First thing this morning, the second vaccine dose was administered. Now I wait to see if I will react and how, but any reaction is better than COVID.
Since the vaccine site is two towns over, we did a side loop over to Rural King afterward to get chicks. Half a dozen Buff Orpington baby pullets, 3 New Hampshire Reds, and 3 Americaunas. One of the little Americaunas isn’t looking great, but that is why I buy a dozen chicks. I will keep the two Oliver eggers to add back into the flock when these little ones are big enough to fend for themselves. I will have light brown, dark brown, blue, green, and 1 pink egg layers.
The one that didn’t look good was cold, so I removed one heat table that they were ignoring and added the heat lamp and put the little one under it to warm up. It is no longer cold, but doesn’t have the energy of the others. We will see how she does.
I finished another square of the blanket last night, washed it and blocked it. I finished plying more of the Targhee for another square while I stood in the ski lift like line for my turn at the vaccine center this morning. On our way home, we picked up some quick soups in case I’m not up to meal prep tomorrow.
The giant rolling storage crate was pulled from the root cellar and filled with pine shavings, two heat tables, a feeder, and water in preparation for the chicks. But the nasty weather last week slowed things down and chicks didn’t arrive at Tractor Supply (either of them within 30 minutes of home) on Monday. On Tuesday, one got 3 breeds, not ones I want. A call to Rural King on Monday put me on hold for more than 5 minutes, answered again by the front end desk and again transferred and another hold until I hung up. We drove over there and they had bunnies, no chicks. But Rural King was supposed to get several hundred chicks in this morning, and they are supposed to be getting what I want. If the CDC is correct, I should be close to 90% protected with my first vaccine given two weeks ago, so I will mask up and go get babies. (Turns out the info I was given was incorrect and they don’t come in until tomorrow, so I guess it will happen tomorrow instead.) When I start a new flock, I always begin with a dozen, though I know that they won’t all survive the native predators and neighborhood domestics (though that hasn’t happened in a few years). The chicks will start in the basement for a couple of weeks. As the winter fades and the chicks begin to feather out, they will be moved to the garage until they are old enough to move outdoors. The 8 old hens will move in a few weeks from the coop to “The Chicken Palace” a huge A frame structure and they will be allowed more free range time as the replacements move to the coop to learn where they live and while they gain enough size to run around outdoors.
The chicken palace with some of our deer visitors and the ever present stinkbug photo bombing. This is an older shot, we don’t have green grass right now.I’m ready for them if anyone every gets any in stock.
And tomorrow morning, bright and early, I get my second vaccine. I’m prepared for the sore arm, the possible flu like symptoms for a day or so in hopes that it will make me feel safer when I do have to or want to go out in the world for more than a woods walk, drive thru sandwich, or curbside pickup of supplies.
My breed blanket project continues. There are 6 eight inch blocks completed and enough of some of the already spun yarns to knit a couple more before the next breed comes up next month. Today, a sampler box of fiber arrived, it has 12 breeds, some of which are natural undyed duplicates of some I have dyed and one I have already knit, but they will be used as well to add more squares to make the blanket large enough to be a real wool blanket.
I am finishing up the last of the official February fiber and a sample I got with my March fiber that because it is blended with silk can’t be part of the blanket. Now to decide which one will go in the blanket next.
I have mentioned before that I participate in a couple of spinning challenges during the year. For the past year, my focus has been with a social media group that spins on the Jenkins Turkish spindles that I love to use. The spindles let me spin finer yarn and slow my production down to about 4 ounces, 1 skein a month. In January two different challenges were initiated with the group, one of them a year long challenge. The monthly challenges, most months allow double dipping with the year long one. The year long challenge is a Breed Blanket Project to pick a single pure breed of sheep wool and spin enough on a Jenkins spindle, to knit a square that at the end of the year will be sewn together to produce a blanket at least big enough for a baby blanket. I decided that I would tackle two breeds a month and try to make a blanket large enough for an extra cover on the bed. Most of the wool that I have gathered are natural colors, whites, fawn, gray, and darker browns. A few are pure breeds that are dyed braids. I started the blanket using one pattern, but didn’t care for the way it looked.
