Cabin Crafted

Author: Cabincrafted1

  • It’s not over ’til the fat lady sings

    After two days of steady rain and steady temperature of 61 f, today dawned gray and thick but not raining. On the way to giving the hens their daily freedom, a harvest basket was grabbed. The garden is fading away, one crop at a time, but still providing some goodness for the larder. The peas are bright and full of flowers, the Jalapenos are still blooming, the Thai and Serrano peppers are ripening with hundreds of Thai peppers and dozens of Serrano peppers still green on the plants. The ends of the branches so full that the rains pulled them down, sagging over the paths. There aren’t any broken branches. All of the ripe red ones were plucked off, breaking off a clump of still green ones in the process. The last three slicing tomatoes were picked and the plants pulled and tossed on the burn pile. The last of the basil clipped and added to the basket. The Tomatillo plants are bare of leaves so the last fruits of any size were pulled. Those plants should be pulled as well and the stakes removed to store. Friday and Saturday nights will be cold enough for frost. The arrangement of the peas, Thai peppers, one Serrano pepper, and Ground Cherries in three 4 X 4 foot boxes in a row will allow me to cover them with a sheet of plastic. The Jalapenos and the non productive Serrano pepper are across a wide path but in a single 4 x 4 box, so they can be covered as well. The top of the fig shelter will be closed over. After those two nights, there will be another mild period. There are dozens of ground cherries forming, so there is still hope for a small batch of jam to see if that is a plant I want to plant in the future.

    Everything was washed, the basil leaves stripped and put in a drying basket, the red Thai peppers strung, filling the 4th string drying inside the south French door. The Jalapenos were brined in hot brine to pickle. The Tomatillos blanched and put in the freezer, making 2 gallon sized bags for Son 1’s family. The green Thai peppers and the Serranos were started as another hot pepper ferment.

    If the peas, ground cherries, and remaining peppers can be nursed through the two nights in the 30’s, there may be more peppers to dry and pickle, a batch of jam to make, and fresh peas to enjoy. One of the garden boxes needs to be thoroughly cleaned up, supplemented with more compost, and planted with next year’s garlic crop, then covered with straw and a mesh panel to hold the straw down. If it ever dries out, the burn pile needs to be reduced to ash, the raspberry volunteers that have escaped the barrels pulled. Once those canes are bare of leaves, they will be pruned back. Since the wooden barrels have all deteriorated to just sides with no bottoms, I am again trying to figure out how to have raspberries without them taking over the garden. The barrel idea was good until the bottoms rotted out. There is a large old galvanized tub hanging in the garage that has a hole where the bottom and side seams meet, so it doesn’t hold water, perhaps it can be buried a few inches and half filled with soil, planted with canes and used to control their spread. I love the fruit, but not trying to control them.

  • No politics today

    This is being posted remotely to Facebook. As I am not currently using Facebook, any reactions or comments should be posted at the bottom of the blog. Thank you.

    It is a Saturday, gloomy, gray, light rain, but the morning to run into town and pick up the preorders from the Farmer’s Market. The pups were let out, the hunter’s didn’t come, so no need for leashes, fortunately. They were fed, the chickens loosed into the yard to hunt for bugs, seeds, and scratch in the bare spots.

    A few of them are so motley looking and they trail feathers wherever they go, a few have grown their new winter feathers and look so fresh and full, I even got 1 egg yesterday. When I let them out, they make a bee line for the front yard and usually disappear under the two cedar trees at least for a while.

    With raincoat on, the run through the market was damp, but not too crowded and the goodies look wonderful. On Saturday mornings, we get drive thru breakfast and sitting in the parking lot with the car off, the rain distorting the view of the street lights on, the tree with it’s red leaves, and the faux granite stone on the Art Center, made an interesting photo.

    The street sign was a distractor, but still an interesting shot.

    The market goods were brought home, put away and back out we went to pick up some socks from the local outfitter’s sale that ends tomorrow on Darn Tough socks, my favorites, then on to pick up chicken scratch and bird seed from Tractor Supply.

    There will be no walk today, probably not tomorrow either, but plenty of time to spin, read, knit, maybe take a nap.

