Cabin Crafted

Author: Cabincrafted1

  • Forty Three Years

    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.

    Who are those young folks.

  • Olio for a rainy day

    Olio: a miscellaneous collection of things

    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.

  • It came, it went

    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.

  • Oh, here we go again

    The snow from last weekend is nearly gone on our south facing farm. The north facing hillsides still have snow on them as do the woods. And again something is scheduled for which being snowed in is a problem, but there is a winter storm warning for tonight into tomorrow morning with 3-5 inches expected again. I got a recall on my old CRV for the master switch in the driver’s door which failed about 2 years ago requiring that you manually lock and unlock the driver’s door then you can unlock the other doors. Because I am not willing to sit in a dealer’s waiting room while it is repaired for an hour or more on Monday and because we decided to go on and have the state inspection and an oil change by our local mechanic, we rented a car to use for two days, but said car will lack the clearance of the CRV and not have all wheel drive.

    The good news is that it will stop in the morning and begin warming up quickly, so hopefully, by Monday afternoon, the driveway won’t be an issue. Hopefully, we will have the CRV back before the next round of winter storm weather comes in mid week. This is from the winter that was supposed to be warm and wet according to the Farmer’s Almanac and the weather prognosticators. After a couple of warm winters with little or no snow, we have returned to true Virginia winter weather. Our electric power bill compares each month with the same month from last year and it showed we averaged 8 degrees colder this year than last.

    This morning, we went and picked up my new bird feeder and some bird and chicken feed. Since I use lidded 5 gallon buckets for storage, I did a clean up around them and the workbench in the garage before filling the buckets from the bags purchased. The new feeder was filled and hung and it didn’t take the little mixed flock of Chickadees, Tufted Titmouse, assorted Finches, Wrens, and Juncos to find it. I haven’t seen any of the larger birds or woodpeckers yet, but they will discover the change too. You can see the new split tube feeder and the suet tube on the shepherd’s crook in the top photo.

    The sky has grayed, the barometer is falling, the snow will begin after dark tonight and we will see in the morning what the storm brought us this time. No matter what the groundhog saw or didn’t see, there are 6 more weeks of winter and here we won’t see the last frost until near Mother’s Day.

  • The pups

    Nine years ago the end of February or early March, we drove to Lancaster area of Pennsylvania to pick up a puppy. DH wanted an English Mastiff. I had no clue what they looked like, their temperament, their size. The puppies that were left from the litter were in a pen in a shed. The mom had a huge litter during a bitter freeze and they lost part of the litter of pups. When we got there, Ranger and only a couple of his siblings were left. DH was in love with a 22 pound ball of skin and fur. He asked if we could see the parents who were up a hill in the welding shop on the household’s property so the owner called up and told them to let the dogs out. They came bounding down the hill like a couple of freight trains and though I’m not afraid of dogs, I was frightened at the sight of these two huge beasts with jowls flapping, racing down the hill. I wondered what we were getting into.

    Eight week old Ranger and DH

    When we were headed home, the frightened pup let loose from both ends, requiring a stop at the nearest store for paper towels, gallon jug of water, and a serious clean up of the crate and the pup. I had put a towel in the crate and it was fouled, so we purchased a fleece blanket to line the crate. Once home, he wouldn’t climb the stairs or go back down them. Daughter told us not to carry him up or he would never learn and we wouldn’t be able to deal with him grown. How true that is as he grew over the next two years to a 200 pound gentle giant.

    Here he is, about a year old with eldest grandson using him as a pillow. They are still buddies when grandson comes to visit. Ranger has ridden to Florida when daughter lived there with his head in Grandson’s lap as he was travelling with us that summer.

    When he was a younger dog, he would play soccer with a rigid horse ball, kicking it around the yard with his feet until it would roll down the back field to the fence. He couldn’t get it back up himself, requiring one of us to go get it, but we would have to put the ball in a canvas sack so he couldn’t see it or he would spend the entire walk back up the hill trying to get it from us. Now his energy level lasts only a few short minutes, he no longer plays with the horse ball, but will pick up a large softer ball on a rope, fling it around dangerously, and bring it for you to hold the other end. He never caught on to tug of war, thank goodness, as he could pull me across the house.

    Two weeks after we got him, we drove back to Pennsylvania to get a German Shepherd pup. She was a beautiful, dark, long haired shepherd and I fell in love instantly. Unfortunately, she only lived with us for 8 weeks before a serious neurological defect required us to have her euthanized. Later in the summer, on our way to Florida, we picked up a 16 week old German Shepherd that has had recurrent health issues, is very, very needy, but afraid of her own shadow.

    My little gal Meeko before she failed.
    Put you phone down and pay attention to me, says Shadow as soon as you sit down.

