Cabin Crafted

Author: Cabincrafted1

  • 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.

  • What a ride

    It is done. What a joyous ride this past year has been on this delightful project. I spun 26 breeds, used 25 of them, knit 43 squares but one was too small so finished it is 42 squares. It is spun entirely with my Jenkins Turks, plied entirely with them also, and put together with Jenkins spun yarn. It was a stress free goal, let me try wools I had never heard of or handled along with many I already loved. One huge thank you goes out to Lisa who started following my progress after I bought a Jenkins Finch spindle from her destash. She is in Sweden and sent me the spindle packed in Helsinge wool. When I posted about it in my blog, she sent me enough more to make two more squares with it, then when I mentioned in my blog I needed darker squares for the last two months, she sent me Jamtland and Gotland lamb. There are two Jamtland squares and one Gotland lamb square in the blanket with more to spin for another project, so she provided 1/7 of the fiber for the blanket. Now I need to find a new project. There are lots of small balls of left over yarn from this project that can be used.

    As I knit the squares, I pinned tags of the breed on the squares. Tonight, hubby helped me make a chart in order by row and I removed the tags. A larger chart, perhaps a photo of the blanket with each square labelled on the picture will be made and taken with the blanket when I go to do demonstration spinning.

    The last two squares were knit on Wednesday and Thursday in the car as we travelled part of the way across the state to meet up with Son 2 and most of his family for an evening at Busch Gardens Williamsburg Winter Wonderland. This gave us the opportunity to chat with the adults and their oldest daughter and get to know the younger ones better while also meeting the newest granddaughter. They have a beautiful family. The oldest wasn’t with them because he was near where we live at a multi day swim meet. Today we went by the aquatic center hoping to run into him, but there are 1000 swimmers so only the ones scheduled for time blocks are there. His mom sent us approximate times he will swim tomorrow and Sunday, so we will go back and watch him compete.

  • WIND!!

    Sometimes a front brings a breeze, sometimes a wind, last night it was WIND. Wake you from a deep sleep wind. Being awakened by hubby who thought the roof was coming off (it wasn’t, no damage there).

    This morning, it is again calm, the sun is bright, the temperature fell 40 degrees f from yesterday and will remain cold through today and tomorrow, but the damage is evident. Fortunately, nothing signicant. The back deck has a round glass topped table that I had yet to fold and store for winter and it blew off the deck and landed folded on it’s face on the rock patio under construction. Somehow it didn’t break. The huge gas grill which had blown over once before causing some cosmetic damage, blew down the hill a bit and the rusting burners destroyed, the grill plates scattered.

    I haven’t gotten it back upright and up the hill, the wheels are mostly non functional and it is too heavy for me to carry alone especially since several of the frame pieces have rusted through. I removed the gas tank from it. The table is folded and tucked behind the chairs on the deck, but will be moved to the basement utility area before our first snow is expected (not counting tomorrow’s flurries).

    The most damage occurred to Huck’s coop, the chicken tractor that we had placed on a cedar log raft off the ground many years ago. In a prior storm, the lift half of the top had blown off and was leaning against the side. Much of the wood is rotten, the cedar raft caved in and I had removed most of the hardware from it last summer with the idea of either replacing the rotting wood or totally dismantling it, saving the hardware cloth and buring the wood if there is a calm wet day. Last night made the decision for me. It will have to be dismantled now.

    In walking around the house in the cold this morning, that seems to be the only issues. I don’t see any trees down in the edges of the fields, but I haven’t walked the woods to see if any came down there. It definitely was a strong front that blew through. It had begun when we were taking our walk yesterday, but nothing like last night.

    P.S. I remade the Cranberry Orange Shortbread, this time pressed in the 8″ pan and it came out perfectly.

  • Results

    I found a cookie recipe for a shortbread cookie with chopped cranberries and orange zest and in the picture, they baked to 1 cm thick rounds, lightly browned on the bottom. I followed the recipe exactly, the dough seemed a good consistence, it was rolled into the log in parchment paper and chilled for several hours before slicing and placing on the parchment paper lined cold baking tray and put in the oven at the proper temperature. They took about 3 minutes longer than the recipe called for and they spread out to very thin shapes that had to be cut apart.

    Shortbread is one of my go to cookie varieties that I make plain, topped with dark chocolate and toffee cumbles, and I thought this. Usually, I press the dough into a lined 8″ square pan and I wish I had this time as well. They are tasty, but so soft they don’t hold together well and may not be appropriate for my planned use. There are still cranberries, I will need another orange, I have the butter, sugar, and flour, so maybe I will try again and press them in the 8″ square pan to be cut into squares after fully cooled. I need a sturdier cookie that can be put in a tin or covered and kept overnight for an event.

    My December breed, Charollais for my blanket is spun and almost all plied so I can knit it into a square. The rest of that wool will be used in Gnomes, a cowl or hat stripe. The second wool for the month is a repeat, but is a very dark gray, much darker than the two samples spun before and it is a lamb fleece. This wool is Gotland and I found the lighter gray samples rather coarse, but this lamb is so soft, it will make a pretty last square.

    This was taken last night before plying began and before the smaller spindle of Gotland lamb filled up. I need to start a second spindle of it and get it spun and plied as well.

    Though I am unhappy with the cookie results, I have thoroughly enjoyed the year long project of sampling breeds, spun on my Jenkins Turkish spindles, and knitting them into squares for the blanket. Soon the 42 squares representing 25 breeds will be fully assembled and shown off here. It seemed so strange to spend Saturday spinning on my wheel after a year almost solely using spindles.