Cabin Crafted

Author: Cabincrafted1

  • Farm Progress

    A couple of days ago, our neighbor to the east had a part of his herd escape into our tall hayfields. I heard mooing and bellowing and looked out to find a black bull in our west side yard. Going out on the porch, then the back deck, it became apparent that he wasn’t alone. He had brought his harem of 7 or 8 cows and about that many calves that you could barely see in the hay, just see the hay moving as they followed the others. Neighbor was on his tractor in the field to the east, planting corn. I messaged him of his escapees and they eventually wandered back toward home and he could see them. I guess his corn planting was interrupted by some fence maintenance. Soon the hay will come down and the fields will be shorn and available for wandering and looking for berries.

    The new asparagus raised bed arrived early. I had hauled the bags of raised bed soil across the garden and stacked them near where the bed was to be assembled and to await it arrival. Not expecting it until today or tomorrow, I was surpised to find it waiting on the front porch. After dinner last night, the box it came in and two other boxes were spread over a freshly weeded area where I had dug out the comfrey last weekend. A few more sprouts of comfrey had already come up. The raised bed was assembled, a layer of soil placed over the cardboard, the dozen crowns spaced in the bed and covered with more soil and a layer of straw. Part of a bag of the wood chip mulch was then spread around the outside over the cardboard and between the beds.

    As the crowns emerge, more soil will be added on top until the foot deep bed is full to the top. As soon as the old bed stops producing decent spears, it will be dug up, more cardboard put down, the half barrels for more berries placed where it was, but the berries will have to wait until next spring, I think. I can no longer find them for sale except online.

    I’m waiting for the garlic to finish off so it can be pulled and the box build without the upper end can be finished. The lower end of that box was planted with Tomatillos, ground cherries, cucumbers, and cilantro. The first three will have to be trellised as they grow. I still haven’t planted any sunflowers, just the volunteers that have come up in various flower beds thanks to the birds. I think the edge above the existing asparagus and garlic will have a row of them as soon as I get the grass from under the fence.

    The apprentice was the only hen to escape yesterday and it took her quite a while, I think she went under the fence this time, so lengths of firewood were placed along the lower edge where the fence had a bit of space under it to help hold it down. We will see if she finds another way out. She seems determined to not lay her eggs in the coop, but though I hear her egg song and come running, I can not find her stash.

    As the pullets continue to grow and look more like small hens, their markings are true. The older oliver eggers are black with gold feathers intersperced at their necks, with green legs and feet. The young oliver eggers are less attractive to me.

    This one is the least attractive one, and I wouldn’t know she was an Olive egger except for her green legs and feet.

    The pullet with her back to the camera at the top of the shot is the other one. She looks more like a Welsummer except she has green legs and feet. The Marans look more like the older Olive eggers, but they have black legs and feet, they are really pretty birds. The Buff Orpingtons vary in shade from pale to butterscotch, the two NH Reds don’t look like the adult ones I have (one of them is above the Buff on the left edge of the photo. The variety of Easter eggers are all attractive but each one is marked differently. I have never had a flock that were so distinctive that I could tell them apart, except for the Marans unless they are together and two are smaller. We should start seeing pullet eggs in about a month. Some of them are already developing real combs that are reddening.

    Today, more prep for the weekend with Son 1 and Grandson 1 here to get some exterior house maintenance done. First up is to go get the basement dusted and vacuumed and the beds made with fresh sheets.

    Off to work.

  • Failure

    I am now convinced that Ms. Houdini and Ms. Apprentice are magic. Somehow they keep finding ways out and I keep sealing up new holes, plus they are not laying their eggs in the coop and I can’t find where they are laying them, but I’m sure the skunks and raccoons will find them. I should be getting 5 to 7 eggs a day and am lucky if I get 4.

    After our walk today, we tackled erecting scaffolding on two sides of the garage in preparation for Son 1 and Grandson 1 to come this weekend and put a coat of stain on it. The next couple of days will be spent gathering the expendables needed to get the job done. We own 9 or 10 sections of it and most of it was stored in the garage, so it didn’t have to be carried too far. I toted it out and together we put it together minus the walkboards which are too heavy for me to lift to above shoulder height, but what was done will save them a lot of time this weekend. We will get the garage doors stained again and probably the side window, again to save them time, then mostly I will be the gofor to keep them hydrated and fed. The upper front dormers need stain too, but that will have to be another weekend and the rental of a cherry picker to get Son 1 up that high safely.