    Tonight we will feast on a pan of fresh roasted veggies, hubby with a chop, me with some local cheese, perhaps a slice or two of the bread made a few days ago, sliced and frozen to keep it fresh.

    It will be a lazy weekend. When the rain stops, I will prepare the bed that will grow next year’s garlic. Peppers and anything else ripe will be brought in to string, can, freeze, or eat fresh. The peas are beginning to form. Only 5 more days until a frost is expected, two nights in a row. I am torn whether to try to extend the season by covering plants or call it a year.

  • Routines

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    The past 7 months have significantly altered our routines. It is so difficult to adjust. We used to go out for lunch several times a week and out to dinner about twice a month. We would grocery shop once a week, go to the Farmer’s Market on Saturday. I would go to my spinning group on Thursday afternoon, thought nothing of going to the yarn shop, went to a couple of fiber retreats each year and at least one fiber festival. My shop wasn’t just online, there were half a dozen in person craft or holiday markets where I would set up and sell my wares. I would participate in many living history events, dressing in period costume and demonstrating fiber preparation and spinning while talking about how different fiber and fabric preparation were and how they were utilized. We would visit our kids or our kids would visit us, I would babysit grands sometimes for a week at a time.

    Now, there are no retreats, no festivals, no craft markets. We haven’t been in a restaurant in 7 months. Lunches “out” are drive thru, eaten in the car. Any shopping is done on line and delivered or picked up curbside. To go to the Farmer’s Market, which is outdoors, I have to pre order so that I can be in the first hour, dash through picking up pre selected, pre paid items while masked. I have not participated in a living history event since last Christmas. We haven’t seen Son 1 and his family since Christmas, Son 2 in a parking lot in May to meet our already by then 5 month old grandson as they headed to a family wedding. We see our daughter and her kids distantly in their yard or ours for brief visits all masked. We will not be able to host the annual family Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner.

    I know we are not alone, but we are trying to do our part to help end this disaster our world is facing, our country is not taking seriously. I see pictures and posts of folks I know traveling, on vacation, possibly safely, but are they bringing back more virus.

    Usually this time of year, we go to the pharmacy and get our flu shots. This year, we have made an appointment with our family physician where we will wait in the car until time to go in masked, get our shot and leave quickly, and hopefully safely.

    It hurts me that so many are brushing this deadly virus off as “just the flu,” “why are you wearing a mask outdoors,” “I don’t need a mask, I’m not sick,” “I don’t need to wear my mask over my nose, I don’t breathe through my nose.”

    For only the second time since I was old enough to vote, and then it was 21 years old, I didn’t go to the polls on election day. The first time I was in college and then you voted by absentee ballot that had to be witnessed and not just by a family member or friend. This time we did early in person voting because we didn’t want our ballot to be delayed in the mail, marked unable to scan for some arbitrary reason or to be counted late.

    I don’t like these times. I fear for our country’s health and it’s democracy.

  • Our Exercise

    Disclaimer: though I avoid politics in my blog and am currently avoiding Facebook, I am going to be lightly political here today.

    About the time the university opened in the adjacent town, the town established some safely protocols to try to help protect both the students and the full time town folk. Because of the protocols established by the university, making dining on campus more time consuming and perhaps more dangerous, many more students are eating in town, thus putting them on the town sidewalks. One of the new regulations was to post signage throughout town and even two electronic signs mandating mask wearing while on downtown sidewalks and no group gatherings of more than about 10 people.

    At the time these were posted, when we elected to walk the old rail grade that runs from near the public library over into the next town, we commented to each other that we wished they had included the signage on that paved trail as well. Some sections of it are widely used. As seniors, but knowing that exercise and fresh air are important, we have been confining most of our walks to the pond in the state forest nearer our house, always masked or with mask in hand to put on if there are other people walking, jogging, or fishing there.

    A couple of weeks ago, smaller, modified versions of the sign above appeared on the trail, much to our delight, but to our dismay, mostly ignored. There are two versions of the signage text, as below:

    and one with two masked figures with a line between them labelled 6′.