Mostly, I didn’t care that each block was attached as I knit which meant that I had to be more careful of planning ahead, and realized that I had started with darker ones which might end up with the blanket very unbalanced with the colors. Then, one of my favorite pattern designers offered a sale on their patterns and I fell in love with one of them. This meant taking apart everything that I had already done and rewinding the wool into individual balls. The new pattern is a center out square which has required that I learn a new skill, doing a pinhole cast on. I finished square 4 of reknitting it and I still have to pull up a slow motion lesson on how to do it. Maybe I will eventually get the point where the video is no longer necessary to get started, but I really like the blocks that the pattern produces and each block only takes a couple of hours to knit. I hope by the end of the month to be back where I started, but the new blocks are 8 inches square instead of 10 so I will have to knit more blocks to get the size I want.
Next month’s monthly challenge won’t allow me to double dip as the fiber has to be silk or blended with silk, so I may not be able to get as many done for the blanket, but the requirement is only for one. If I have to finish it after the end of the year to make it as large as I want, that will be okay too.
There will be a lot more sewing the squares together in the end, but I can lay them out in a pleasing way to make it work.
Now on to knitting the three remaining. I got two done yesterday. Next up is the one from yarn in the lower right corner of the first post. It is interesting to see how it looks different in the new squares. The lower left of the two pictures is the same yarn.
In the winter, I could live entirely on soup. When I got up this morning it was 14f. The sun did finally come out yesterday and began the ice melt. Though the trees are still glistening and glowing, they aren’t totally coated and sagging, but this weekend is cold, bone numbing cold.
Son 1 sent me a photo a while back, to show off them using the rice bowls we gave them for Christmas, but it was what was in them that caught my eye. He had made an Asian inspired broth and filled it with fancy noodles, vegetables, and a boiled egg. We exchanged messages for me to get the gist of what he had produced. Many nights a week, I prepare Texas born DH the Texas staple foods of red meat and starch, but I don’t care for that, so I started experimenting with Son 1’s soup. Now I make potato soup, lentil soup, and vegetable soup that I can eat on Texas nights, but the broth soup full of healthy goodies really held an appeal and I started playing with it a few times a week. A good chicken or vegetable broth with sauteed onion, garlic, ginger, and a little crushed Szechuan pepper simmered for 10 or 15 minutes to meld the flavors, then the fun begins. I have a bag of super green mix (baby chard, baby spinach, baby kale, and mizuna), various noodles, quinoa, and left over cooked brown rice. A tub of red Miso, a quart jar of Daikon radish kimchee, and the hydroponic garden of fresh herbs all ready for my use. If I use quinoa, I put it in while the broth is simmering so it cooks. Noodles cook in under 5 minutes, and left over brown rice just needs to be warmed. Only one of those is added per batch, but a large handful of the super greens and another of fresh herb clippings are added just long enough to wilt them. A bit of the hot broth is pulled off and mixed with the Miso and added back at the last moment. Sometimes the boiled egg is added to the bowl if I have some made (I generally steam half a dozen or so at a time to add to the pup’s breakfast, so there are often some available for me too). To this can be added some Turmeric, with the ginger and garlic, fighting inflammation. Some kimchee at the last minute so it holds its fermented benefits with the fermented benefits of the Miso and two cups of quick delicious healthy soup is made in only about 15-20 minutes. Sliced mushrooms can be added during the saute phase too.
And who says soup is only for lunch or dinner. This morning to warm my chilly body, a couple of cups were made, full of antioxidants, anti-inflammatories, and a good warming broth were enjoyed for breakfast.
Sometime during the night, the winter storm arrived and not with snow as predicted, or if it did snow, it was minimal. I got up at first light to hear the sleet hitting the metal roof. The dogs were not amused, they ran out and right back as quickly as they could relieve themselves.
As the day dawned lighter, I could see the layer of ice on everything. The deciduous trees glistening like they were lit up, the evergreens sagging under the weight of the ice. Icicles hung from the eaves, the rails, the bird feeders.
The resident deer family coming close to the house in search of grass or green that wasn’t frozen.
The sleet stopped around 10 this morning and there is a lull in the storm until late afternoon, but when I got up, the power was flickering so I started fires in the wood stove in the basement and the fireplace in the living room in case it failed. So far it has stayed on, but the temperature isn’t rising enough to melt off the morning ice before the afternoon and overnight ice is due.
A couple of years ago, daughter brought home a little slip of a pine tree from Arbor Day at work and I planted it in the yard near the larger pines and marked it so it wouldn’t get mowed down. By last summer, it was as tall as I am but thin with all the needles at the top. When I looked out this morning, it was bent to the ground and I feared it would break so I went out to stake it. The first stake wasn’t long enough to protect it.
