Cabin Crafted

Author: Cabincrafted1

  • Almost a week. . .

    Since I posted the Olio post. It has been a cold one, but we have gotten in our walk each day. We got caught in a sprinkling rain one day that turned into real rain and snow showers after we got back to the car.

    The weather prognosticators are threatening us with a real winter storm starting tonight. The predictions have been all over the place from 8″ to 16″ of snow, maybe some ice, then more snow. We took heed, I brought in several loads of firewood for the wood stove and the fireplace. Our Sunday grocery run was moved up to Friday, a Farmer’s market run this morning with veggies, meats, and sourdough bread purchased, a large pot of chili made last night and stew tonight that can be heated on the wood stove or camp stove if we end up without power, and we will wait and see what it brings. More than about 6 inches and we won’t be going anywhere, our mountain roads aren’t priority for clearing.

    The January spinning challenge has a changing theme every few days, but all encouraging the continuation of the practice. I am working on the batts that hubby gave me for Christmas to make myself a large scarf and simultaneously spinning neutrals for a second blanket that will have some repeat breeds and some I never got to on the first one. I must like these colors.

    The base square is one that was too small for the first blanket and I am doing a log cabin pattern around it. It will be a small lap blanket when finished.

    It is getting dark, the hens are secured with food and water. Regardless of tomorrow’s weather, they will need thawed water once or twice during the day and probably won’t come out of their coop until they can see hay or grass on the ground. The coop will need cleaning again once they do leave the confines of their indoor shelter.

    The fall predictions for this winter were for warmer than average temperatures and wet. Instead it has been colder and white. I have concluded the way to tell the weather is to look outside and see what it is doing.

    I have two paperback books and one ebook, lots of yarn, fiber, spindles, spinning wheels, and knitting needles. There are both a two burner camp stove and an alcohol burner that can be used for heating water or cooking. This won’t be the biggest snow we have had and we have no where to go, so we will just enjoy it. Maybe some Senior Olympics can be had with sled runs.

  • Sunday Olio

    Olio: a miscellaneous collection

    I haven’t done an Olio in quite a while. They are easier to do when more activity occurs outdoors, and this definitely hasn’t been a week for that. With snow twice, temperatures rarely getting above freezing and even dropping to 8 f night before last. With hubby gone for several days, I have literally stayed in and kept the homefires burning. The wood stove is in the finished basement and though it makes that area too warm, the warm air drifts up the stairs and warms the upper reaches of the house above. The winter setting for the thermostats is 68 during the daytime hours and with the stove going, it will show main floor temperatures of 72 or 73.

    Today is warm, going up into the upper 40’s and it is raining, all day long according to the forecast.

    The remants of snow will disappear today, but it is going to get cold again tonight and stay cold but sunny for several days. It is winter.

    I did make it to the Farmer’s Market yesterday, and the donation center. Though there were some icy spots on the mountain road, the highways were clear and dry and the new car handled it nicely.

    With hubby gone for those days, lots of soup was made and consumed in single serving batches. There was a half loaf of sour dough bread from a Farmer’s Market vendor that was enjoyed with the soups. My cooking will return to the fare favored by hubby now that he is home.

    My time was spent spinning on my spindles some and working on using up the bits of yarn left over from making the blanket last year. Those bits are becoming bulky hats, the first one sent home with Son 1 after Christmas. The second finished last night.

    They are a great way to use up the small yardage as 4 strands are held together and when one runs out, another is added in, making a marled look. The pattern calls for the purl or “wrong” side out. The first one looked better on “right” or knit side, this one is kind of interesting on the purl side.

    My time was also spent with cleaning, organizing, and destashing unused items. A box of random clothing, bags, and household goods was taken to donation. and a major overhaul of my craft area that still needs more work. I think shelves that have bags of fiber will be cleared and the fiber stored in a sealed plastic bin and yarn in another so only tools and books are on the folding and fixed shelves. I am putting myself on a “low fiber” diet, no more fluff in until what I have is used up. A lot of the natural colors are being spun a bit at a time to make a second, probably small blanket. The remaining square that was too small for last year’s blanket will be the center of a log cabin style blanket.