    Today we were in town and decided to walk the Huckleberry trail. Social media and the news began labeling entitled white women as “Karens.” While walking today with few masked individuals passing us, many joggers, several bicycles, one skateboard all unmasked, I jokingly said to hubby that I was going to start calling unmasked “entitled” folks “Donalds.” Do you think we can make it as viral as “Karens”?

    Note: I will be remotely sharing my posts to Facebook, but I am not viewing Facebook at this time to see reactions or comments posted there. As a blogger, I would love to see your comments below.

  • Autumn is falling

    Though the temperature today was more like mild summer, when we went on our walk, the evidence of autumn is everywhere.

    A cluster of red leaves from a broken oak branch amid the fallen leaves on the trail.

    The wood ferns are all browning.

    Leaves littering the path, geese resting in the pond before continuing their southward journey. Usually several spend the winter at the pond.

    At home, the trees are turning and one young maple has already dropped it’s leaves.

    The ridge line we see coming from town is the last to green up in the spring and the first to begin yellowing in the autumn. Soon the woods will be bare and the wildlife can be seen staying away from the open fields and in the edge of the woods. The woods to our north east have thinned enough to begin seeing our nearest neighbor’s house that can only be seen from our house in winter.

    The temperatures will fall back after tomorrow to more fall like weather and we will get rain from Delta on the weekend. The frost that was predicted disappeared and I see no chance for at least 2 weeks.

  • Old things, Newer things

    Not antiques, but old none the less. We have two, by today’s standards, ancient cars. Mine is 16, hubby’s is 13 and both have well over 200,000 miles on them. His has been showing signs of it’s demise. It is losing oil, the check engine light stays on because of a bad catalytic converter, the car has several, the low tire pressure light stays on because all of the sensors were removed with a tire replacement several years ago. We keep the oil changed, get yearly inspections, make sure the brakes and tires are good.

    Yesterday we drove two towns over, only about 20 miles to get drive thru Chick-fil-A for lunch. During the pandemic with the dining room closed, they have quite a system set up at busy times, with two drive thru lanes merging into one then separating again into two pick up lines. A path to get around to the queue to get into a drive thru line, sections set aside for app ordered pre orders and another for third party pick ups. After we got our food, we drove over to the shopping center parking lot to eat, put down our windows for air and had lunch. After we were finished, the car would not start. Daughter lives within shouting distance, but she is working from home with two kids getting virtual education, so we didn’t want to call her unless necessary. We have AAA and called them. We were told it would be about 64 minutes, that we would get three text messages, the first letting us know that the service order had been entered, the second that it had been assigned, and the third that the service was in route. Soon after the first text, a couple near our age in a pickup offered to jump us, but we declined. About 45 minutes into the wait, another car offered help and at this point, we figured we had waited that long, we would just wait. The hour came and went, no second text. A third person offered a jump and we took her up on it, got the car started, thanked her, called AAA back to let them know that we got tired of waiting and got help. The car though running, in neutral was racing then almost stalling. When driving it would surge and resume normal speed. Instead of going straight to get a new battery, we elected to get home, pick up my car and take the ailing one directly to our local repair place. If the dead battery just messed with the computer and it can be reset, if a battery is all it needs, we will have it fixed. If there are bigger issues, it is difficult to justify the money to repair a 13 year old car with 243,000 miles on it. We have been anticipating this, dreading the thought that at our ages and during a pandemic, we might have to purchase a new car and have car payments. For now, we will continue to drive the older one and hope it gets us through to spring.

    Maybe, just maybe, this will be a less expensive repair and we can continue to get a bit more use out of it. As Son 1 says, “they are both in the bonus round.”

    On a brighter note, since I don’t have an electric dehydrator to dry herbs and peppers, this is my solar dehydrator.

    It works quite well for herbs and peppers, but I can’t do tomatoes. Maybe next year I will try the oven method with some of the Amish paste tomatoes, or if I can get a few pounds at the Farmers’ Market this weekend, maybe I will try it this year.

    I think the salad mix needs thinning. Tonight, we will enjoy truly fresh salad and a few of the healthier plants will go in a window garden to harvest from until they get tall and bitter.