    When they were younger, they would go on hikes with us, but the German Shepherd never wanted to walk where there were crowds, bicycles, skateboards, or people with walking sticks, so we would go to the woods. Ranger wanted the attention of people at the Farmer’s Market and on the rail grade trail, but didn’t like loading in the car. He loves rides, but getting in and out has been an issue for years.

    DH with Shadow and Ranger on the War Spur Trail overlook.

    They are both 9 years old now. He is an old man that is so fearful of going down the steps that he is limited to only coming up to the loft at night. There is no way we could get him down if he didn’t eventually do it on his own. She, because of her various ailments is old for her age as a German Shepherd. Unfortunately, the two of them never bonded like the Ranger and Meeko did in their short time together. Shadow tries to herd Ranger, he tolerates her most of the time, but will rebuke her occasionally.

    Tiny Ranger and Meeko playing tug of war.

    The big guy is a sweet, chill, gentle giant that loves most people (especially kids), cats, but not other strange dogs after he was bitten by a Pit Bull at the dog park, the last time we ever went there.

    What do yo mean, “relax, I am relaxed.”

    And for size reference, this is Ranger at about 2 years old, so mostly full grown, sitting in DH’s lap in the old “Chair.”

  • Occupying time?

    There was only so much sledding my senior body could take and the snow has gotten thin and icy. After a very frustrating year of trying to keep my online shop open, paying fees to list, fees if I did sell something, still paying personal property taxes on my equipment and inventory, I closed my shop and debated whether I would continue to do in person events when it was again safe. When I do in person events, I use Squareup for payment when the buyer doesn’t want to use cash. As I was going through my inventory on their site which I hadn’t been on because of no events, I saw that for only a few dollars more than I was spending on my domain name, that I could transfer it to them and build a free website. The last couple of snowy days have been spent taking photographs, removing stock that was no longer there, adding stock that had never been added, and building the website. Squareup does not charge me to list items, I do pay a fee if something sells, but it is actually less than the prior “store.” My efforts can be seen by clicking the “Go to my shop” link at the top of the blog or here. And because the domain name remained the same, just moved to a different server, my business cards and labels are still good.

    We can finally drive down our driveway, turn up into the extra parking/turn around spot and backing down into the garage. The other two trips out this week have required me to back the car down the nearly quarter mile driveway or leave it out at the top of the steep drive and walk to and from. The car has been living in the garage because even after two applications to seal the windshield, water is still coming in somewhere, soaking the rug and mat on the passenger side when the car is left out in rain. Yesterday I got a recall on my 16 year old car. I wonder how many people still have their 2005 CRVs. Because it also needs an oil change and a state inspection soon, appointments were scheduled with the dealership for the recall and the local mechanic for the other work and we have reserved a rental for two days while we continue to research new vehicles to replace the one that died and was sold. The CRV will live in the garage and be our backup vehicle once we get a new one.

    After stomping down snow and spreading hay to coax the hens out a few days ago, we had more light snow and very strong winds that covered the hay with snow again and the hens just gave me the stink eye like it was my fault they couldn’t go out. Yesterday, I took a rake with me and exposed the hay again so they would come out. It has been so cold until today that the water bucket in their coop freezes all but a little pocket in the middle of the bucket, so it has to be changed out twice a day and the frozen one brought inside the house to thaw enough to dump and refill. It is finally above freezing today and supposed to stay above freezing tonight before the nights fall back into the 20’s and we have more snow showers tomorrow. It is interesting to walk around the west and south sides of the house and see where yesterday’s sunshine on the stone masonry walls has melted the snow away from the house. The areas that the deer have come close to the house have melted patches away exposing grass as well.

    I still won’t walk on the stones from the steps to the grass or over to the wild bird feeders, I cross on the upper edge of the walled garden where I know there is soil beneath the snow to fill the feeders each morning. The little birds are emptying them daily. The wind has been blowing the smaller two feeders down, so I have ordered a larger feeder that can be filled in one half with Nyger seed and the other half with black oil sunflower seed. As soon as it comes in for curbside pickup, I will replace the feeders with that one and the suet feeder.

  • Snow day is becoming snow week

    Where is the sun, oh where can it be? It has been thick and gray since the snow began Saturday night and it snowed again last night and this morning, adding another inch. Though the temperature had held in the upper 20’s to low 30’s for days, it dropped last night to 20, staying in the 20s today and dropping into the teens tonight so no melt today. The wind kicked up last night with 40-50 mph gusts. When that happens, sleep does not. I live in a sturdy log home, but the screens rattle, the dormers quiver, and I worry about the shelter over the heat pump blowing over and taking out the heat pump. When we were building the house, we made the decision to place it on the south side of the house instead of the west side, so the snow sliding off the roof caused a bent fan blade twice one winter before Son 1 built the shelter, very sturdy with an angled roof of left over matching metal roof on top. I’m sure it is quite stable, but still I fret, and snow guards were added to the roof, so snow doesn’t crash down from three stories up anymore. I did inquire about moving it to the west side as some point but didn’t want to incur the expense.

