Cabin Crafted

Author: Cabincrafted1

  • Yes, I am alive and well

    A friend reminded me that I had been silent for a few days. Time spent with hubby and via phone and video chat with family, time spent finishing my December spinning challenge, trying to finish a shawl as a finished project for the same challenge, and getting ready for the start of the new year, spinning challenges and mentally preparing for even more isolation as we are seeing about a dozen new cases of COVID in our county each day (56+% of the cases in the county since December 1) and between people travelling and gathering for Christmas and New Years, it will get worse.

    When I went to the Farmers Market on the Saturday before Christmas, part of my goal was to obtain a Christmas roast for our Christmas dinner, we still have Thanksgiving turkey in the freezer. The vendor apologized that his abattoir had not gotten his latest beef back to him, but he expected to pick it up on Monday. He made a stop on his way home and let me buy a 3 pound rib roast. It was a much more expensive cut than I would usually purchase and wanted it to be cooked perfectly. When we have family here or that we can visit with, we usually have Italian food at Daughter’s on Christmas Eve, and Turkey, ham, and all the sides on Christmas day here. As a younger married, I would prepare either Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner, my Dad doing the other and extended family gathered. The Christmas dinner was always on Christmas eve and we grazed on left overs and other goodies on Christmas Day. Traditionally, I make Huevos Rancheros for hubby on Christmas and New Years Day mornings. Because it was just the two of us, I did prepare the breakfast then later in the day, prepared the roast that I had seasoned the day before. It was perfect and delicious. We have eaten about half of it over two days, the other half frozen to be pulled out in a week or so and enjoyed again.

    We woke to a white Christmas with continued snow showers all day. Gifts had been exchanged with our children and grand children via distanced meetings or mail. We celebrated with just the two of us. My gifts included items lovingly chosen based on my interests, fiber to spin, a Jumbo flyer for my wheel, a travel Lazy Kate, a leather tooled pocket notebook cover, counter top herb garden with grow light, hand made pottery planter made by DIL and bee barn from them as well, wool socks and a wool tee shirt to keep me warm. It was a calm, lazy day filled with too much food, but no in person family except hubby.

    My December spinning got side tracked when I started knitting the Peacock shawl, but I still finished with plenty for the challenge.

    Yesterday was spent plying yarn, the “Redbud” ended up about 450 yards of light fingering weight and the Jacob (the gray) is this month’s and last month’s plied together to about 115 yards of light fingering weight.

    The fiber hubby gave me is the left of this photo and will be the breed I begin my January challenges with, both the “Something New” challenge and a Breed Blanket.

    After several frigid icy days, the sun is out and the snow and ice are melting, the temperature finally above 40 degrees, so we ventured out to take a walk, figuring the paved rail grade being the safest path. For the most part it was clear or wet, but there were some areas like this below.

    Some of the areas that looked wet were black ice, but it was good to get out and stretch our legs and get some fresh air.

    I have about half an ounce of yarn left before I have to use the rest to do the picot bind off. I’m hoping it is enough to finish the repeat I am on.

    I’m very pleased with how the gradient blends until it gets to the purples and the gradient isn’t as subtle there, almost like the purples were reversed, but I spun this yarn on spindles and was very careful to keep them in the order they came off the braid. It is still a pretty shawl. Once finished, washed and blocked, it will go in my shop.

    I hope you had a safe Christmas and will have a safe New Year.

  • Weather forecast?

    Years ago when I worked in Virginia Beach, one of my co-workers had a short knotted rope with a small square of wood suspended at the bottom. On the wood was printed the forecast. “If it is wet it is raining, if it is white it is snowing, if it is swaying it is windy, etc.” That was probably as accurate as a forecast can get. We were told it would be a mild and wet winter. I know, technically winter started yesterday, meteorologic winter began a few weeks ago. I disagree with the mild part. We have had some very cold weather already and an early ice/snow storm. Several days, the high has occurred sometime between midnight and dawn with the temperature falling all day like today.