    I moved into our home 14 years ago last month, while hubby was still working toward his retirement across the state. I had been here for 15 months in various rentals during the construction. Some of the later temporary housing was sharing space with Son 1 and his family, who moved in here with me as they finished the inside of the house. One of the shared spaces was a sublet from friends of theirs who had purchased a home with about a month left on their lease. When they left, they abandoned a very large Jade plant that ended up here. Each winter it came in to sit out the cold indoors and each summer it lived on the west end of the north facing front porch. The pot it was in was 18-20″ in diameter and the plant so large it didn’t fit through the front door without breaking off a few smaller branches and so heavy it had to be on a roller for me to move it in and out. With daughter and her family living with us for a couple of years, toddler and young elementary school age, their dog and our two, there just wasn’t enough room for the additional activity, so I advertised the plant on Craigslist and a young man wanted it. In the process of moving it out for him to pick up, a thumb sized branch broke off and I told him I was keeping the branch. It was potted up and survived. Though it is no where near as large as the parent plant, here it is today, again getting too big for the convenient sunny winter spots in the house, especially since the doors in these photos are where the big pup, our aging Mastiff spends most of his days in “his sunny spot.”

  • Sunday communing with nature

    Sundays are stay safe at home days, days to enjoy the outdoors while hubby watches football, days to get some outdoor tasks done, then prepare homemade Mexican dinner. Yet, Sundays are difficult for me as they have been at other times in the past. Sundays are family day, but for 4 years in college, it was a day to be homesick, no classes or other activities to distract me. As a young single woman, weekends were often backpacking trips with friends, and Sunday was the day we walked out and drove home to face another work week. As an older adult, a few weekends a year were spent with friends at fiber retreats, and Sunday was the day we packed up, hugged goodbye for months and drove home. I miss my kids and my grandkids. I miss my friends. I miss hugs and socialization.

    To try to thwart the low feelings, I spend Sunday outdoors as much as possible. After pups and breakfast come taking care of the hens. They are a motley looking crew right now in the midst of molt so the coop, run, and surrounding yard are dusted with feathers, black ones, red ones, brown ones, feathers everywhere. Normally, it is just letting them out, making sure they have food and water. But yesterday, the coop was cleaned for the start of cold weather. When weather gets cold enough to freeze the water outside the coop, it is important they have water inside the coop, usually a bucket that will be dumped and refilled daily, eventually having to break the ice out of it each day. Because of the molt, there are very few eggs, only 1 in the past 4 days.

    After the games began at 1, I brought out the riding the mower out set a notch lower than last week and mowed the front, sides, and back of the house. The orchard, pine trees, and well head areas are still growing, mostly too high to mow with the riding mower at this point.

    The Dogwood near house is not a native variety, the native ones have small red berries this time of year. The one near the house has a larger knobby berry that looks like a big firm raspberry.

    The deer have stripped the new leaves from the grape vine again. Now that they have found it, it really is vital to put a hot wire around it next year if there are to be any grapes to harvest. A task to be done on another day.

    Night before last night I finished spinning the second color of the Shenandoah braid and yesterday morning finished the sample that came with the new spindle. I have already spun 56 2/3 grams of fiber this month and my first update photo shown below was posted. I should put it aside and work on the knits if they are going to get done. Soon being outdoors will be less enticing and fewer outdoor jobs to do and more knitting will be done, I did get several inches done on the sweater after dark.

    Since it was a nice day, I attempted to burn the asparagus tops, the pulled tomato plants, and the dead sunflowers. Though it started nicely, it quickly went out, I guess it is still too green. Another attempt will be made after they have had a couple more weeks to dry or we get a real frost. This rids the asparagus patch of beetles and reduces the weeds as well as getting rid of the garden waste that doesn’t break down into compost for years unless shredded and we have no shredder.

    A lady bug on the pepper plant, but almost no spots.

    More peppers, more tomatillos brought in, but the tomatillo plants really seem to have taken the worst hit with the frost. There are no new blossoms and only a couple dozen small fruits. The forecast shows no chance of frost again for at least 10 days. The garden will continue to grow and produce.

    We ended a beautiful, busy weekend with an evening walk around the pond a couple of times. A flock of geese noisily circled the pond a few times and two landed for the night. Three ducks were perched on a log out in the water.