    It rained most all day yesterday and as it began to clear off last night, the fog settled in the valley behind us before the whole farm was engulfed.

    I love the play of the fog in the mountains.

  • Sleepless Nights, the mother of solutions

    Last night was a sleepless night, or a sleep is optional night. I was frustrated when I went to bed because I had opened the hen pen to let them all out a couple hours before dusk figuring all eggs for the day had been laid and since Ms. Houdini and her apprentice were already out and I didn’t want to play hide and seek or fetch to put them away. After it was dark, I turned on the front porch lights and noticed that two of my plants in pots on the front stoop had been dug into, one half dug out and in the grass. And the increase in outdoor work has caused my shoulders to ache at night and I hadn’t taken anything before settling in for the night. While lying there restless, I had an idea on how to enclose the hens’ pen without requiring me to crawl in duck walking to lock them in. The coop is a large A frame with each vertical of the A nine feet long. I figured if I stapled fencing to the frame outside the coop front, strung a ridge line out to a tall pole, I could create an A shaped pen. Because it isn’t framed, it sags some, so a 4′ wide section of the plastic fencing almost totally encloses the outer end.

    The six step in posts along the sides hold the fencing to the ground and provide a post to which a length of cord can be tied putting a little tension of the side A’s of fence. The post nearest the camera puts tention on the ridge line. I thought I had it set and came in to prepare dinner. Hubby let the pups out so he could prepare their dinner without them begging and he said one of the hens was in the front yard and the dogs totally ignored her. Drat, that meant there was still an escape hole, so after dinner, a few more places were secured together with cord and another step in post placed to hold the fence to the ground. In all the years I have raised chickens, this is the first group that has insisted on getting on the porch, digging in potted flowers, and tearing up the flower beds. I am still 5 or 6 weeks before the pullets are laying and the mature 8 sent to freezer camp. I really need to dismantle the rotting chicken tractor and figure out how to give the pullets some free range time without them learning the bad habits of the older hens.

    Yesterday while digging the comfrey for my friend, I decided that the asparagus solution is a raised bed set on cardboard and started with new crowns. The foot deep raised bed frame was ordered and will be here this weekend. Today I was able to find new crowns and purchased a dozen and the bagged soil to fill the raised bed.

    That does mean no harvest next year. I will let the current bed play out until June, then dig it up and use that space for the half barrels with thornless blackberries in it. The new raised bed will be easier to keep weed free and will allow me to finish laying cardboard and mulch in the remaining part of the garden. The Asparagus Crown packages also indicate I have not been treating my current bed right, which could account for it’s dimished output. And the new half barrels of blackberries will give me more fruit with blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, ground cherries, grapes, apples, Asian pears, a peach tree that has yet to provide usable fruit and a plum that has still not produced any fruit. We have plenty of wineberries and blackberries growing wild, but most are difficult to get to until the hay is down and most of the blackberries the past few years have been the small, harder, very tart ones that are slightly bitter and don’t make good jam or cobbler. There is enough space for a 4th half barrel for raspberries too, that would give me 4 of each. And there is still hope for the fig that was transplanted into a half barrel and is beginning to leaf out. I do love my gardens, both flower and fruit and vegetable and trying to put away enough goodies for us to enjoy when fresh food is harder to come by.

    I may look to making a wood frame and stapling heavy plastic or looking for old storm windows someone is discarding to see if I can make a cold frame from the deep bed the potatoes are planted in. They will harvest before fall crops have to be sown so we might be able to have carrots and some greens into early winter. With a good crop of potatoes, onions, and garlic, frozen beans and peas, canned tomatoes, peppers, and pickles, some carrots and greens would be very nice until the hard freezes occur.

  • Mountain Top Walks

    One of my favorite places to walk or hike is on the Mountain Lake Conservancy property. There is a 1 mile trail/dirt road that leads from the lodge to the upper recreation area and from there, another trail that traverses the ridge line and can loop back to the first trail or continue on behind the lodge to a fire road just below the lodge. We usually walk up the first trail to a crossover trail that is 1/4 mile straight up to the ridge trail then walk it back to the recreation area and then down the 1 mile trail. We get in about 2 miles or slightly more and it is rare to see anyone and never on the upper trail. Saturday’s walk after Farmer’s Market and some planting was taken up there. Spring isn’t as far along there, about 2,000 feet higher elevation on the mountain. There weren’t many wildflowers yet, but we did see this little white daisy like flower that my app won’t identify. The wood ferns are still fiddleheads, the trees with squirrel ear sized leaves, but many with lichens growing on their bark.

