Cabin Crafted

Author: Cabincrafted1

  • Emotions and Mistrust

    The current political climate in our country is disturbing and each incident seems to make it worse instead of improving the situation. I’m not just referring to right vs left, GOP vs Democrats, but anti-science vs science, masks vs non-masks, whether a protest is a protest or a riot and how many days of protesting is effective or becomes fuel for bad behavior not necessarily promulgated by the protesters, but then blamed on them.

    I would like to believe that as an educated, free country, that sane discourse could be held to resolve differences, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. My brother sent me a video that was funny, yet disturbing as an interviewer asked questions and when the interviewee answered and then was challenged with factual information would basically say, “I don’t care, my mind is made up,” and they didn’t see the irony in that disparity.

    People are untrusting. I was very disturbed by a news article about a young black man stopped while jogging as a possible suspect in a domestic assault. He was cuffed, held for over an hour, and forcefully put in the back of a police car. And though he wasn’t the perpetrator they were seeking, he was charged with resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer. That situation is so wrong on so many levels. He was asked his name and DOB which he refused to give and by law he didn’t have to, but if he had, the situation may have ended very differently as they had the name of the man whom they were seeking. The mistrust of police and even each other has caused a lack of common sense.

    When we were kids, our house was never locked except for when we went on vacation. You trusted your neighbors. Cars were not locked in parking lots, there was no need. Now you wouldn’t think of not locking your car or your house, you trust no one.

    I go no where without identification on me. It is unlikely I would be stopped and challenged, but who knows in these times. What used to feel like a free country is feeling less free and are we tearing ourselves apart by our actions and divisions. In these times, I think more and more about my Dad. He was on a Peacekeeping task force. He would be so disturbed and distraught by our current times. Our grandchildren are not going to grow up in the same environment as the one I grew up in. We saw change happening and there were those that resisted, but it looked for years like it was change for the better and was being accepted, but now I question whether the resisting factions were just being silent and have become vocal and worse.

    We are all the same on the inside, regardless of our color, gender, religion or lack of on the outside. Young children seem to recognize this until they are taught differently by their elders. Maybe we should be learning from them, not teaching them.

  • Safe Shopping

    Except for two quick stops at the fabric store for mask fabric, I haven’t been in a big box store since March. After the spread seemed minimal in our region, I did begin going back to the grocer for the items I can’t get curbside at our local natural foods store, but that was mainly because the grocer had few curbside slots and I could never get one. Now the students are back in town and though there are signs on every building door, sandwich board signs on the sidewalks, and flashing electric message signs at both ends of “downtown” reminding students and year round residents to wear masks and practice social distancing, there are far too many who don’t. Most everyone in the grocer is wearing a mask, but often improperly or putting it on only to go through check out, or wearing a face shield without a mask, so we did a major non perishable run early in the week and will try to get curbside delivery slots in the future when we need to shop again, now that they have more of them.

    The safer shopping sites are the local natural foods store and though I try to use their curbside delivery as much as possible, I have gone in the store a few times during slow hours. To help reduce the virus spread, you have to get an employee to fill any bulk item and herb/spice items you need, so they prefer pre-ordering, even if you elect to go in the store to pick up the items. I feel they are still a “safe” place. Right after the stay at home order was put in place, the Farmer’s Market closed for a while, but with some of the phases lifted, they are open and trying to control the volume in the market at one time. They have put crowd barrier fencing around the market and have someone who monitors the exits and entrance to keep the number of people inside at or below 50 customers plus the vendors. It is an outdoor market. There are chalk arrows drawn to try to direct traffic and the first hour is for pick up of pre-orders only. A couple of the vendors that I shop don’t have pre-order option that I have found and sometimes I’m not sure what I want until I see what is available on their signboard or in their bins to make my decision. As a result, I can’t use the early hour and try to get there just as it ends. I have suggested a senior citizen’s hour, or to let those of us who are over 70 to shop during the pre-order pick up hour, because if you pre-order, your items are separated and held aside for you so it doesn’t really matter when you go. This morning, in spite of it raining from Laura passing through, there was already a line of about a dozen people waiting to enter when we got there. I stood in the light rain in my raincoat and waited my turn. Once inside, there were too many people not heeding the arrows and walking between stands or around them, going out the entrance, and just standing in the walk through aisles, not walking on through. It no longer felt safe to me. I don’t want to lose that option, but I may have to either let it go or use only the pre-order and not shop the vendors that don’t do it.

