’t fully feathered and the nighttime temperatures are dropping to the upper 50’s, so a decision was made to move them to the chicken tractor anyway, but to hang their heat lamp inside and drape a tarp over the structure during the night. So far they seem to be doing ok with this and seem to like the added space. Early this week, I am going to make a temporary pen of 3 foot fencing and poultry net surrounding the chicken tractor, so that they can get out into more space.
The hens and rooster wondering why they can’t get to those chicks.
Eighteen cups (a peck) of pared, sliced apples, vacuum sealed for the freezer.
More diced and crushed tomatoes, peeled and vacuum sealed also for the freezer.
The winter’s supply is looking better each week. The beans are blooming and we should soon begin getting a second crop for enjoying and freezing. The peas are ready for the trellis and hopefully will give us more to eat and freeze. I haven’t lifted the row covers over the cabbages, broccoli and chard, but they seem to be developing well. The potatoes are dying back, so they will soon be dug, the sunflowers are ending their season and the little birds are flitting around the garden enjoying the seeds.
Life is good on our mountain farm and we are enjoying the cool early fall weather.
Cabin Crafted 