    I had donned a long sleeve shirt to work in the yard and was glad for the sleeve length up there.

    Once home, the rest of the garden was seeded and transplanted then watered in thoroughly. Bush beans, cucumbers, popcorn, Hubbard squash, Tomatillo, Ground cherry, and Cilantro transplants all in. The rest of the old garden boxes were removed for destruction and burning which clears an area for me to improve or restart the asparagus bed and I think to add 3 more half barrels with thornless blackberries. I have a Comfrey that is not in a good place, but it is going to be dug out and given to a friend tomorrow. And I need to use a flat hoe or spade to dig out some grass right under the edge of the fence. In working out there today, I realized that though I thought the asparagus was a poor crop this year, that actually they have expanded out from where they were planted and there was a large cluster under the spoiled hay. Since this garden is my first experience with asparagus I didn’t realize their habits over the half dozen years plus they have been there. I guess more research needs to be done on that front. And perhaps a new start in a raised bed to help control the weeds better. They really don’t like any weed growth.

    After prepping, eating, and cleaning up dinner, I tackled the succulent pots, giving one it’s own pot, making a nursery pot, and one that is just pretty to look at. The triple ponytail palm that was in our bathroom was so rootbound, I was surprised it hadn’t broken the pot, so they were divided, unfortunately ruining one of them, but replanting one for us, putting one aside with some trailing succulents to do daugter’s Mother’s Day gift she received from DIL last weekend. There are two more houseplant that need attention and moving out on the porch. I realized the Jade plant is pot bound and the tall Dracena needs some TLC and feeding. I guess larger pots will have to be obtained and both of them transplanted and fed.

    Another potbound plant was a small pothos, so it was transplanted into my Mother’s Day gift from DIL. I love the trailing stems over the sides of the white egg shaped pot.

    Yesterday was a busy, pleasant mix of social and market time at the Farmer’s Market, yard and garden time, a beautiful walk.

    Today I will try to connect with daughter to plant her pot and take her some Cilantro starts that I have going for her. My two hydroponic gardens are currently idle. They will likely stay that way for a bit until time to plant fall and winter house herbs and some salad greens for hot summer, fall, and winter salads.

  • The Other One

    A couple of days ago, I introduced you to Ms. Houdini. When she gets out, she comes running toward me to be let back in the pen and coop at dusk. This is Ms. HA (Houdini’s apprentice) who discovered she too can escape, however, at dusk, she does not come running to be put away with the other hens. For the past two nights, I have found her here…

    She lets me pick her up and as soon as we round the end of the house, she begins a mighty struggle to be free.

    Yesterday, I left them locked in the coop until early afternoon, hoping that they would all lay their eggs in the nesting boxes. I only found 4 eggs.

    When we got home from the Farmer’s Market and Nursery this morning, I lured Ms. Houdini and Ms. HA back to the pen, hoping they would lay their daily egg in there. At the Market, I purchased an Elderberry and wanted to get it in the ground promptly, so I gathered my tools, water, hole filling soil, a ring of fence, and a stake and set about the task of digging into our very rocky soil, looked up and there they were again, in the yard. The Elderberry was tucked in and watered and the ring of fence staked over it to protect it.

    As I was taking my update picture for one of the spinning challenges first thing this morning, using the succulents that were moved outside yesterday as backdrop, I remembered that I also needed a bag of Cactus, succulent soil which I got at the nursery while we were out. The pots need dividing, some bits discarded, some replanted.

    I had two peppers growing in the hydroponic garden that needed to be put in the ground or in pots and decided to pot them and put them in the herb part of the walled garden. While I was doing that on the side of the house, I heard the “egg song” and dashed around the front of the house to see if I can figure out where these two are laying their eggs, but though she was standing near a garden, I couldn’t spot any eggs. I guess I’m going to have to us longer poles for their enclosure and run monofilament or bird net a few feet higher than the 48″ fence to see if I can keep them in. I don’t want to keep them locked in the Palace as it is dark.