    I venture out a couple times a day to toss down scratch for the hens, refill their frozen water bucket, gather eggs before they freeze, and keep the bird feeders full. Yesterday I walked up to the mailbox, a steep uphill walk, twice. The driveway was icy and the snow beside it almost deep enough to go over the tops of my garden boots. I figure the nearly quarter mile walk up, then back twice in the snow was my exercise for the day. Two crunchy walks to the coop so far have garnered two warm eggs. Glad the hens are cooperating in the cold this year.

    But I guess at 73, I’m not too old to play in the snow at least once. My ski pants still fit, even over three layers of wool tops including the heavier hoodie. With my hooded parka, ski gloves, ski pants and one of the sleds, I managed a few fun runs on the hills and one on the driveway on the way down from the mailbox. It is harder to get up than it used to be, I get more winded walking uphill in the snow, but exhilarating fun all the same. It would have been more fun with the grandkids and daughter, but fun just the same. Though they said the snow would stop by noon, it is almost 3 and still lightly snowing. So much for the mild, wet winter. So far it has been cold and most of the wet has been white.

  • Snow Day

    The snow began around 9 last night and dumped about 7 inches on us overnight. We have had some flurries today and are expected more through part of tomorrow. It is pretty to look at, but other than a couple trips out to give scratch to the cooped up hens, filling the bird feeders, and clearing snow from the satellite dish, I have stayed in spinning with my feet up in front of the fire.

    After posting yesterday, the mail brought me a form that caused hours of stress and tears as I had to go back a year and find every item I had sold and used Paypal as a means of receiving money and then trying to find when and how I purchased it (or received it as a gift or trade) with date and cost. That on top of a year where I spent way more money in personal property taxes and fees for Etsy than I made on Etsy resulted in me making a decision to close the online shop. I haven’t decided if I will do any live events after Covid allows or whether I am done. My experience with Paypal has had too many unpleasant moments, so I am done with it as well.

    I did finally get most of the seed I was seeking for the gardens. We have a nice local nursery that gets their plants from a local grower and will get the tomatoes, peppers, and anything else that requires a good start from them. it seems odd to be planning a garden when you can’t even see where it is today. But it is nice to have a day with no where to be and the inability to go there if there was. Dinner will be simple, just stuffed baked potatoes and a salad. If I had planned ahead, I could have made a loaf of bread, but I didn’t.

    Time to go throw logs on the wood stove and fireplace to keep the home fires burning, not because they need to, but it is nice.

  • New weekend, new weather warning

    This has been an interesting week. It started out moderately warm, then snowed. Of course it snowed the night before I was finally scheduled for my first COVID vaccine and I feared that we wouldn’t be able to get down the mountain and to the center two towns over in time. We did get a few inches over a thin layer of ice and I got an automated call that the vaccine was delayed by 90 minutes, so we left almost as early as we had planned to allow time to go very slowly down the mountain, trusting that the highway would be in good shape and allowing us time if we had no issues to run a couple of errands to the bank and a USPS drop off. Our road up to the paved road and the paved road to the highway were a bit dicey, but we made it and got to the center set up by the health department in plenty of time. I walked up to pick up the paperwork from a volunteer handing it out near the door, just as they allowed us to move inside, 20 minutes earlier than they had said they would begin. I had my vaccine before the time they had rescheduled and was in and out within 30 minutes. I have an appointment for round two the end of February.

    The frozen precipitation from the last storm hasn’t all melted yet because it has stayed between the low teens and 30 for several days and we are expecting 8-12″ of snow and ice beginning tonight through Monday morning. After the usual Saturday morning run for drive through breakfast and the Farmer’s Market, it was time to prepare for a cold, snowed in couple of days. A good supply of wood was hauled in to the basement for the woodstove. The rolling wood cart and wheelbarrow were filled for the living room fireplace, and put in the garage which currently has lots of room in it because the car that died was sold as is and we haven’t gotten a new one yet. Later in the day, I will scrub out the downstairs tub and fill it with water for dogs and toilets and hope that it isn’t necessary.

    Week before last, the Olive Eggers started laying eggs again, then at least one of the big red hens has also begun. I get from zero to 4 eggs a day right now from 8 hens, so I am no longer having to purchase them from the Farmer’s Market.