    Our farm is in the Virginia Mountains, southwest in the state, so not as subject to snow as farther up the Shenandoah Valley and east enough to miss the Greenbrier and Highlands cold and snow, but still in the mountains. We often get wind advisories with the wind gusting in from the northwest, like today. Our farm did not come with a farmhouse and we built our home here, so it does have modern heat, a heat pump, but we also have a Rumford fireplace in the living room and a woodstove in the basement with heavy stone masonry done by Son1 and DIL, so if we keep fires going for a few days, the stones hold some heat.

    All of these stones came off our farm and were hauled most without the benefit of the tractor, though some of the ones in the basement done later did have the benefit of hauling with the tractor.

    So this first official week of winter is all over the place. It got up into the upper 40s yesterday, today, and tomorrow and predicted to go into the low 50s on Thursday with nights in the mid 20s until Thursday when we will see mid teens, rain turning to snow, and only 21 as a high on Christmas Day. White Christmas’ are rare here, but it might happen this year. In preparation for this, I went out and wrapped the fig with a lined cloth shower curtain folded to make several layers, then rewrapped the plastic so that the wind can’t blow it open again. We have a rolling wood rack and it and my garden cart were piled high with firewood, additionally, a dozen and a half short logs carried to a stack in the basement, the kindling basket was filled with sticks from a dead tree that came down across the fence. Both the fireplace and woodstove were set with fires that just need to be lit to hopefully keep the cold at bay until late in the weekend when warmer temperatures will prevail again.

    I don’t think I want to be outside on Christmas Day, even to make a trip to the woodpile, so I hope enough is in the garage and basement to keep the fires burning.

    When I was working outside in the cold wind, I realized that all nine of the hens were inside the coop, so I turned them out into the yard to forage. They will have to spend Christmas Day inside, especially if there is snow on the ground and 21 degree temperatures with wind.

    I am glad we are on the day lengthening side of the Solstice, maybe we will start seeing eggs again in a few weeks. When they started molt, they quit laying, then a couple started again with a few eggs a week until a couple weeks ago when the amount of daylight was just not enough to stimulate egg production. I have actually had to buy a couple dozen at the Farmer’s Market in recent weeks.

    I hope all of my readers have a Merry Christmas and go safely into the new year.

  • Gifts of Love

    A year or two ago, DIL took a favorite photo of Jim and a compilation of other photos and did a beautiful pen sketch for hubby as a gift.

    She is a very talented artist and wanted to do something special for him. He loves the gift and it hangs on the siding wall of the steps to the loft in our living room.

    In August, right at his birthday, hubby made the very difficult decision due to health issues to sell his beloved Harley and give up his “Zen” riding as he called it. In the years since he learned to ride, two months after his 70th birthday, he had collected patches, buttons, poker chips, and pins that never made it onto the iconic leather vest and as he was no longer riding, a vest he wouldn’t wear wasn’t an option.

    I had an idea as a gift for him. It isn’t a surprise, but done out of love as part of his Christmas. The photo that was used as the focus of DIL’s sketch was printed as an 8 X 10, his license plate from the HD was saved, and the idea came to fruition. A large frame, some black cotton fabric, a piece of corrugated material for the pins to stick into and it was all put together with patches and other treasures.

    A collection of memories.

  • Distant Visit

    Son 1 and DIL asked me a bit ago if I could make them 60 bars of soap to use as office and neighbor gifts and I was glad to oblige. They have membership at Costco and we don’t have one near us, so they keep me supplied in the oils I need to make it. We worked out a plan to have a socially distanced meet up that worked around his end of semester grading at the University, DIL’s work schedule and the weather that dumped a foot of snow on them early in the week. This is the second meet up we have done, one in the fall, and today. Our initial plan was to meet up about 5 or 6 miles south of Afton Pass on the Blue Ridge Parkway, but it was still closed as of yesterday from the snow and ice. Son 1 suggested Natural Bridge State Park, less than an hour and a half drive for us, a bit more than 2 1/2 hours for them and it seemed like a good plan. I hadn’t been there in years and the last time it was still a private park. We again planned a picnic, each contributing to it and we grabbed a couple of picnic tables in the sun on the edge of the creek and had lunch. Then took a hike along the creek to the end of the trail at a waterfall.