    The rest of my spinning time is starting on the 4 ounces of gorgeous Marion Berry colored BFL wool that hubby gave me for Christmas. It is a gradient dyed pair of batts and I plan to spin them in the gradient to make myself a large scarf.

    After being housebound for days, I’m looking forward to sunshine tomorrow even if I have to bundle up and get outside for a good, not icy walk.

  • Repeat

    The unusual weather is continuing. We get a few snows each winter, usually just a couple inches, occassionally more and my Facebook memory for today showed snow two years ago today, but not this cold. We had about 7 inches on the ground Monday morning from overnight and early morning accumulation. It was mostly gone by yesterday afternoon.

    When I walked up to get the mail late yesterday afternoon, it was beginning to snow flurry with a little bit of sleet in it, but it was still a few degrees above freezing. When the German Shepherd came in from her last outdoor run last night, she was coated in wet snow and I awoke to this:

    and 15 f with howling wind and a wind chill advisory. The snow finally stopped with only a couple inches on the ground and the wind is intermitent now, but still blowing strong at times. It has gotten to 19 f which is the expected high and a single digit low tonight. Tomorrow it will be sunny and warm back up to normal January temperatures for here and hopefully most of the snow on the roads will melt off. They did pretreat prior to this round, that should help.

    The hens got fresh thawed water and scratch in the coop, the wildbirds a supply of seed, and I don’t want to go back out again except to check to late eggs near dusk. I brought in 6 warm eggs before they could freeze.

    Soup for lunch, soup for dinner tonight, different ones, both homemade. A pot of decaf coffee made, lots of hot tea available, a woodstove and a fireplace if I feel the need. I’m dressed in extra layers and longjohns today, the heatpump doesn’t like it this cold. I have spindles, fiber, yarn, knitting needles, books and no need to go out in this weather.

    I spent the morning cleaning a closet and filling a donation box that will go down tomorrow if the roads clear. I want to make it to the first winter Farmer’s Market tomorrow, but again, only if the roads clear. And I hope it has cleared and dried by late tomorrow night when hubby will have to drive back up the mountain roads in the dark in our old car.

  • A different routine

    It isn’t often that I am solo at home and when it happens, the routine is so very different. I am an early to bed, early to rise soul, dear hubby stays up until the wee hours of morning and sleeps until late morning. There are certain chores I won’t do while he is still sleeping, anything that makes loud noise, like the vacuuming. The laundry room is far enough away that if I can gather the dirty clothes in the dark room, I can start laundry, but bed and bath linens must wait arising. I rarely leave home when he is not here, quite content to be the hermitess on the mountain.

    And meals are quite different also. He is a born Texan, beef and starch, pork and starch are the preferences which I will usually eat so as not to prepare two different meals. I enjoy beans, bean or legume soups, potato soup with cheddar cheese, or one of the Asian inspired creations of late. In cold weather, I can eat soups twice a day and be very content, add a slice of good bread and it is even better. When together, we often go to get a newspaper (delivery is sporadic at best), run errands if there are any, and pick up lunch out, usually eaten in the car.

    Because too many large doggie landmines were discovered by visiting grands under the snow and since much of the snow has melted and another round is due this afternoon and overnight, I went out and cleaned up dozens from the front and side of the house. I also brought in another load of logs as we went through most of the rack on Monday. It is supposed to be cold tonight, cold tomorrow, and frigid tomorrow night, so I want to be prepared if the heat is needed.

    Linens are laundered, vacuuming is done, bathrooms are cleaned, landmines disarmed, and I even made a very quick trip to the big box hardware store to pick up inside of the exterior door mats and a long non-skid runner for the utility room as the old guy is having more and more difficulty on the tile floor where his food and water are placed. The inside the door non-skid mats are to slow the tracking of water and sand onto the hardwood floors.

