Cabin Crafted

Author: Cabincrafted1

  • Post Thanksgiving, Heading into Christmas

    We always had a rule that no Christmas decorating could be done until after Thanksgiving, then daughter got old enough to complain that we had to wait until after her birthday on the 29th. It became a family tradition to which I still comply. Even when she was younger, she wouldn’t complain if I put up the door wreath between Thanksgiving and her birthday, but nothing else.

    She is a grown woman with children of her own and her own house, but still, I wait. I still usually put up the door wreath and pull out my Santa lap quilt in the interim, but nothing else. I am struggling to make the holidays as normal as they can possibly be, and will haul out the Santas, Christmas linens, and in a couple of weeks, the lights and ornaments for a locally cut tree. First, the house needs a deep cleaning. Living on a dirt/gravel road and driveway and having two large shedding dogs in the house, keeping the hair and dust down is a full time job and though I vacuum the exposed areas daily, the deeper mopping under furniture and thorough dusting doesn’t get done as often as it should. Each year that I pull the Santas out, I dream of the Library box shelves with the glass fronts that would help keep the books cleaner and the decorations I take out more dust free. Or maybe the revolving shelves like in mysteries, so the shelves just need to be revolved to the decorated side at Christmas and the book side the rest of the year.

    All gifts are purchased or made and ready to be wrapped and packaged. One box to be mailed to Son 2’s family which will include the Grandmom made hand knit stocking for the youngest grandson, born about two weeks after last Christmas. Another box to be delivered in a second socially distanced meeting with Son 1 in early December. The gifts for daughter and her kids, as she lives nearby, will be delivered to their door on Christmas, an opportunity for us to not spend the day sitting in our house alone because the kids can’t visit this year. We will give them their gifts outdoors and come home.

    In mid December, I have an opportunity to again set up a craft display and honor sale at Wilderness Road Regional Museum. Since the spinning challenge that I do each month with the Jenkins spindles encourages projects made with the yarn spun, I spent the last couple of days knitting a pair of plain, no pattern, hand spun, hand knit fingerless mitts to take to the sale. A few hats, mitts and mittens, a couple woven and lined bags, and a few smaller simpler shawls or scarves will also go along with a basket of handspun yarn skeins. The event is by reservation for two afternoons/early evenings and will hopefully reduce my inventory a bit before I have to report it to the county for tax purposes early in next year.

    For now, I am going to grab mop and dust cloth and get ready to set up for the next holiday as soon as it is “legal.”

    Take care. Hopefully next year will be closer to normal, even if the normal is a new normal. I want to hug my kids and grandkids, not see them at distances of a dozen feet.

  • Happy Thanksgiving

    Determined to make this as normal as possible in these abnormal times, two of my kids and I began early with a group text on our prep of our meals for our individual families. Instead of one big meal for a gang, it is 3 big meals served in three separate homes. The first text of the morning was from daughter with “Vote of confidence from my kids this morning: ‘Uncle Todd always makes the turkey. Do you even know how mom?’” This got us going exchanging how and what we were doing. Son 1 and I spatchcock our turkey, he varied our usual and nearly butterflied his with the cleaver trying it to flatten it and added a step with coarse salt and chopped herbs rubbed in the inside yesterday to “brine” over night. Daughter stating she didn’t have the tools to spatchcock so she was making a traditional bird. Son 1 stating he used clean tin snips and a cleaver. I am used to doing an 18-22 pasture raised bird for the gang, so an under 12 pounder had me baffled as to time. I managed to cut the backbone out with poultry shears, but had to pop the breastbone with my cleaver to flatten mine. Son 1 responded with 3, maybe 4 minutes cooking time when I asked, LOL. I put a large sweet potato in the oven when the turkey went in and when I was ready to peel, slice, and season it for the casserole it wasn’t done, so I popped it in the microware, pushed potato and came upstairs. Then I started smelling smoke, the microwave didn’t shut off and the yam was totally cremated and smoke filling the house. Fortunately it is 65 degrees outside so all doors were opened, yam dumped in cold water and a new yam cooked in the microwave with me watching like hawk.

    In spite of not having them all here, texting back and forth has been fun, lots of encouragement, laughs, photos, fun. I prepared a traditional Thanksgiving, made the pies from pumpkins I grew, homemade rolls, peas and potatoes from our garden, sweet potatoes from the Farmers Market, fresh cranberries, pickles I made. Olives were purchased, but they don’t grow here. We are stuffed, will be eating turkey until Christmas, have quarts of fresh turkey broth. Everything made in smaller quantities, but made with love.