    Except for eating and taking a couple distanced photos of them, we all remained masked. It was great to see them and be able to exchange gifts for Christmas.

    The young one, our oldest grand child is now 15 1/2 and it looks like he has grown at least another inch since we saw him in the fall.

    He isn’t as tall as his dad yet, but he passed Granddad and he is 6’1+”. It is so good to see our kids off and on for short stints, safely distanced and masked. I can’t wait to give them hugs again. The picnics are icing. It was a nice winter day, sunny and it got up to or near 50f so to take our walk, Son1 and I shed our coats and left them in our cars when we carried the picnic goods back up. It wasn’t a long walk, only about .8 miles each way and not taken quickly as we walked and talked and the trail was quite wet and muddy in spots.

    We got to spend about 3 hours with them and exchange gifts to open on Christmas. On Christmas Eve, if it isn’t raining, we will meet up with Daughter and her kids on her back patio to give them their gifts and for Granddad to do his traditional reading of “The Night Before Christmas” still requested by Daughter and Granddaughter.

    Here’s to a hope that by next Christmas, we can again be with our families.

  • Crafting frustration

    About 22 months ago, we were rear ended while stopped at a stop light. After weeks of dizziness and headaches, I was diagnosed with Post Concussive Syndrome. A couple of years prior to that, I had taken a spectacular fall skiing when I hit an icy patch and once gathered back together and down the mountain to assess the damage, concluded that the blow when my helmeted head hit the ice, that I probably had a concussion then too. I recovered from that one with no obvious effects, but the accident one is a different story. I ended up in vision therapy because my eyes weren’t tracking together, the dizziness continued for months and still certain visual movement like waves on the pond or water beads from rain on the windshield can trigger a wave of dizziness.

    Another side effect is a short term memory issue that I never had before. I used to be able to make a grocery list and if left at home, could still remember all the items once in the store. Now if I don’t have a list in hand, items get missed. I only go in the grocery when curbside can’t fully fulfill my order and doesn’t provide alternate suggestions. The most noticeable short term memory issue is that I can’t seem to remember even a 4 line knitting pattern any more. I have to keep the pattern close at hand, carefully note what row I’m on and refer to the pattern.

    I have no trouble with spinning on the wheel or spindles, no pattern required there, but other than plain vanilla hats and mitts, I have trouble knitting. As a result, I haven’t been knitting much. In May and June, I spun a gorgeous skein of gradient yarn in peacock colors.

    My initial plan was to knit a sweater for me with that skein as the yoke with gray Shetland yarn as the body and sleeves, but hesitated to knit a sweater, so I put the skein in my Etsy shop to see if it would sell. With no craft shows because of the pandemic and few purchases being made from the shop, I decided to knit it into an asymmetrical triangular shawl, a pattern I have knit several times. I started it day before yesterday, knitting while hubby was watching television. Last night while he was watching the football game, I realized that there was a glaring error that was causing the lace edge to grow wider which it wasn’t supposed to be doing. I ended up ripping out about 30 rows to get to a point where there were the correct number of stitches on the lace side. That was about 3 inches, 1/5 of what I had already knit. The shawl is back on the needles, the two lace rows completed again and I have the correct number of stitches, so I will continue.

    I will have to make sure each time I complete the lace edge, that I count to make sure I haven’t managed to add any stitches. Eventually, the greens fade to blues, then on to purples. If I can keep my focus on it, it will be a pretty finished shawl, but the frustration of not being able to knit anything that isn’t plain vanilla wears on me.

  • The Snowstorm that didn’t

    According to the weather gurus, it was cold enough up high, cold enough down low, too warm in the middle. Snow was forming, falling into the warmer layer and melting, dropping into the cold area near the ground and freezing. The temperature here hovered between 26 and 32 until after dark when it went up a couple of degrees.