    When the grands were here playing in the snow, the big old guy was isolated in the utility room so as not to get stepped or fallen on by toddlers and he would park hard up against the door to the garage so coming and going had to be through front or back doors, both entering onto the hardwood. I have a boot park inside the utility room, but you couldn’t get to it.

    The chickens finally came out of their coop late yesterday and this morning, but I’m guessing that they won’t tomorrow again for a day or two.

    I’ll hunker down with my book, spinning, knitting, a cup of coffee or tea and watch it snow again. I think I’ll go pick greens first.

  • Hello Winter, finally

    January 1 it was 70 f, yesterday it was 53 f and wet, this morning it was 31 f and this happened.

    It was raining at 2 a.m., but changed at some point. We got about 4-5″ of wet, heavy snow, pretty to look at, but not to play in. The trees are heavy with it and the wind has kicked up, so fires are going in the wood stove and the fireplace, just in case it takes the power out.

    I didn’t even bother to walk over to the coop. They have food and water inside and wouldn’t come out even if I did open the door.

    Tonight is going down in the mid teens. Most nights this week are similar with single digit expected on Friday night. It is January, this is what winter is supposed to be, not the warmth we have had for the past several weeks. Today is a good day to stay in, watch the fire, spin or knit and enjoy the snow from the warmth of the house.

    Yesterday afternoon we had a call from Son 2 that he and his family were on there way here for a few hours. We enjoyed having dinner together here, some snuggles and chats with them and some of the grands. They fled trying to beat the snow in the wee hours, but it caught up with them and took them longer to get home than they had planned, but they arrived safely. It was great having a visit with littles running around and loving on us and the pups.

  • Begin Anew

    The first day of a new year. A positive attitude, or at least an attempt to make each day positive. A new calendar on the refrigerator. Before breakfast was ready, the Christmas decorations were all packed up. The shelves dusted, the floors vacuumed.

    It is both sad and cathartic to remove the decorations after nearly a month of cleaning around them, and giving the shelves and floors a good clean up finally.

    We begin the new year each year we are home, with Huevos Rancheros. Then after breakfast settled, we took a walk. Today is reaching for 70f (21c), cloudy, it rained last night and will again later, but we got a walk under broken clouds. We enjoyed being outdoors without heavy coats, hats, and gloves. Monday the high might reach freezing with very cold nights. Our goal has been to try to get a brisk walk of at least 2.25 miles each day and we have begun the new year with that.

    The coop was nasty, 13 hens in a coop not designed for that many hens fouls quickly. The usual deep litter method doesn’t work with that many birds, so after the walk, it got a good cleaning and deep straw added back in. They are starting anew as well.

    They are so nosey, they have to see what is going on.

    Because of their scratching and the recent rain, the exposed soil just inside the gate and just outside the front of the coop was quite slick, so fresh hay was forked down as well. And since I was out and about with the hay fork, the wet leaves were cleared from the uphill side of the culvert and I realized that the road gravel has the culvert filled about 2/3 full again. I either have to try to shovel it out or put in another work order to VDOT, but the last two I have submitted have been ignored, maybe three’s the charm.

    While I was working outside, the garden was checked. The winter greens bed is thriving. I harvested radishes, spinach, komatsu. There are healthy kohlrabi greens, and kale too. I will cover them, but I need to purchased another sheet of plastic tomorrow to make that happen.

    I have never since I started gardening, havested this late in the season.

    So the new year begins with a clean house, clean coop, a positive attitude, and about 20 pounds less than I began last year.

    Happy New Year to you all.

  • Winter Fresh

    Though the past week hasn’t felt much like winter, the garden is gone with the exception of a couple of spinach plants and a few komatso plants. The komasto in the salad hydroponic and some of the lettuce there have suddenly decided to issue forth with greens. The herbs are thriving. This week the menu has included several harvests from both.