    As we were driving back out of town, there were huge groups of students, standing close together, some without masks, waiting to get in some of the restaurants that serve breakfast. Hubby and I have a bet on how long it will be before the University has to go back to online classes only and the local public schools shut their doors and become virtual again. We wonder if the opening of schools across the state will throw us back to a Phase 1 lock down.

    I did treat myself to a bouquet of fresh flowers along with my veggies, cheese, butter, and sausage.

  • Small batches

    Because we are senior citizens and just the two of us in the household, the garden is planned to provide for us and not a lot of extra. But providing for us includes not just eating fresh food, but freezing some vegetables and canning others. Toward this goal, I discovered Marisa McClellan’s books on canning in small batches. Typically, most of the canning I do is done in pints and half pints and since we can’t eat a dozen each of several different jams and jellies, her recipes that make only a few half pint jars each are perfect and provide variety.

    The exception is usually pasta and pizza sauces. Generally I save tomatoes until there are enough for a full pot, but it usually still canned in pints. Yes, I did use quarts a few days ago when I thawed and canned the pints that were in the freezer, but that is rare. I will use some quarts for tomatillos or jalapenos that go to Son 1, but rarely for our pantry shelves.

    This morning, I noticed that the tomatoes that I was gathering on the kitchen window sill needed to be used and was faced with just freezing them, peeling and coring them and then freezing them, or just going ahead and making a batch of something that could be canned. It was just about 2 1/2 pounds of peeled, cored, and diced tomatoes, so not but about a quart’s worth. I decided that I would just make a small batch of pasta sauce. I had used the pint that was in the freezer, the one that evolves when I use less than a pint or make a batch that is more than the jars ready to can, but not enough for another jar. When the freezer jar is full, it is pretty layers of leftover sauce and then it becomes the next jar to use and is thawed in a saucepan with whatever additions I want to add for that meal.

    The tomatoes cooked down to rough sauce consistency, made two pints with a new layer to add to last night’s leftover. The biggest stock pot with a silicone pad in the bottom instead of the deep steamer is tall enough for pint jars, though it only holds 4 or 5 safely. The big canner pot takes so long to heat up it isn’t worth using for only a couple pints or half pints. They were canned, just two lonely pints, but the satisfying pop that signaled they sealed means two more for the pantry shelf while I wait for more tomatoes to ripen.

    I guess you can call me a southern woman, I was born and raised in Virginia. I am southern enough for some traditional foods like black eyed peas, collards, and grits, but not southern enough for corn bread without a little sugar in the batter, I detest overcooked vegetables with fat back in the pot, and I can’t tolerate sweet tea. One traditional food I do like, but rarely get is fried green tomatoes. This morning as I was picking a couple more tomatoes to add to the sauce that I was prepping, I plucked a medium sized green tomato and made myself 4 slices of fried green tomato with my breakfast.

    I still have not received a shipping notice for the reuseable canning lids, but a friend offered me a box which I declined because of having just bought the flat of 4 ounce jars the same day, but then in today’s mail, an angel sent me 4 dozen brand new regular mouth canning lids. This angel is my SIL, she is an avid canner, far more canning than I do. There was the sweetest note saying she noted back in March that lids and jars were hard to come by, started a quest that found them on Amazon at a price gouging price, then landed a windfall. As she was finishing up about 300 jars of her canning, she shared some of hers with me. I now have enough to finish any canning I will get done this season. I know she must read this blog or she wouldn’t have known my need, so thank you, you are the sweetest.

  • Winding down

    Another month is drawing to an end. As the month has progress, so has my spinning for the monthly Jenkins spindle challenge. The challenge only requires 25 grams, only slightly more than 3/4 ounce to be spun in the month. I have spun along, spinning several samples that I had, they are good to carry in the car with my tiniest spindle; I worked on some Tunis roving that I purchased that is a nice blue with variation from light to darker; and I worked on a 5 ounce braid of Shetland blended with Bombyx in a color blend called Elderberry. That fiber is so smooth and soft and spins very fine.