    The fig half barrel was shifted to near the walled garden so it get watered when the garden gets watered and the smaller half barrel of herbs was placed in the walled garden with the two peppers in pots near where the other planted and potted herbs are located.

    The rest of the vegetable garden is going to get seeded before the rain comes in tomorrow, hoping it gets watered in well, though I do have a second sprinkler in the vegetable garden plot.

    It has been a fairly productive early part of the day and we still haven’t gone for our walk. I think I will go plant some seed while I wait to do that.

  • The Blanket Challenge

    At the rate I am going, getting at least two squares from each sample of wool, I’m going to have to assemble two blankets, or it will fit a king size bed. There are 23 squares done so far with one on the knitting needles and most of the breeds done have 2 or 3 squares with wool left over. The squares are spread out on a double bed and the rough outline is already 40″ by 40″.

    And this basket is full of the breeds I haven’t begun yet.

    Every inch of the yarn has been spun and plied on Jenkins Turkish spindles and every square hand knit. I am awaiting the return of my largest spindle that I use to ply as it was returned for repair. It’s absence has kept my quantity small enough to limit me to two squares per spin and that is a good thing. There will be wool left over to be spun when the year is done and a different project to utilize smaller quantities of various wools will have to be decided. Having a spindle and a small knitting project with me at all times, keeps my hands busy and my mind distracted.

  • Blackberry Winter and Growing Things

    The littles aren’t little anymore and they don’t walk anywhere. They flap and flutter out of the coop and once all are out, bump breasts and fly across the pen. They are an entertaining morning event.

    Yesterday we walked bundled up like for winter in a chilly, breezy day. By last evening, it has gotten milder and stayed mild over night and today is pleasant. Our walk was around the pond today, which was teeming with new life. There were thousands of tiny tadpoles, turtles the size of quarters, and small fish but I couldn’t get close enough to get any good photos of them. One of the geese has hatched 4 goslings and she and proud Papa had them out and about, pretty fearless of the walkers on the path.

    Salamanders sunning on the retaining wall.

    And flowers providing some color where there was none only a couple weeks ago.

    The peas in the garden are climbing the trellis, potatoes are sprouting tufts of green leaves, garlic and onions standing tall. The tomatoes and peppers aren’t showing any new growth yet, but as soon as it warms again, they will. The fig moved to the half barrel is showing new leaves and new growth as are the transplanted raspberries. Soon it will be time to plant the cucumbers, corn, beans, tomatillos, and ground cherries. Every year, I plant some lettuce, spinach, and chard or kale and every year they don’t do well and I purchase it cut and clean from the Farmer’s Market. I am still hopeful that the transplants will provide some food for us. The hay is thick and as tall as the deer bellies as they walk through it. Mowing of hay will begin around the area soon, if the rain doesn’t throw the schedules off like last year. It is definitely taking a turn toward warmer weather.

  • Let me introduce you

    I want you to meet Ms. Houdini. She is a beautiful bird that was supposed to be an Olive egger, even has green legs with face puffs and a beautiful gold necklace. But she lays pink eggs and there is no enclosure that can keep her contained.

    For the most part, she is submissive to me and will squat when I approach and I can pick her up and return her to the enclosure. She is also, the leader of the pack, the head hen and always the first one out of the coop in the morning.

    Last Sunday, I found her, the two Olive eggers that lay green eggs and a New Hampshire Red on the north roofed porch, lounging on the chairs, table, and under the swing. They were unceremoniously chased off and a lemon juice spray generously sprayed around the deck perimeter as I read that chickens don’t like citrus and citrus smell. That didn’t even slow them down, so they were penned up while we went to meet Son 1 and family for our Mother’s Day picnic. When we arrived home, near dark, Ms. Houdini greeted us from under the cedars. I put window screens across the porch opening and they started coming under the rail on the east end which is a bit higher off the deck than the rest, so more screens were added.

    Unable to easily get on the porch, they began going under it. I don’t want eggs layed there to attract snakes, skunks, and rats, so I am in the process of moving bowling ball sized rocks to make the opening too small for a hen to enter, but larger enough for air flow.

    Since hens love to scratch and dig in soil and since their move to the Palace, several of the hens decided to forgo the nesting boxes in the coop and have begun making hidey holes in the soil in the flower gardens. I wouldn’t mind that if they weren’t tearing up the day lilies and digging up the Calendula and Zinneas, so fences have had to be erected everywhere.