    The night that hubby got a steak and fries, I made another bowl of Asian inspired soup with quinoa for my protein. The chives, oregano, and komatsu adding the greens, red carrot, garlic, fresh ginger, Szechuan pepper corns, and gochunjang in broth to make it soup. There was enough komatsu that some was sauteed as hubby’s green vegetable.

    Post komatsu harvest.

    Tonight, the lettuce and herbs were harvested for a salad. I think as the 6 young lettuces that are just getting a start begin to mature, there will be greens and salads for the winter when other fresh food is scarce. These two units take up little counter space on a part of the counter that I rarely use and having fresh herbs and greens is a bonus.

    As we enjoy the fresh produce, the seed catalogs have started filling the mailbox and they can provide a wish list for the spring garden. I need to get the soil tested this winter and supplement the beds for the spring. The garlic never got planted this past autumn and some of the crops grown last year, won’t be repeated while others will be added. In the meantime, I really need to cook down several 2 gallon sacks of frozen paste tomatoes.

  • An Old Guy

    This fella turns 10 today. Now 10 doesn’t sound very old, but he is an English Mastiff.

    This past summer he reached the point where he could no longer manage the stairs and in the past couple of months it has gotten to where he needs help getting to his feet. We use a beach towel folded lengthwise to make a sling slipped under his belly to provide him some lift. It hurts our souls when he moves around after he is down as he pulls his back end around with his front legs. It doesn’t matter whether he is on the wood floor or the carpet, he just doesn’t have the strength in his hind quarters to get himself up. Each year, the pups get new beds for Christmas and we got this thick orthopaedic one for him this year. He will put his front half on it, but even if you get him to walk up on it and lie down, he will end up working his back legs off. You would think it would be so much more comfortable than the hard floor. He is still a very loveable old curmudgeon, demanding of attention if you sit down in the living room where he now lives.

    We laugh at some of his quirky ways. For his entire life, he and the German Shepherd have been fed in the utility room with the tile floor. As he grew, we raised his food and water on a feeder stand and this year, bought a taller one so he doesn’t have to bend down as far. The German Shepherd inherited the shorter one as she too is approaching 10 years old this spring, but is still fairly spry though with much less energy than she used to have. When Ranger goes in to eat, he has plenty of room to turn around to walk back out, but has always backed out of the room until he is in the much narrower doorway then turns around. Of course, we provide the “beep, beep” sound of a backing truck when he does it.

    When a Mastiff wants your attention, they will paw you. His paws are as large as my hands. As a young pup, we were told to do everything a child might do to him to aclimate him to pokes and prods. You can mess with his paws, ears, pull his tail, check his teeth, step over him and he patiently accepts it. He isn’t a fan of nail trims, but even that can generally be done without too much reaction. As a young dog, you would often find a grandchild laying on the floor with him with their head on his side. He travelled to Florida with us one year with his head in grandson’s lap most of the way. He considers the grands as his kids.

    The March we picked him up from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, hubby was instantly in love. I was a bit more cautious, especially when the owner of the parents called up to his welding shop and told them they could let the dogs come down the hill to us. I saw two freight trains with flapping jowls barrelling down the hill and wondered what on earth we had just done. We couldn’t have asked for a better dog.

    Happy Birthday, Ranger, old man.

  • The week before, the week between

    Son 1 arrived a few days before Christmas and we enjoyed his company until the morning of the 26th. We enjoyed Christmas eve dinner at daughter’s house along with the traditional reading of “The Night Before Christmas” by the family patriarch for the kids, including the two adult ones.

    Christmas morning was low key with Huevos Rancheros for breakfast and the exchange of gifts between the three of us. Daughter and her two kiddos arrived for a late lunch/early dinner with the fancy trimmings and gift exchange with them.

    Yesterday I went over to pick up the grands to take them to a friend’s house to see a couple new lambs and daughter was waiting to go too. She had already taken her decorations down as her tree was getting too dry and her cats were threatening her Santa collections. Since we purchased our tree the same day, even though it was in a deep basin that holds more than a gallon of water, I realized that our tree was no longer drinking up the water and it too was getting dry and droopy. I unplugged it for safety reasons, and though the rest of our decorations are still up, the tree has been taken down, moved to the woods, and the rug vacuumed of needles. The rocking chair that has to be relocated when the tree is up is back in the living room.