    After the near catastrophe with the ice covered stone path first thing yesterday morning, we just stayed put. Fires were kept burning in the fireplace and the woodstove in case the ice took out the power.

    As ice accumulated on the deck and walkways.

    It seemed prudent to stay inside with chili simmering on slow cook in the Instapot, started early before any real accumulation and knowing that if the power did go out, it could be put in a large cast iron pot on the woodstove in the basement to keep it simmering until dinner.

    Mid afternoon, the falling ice let up and I donned all my outdoor gear again to take the rolling log cart over to refill it and to walk up to see if the mail delivery braved the icy roads (she did but it was just junk, not worth her time nor mine.)

    The trees were pretty, but I worry about ice crusted pines. Especially since there was still snow expected late afternoon into the evening. As we were eating our chili and cornbread, it began to snow and quickly accumulated just an inch or so on the ice that had already fallen. It was pretty in the outside lights on the house and covered the lawn and fields, but as the temperature rose overnight, the snow all but disappeared. You can see traces of it in the woods, under the pines, in deeper areas of the yard and fields. The top of the mountain where it stayed below freezing looks like a wonderland from down below.

    We should have no trouble getting out and down the mountain to get the flat tire checked, hopefully repaired, and reinstalled on the car. Though my car is the older of the two, it has a few thousand less miles on it and is the more reliable of our cars, so it is the one we want to use for our socially distanced meet up with Son 1 this weekend.

  • What a Mess

    The Winter Storm was supposed to begin around midnight with snow to be capped with freezing rain as it ended around 1 p.m. today. The storm must have dallied southwest of us because when I arose, it wasn’t white and quiet out as expected. The back deck has some tiny white pellets on it, but otherwise didn’t look like much had occurred. After getting some coffee in me, I donned boots, barn parka, hat, and gloves because it is 26f outside and went out with full bird feeders. There was some solid precipitation falling, but not much. As soon as I stepped on the stone step leading to the retaining wall where the feeders are, I almost went down. The stones looked damp, but were coated with ice. Carefully backing down to the garden soil, I crossed on the edge of the garden to hang the feeders.

    Knowing that the chickens would probably not even come out of their coop, I tossed in a scoop of scratch, gave them a bucket of water that wasn’t covered in ice and observed the ice encrusted coop.

    It appears that the storm is finally here, but is freezing rain mostly, some snow is still expected, but instead of being an ice crusted snowfall, it is going to be a layer of ice covered in snow. For the sake of my bones, there won’t be a snow walk today. And instead of ending mid afternoon, it will continue on into the night. Unless the sun comes out early tomorrow, the roads will be treacherous on the mountain even though they treated them early yesterday. I was hoping for a brief, early snowfall that would be pretty to look at for a few hours.

    Yesterday we prepared to go down the mountain to get a newspaper and run an errand. Hubby asked me to drive so we loaded into my ancient CRV and as soon as I put it in reverse, I realized something wasn’t right. It didn’t handle correctly. The front left tire was flat. Our driveway is not and is gravel, so I didn’t want to try to change it with the wimpy jack that comes with cars. We switched to the Xterra and he drove (I don’t like driving the truck though I can). Once home, I put the little compressor that plugs into the auxillary power jack on the tire, but it wouldn’t take air. We pay for AAA every year, the extended version since we don’t live in town, but rarely use it, so I called them to send out a truck to change the tire. We live 13 miles from Blacksburg, about 13 miles from Pearisburg, the county seat. You would think that service would come from one of those two towns, but no… they sent a man from Princeton, 48 miles away. A nice guy about my age that owns the business, but is “retired” from working it daily. He said Pearisburg does not have a AAA service provider, that Blacksburg has one, but that he could drive from Princeton, West Virginia, do the job, and return home before the one in Blacksburg would come out and that he comes to our area at least a dozen times a winter. Maybe AAA isn’t such a good deal after all. But the spare is on the car and it is a full sized tire. When it is safe to drive down the mountain, the flat will be taken to our local mechanic where we bought the tires and let them see if it is a bad valve stem or a puncture and hopefully get it repaired and reinstalled on the car.