    This slows some of them down, but i am still finding at least one egg in there each day. I can’t see if there are any under the porch, it is too dark even with my brightest flashlight. In total frustration with them last night, after dinner, I took two 25 foot long pieces of fencing, an armload of unused garden stakes, and made them a containment pen. This morning, they were turned loose into the new pen with a scoop of scratch and a clean bucket of water. It didn’t take Ms. Houdini any more time than I took to fix my coffee and yogurt before she was on the front porch which I hadn’t blocked off yet. She can get out, but has no incentive to get back in on her own and if I catch her and put her back, she will eat, drink, and get out again. Short of a 6 foot roofed cage, I just can’t keep her in. I wonder where I will find her egg today, if I ever do.

  • A Most Wonderful Day

    Midweek, Son 1 asked if we had Mother’s Day plans which we did not. He suggested a halfway meet up for a picnic with Grandson 1 and DIL. I asked if Daughter and her two kiddos should be included and got a resounding, “YES!” back, so she was asked. We divvied up the picnic goodies, and in a “I don’t ever want to own one of these” rental SUV, headed 2 hours East, they headed 2 hours Southeast and we met up at a picnic ground on the Blue Ridge Parkway north end. It was wonderful to have two of my children, 3 of my grandchildren, and 1 of my DIL’s there to share an afternoon of food and social visitation. We had a slight adventure getting there because I used Google Maps to take the “shortcut” through Stuart’s Draft to get on the parkway and it led us up a narrow gravel road for about 3 miles before intersecting with the parkway. Daughter said it was reminiscent of childhood auto adventures, her daughter thought is was kind of cool out in the middle of nowhere woods, but the teenager wasn’t so sure about it. The woods at the picnic ground were full of Mayapples in bloom. Ours are up but not blooming yet. There are one of my favorites in the mountain woods.

    Before we headed out, Daughter presented me with a gift bag and card. The card was adorable and it is funny that her son picked the same card for her. The gift bag had two much needed new kitchen towels. In spite of the photo, they really are the same color and match my tea kettle.

    DIL is an multi-talented artist and she presented Daughter and me with hand thrown planter pots with saucers. That was perfect too as I love the one she gave me for Christmas and was looking for another pot for a bathroom plant.

    Son had on a hat that I was admiring and he said, “it is your yarn, but you didn’t make it” and followed with an explanation that one of his co-workers had made it for him. A further explanation was that through another co-worker, she had discovered my blog and has twice purchased some of my handspun yarn which she in turn made part of into a hat for Son. I thought that was such a neat crossing of paths. She and son knew the connection, but I didn’t until today.

    Before we all said goodbye today, the tallest scrunched down after arranging us and took a group selfie. Back left is Grandson 1, Hubby, Grandson 3, me, DIL, Daughter, Granddaughter 2, and Son 1 wearing “the hat.”

    What a great day. Now I want to see Son 2 and his family too.

    Happy Mother’s Day!

  • Walk On

    When spring came and we dedicated ourselves to a daily walk, we expected to have a day or two each week when the weather was uncooperative. We have walked 28 out of the past 30 days. Only one of those days did we cut the walk a bit short, only doing 2 miles, when we could see a thunderstorm bearing down on us. We thought today was going to be a washout. There was no rain in the forecast, but gloomy gray. Yesterday, I purchased replacement tomato and pepper plants for granddaughter’s garden as something ate every pepper plant to the ground and most of the tomato starts I gave them didn’t take. Today, we planned to take them to daughter’s house after lunch and after picking her up from the car servicing center and helping daughter and granddaughter plant them in their garden. I took two of the flexible poles and bird net to cover the peppers, T posts and the pounder to create the Florida trellis for the tomatoes. On our way to pick daughter up, it started raining, continued to rain while we waited for her to get her car checked in, and part of the way back to her house. Then it stopped. The garden is replanted, the tomatoes a bit larger than the ones I started, the peppers now protected (we hope) by a dome of bird netting. And the only picture I managed to take while the three of us gardened was the variety of lichens on the neighbor’s fence that provides one side of daughter’s garden too.

    The picture was accompanied by a lesson for the 9 year old on symbiosis, which her mom said was a refresher from last year.

    Our walk followed the garden session, still cloudy, but no more rain. Each week our miles for the week are recorded and shared with a virtual walking group in our community and each week we get a cummulative report with photos. A fun way to keep up with neighbors.