I went to the garden and dug one of the 7 foot long fake bamboo poles out of the ice and got it imbedded beside the pine and tied the pine to the pole with some tie loops that are stretchy tshirt material. I hope I have saved it from this storm.
The walk to the mailbox was slippery so no vehicle will be moved today, but the walk allowed an afternoon photo of one of the larger pines weighted down by the ice.
I expect if we get more ice added to the coat that is there, we will see broken branches. The creek is roaring, but I didn’t want to risk the slope to look down on it to see how full it is.
I would rather have snow, but actually, I’m ready for warmer weather and some sunshine.
We have had a two day calm. Mild yesterday early, with wind picking up, a few snow flurries, and the temperature dropping rapidly from the upper 30s to 17f over night. Today there are actually moments of sunshine and hopefully milder temperatures before the next winter storm descends upon us tonight. Yet again, we are supposed to get snow, turning to freezing rain sometime tomorrow morning, then back to snow later. More ice to break limbs, damage power lines, and send more people into darkness and no heat. If it stays cold long enough, the ice will be minimized.
The German Shepherd’s vet appointment for tomorrow has already been rescheduled for next week. Our vet lives way out on a rural road as do we and she may or may not be able to get in to the office. She comes to us for the big guy, but Shadow will still jump in the car and we can take her to the office.
Now that the hay bale that is used in the chicken run is about half its original size, I cover it to protect it from the rain and snow so I can peel off layers to put down in the hen’s run. They will get food and water inside the coop tomorrow, they won’t set foot outside when it is snowing. Once it stops, I can put hay down for them to exit the coop.
The bird feeders were filled, I will probably fill the wheelbarrow with wood again, the wood cart is still full and there is still enough in the basement for a day or two.
Last night’s low temperatures froze the ground surface so this morning’s chores weren’t performed in mud, but unless it warms enough to thaw the surface before the storm, it will give it a better surface to stick and accumulate. It will stay cold Friday and Saturday, not warming to above freezing until Sunday, so it will stick around.
Last weekend, I applied a flex seal along the bottom trim of the windshield, I had already done so along the top edge, and we left the car out of the garage in the rain day before yesterday to see if I had taken care of the leak. I haven’t. I have no idea where the water is coming in, but there was a little water on the dash and the passenger side rug was damp again, not soaked like before, so maybe I improved the situation. I guess the car will live in the garage from now on when we aren’t using it.
As I was preparing dinner last night, I realized what a sorry lot my kitchen linens have become. I pulled out a dish towel, faded and dingy and remembered it came from a niece with a potholder, apron, and cookbook more than 25 years ago. I snapped a picture of it with the apron and sent them to her as a memory.
Most of my dish clothes, unpaper towels, kitchen towels, and pot holders are stained, worn thin with holes in them, and dingy. Maybe it is time to warp the loom and make some new ones to replace the old purchased ones. This little towel above is the perfect size and thickness to use on my tray when canning, so it will still be part of my collection.
Last night I made a big pot of stew, a couple days ago a pot of goulash. If we lose power, they can be reheated on the woodstove or a camp stove and we will stay nourished. For now, other prep must be done. We have been lucky so far this winter with only short outages or flickering power, but ice storms can change that.
In ski country, when the snow pack melts, they call it mud season. There are parts of the country that could use rain, snow, or the other YUK we have been receiving.
Mornings and evenings require donning the thick ugly pink barn coat, a hat or the coat hood, muck boots (sometimes ice cleats would be nice), either leather or thick fleece gloves depending on what task needs to be done. Boldly opening the door to the garage, gathering feed and water bucket, tentatively opening the door to the outside and assessing my safety on the stoop there. Is it wet, coated with ice, or deep in snow. At this point, I actually prefer the snow, at least I can safely walk in it. Some days when looking out, the grass and trees glisten with tiny icicles hanging from the limbs and fences. Those mornings are treacherous, the stoop and other surfaces, including the grass are like stepping on a kitchen floor where cooking oil was spilled, but for the past week or so, even though surfaces resemble the ice palace in Dr. Zhivago, the surface below is mud, thick, goopy, slimy mud. If one surface doesn’t get you, the other one will.