    No pretty pictures of snow to show, no chickens running around in the yard. I can end with the goofy mastiff as he sunned himself yesterday morning. And the German Shepherd that has decided that the toy she was given by our grandkids for last Christmas is now her favorite toy a year later.

    Maybe tomorrow, there will be snow pictures if it isn’t too icy to go out and take them.

  • Late Autumn Walks to Winter Storms

    Over the weekend, it was light jacket warm for walks in the National Forest at the Pond and up at the Conservancy.

    Our mountain is an alluvial field from the last ice age and there are many boulder fields. Farms that grow hay and corn for their cattle have had to clear rocks and boulders to be able to cultivate. On some trails, you may walk through wooded sections with few visible rocks then go through a boulder field. In the boulder fields you often see a tree that looks like it is eating a rock, a tree that has come up under the edge of a boulder and then grown around it. They fascinate me as a biologist.

    After getting home from our hike yesterday, it was warm enough to sit on the back deck and shell the dried beans saved for seed to be used in the spring garden.

    Many of the pods were empty or held only a couple of seed, some full with 8 or more seed, plenty for two plantings in our garden and granddaughter’s garden as well.

    As the temperature dropped overnight, it rained and rained. The culvert still has not been opened by VDOT, so the driveway took another hit. I refuse to grade the driveway again until the culvert is opened as it will be futile. The high for today occurred just after midnight and has fallen all day. As the rain ended, the wind picked up and has ripped at the house all day. The chickens came out in the rain this morning, looked for scratch and retired back into the coop for the rest of the day. We are facing a frigid night and a winter storm on Wednesday. Winter storm = freezing rain, snow, sleet, ice (they don’t know), it is a safe term to use in winter when it is going to precipitate and be cold. The prediction currently is 2 to 7 inches of snow with several tenths of an inch of ice. We will just hunker down and build fires in the woodstove and fireplace to help keep the house warm and hope the ice doesn’t take the power out. This early in the season, whatever falls won’t last more than a day or so before it is melted. About a dozen years ago, we got 22″ of snow on the last day of school before winter break and it wasn’t gone when we got another 18″ about a week later. That is not typical here, especially that early in the winter.

    Hopefully, we are going to have a socially distanced meet up on the weekend with Son 1 and our grandson, maybe DIL if she isn’t working and hand off soap I have made for them to use as gifts and their Christmas gifts as they won’t be spending this Christmas with us.

    The seed catalogs have begun to arrive. My go to one, the first to arrive. Granddaughter and daughter have been tasked with deciding what they want to plant this year so that I can begin planning for the two gardens and getting any additional seed that I haven’t saved from last year. Maybe by garden time, we will have been able to get COVID vaccines and I will be able to help or at least visit her garden. Garden catalogs make for great winter reading and dreaming about the goodies that will be grown for the next year. Now it is time to hibernate and listen to the wind howl.

  • It isn’t getting easier

    Yesterday after the snowy morning, followed by a bit of rain, then more flurries, we drove the dozen miles to Joe’s Tree Farm and found a tree for the house. About the time we got home with it, the temperature that only got up to 36 f started falling. The tree was put in the stand and watered, hubby built a fire in the fireplace, I got a pot of stew started using left over pot roast and it’s gravy, made myself a mug of hot cocoa, and set to work decorating the tree. Putting the tree up, the huge Starfish, we got on our first cruise about 7 years ago, on as a tree topper, lights on and lit didn’t bother me. As soon as I opened the bin of ornaments, the history of our life together, I just froze, tears welled up and I didn’t want to continue. Beginning in 1977, our first shared Christmas, we purchased an ornament for our “Charlie Brown” tree. Each year, another ornament was added. Years we had a new baby in the house, there was a Baby’s First as well as the annual Hallmark ornament. At some point, the ornaments came from craft shows, or if we took a vacation and saw an appropriate token that could be the ornament, we added that and all are dated. There is a ceramic bell from Mexico, several carved/turned wood, pottery, and painted gourd ones. There are a few given us by others that have significance. As I brought them out, I cried more at the loss of family members, the isolation from our children and grandchildren. The tree is up, the house is decorated except for hanging two blown glass ones, that require some ribbon.