    During the month, you post 4 check in photos of your progress, then a final photo taken on a scale to show how much you spun. I stretched out my check ins this month, posting my 4th and my scale today. I had spun about half of the braid of Elderberry and I wanted to ply it.

    My total for the month was 129.54 grams, the ball of Shetland/Bombyx has a small doggie tennis ball wrapped inside that weighs 20.8 grams, so it has to be subtracted from the total on the scale.

    After lunch, I started plying that ball on my wheel, figuring it would wait until next month when I finished the braid to fill the bobbin. I was so wrong. I barely got it all on the bobbin, then wound it off on the Niddy Noddy to measure how many yard it made. As I said, it is only about half of the braid. The finished yarn was 24 WPI, very fine, the skein is under 2 ounces and there are 489 yards in the skein.

    It is gorgeous and I still have 2 1/2 ounces left to spin. I am going to end up with over 1000 yards of this yarn. And the kicker is, I don’t knit with lace weight yarn. I guess when the rest is spun, the skeins will go in my shop. It will take me all of next month to finish spinning that braid.

    The morning harvest had lots of beans, a few peppers, 1 tomato, 2 cucumbers. As I was doing dinner prep, I blanched and froze two more gallon bags of beans, plus cooked some to go with our dinner and set aside a bag to take to daughter tomorrow. The third planting of beans are blooming, but beans aren’t forming quite yet, so we will have beans in the freezer and lots more to enjoy.

    The morning began foggy. It is always interesting to look out the back and not see the next ridge and then later, it is visible again.

    Stay safe everyone.

  • Work on the Mountain

    When we built our house, we ran our power line 2/10 mile underground from the road to the transformer to the meter. We didn’t want to look at the line coming down our driveway or have poles in our view. But that is not the norm here in rural, rocky, mountainous land. For the past two years, the power company has hired a contractor to cut down trees anywhere near the power lines. They come in, cut a wide path, leaving branches, limbs, and tree trunks where they fell. It may help to reduce power outages, but it has increased wildfire risk. It has been unseasonably wet this year, so hopefully we are not threatened. Since we have lived here, the power goes out periodically, but usually only for a few hours at a time. After a Derocho wind in 2012, it stayed out for 42 hours, and a winter or two after that, it was out for 7 days after an ice storm. We hauled water from the catchment system. Once we could get off the mountain, we hauled ice when we could get it to try to keep the freezer cold enough to not spoil, we grilled, cooked on the top of the wood stove, kept fires burning in the wood stove and the fireplace, wore lots of clothes, and coped. After a week, we booked a hotel room for a day, took all our laundry down, got hot showers, and while hubby tried to watch a Sunday football game on a very poor TV connection, I went to the laundromat. We got a hot meal not cooked on the grill, camp stove, or wood stove, and started home as it was getting dark. To our amazement, as we cleared the gap and could see our mountain, we saw lights scattered up the mountainside, the homes had electricity again.

    One of the power line cuts near us.

    When our house was being built, before the power line was laid by son and DIL for the power company to hook up, we had a small gas generator they used for power tools. After the week without power, I tried to start it, but it wouldn’t start, so we took it to the repair place and were told it wasn’t repairable, at least not for what a new one would cost us, but we didn’t purchase one then. We should have.

    The hurricane that is about to slam Louisiana and Texas tonight will make it’s way here still with wind and rain, certainly not anything like what they will endure. My thoughts are with those folks who have lost or had their homes damaged before as they face this again. I hope it isn’t another Katrina for them. But, we will have wind and rain and possible outages. Maybe the destruction around the power lines will reduce the likelihood.

    At any rate, we drove to town yesterday and the grocer did not have canning lids alone, but I was able to purchase a flat of a dozen 4 ounce jars with new lids. I came home, thawed the pints of pasta sauce and reboiled it while the big canner heated up and canned it in quart jars to save lids, so my pasta sauce is safe from an outage. Then I went outside to the garden and picked almost a dozen more tomatoes that are sitting in the kitchen window waiting to see if enough will ripen to make another batch before they have to be frozen. I won’t can green beans or peas as I don’t like the texture of overcooked vegetables, so I will just make sure that the freezer is packed densely toward the bottom, not in the hanging baskets and toss a couple of big bags of ice in there too and hope that if we lose power, it isn’t for long enough to spoil the meats and frozen vegetables in there. The brined and fermented pickles and peppers in the refrigerator will be fine. Hopefully the wind won’t be strong enough to knock down the tomatoes. We had a brief, maybe 90 minutes worth of strong wind and some rain with thunderstorms that dropped south last night. It tipped over a large jade plant on the porch, blew a cushion off a chair, but no other damage.