    Yesterday’s mail brought a letter that caused me to check my retirement online and found a very significant error that the retirement system had made. A phone call was made, a return call later, and another this morning, their error has been corrected, but my monthly deposit is way off and the balance won’t be received for a few more days later. That caused a bit of stress as we have several monthly expenses that come directly out of our account. It is resolved fortunately, but we wonder if other members of this retirement system had the same occur to them.

    The weather has been so warm that the pussy willows are blooming. I hope it doesn’t trigger the fruit trees. It will remain spring like with rain until next Monday.

    To use up the left over bits of yarn from my breed blanket, I started knitting bulky weight hats, holding several strands together on large needles. The first one went home with Son 1, the second one, I must have blinked when counting stitches and realized last night that it wouldn’t fit an infant, so this morning I ripped out the 5″ I had knit, wound a ball and restarted it.

    I love the marled look of holding 4 different strands together and the bulky weight makes the hat go quickly.

    Right before Christmas, I purchased myself a box/tape loom and it arrived on Christmas eve’s eve. Beginning with a very simple ribbon pattern I have been working to learn to keep my edges even.

    Several years ago, I purchased a kit to make one of the looms but it was made of plywood, laser cut, so it couldn’t be used at historical events. This one can. This first tape won’t be pretty, but hopefully will improve my skills so the next one will be more consistent. I deliberately used strongly contrasting colors so I can see where I need practice.

    The New Year will be celebrated here at home again. Maybe one year soon, it will be safe to return to Mountain Lake Lodge for their party with dinner, room, and breakfast.

    Hope you have a safe Happy New Year.

  • Another year is closing

    Today marked the last Farmer’s Market of the year, as the next two Saturday’s are holidays. It also means that some of the vendors are finished until spring and I will miss being able to do the bulk of our weekly groceries locally sourced, regeneratively and/or organically grown. There will be a few vendors through the winter when travel from their farms allow and some products still available, but it is always sad knowing this marks the beginning of real winter.

    Today was also the last Holiday Market as well and this year I didn’t participate for several reasons. There are more and more vendors selling similar products, and competition is good unless your handspun, handknit hat is competing with bulky knit acrylic one. And the uncertainty of Covid sent me in a different direction last year, slowly spinning on spindles and knitting a blanket for us instead of product for sale, so my stock was low. And the cost of participating was too great for my stock availability. I limited my events to three at Wilderness Road Regional Museum, and one outdoor event at Montgomery Museum this past year and not until I was fully vaccinated. At times, I wonder if that adventure should cease and just donate my time spinning at the Museum or heritage craft events without vending. With this in mind, some of my equipment is being sold off and keeping only that which I love and use. Now with the new variant spreading like the wild fires of the midwest and western states, we are again wearing masks even in crowded outdoor venue, and I guess will stop going in restaurants again for a while, though that had only resumed occasionally.

    This week hasn’t felt much like winter, with warm daytime temperatures and mild nights, but tomorrow is supposed to be more seasonable. Today it is raining, yesterday too, but we squeezed in a walk only getting a light shower during part of it. I don’t think we will get one today. We won’t have a white Christmas this year, but it may be cold enough for a fire in the fireplace. We won’t be totally isolated from our family this year either, but still only a tiny gathering. We were so fortunate to be able to meet up with Son 2 and his family week before last and enjoy their children.

    One of my hydroponic gardens has not been doing well, so this morning, I broke it down, totally cleaned it, reset the plants that were growing and started some new salad greens. The other one has gotten off schedule with maintenance power outage by the power company and power flickers due to wind. I may put both of them on an easy to control power bar with a timer as the internal timers on the units can only be reset by getting up very early and restarting them and they don’t run for the same number of hours.

    I will end this not very positive missive with a holiday photo.