    Happy Thanksgiving from us to you. Maybe next year we can be with our families again.

  • Take a Walk, Take a Hike

    Hubby and I try to take a walk or couple mile hike each day. Daughter has been taking her kiddos on a hike once a week when weather permits and though today is chilly and thickly overcast, we had discussed going on a hike to Bear Cliffs. We met up after lunch at Mountain Lake Resort, the four of us masked and I brought 4 blaze orange vests, one for daughter, one for me, and one each for the two kiddos. Her kids are 9 and almost 14 and they were great hikers with some biology lessons on lichens, some trail safety reminders, blaze reading exercises, and a good time.

    Last Thanksgiving I did the same hike with Son 1, his wife, and grandson 1. Then masks weren’t a necessary accessory.

    This year, masks were required, which meant that glasses couldn’t easily be worn with hat and mask. This resulted in me being the only casualty when I slipped on on a rock and face planted on the trail. I ended up with a bit of a lump on my forehead, but otherwise unhurt, we continued on.

    Lots of care taken due to fog and slippery rocks, but a great hike. They were kind the the senior and gave me necessary breathing breaks as we were gaining elevation, but they seemed willing to take a water and breathing break too. This may have to become an annual tradition.

  • Zen

    “Zen emphasizes rigorous self-restraint, meditation-practice, insight into the nature of mind.” Meditation of any sort can help reduce stress.

    My Zen time is spinning with my spindles. It is total focus on the single process, it quiets my mind, slows my breathing. That wasn’t always the case, like with any new endeavor, there is a lot of tension involved as you learn the skills, but with time, you relax and it becomes enjoyable. I have been spinning now for over a decade, starting with spindles, moving on to wheels, and for the past 8 months or so, returning to spindles.

    When spinning with my spindles, whether in my chair, the car, waiting for an appointment, or out in nature, I feel my shoulders relax, the tension drain from my neck, my breathing focused. It gives my mind a non stressful activity on which to focus, a form of meditation. It ceases to be production and instead, is a serene, peaceful activity. I am still making yarn, but at a much slower pace.

    As I am approaching the end of the month, as a spindle is filled and emptied, it isn’t necessarily getting refilled. The Fig Aegean, my largest spindle is resting right now, my newest Ambrosia Wren is filling, the smallest Honduran Rosewood Finch is almost full and will soon sit idle for a few days. The notched shaft bottom whorl in the left of the bowl is my Living History spindle and doesn’t generally spin at home. They rest in a wooden trencher, also from living history, or sometimes a basket or pottery dish depending on my mood. And it all sits on a small hand woven “towel.” The weaving process is still in the tension filling realm as I haven’t gotten good enough at it for it to be relaxing, maybe someday.

    In a few weeks, some of my yarn, knits, weaves, body care items will go to Wilderness Road Regional Museum to an Honor System craft display during their Noel Nights weekend. If you are interested, you can reserve a spot for a tour, goodies, and shopping on their website. Twenty percent of my proceeds from that event will be donated to the museum for their operation and educational programming.

  • Another year gone by

    Seventy Three years ago today, I was born not far from where we now live in retirement. I didn’t grow up here, and visited only once until we bought our farm acreage here in the mountains. My maternal grandfather was born a few miles from our farm and grew up in this county. There is a community that bears his family name. He grew up to become a physician and opened and worked in a hospital a little farther west in West Virginia, where my mother was raised.

    I woke this morning to a beautiful fall day that will warm to almost springtime temperatures later and my dear hubby is doing all he can to make this a great day in spite of the isolation from family. As it was getting light outside and doggie and chicken chores were being done, I saw our little deer herd that has been staying near the house as they moved into the thicket to hunker down in safety from the hunters. I will be glad when hunting season is over.

    Knowing that I love the Jenkin’s Turkish spindles, he reached out to them and purchased me a gorgeous Ambrosia Maple spindle as a gift. The Jenkins make beautiful spinning equipment and every spindle comes wrapped in fiber from various vendors, many near them. This is my birthday gift from him, a very loving offering.

    As Saturday mornings are Farmer’s Market mornings, he got up early and we were at the market as it opened to pick up our pre-ordered goodies. He sits in the car safely as I masked and dash through gathering the vegetables, meats, breads, cheese and butter to add more to the freezer and for the week’s sustenance.