I keep a good thick layer of hay in the chicken run, which as I have mentioned before, is sloped, highest at the end away from the pop door. After opening, or chipping the ice off the gate to pry it open so I can get to the pop door, the first step is always a challenge. For some reason, the preferred scratching place in the run is right in front of the gate, thus all the hay gets piled deep at the other end in front of the coop. Of course, the rain, freezing rain, snow haven’t helped as they make the hay itself slick once compacted. Every few days, a new layer is put down and every evening when I lock them in for the night, I drag hay back uphill to the gate for my evening and next morning safety.
Each morning for the past couple of weeks have looked like the above pictures. The top one was this morning with freezing rain forecast, but it is pouring down not frozen rain as I write. We are in full blown mud season.
The daylilies have sprouted tender green tips which will get burned by the next onslaught of bitter cold, which is sure to come. The mud will freeze again and thaw again before the grass and trees sprout to drink up the spring showers. After two warm winters, my plans to get more cardboard down in the garden and build up a couple of new beds have been foiled by real winter this year. Maybe it is good that I can’t garden year round, this winter is giving my body the needed rest.
Yesterday, on our Anniversary, we drove into town and got drive thru breakfast, it was too icy on Saturday when we usually do it, so we missed the Farmer’s Market, but so did many of the vendors. We picked up curbside delivery of grocery items and came home, sitting near each other as I spun on my new spindle, a gift from my love, and some on my wheel as one of the fibers I purchased for my blanket, though enough was spun on spindles to fulfill the one block requirement (actually there will be two), I don’t like spinning that particular fiber on spindles, so the remainder of the braid is being done on the wheel.
Late in the day, we picked up the Valentine’s Day special from the local BBQ restaurant and drove down to the river to eat. We arrived to pick up our 5:15 p.m. order at 5:10 and it was already sitting packed on the counter, so it wasn’t hot. Packed in styrofoam clamshell contains, several each, cutting and eating from them was a challenge in the car. We should have brought it home and put it on real plates, rewarming what could be warmed. It was not the fancy anniversary dinner of the past, but it was shared together, watching the river flow by in the drizzly gloom. It was a very uneventful day, but a day spent with each other. Another tick off on the calendar of our lives together and another to look forward to.
We started later in life than many couples and married quickly after meeting. We were introduced less than a year prior and so very different, but it worked. After Christmas we had gone skiing in Vermont, my first real ski trip and I promptly separated my shoulder, but managed to bundle up enough to restrict it and skied anyway. We got home on New Year’s Eve and went to have my shoulder checked out at the E.R., leaving after X-rays with a sling and instructions for follow up. Early in the evening, we went out for a drink then home to avoid New Year’s Eve amateur night and as the ball dropped, he proposed. He later said that my continuing to ski though injured was the clincher. The family was gathering on New Year’s Day at my grandparent’s house for black eyed peas, collards, and ham (he doesn’t like the peas or collards) and we made our announcement.
Discussing wedding dates, he picked Valentine’s Day, 6 short weeks away, stating that if he ever forgot it, he was in double trouble. He has never forgotten it, has feigned feeling fine to go out for a dinner at a fine restaurant only to crash and burn as soon as we got home. There have been overnights away from the kids when they were small, nicer dinners at home when our budget wouldn’t allow, B&B weekends when the kids were old enough to be left alone, a ski trip to Colorado with cousin his wife, and a cruise for number 40 with celebrations on two nights on the ship and horseback riding on the beach in the Honduras 3 years ago today.
Our wedding was small and simple, an off the rack Gunny Sack dress for me. We did rent the ugliest tuxes for the men, my matron of honor kindly made her own long skirt and blouse. A simple long stem rose for a bouquet, a halo of rose buds and baby’s breath on my hair. A simple gold band of connected hearts for my ring, and a reception at my parent’s home of punch, nuts, and a cake given to us by my grandmother.
We have had a good 43 years together. This past year with COVID restrictions has been enough to test any relationship and we have come through it together. Tomorrow, we will celebrate 43, but we won’t be going to a fancy restaurant, on a cruise, or away to a B&B, we will celebrate quietly together. Maybe next year we will again be allowed to travel and we will celebrate 44 away.
Every other day as far as I can see out in the forecast is for YUK. Today began with cold rain and fog, it is turning to freezing rain/sleet/snow later. Tomorrow is cold and cloudy, Saturday is freezing rain/etc. Some days freezing rain, some snow showers, but all freezing stuff.