    It was near dark by the time we got out. It is amazing how quickly it gets dark this time of year. In spite of all the day’s activities, I am sad that it couldn’t be spent with family, a visit to one our sons and their families, or a meal or hike with our daughter and hers.

    Stay safe out there. Be responsible, I want family time again.

  • The Fog Cleared, the Garden Mostly Survived

    The fog finally cleared yesterday and after the run to the natural foods store for supplies, a garden venture was braved. There is evidence we received a light frost, about a week to 10 days before average, the tops of the Tomatillos are burned and the edges of the western most Thai pepper show some damage, but for the most part, I think we have a little more time. Peppers were picked as well as Tomatillos. The stink bugs seem to love the Tomatillos and many are damaged when I pick them, some so damaged they never fully develop. If the damage is light, I just cut it out before blanching them. If it is heavy, the fruit goes to the hens and as I toss them from 2/3 across the garden some miss. They will be next year’s volunteers. I probably won’t have to plant or buy Tomatillo plants next year. The three dill plants that didn’t come up forever were tucked under and between the Ground Cherries and the bush beans and they survived last night. Not wanting to risk losing them, they were cut and are drying in three small vented brown bags.

    The mail brought next year’s seed garlic. The garlic I ordered and some I purchased from a vendor at the Farmer’s Market a few weeks ago will be planted in early November and covered with straw to become next year’s garlic crop.

    It also brought the spindle I purchased at the Yarn Tools shop update early this week. This one appealed to me because it is Honduran Rosewood and one of my favorite excursions from our 40th Anniversary cruise was in the Honduras, where we rode horses on the beach and into the ocean around a small island and ate soft tacos in a beachside hut before returning to the ship.

    Though the spindle on the left and the new one in the center are both Jenkin’s Finches, the weights are significantly different. The Rosewood one is more than 5 grams heavier and only less than half a gram lighter than it’s much larger cousin, the Aegean on the right. I was unfortunate or fortunate on how you look at it with the lottery. My name wasn’t drawn, so another spindle purchase this week didn’t happen. The fortunate is that I didn’t really need another, nor did it warrant spending the money.

    The lack of a Farmer’s Market run and the cooler day inspired me to return to bread baking. It took a break during the hot weather and I would just buy a loaf of sour dough bread at the Farmer’s Market. Since I had pizza on the menu for the night and had to let the flours come to room temperature anyway, I mixed up a batch of yeast raised herb and onion bread and one of plain sandwich bread along with the pizza dough. It looks great and smells wonderful, but I was too full from pizza when it came out of the oven to even think about trying it.

    We haven’t seen any Hummingbirds in over a week. They usually stick around until mid October, but not this year. The feeders were brought in and washed. Once thoroughly dry they will be stored away until mid to late April next spring.

    All in all, it was a delightful, busy fall day. The hunters apparently were successful in the fog from their text as they left late in the morning. No hunting is allowed on Sundays unless it is on your own land and we neither hunt nor eat game meat, so the deer are safe today.

    Last evening after the hunters were gone.

  • Don’t trust the forecast

    All week we were being threatened with potential frost last night and I had plans to cover parts of the garden. Yesterday, the forecast changed and it looked like the night time temperatures were going to stay above 40, so I didn’t cover anything except the fig is wrapped around the sides with doubled heavy mil plastic. When I got up this morning, the outdoor thermometer indicated it went down to 37 f and the weather app says there was frost warning until 9 a.m. It is so foggy outside that when I went over to feed and release the chickens, I couldn’t even see the garden. It is still densely foggy. If the sun comes out later, I will check for damage, possibly having to harvest the remaining peppers to oven dry. If the tomatillos took a hit, I will pick whatever has any size, and roast them to make a roasted salsa, or toss them in a pot with spices for another few jars of simmer sauce. I should have followed through on my original plan to cover it. Oh well, if it is the end of the season, so be it. I’m sure the peas will be fine and maybe we will still get a small fall harvest of them.

    Today begins bow hunting season for deer. The two young men who sought permission to use our low field are down there in the thick fog. I can’t imagine they could see anything. It was thick enough that a deer could forage under their stand and they wouldn’t see it. Now, after 10 a.m., it is just beginning to thin enough to even see that field from the house.