    Yesterday, in response to an email to daughter and her kiddos about their garden this year, they called and we discussed what I had seed wise, what I needed to get for us, and what we would buy already started. I figured that getting seeds in January would be a breeze. NOT. Much of what I wanted from one company was sold out, but they will send me an email when it is available. The other seed company I use isn’t even taking orders this weekend. I was able to get some of what we wanted from the Natural Foods store in town this morning. We will make it happen somehow. I thought that onion sets and seed potatoes would be bought from one of the reputable organic companies, but only perennial onions which produce tiny onions were available and seed potatoes were much more expensive than buying many pounds of potatoes at the Farmer’s Market, or were out of stock. Last year’s potatoes were from organic potatoes from the local grocer that had sprouted and I have a few pounds of Farmer’s Market potatoes in the basement that have sprouted, so I will plant what is locally available and keep looking for the onion sets. The bush winter squash seeds, 2 packages, cost a bit over $10 and they wanted to charge me $8 to ship them, I finally found them from another seed company, seeds and shipping are reasonable. This process is getting more difficult by the minute. Last year, I saw some really clever plastic templates for spacing seed in a square foot garden for about $10. I almost bought it for my grand daughter that I help with her garden, but didn’t. I looked for them today and they are now $27 for the exact same tool. I think a DIY event is in order. I can envision a 12″ wide acrylic/plastic cutting board, one of my power drills, and a few small jars of model paint and I can make the template for a few dollars.

    The month is about to end and I have accrued or reserved 23 breeds of fiber for my breed blanket. I know what one of my February spins will be, I have to decide on the other. This week, I began combing locks of Gotland, so I may just go on with that.

    If the power doesn’t go out during the storm, some obligatory snow shots will be shared in a few days. If the snow isn’t wet and sticky, I may haul out a sled and my ski clothes and play in it. Until I visit again, stay safe, and stay well.

  • How I came to be here on the blog, Part 2

    I moved into an apartment between the house under construction and my new job.  We moved DH and Son 2 into an apartment in Virginia Beach until DH was ready to retire and we visited back and forth across the state every three or four weeks for almost 3 years.

    In the meantime, the house was being built with Son1, DIL, and anyone he could enlist including me on occasion installing the wood siding in rooms and closets, baseboards and the interior side of the logs oiled with boiled linseed oil, floors laid, homemade floor wax created on a hotplate on the back deck. Much of the stone work had already been d one by him and DIL, what was left was finished after we moved in.

    The house wasn’t quite finished, but their lease and mine were up and we began an interesting couple of months subletting, house sitting, and other alternative living arrangements while Son 1 was struggling to get the house to the point where we could get a temporary move in permit.  That day came almost 16 months after I had moved here and I was still working, hoping to retire again in the next year or so. Our exploration of our area showed us that the farm that we bought is only a few miles from the farm on which my maternal grandfather was born and raised.

    Once DH retired and we moved the rest of our furniture to the mountains, I worked for another 7 months and retired with him and the farm blog was begun.  First, we planted fruit trees, beyond the coop in part of the area that had been garden, the garden was reworked to a size I thought I could handle on my own.  Then we bought a coop and I got the new chicken owner syndrome and went from a few chicks to way too many and too many of them turned out to be randy little roosters.

    The coop and part of my learning curve. You can’t let them stay in your egg boxes.

    Most of my life from my late teen years on, I had a vegetable garden of some form, usually just a small corner of the urban yard, but that was the extent of my farming experience.  So here I was on 30 acres with chickens, at least half of them young roosters that couldn’t stay, fruit trees that the deer were eating, a huge vegetable garden that I couldn’t keep up with and lots to learn.  We had thought about raising horses and enough cows to keep us and family in beef, but we never got the fencing done.  We did take riding lessons.  Fortunately, for the first few years, Son 1 and his family still lived in the area and he was more than willing to dispatch the young roosters while I learned to help.  It still isn’t something I like to do, but I can get much more involved in the process, preparing them for the freezer.

    Over the years, the garden has been altered, fenced, and topped with hot wire to keep the deer out.  I have learned to buy only female chicks and limit the number to no more than 9 or 10.  The success with the garden encouraged me to go beyond making jam and learning to can and freeze the bounty.

    During the period prior to DH retiring and moving here, I connected with a knitting group and learned to spin.  One of the friends I made through knitting, made soap, and she generously taught me one afternoon, leading me to make more of our self and house care products, and Cabin Crafted Shop was born.  And the spinning skills connected me with a local Historical site and my adventure in living history as a spinner during the Revolutionary War period began.

    That brings us to the present, living in social isolation during the pandemic, enjoying the spoils of the garden and orchard, the eggs from the hens, practicing the skills I have learned to make gifts and to try to earn a little bit of pocket money from these skills.  This has been my journal over the years, my record of success and failure.  I hope you enjoyed this walk down memory lane.