    Every year since our first year together in 1977, we have purchased an ornament for our Christmas tree. In years that we had a new child, there would be a baby’s first ornament to add as well. Early years, they were usually a dated Hallmark ornament, but in recent years, we have purchased ones on a vacation or at a craft show. This year with no craft shows, but with the Holiday Markets, I did a quick stop at her stand, and added another one from my potter friend, Bethany, at Dashing Dog Studio.

    After it warms a bit more, we will go to my favorite hiking spot and take a walk in the woods together, and later this evening, a curbside pick up of dinner from a restaurant we like, though this year’s birthday dinner will be eaten in the car.

    I am fortunate to enter this year still in good health and good physical condition. I hope to see many more, still healthy and young at heart.

  • Olio 11/20/2020

    Olio: a miscellaneous collection of things (thoughts)

    Every night this week has been a frost night, two nights into the 20’s f (-2-3 c). Though I was hoping for fresh peas for Thanksgiving, the wind was blowing so hard those days that putting down plastic would have been impossible alone. A few years ago I had some very flexible 12 foot long fiberglass poles that could be used to form a tunnel to cover with grow fabric or plastic, but they splintered over time and only one remains. I couldn’t make a tunnel with just one. If a tunnel had been made over the peas that could be opened for ventilation during the day and sealed up at night, perhaps they would have survived until this weekend when we are back in the upper 60’s f daytimes and only in the 40’s at night. Maybe next year the fall garden will be covered with a tunnel to protect it longer.

    The chickens have had the run of the garden and they are doing a great job of breaking down the compost pile and weeding the beds.

    The area to the left of the boxes will be returned to beds in the spring and the compost moved back to the shadier area. I wish the hens would do the same scratching and weeding in the paths between the beds, and move down to the “mint” bed and the long box below it, but they seem to like this corner. As online ordered and virtual craft show ordered gifts are arriving, I am saving cardboard again for springtime maintenance and more bed building efforts.

    I have always been one to accumulate gifts early, to try to be done with shopping by Thanksgiving so that I am not dealing with the rush and hustle bustle, to spend the first week of December decorating the house for Christmas and preparing to have our family here for Christmas dinner or even a few days visit. Though the shopping part is done, the decorating this year is something I’m not looking forward to doing, it will just be us. I’m sure that at least some of my vast Santa collection will come out, we will go get a small tree and decorate it. It will be sad enough to be alone, but worse if we don’t at least try.

    This month has been difficult in other aspects. We lost a young member of our family, a young Mom, not to COVID, but a heartbreaking loss, especially for her husband, child, parents, siblings and their families. Another family member is quite ill, again not COVID, but struggling to survive and heal. A friend has had a recurrent illness and is facing a third tough round of treatment. The news of these losses and illnesses of those dear to me have wrecked havoc with my emotions. I blog as a release, but have had to turn to some journaling as some of my thoughts and feelings I just can’t share out to the world.

    Every day that it isn’t raining, we don our walking shoes and head out for an hour or so. There are many places to walk, some paved and more traffic than we prefer, the walk in the National Forest around the pond and it’s various trails, and my favorite is to go a couple thousand feet higher elevation to the Mountain Lake Conservancy property and walk one of several trails there, usually meeting only one or two people on the entire walk. We take our masks on these walks and wear them when there are other people around and we can’t distance ourselves 10 or 12 feet away.

    This little herd of 6 deer seem to know that near the house is a safe place to be during hunting season, they are seen many times a day somewhere around the house, grazing on grass that is turning brown from the colder weather.

    We have had to remove all permission to hunt on our property except for immediate family due to some problems, not serious in nature, but troubling. It is difficult to try to maintain good neighborly relationships, especially since we didn’t grow up here and though my grandfather was born and raised just a few miles from our property and I was born here, we are outsiders.

    As a blogger, I like to know that I am being read and perhaps enjoyed. At the bottom of the post there are buttons to share, like, and space to comment. I would love your feedback there. My presence on Facebook has mostly been to share my blog and I may take another social media break so it won’t be posted there. Until next time, stay safe.