    Today’s walk was a throw back walk. Fifteen years ago, we stayed at Mountain Lake Lodge about 4.5 miles farther up the road off which we live, with Son 1, DIL, and 9 week old Grandson 1. The lake was full, Son 1 and DIL dove off the pier after a canoe ride across the lake and around the huge rocks at the end of the lake. The lake is only a pond now with no swimming, fishing, or boating allowed. We started up in the woods and walked down the mountain to the Lodge parking, down to the pier that is now on dry land with young trees growing up, then down a path through what used to be the lake bottom to a temporary floating dock they installed when the lake started losing water. It too is on dry land now. From there, we did a steep uphill back to the trail that lead to where we parked our car. The walk was about the same length as the walk we do in town, but it was cooler, less foot traffic, and more intense in elevation changes. A very pleasant time.

    The original pier.
    The temporary no longer floating pier. Above hubby’s head and slightly left across what remains of the lake are the rocks we canoed around on that trip.
    A little garter snake by the trail.
    A ferny woodland.

  • And the shelves fill

    Yesterday’s tomatoes, became today’s pizza sauce. I still don’t have the lids I ordered, still can’t purchase anything but wide mouth ones locally, but I grabbed the 8 regular mouth ones I found on new jars in the basement and made pizza sauce. I tripled the recipe which says it makes 2 half pint jars, but from experience, I know it makes more than that, so I put 8 half pint jars in the biggest stockpot with the strainer basket, that is all that will fit and all the lids I had. It was set to boil to sterilize the jars and later can them and I poured boiling water over the scored and cored tomatoes in two batches. Once one batch was peeled, cored, and diced, the seasoning was added and it started cooking down as I added the second batch of diced tomatoes. When it is a rough sauce, thick enough for pizza, it is ladled into the jars, sealed, and put in the water bath to can.

    The sauce filled the 8 jars and there was a pint left, so it was put in a wide mouth pint with a new lid and it will go in the freezer with the pasta sauce, peas, and beans.

    I will make pasta sauce from the remaining tomatoes that are harvested this season, there were several more turning pink that I saw when I went out to let the hens out this morning.

    As I write this, I hear the satisfying pop of sealing lids on the counter in the kitchen. There will be 15 half pint jars on the shelves and the pint in the freezer. With the quarter pint that went into the freezer with the last batch, that is more than enough for a pizza a week for the next year.

    The Tomatillos from yesterday, though enough for a batch of sauce, were frozen until I get more lids. Son 1 likes the Tomatillo/Jalapeno sauce as green salsa, so I will probably can it for him to use, the first batch will provide enough for my cooking needs. As the Tomatillos are producing prolifically now and will until a frost, I will probably make a batch of Tomatillo Pepper jam which is a good substitute for a barbeque glaze or as a condiment on a Charcuterie plate. Then any more after that will just be frozen for soup or canned halves in quart jars for the same purpose. They can be added to chili or pozole.

    Yesterday morning, I took stock of the dry goods in the house, consolidated jars, washed a dishwasher full of dusty jars, and made a list of pastas, soups, rice, and cereals that can be bought in larger quantities and stored so that we will have to make fewer trips to town if Covid increases here or if we have a bad winter. We will make a large grocery run this week and then keep a close eye on the daily reports on both the virus and the weather. I worry a bit that so much has been frozen with the hurricane that is about to slam Texas or Louisiana with current tracking showing it may turn east after landfall and hit us with some wind and rain next week. We don’t have a generator to keep the freezer going. If I were to plan this house again, the water catchment system that was to be used to water livestock we never got, would be exchanged for a whole house generator that would at least keep the freezer, refrigerator, and well pump going during power outages. Though I don’t like canned vegetables, if I could get lids, the pasta sauce in the freezer could be thawed, boiled, and canned. First we couldn’t get toilet paper, flour, and yeast. Now you can’t get canning lids. I have never canned pasta sauce in wide mouth jars, and usually use pints, but I might can it in wide mouth pints, and if I can get my hands on a dozen regular mouth lids, I could do quarts, I have plenty of jars.