    I guess this wasn’t the ideal first day of hunting weather. Having them on the property with bows requires that I have to take the pups out individually on leashes.

    I received notification that the spindle I got in the Yarn Tools shop update earlier in the week will be delivered today, and I sit here waiting for the random drawing from their shop to see if I earned the right to purchase one of the ones I picked from the lottery. They are on the west coast, so the posting won’t occur until noon or after here in the east.

    We chose not to go to the Farmer’s Market in the cold fog this morning. Later today or tomorrow, I will venture to the Eats, the natural foods store for a little produce, local cheese and local(ish) tortillas (they are made in Virginia a couple of hours from here).

    After a few restless, sleepless nights recently and feelings of stress over the daily onslaught of bad news, I concluded that I had slipped back into a habit of too much caffeine. My single morning mug of coffee had risen to two or three. Each day I was making a pot of tea that I drank iced though out the day. This required me to take drastic measures and enduring a caffeine withdrawal headache for a couple of days, but I am limiting myself to 1 mug of coffee and not making a pot of tea that is so easy to just pour and drink. If I want tea, I must brew a single cup and enjoy it hot. For other hydration and thirst, I am drinking our well water, which I find tastes good. With dinner, I add a splash of pomegranate juice to the water. I have slept better the past few nights and feel less stressed.

    Another 11 grams of the braid I am spinning was spun yesterday and a few grams of Jacob on my “car” spindle, though not in the car. I really like the way this part of the braid matches the spindle’s colors. I am spinning it in the gradient, and will ply it that way, but don’t know what it will become. I also spun nearly a bobbin full of a much heavier yarn to be plied with another singles hopefully to be Aran or heavier weight to knit historic style hats.

    The fog is finally lifting, I think I will go check on the night’s damage to the garden.

    Stay safe out there.

  • Fiber Intervention

    I don’t need to buy fiber for years. In the past two weeks, I bought Shetland from a friend who is thinning her fiber out, it is about a pound and a half, traded some fiber for some Moorit Shetland, bought the Shenandoah braid and the two 4 ounce bumps of Coopworth from vendor friends at the Shenandoah Virtual Festival. I still had a 4 ounce braid I had bought a couple months ago from Corgi Hill Farms that I was going to spin this fall. Then there are bags of Jacob that I washed from two raw fleeces that I use when I can do living history, and random bags that need labels, each with a few to 4 ounces. My storage cubes don’t hold it all.

    Some sorting, re bagging, and labelling later, it is mostly contained. Some of those books have been shelf weights for too many years and need to be donated to Friends of the Library or the YMCA Thrift shop. That would give me one more bin for storage as the remaining books could go on another shelf or on top.

    Spinning on the spindles will continue with the pretty fibers, making thin yarns that may someday sell or my arthritis will permit knitting lacy knits. Much of the Shetland, Jacob, Coopworth, and a mystery soft brown fiber will be spun thicker, probably on the wheel with the idea of making Monmouth or Freedom caps and proper fingerless gloves to sell at Living History events. I’m leaning toward only doing historical knits for vending in the future. If some of my finer lacey knits ever sell, I may return to making more of them from the colorful yarns.

    Yesterday, I finished the first color band of my Shenandoah braid, about 18 grams spun. Today I will begin on the browns that match the spindle.

    With the first of October and a concession to a changing season, the fall decorations were brought out for display. There are two rotating fall table cloths that are used instead of the daily woven placemats, followed by two Christmas ones.

    The house was damp mopped to try to reduce the dog hair load, they are shedding like it was summer time, and all the wood furniture was given a good clean and wax with a beeswax based polish. It is so futile because within minutes, there is hair everywhere again.

    Tonight, I will have to cover the ground cherries, peppers, and tomatillos to protect them in case we receive frost. The peas that are finally blooming should be okay and the beans are only setting seed at this point, so they will likely be left uncovered. I have had beans survive light frost in the past with just some leaf edge burn. As the weather chills down, each trip into the house requires brushing off the stink bugs that are gathering trying to find entrance. They are heavy this year and if the winter is mild as currently predicted, they will be worse next year. I wish they had a natural predator here.