  • Ready to Hunker Down

    We spend each summer supplying the freezer with goods from the Farmer’s Market and from the garden, as well as canning jams, salsas, sauces, and tomatoes from food we grow. In the fall, I add more beans, rice, flour, and other dry goods to the grocery list each week and fill half gallon and gallon jars to have on hand for the winter. With the limit on cleaning supplies and some personal hygiene items, they usually get added to the grocery list each week until some is stockpiled, though not obsessively. We have been using curbside delivery from the grocer since last spring and at times find it a life saver and other times a total frustration. When you build your order online, you have the option to allow substitutions and if a product is out of stock, you receive a notice asking if X can be substituted for Y. At that point, you have the option of accepting or declining the substitution. We have two Kroger grocers within a few miles of each other and though we generally go to the nearer one, I have gone in the larger other one when a product was unavailable and been able to get it there. This week I decided to just do the curbside from the larger store and 3 of the items on my list were not available. Now, you can’t tell me that they had no ketchup of any brand on the shelf, I understand not having the one I listed, but no substitution was offered. The same with hubby’s sodas, if they don’t have Pepsi, they usually have Coke or vice versa, but again no substitution was offered. That has never happened at the smaller store, even if I decline the offer. This week proved to be one of the frustrating weeks, it means I am either going to have to go in one of the stores and get it myself or try to order from the other store.

    To add to the frustration, I created my order for Eat’s Natural Foods and the computer ate it. They have two formats you can use, so I switched to the other format and submitted it last night. This morning, I got an email that the form was blank and asked to resubmit it. I had enough trouble remembering it the first time, so I asked them to fill the bulk items I needed as you aren’t allowed to do it yourself during the pandemic, but that I would just come in and get the other items I could remember. I got more cheese than the original order, but forgot two other items. Oh well.

    The pantry shelves are vacuumed, wiped down, reorganized so that I can find items when ready to prepare the meals. The freezer was de-iced over the weekend, the goods sorted, inventoried, and arranged so that I can find what I need.

    The putting by is done for another year. We are ready to hunker down from Covid or snow if we get any this winter. Last night’s hard freeze did in the peas without ever getting a harvest. I guess when I plant the fall garden I need to allow more time and count on an early frost. There are spring peas in the freezer, we will just enjoy them. Other veggies that can be obtained at the Farmer’s Market will continue to supplement the freezer. I am thinking about trying to grow some window sill lettuce and spinach too.

  • Rainy Day activity

    A front came through with wind and rain, the warm is gone. We will see two nights in the low to mid 20’s this week. After all, it is mid November.

    The day was spent crafting. The men of this family are tall and bearded. Son 1’s face is long and he has to go to campus a few times a week to teach and for meetings. I had made his family some masks late summer and when we had our distanced meet and greet, he expressed that he wished he had a couple that covered more of his beard, and he liked the ones with two ties, so today I played with my pattern to extend the sides by about 3/4″ and used bias tape folded and stitched for ties instead of using elastic loops. Four more larger masks are finished, packed, and will be shipped off to him tomorrow.

    In my early fabric purchases, I had gotten two that ended up being lining, but found a use.

    This morning during my alone time, I finished spinning most of the frustrating fiber on the wheel, all but a few grams. After the masks were done and packed up, the last little bit was spun and then a major plying session done. The two bobbins of very fine singles ended up a very full bobbin of 2 ply yarn that is 22 wpi, lace weight. This is the second skein I have done recently of soft, smooth, shiny yarn that is thinner than I like to use, so it will look for a new home.

    The fiber is 50% Merino wool, 25% baby Camel, 25% Mulberry Silk, so it has great sheen and should knit with great drape. The bobbin couldn’t hold any more. Tomorrow I will measure it off and see what kind of yardage it is.

    Tuesday and Wednesday nights, the peas will have to be covered, hopefully to protect them enough to get a small harvest from them. Daytime temperatures this week should be great for some walks and hikes.

  • Routine changes

    As COVID cases rise in Virginia, our Governor has tightened some of the restrictions which is a good thing. He has also allowed the Health Department more teeth in enforcement. I hope that being charged with a Class One Misdemeanor will get some of the local businesses’ attention. All of these changes go into effect at midnight tonight and we will see if anything changes.