    The garden continues to provide. Last night I opened a jar of last year’s applesauce and noted it was canned on 9/19/2019, so it is only a few short weeks until the fruit on the trees is ready to harvest and make into fruit sauces and jams.

  • Surprises in the Garden

    Going out to let the hens out this morning, I spotted a couple of red tomatoes. Just before starting dinner prep, I took a basket out to gather them. Well it was more than a couple, and the one cucumber I saw yesterday must have multiplied overnight, some of the tomatillos were showing drying husks, so I checked them out too. Well, the couple of tomatoes, ended up this:

    Since there were already 3 cucumbers in the house, I decided that yet another half gallon of pickles were started to ferment.

    Earlier today we went in to make a bank deposit and take a walk on the old railgrade, these signs were spaced down the sidewalk in town.

    We were hoping they also had them on the Huckleberry Trail, but nope. With the students back in town, there were too many people, too few masks.

    Face to face classes began today at the University and our county began face to face school also today. We fear the increase in cases that our region has seen lately will mushroom and our social isolation will again become more total again, eliminating drive through food, only groceries from curbside delivery, walks on our road only.

  • Sunday Morning Communing in the Garden

    In the still cool morning, fog lingering in the hollows, I headed to the garden with a basket. I had been watching a couple of tomatoes for a few days and could see the beans needed harvesting again. The cucumbers are still blooming though the harvest of them has slowed. The dill that I planted quite a while ago did not show in the garden. While weeding, I found two young dill plants. If they mature enough, I will dry it for later use. The two large baskets of basil gathered early in the week are drying nicely. The corn was a complete bust and there are no pumpkins this year. The tomatillos are full of blooms, the Thai peppers are beginning to turn red. There are three Ground Cherry plants, there may be some fruit from them before frost.

    I realized that I had duplicates of some herbs and spices because the rack I built almost two decades ago, just isn’t large enough for all of them.

    The overflow was in a deep disorganized drawer, so yesterday, the drawers were cleaned out, wiped down and reorganized to use a shallower drawer with the bottles labelled. A friend posted on Instagram, Everything but a bagel seasoning she had purchased and upon my comment on it, she bought me a bottle. The ingredients were straight forward and easy to obtain, so I made up a batch to refill the shaker bottle and a small jar. I also gave the friend a bag of it and she asked for the recipe.

    The garden provided a basket of tomatoes, a cucumber, a dozen jalapenos, enough basil for pesto, and lots of beans. So many that they overflowed the basket so I used my head, err hat to provide more space to gather produce.

    One of the pepper plants was adorned with a colorful ladybug, and the basil with a little emerald green beetle about the same size.

    Two quarter pints made without cheese to freeze, two with cheese so I could share with daughter along with a bag of beans. As her kids weren’t home at the time we went by, I got to see granddaughter’s garden that I helped plan last spring. I took enough bean seed for them to do a fall planting, we should still have enough days for them to get a harvest. Daughter showed me the plan they have to double it’s size this fall. I love that grand daughter, her Mom, and brother are having success and enjoying growing and preserving their own food.

    The bag of beans I kept will be blanched for the freezer and some for dinner tonight. The jalapenos were quick brined and added to the other 3 quarts that had already been done; the fresh basil washed and made into pesto with some of garlic I grew, some pine nuts that I toasted in a skillet; the tomatoes will become pizza sauce soon. As the Thai peppers continue to ripen red, they will be strung to dry for cooking and for crushed red peppers.

    The reuseable canning lids are not a quick ship, but hopefully will arrive before I need them. I did find 8 regular mouth lids that are new, so enough to can a batch of pizza sauce. Tomatillos will be gathered and frozen until there are enough to make more salsa, simmer sauce, or tomatillo jalapeno jam. And I am still watching the grapes, hoping for enough to make a batch of grape jelly. I never picked enough wild berries to make jam. The hay guys don’t get as close to the patches as I do when I am bush hogging, so getting to the patches required going through waist high weeds and I didn’t want to deal with the ticks.

    The shelves and freezer are filling, the fall peas are sprouted and will soon need trellises, still no carrots up, the spinach is sprouting and will be transplanted when they are larger. The garden has been successful and easier to care for this year, but I am still dealing with weeds in the paths, probably because of the old hay as mulch, but fairly easy to pull. The citric acid weed killer is worthless and smells bad, so I just spend some time each time I go out pulling them and adding them to the compost pile.