This morning, I sat in the car in the cold rain, spinning on one of my spindles while DH was able to get his second COVID vaccine. He was in and out much faster than I expected as there was a short line outside and when I got my first, the line was like a ski lift line that snaked from outside, along a wall, around a corner and back down the other side of that wall. He said they had reconfigured it and the line I saw outside was all there was. I am two weeks out from getting mine. Now we wait and see if he has a reaction, but a day of not feeling well beats getting critically ill with the virus.
My spinning challenges of the month are all with Jenkins Turkish spindles. One requires a weekly check in with photos showing progress and that was done. The other two I can double dip this month as one requires spinning 25 grams of fiber, the other is the breed blanket challenge. My 25 grams spun was the fiber for the blanket square and I ran short so I had to spin more to complete the square.
While knitting the square on, I was spinning my second breed that I had been working on and finished plying it.
I began knitting that on as well, so I will have a blanket of 6 squares soon, each square slightly larger than 10″.
The spindles, my ply bowls, and the blanket so far.
For Christmas, Son 2 and his family gave me a hydroponic herb garden. It was set up immediately and watched carefully as each herb germinated and sprouted above the opening for it. It has been delightful to trim fresh herbs for salads and for cooking. I’ve even started drying some of the mint and the dill as they are hard to keep up with. The Thai basil is delicious in Asian inspired quick soups for lunch. The thyme and sweet basil are slower and the parsley is the laggard, but is coming along.
What a great gift idea for a gardener feeling the winter doldrums. Today I found out that “Chick Days” at Tractor Supply begins on February 22. I want a dozen chicks this year, but won’t have gotten my second vaccine yet and I am sure they won’t curbside them. Maybe I’ll send DH or DD in to get them for me. I figure if I start them the end of the month, I’ll be getting eggs before the old girls molt again in the fall. If I am careful of the breeds selected, they will lay most of the winter. If I have too many eggs, I’m sure there are folks that would welcome a dozen here and there.
We did get 6″ of snow Saturday night into Sunday morning. Wet, heavy snow. It caved in the fence top on my chicken run that I created to protect them from the hawk when I have to have them penned up instead of free ranging. It will be an easy repair, but it was too chilly and windy to mess with it yesterday.
The sun came out a few times and I plowed the driveway to help it melt off as I feared we would end up with some tiny two wheel drive sedan as the rental car. When we got there to pick up the car, it is a Mitsubishi Outlander, so plenty of clearance, but not AWD. While we were out and about waiting for the recalled switch to be replaced in the CRV, the temperature rose to the mid 40’s and though our road and our driveway are a muddy mess, getting in and out won’t be a problem. Much of the snow cover thinned to an inch or so by last evening and the temperature fell to 16f last night so everything froze over. By the time we got home from picking up the CRV and dropping it at the local mechanic for oil change and state inspection, most of the snow is gone.
It looks like we are due for freezing rain and snow showers mid week and frigid temperatures and snow showers over the weekend, so we aren’t done with it yet. Since we moved here, it has snowed almost every Valentine’s Day. Since our anniversary is that day, we have had some interesting trips to a restaurant, but this year we will celebrate at home, just the two of us, so it won’t matter if it does snow.
I finished spinning my fiber of the month for my breed blanket project and after doing a photo update for the February challenges, I began knitting it on to the blanket. The second “unofficial” breed for the month is being spun. I really love the one I am spinning now and really did not like the fuzzy gray Gotland that I am knitting on. It will be fun if Covid allows craft shows this fall to display the blanket with tags showing what each breed is to demonstrate the varying textures of wool. When I finish this month, I will have three gray wools of different textures and three softer dyed squares to offset them.
And as I am between knitting on squares, I am continuing to knit on a scarf from mini skeins of spun from wool samples that come with spindles and often with fiber braids to entice you to try a different fiber blend from the vendor.
I am finishing up two very similar salmon colored mini skeins and will have two more neutrals, one with some hints of blue that will transition me to a series of ones that are predominantly blues. I will keep adding on until I run our of mini skeins or reach a color that just doesn’t go. This scarf is going to have various wools, bamboo, silks, just about anything natural except cotton in it. They are all spun from lace to light fingering weight yarn, so it should be interesting with it’s changing color and lace edge.
It is very unusual for me to have two knitting projects going at the same time.
Cabin Crafted 