    Saturday mornings are a time for us to go get breakfast and go to the Farmers’ Market. We usually drive through for breakfast, but chose to go to the bagel shop this morning and I ran in to get the bagels and beverages to eat in the car. The Farmers’ Market first hour is supposed to be for shoppers over 55 and people with pre-orders. The market is outdoors and opens at 9 a.m. We arrived at 9:20 and the line extended down the streets on two sides of the market. There are dots painted on the side walk for social distancing and most people are adhering to that, but if it is a group of 4 or 5 people together, they are standing at one dot. I wouldn’t have even gotten in the line, but gone home except I am not only well over 55, but had pre-ordered from several vendors. The line in front of me was packed with young people, most who entered the market to get prepared food and beverages and mill around browsing. Only 50 shoppers are supposed to be allowed within the confines of the market at a time but there were many more today, with many vendors having 2 or even 3 sellers in their stall and as this was a Holiday Market, there are many more vendors selling crafts, so the number in this corner of the block far exceeded a safe number and the crowd made it difficult to quickly get my pick up orders and get out.

    Because I have been a vendor at the Holiday Markets in years past, I appreciate the local shoppers, but because of our ages and underlying health situation, today I did not feel safe. When I got home, I did email the market manager and he kindly responded. The college students will be gone soon for the rest of the semester, so hopefully, the crowd situation will abate. If not, our Saturday morning routine may have to end like so many of our other routines. At least I can still do curbside delivery at Eat’s Natural Foods or Annie Kay’s Natural Foods and the local grocer.

    When we got home, I de-iced the chest freezer, organized it and took inventory of what was on hand. I fear as we go into winter and cases rise, there will be another run on supplies and grocery goods or slots for curbside pick up will fill making even safe pick up difficult. Right now, between our garden supply frozen and canned and market goods frozen and root cellar stored, we are in pretty good shape, I even have the necessaries to have a full Thanksgiving for two and we will then eat turkey left overs forever.

    I sure hope that the pending vaccines will make this go away. I miss going out. I miss my children and grandchildren. I want to feel safe again.

  • Strange Season

    November started off too warm and dry. Then a few days ago, it switched to still warm and wet. The difference between the daytime and nighttime temperatures has only varied by less than 20 degrees, staying in the 50’s at night. That is going to change tonight. Today won’t reach 60 during the day and for the next 10 days the highs will be 40’s and 50’s and lows as low as 24. The fig I nursed with a ring of wire wrapped in translucent plastic and covered with mylar when necessary never ripened the dozen figs on it. It is a young bush, this was only it’s second year and I thought I lost it last winter. The leaves have mostly dropped along with the unripe figs, so this morning, I prepared it for winter hibernation. The branches were pulled together and loosely tied, a deep mulch of hay placed around the base, 3 long garden poles placed as a tripod and tied together with a long run of paracord then the sheet of plastic was wrapped around several times, wrapped with the paracord and tied. Spots that looked like they might pull up were anchored with rocks or garden stakes. With any luck, it will be better protected than last winter and maybe the upcoming summer will produce a crop of figs. I learned this year that it should have been planted on the south side of the house close enough to benefit from the protection and solar warmth. Maybe a second fig will join the orchard trees next year and be planted in a better location. This one is small enough still that it is possible to transplant it toward the end of the season next year if I prep it correctly, but I don’t want to stunt it’s growth and production.

    Last evening during dinner prep, I went to the garden to see if any of the pea pods had filled out enough to provide us with some fresh peas for our meal. When I planted the garlic which in in the box uphill from the peas, I covered the straw mulch with plastic erosion fence and laid metal garden stakes on top to hold it all in place. The erosion fence was a few inches too short on one side and I discovered that the hens had found that and with an entire garden to scratch and dig, they had dug an 8″ deep trench along the inside edge of the box, uprooting several cloves of garlic. The trench was refilled and more garden stakes laid over the top until this morning. I found another piece of erosion fence that was idle and added it to the bare edge and anchored it with a couple of poles. A few minutes with a hoe cleaned up the asparagus bed and around it and it was fenced in with more fencing and a thick layer of hay dumped inside to mulch the asparagus for the cold. To try to distract the hens from their intense focus on how to get to the hay, I tossed a foot thick layer near their water in the run for them to dig through.

    The near box with the garlic is the one that will be moved after the garlic harvest and that corner will again become a compost area. I think a real compost bin is going to be built there. The asparagus will mark the end of the growing bed there.

    The molt seems to be mostly over, there are fewer feathers flying and only a couple of the hens look motley. For several weeks, two of the Oliver eggers, the two that lay green eggs have been providing. Last night there were two eggs and one was brown, so production seems to be on the upswing.

    Tomorrow is two weeks since Halloween and all of the unmasked Trunk/Trick or Treaters in the county. Today there are 13 new cases of COVID since day before yesterday and 2 more hospitalizations. It’s getting ugly out there, but people here still won’t wear a mask.