    The flowers are faded, the season of daylilies, iris, and coreopsis over. There are still zinneas and calendula. The deck pots were not good flower choices this year and have never looked good. The trees are not changing colors yet, except for Tree of Heaven, the invasive weed tree, but the leaves are getting dull and faded. I don’t know if all the rain will make for a colorful Autumn or not.

  • Another disappointment

    Though this one was somewhat expected. Since his retirement, with our children grown, hubby decided he wanted to take up motorcycle riding. He scheduled the state required safety class. The day before the class, we were on a bicycle ride after having had his bicycle serviced at the local bike shop and on the Huckleberry Trail where we often walk, there is a hill with a turn at the bottom. On the way back to the car, so going downhill, he had an accident that later appeared to have been the result of a serious miss adjustment of his brakes. He ended up breaking his left humerus very close to his shoulder. We were able, under the circumstances to cancel the class and they even gave him a refund. About a year later, two months after his 70th birthday, he signed up for the class again, stayed off the bicycle and successfully completed the class on a small Honda motorcycle. After the class, he located a similar used Honda and we bought it.

    Now you need to understand that we live in the mountains, two miles up a macadam road, two tenths of a mile down a gravel road, and another two tenths of a mile down a gravel driveway, so not the flat parking lot that he took the class on. The motorcycle was picked up on a rented trailer and unloaded at home. He learned to deal with the gravel, and the twisty mountain roads and would disappear for hours, Zen riding as he put it, no destination in mind, sometimes, not even knowing where he was. His exploration lead him to places that we later visited in the car, sometimes looking for new adventures for him.

    After about 6 months, he sold the Honda and got the Harley Davidson he really wanted and rode it over a very mountainous rural road the hour plus home. Going out Zen riding was his pleasure. Though I didn’t like to be a passenger, it was something I supported as it made him very happy. He even rode it to Florida one summer to visit our daughter when she lived there, with Grandson 1 and me as his support vehicle.

    Two years ago, riding became uncomfortable, causing neck and back pain and he was only able to ride for very short periods of time, then mostly not at all. Last week, the Harley was past due on state inspection and in need of annual servicing as well as having a mirror repaired, so he rode it to the city. The mirror held up the return until a call yesterday that it was ready, but it was raining. This morning, we rode to the city to either pick it up, or sadly for him, to sell it to the dealer, a decision he had a hard time coming to. The dealer bought his bike, the end of an era for him. He is understandably sad this afternoon.

    Leading a ride at the local rally.

  • Disappointments and Silver Linings

    Each year in the late summer, early fall, I attend a fiber retreat. One of the ladies I met at the one I had attended for several years decided to organize one that some of her fiber friends nearer to their home might attend and I started going to that one. The first one I attended was at Roan Mountain, TN and went there for several years. Last year the event moved to a better overall venue at Black Mountain, NC. This event is a highlight of my year, usually the first event of the season at which I also vend in addition to being a participant. I had decided that this would probably be the swan song of me vending at events. This year the event was going to return to Black Mountain and was moved a bit earlier to try to avoid some of the school and church groups that attend events at the same facility. That meant that I would have left home yesterday for the event, yesterday was hubby’s birthday. He was okay with that. The plan was for me to make his favorite meal, a homemade Mexican feast the evening before, kiss him goodbye around lunchtime yesterday and head southwest for the weekend. Like so many other events, this one was wisely cancelled. It was a disappointment, but it meant I would be home for hubby’s birthday.

    Because of very limited being in public, I didn’t get him a card, but I had ordered a new T shirt on the internet and it came in time to hide away until yesterday morning. We went and got carry out lunch at his favorite burger place and the Mexican feast was prepared last night instead. We are at an age where the years are ripping by and are pretty indifferent to celebrating, but it was nice that he got messages from all three kids and several grandkids yesterday in the form of texts and calls.

    The repairs are completed on the Big Bad Harley, but it is too rainy today to drive to the city and have him ride it home. But since I’m not away after all, we can drive over tomorrow.

    To each disappointment there is a silver lining. I am grateful we have each other and have stayed healthy so far.