    It isn’t getting easier. There have been 53 cases of Covid in our rural area in the past week, that is 15% of the cases since the pandemic began and in just 7 days. A neighbor told us yesterday that he had had it a few weeks ago, yet we still are seeing few masks. We waited to get the tree on a week day to avoid a crowded situation at the farm and the attendant that cut our tree said Sunday they had the lot full and a field adjacent as an overflow parking lot. We were one of three cars today, but two women arrived back from cutting their own tree as we arrived and without masks, entered the shop and stayed in there until their tree was brought in from the field, tied, and labelled. We stayed out in the cold to avoid them until our tree was ready for us to pay. There was no consideration of others, the older woman stayed near where we needed to be to pay for our tree.

    We avoid going in any building we can. The online grocery order picked up Sunday was lacking several items from the list. There was no notice that the items weren’t available and we didn’t pay for them, but it means I will have to go in the grocer to get them. The curbside is nice, but certainly not perfect. I am having emotional burnout, but I can’t become complacent.

    Covid has caused the Noel Nights event at Wilderness Road Regional Museum to be cancelled. I am sad that I won’t be able to vend, but feel bad for the Museum as this is a fund raiser for them. I am hoping that the Program Director who may have been exposed stays well. If you are still shopping for gifts, if you favorite an item in my shop, you will receive a 20% off coupon, many of the items ship free, there are knit and woven garments and accessories, salves, beard oils, yarn, and more. Check it out.

  • Worth?

    I have been asked many times, “How long does it take you to spin that yarn?” That is such a difficult question to answer without just saying,” it depends. ” Four ounces spun Aran weight or Worsted weight takes much less time to spin than Fingering weight or lace weight. The type of fiber makes a difference as does the fiber prep. Also, whether it was spun on the wheel or on spindles. Then comes the internal argument about how much to price it if it is being sold as yarn and not knitted or woven into a garment or accessory.

    Saturday morning I started spinning 4.5 ounces of a soft unknown wool, I believe it is Merino, but it wasn’t marked when it was given to me. I didn’t spin continuously, but did try to track about how long it took to spin and ply it. It spun to 17 WPI, so fairly fine. The fiber wasn’t in the best condition, there were small pieces, some matting (not quite felted). My estimate is about 10 hours to produce on the wheel. I ended up with 313.5 yards. If I knit it into a simple lace asymmetrical triangular shawl, it will take another 10-15 hours. To price the yarn at a price it might sell, I would charge 10 cents per yard for basic wool, and at that price, I have to accept that the time I spent on it was basically recreation, as my time would be only $3/hour. This particular fiber was given to me, often I spend $25 for 4 ounces of dyed roving which then negates anything I would have earned and it basically just provides money to buy more wool. If I knit it into a shawl, it would list for about $40-45 for 25 hours of hand spinning, then hand knitting work if it sold. If it was purchased roving at $20-25 for 4 ounces, plus 25 hours of my time, I would be making less than a dollar an hour to create a one of a kind, handmade item.

    I typically only use my handspun yarn for garments I knit for my shop, once in a while a gift skein or trade skein will be used, but I have to value my time as therapy and recreation as this region won’t support the true value of hand spun, hand knit items.

    This is the skein I produced, it really is quite pretty, soft and with nice drape, but I definitely can’t use this photo in my shop. I don’t know what you see, but I see a huge turd pile. I guess I need to work on my photography skills.

    And in that vein, this is what I saw when I woke.

    It isn’t much and it won’t last, but it is pretty now. Again, I need to work on my photography skills.