Cabin Crafted

Author: Cabincrafted1

  • Productive Crafting

    Once masks were recommended, prior to them being required in businesses and other buildings other than your home, I made each of us 2 masks. Then I made daughter one, later another and two for each of her two kiddos. It seems like they are always in the laundry even though we aren’t going out much. This morning, I decided that we should each have two more and I had seen a short video on the construction of the pleated kind that seemed a better design and simpler to make, no pattern required, no elastic, no bias tape. Simple job, but the folding chair at my sewing machine is so uncomfortable.

    They are designed to be tied behind the head, however when I was making the first ones, I bought a dozen cable locks and slide the two ends through which makes a tight fit and does not come untied.

    I have been spinning on the Peacock gradient braid of fiber with my spindles. Last night I finished spinning the first two colors and plied the yarn. I wasn’t happy with the twist, it was too loose, so this morning, I ran it through the wheel a second time and careful not to over twist, put more in. It is 190 yards of very light fingering weight, it is only 47.78 grams.

    When the gradient is finished, it will become the yoke of a sweater for me with the body and sleeves, the gray Shetland that I have been spinning. There is more of it waiting for a turn on the wheel, I got tired of spinning it on spindles.

    The reddish wool that I have been spinning on the tiny spindles is being knit into a lacy edged shawl.

    The garden got a couple of Bull Nosed pepper starts and some basil. There is more basil started from seed and it will be added to the garden as well and some dill started also from seed.

    I had to replant the corn bed. Then it got two heavy rains, so I am hopeful that it will come up this time. The seed is not from the company I generally use, but it is packaged for this year and I didn’t do a germination test first. If it doesn’t come up this time, I will do a germination test.

    The tomatoes are being trained up 7 foot poles as a single leader per plant so suckers are being removed every couple of days, the tomatillos are also being trained up poles, I don’t need them sprawling all over the beds. The peas are heavy with pods, the tomatoes have blooms, the onions have bloom buds on top. The potatoes are getting large. I need to top them again with more soil and then start piling on spoiled hay. Spoiled hay needs to be put on the asparagus bed and soon a containment rope will be needed to contain their ferny tops away from the other beds and the paths.

  • Critters, just because

    The hay is tall, the turkey’s can be heard, but rarely seen unless they come into the mowed area. The deer look like moving brown humps as they graze, also unless they come into the mowed area. These are one of the pair of twins from last spring. They were just outside the garage door as I was going out to lock up the hens last night. The Mom’s are seen singularly now, with new fawns tucked away until they are a bit bigger and will follow her around. I haven’t spotted any new ones yet.

    Yes that is a stink bug on the glass on the inside. Taken through the glass because I knew they would bolt as soon as I opened the door.

    After mowing and gardening, the rain began and I sat on the covered porch and spun on a spindle while the Hummingbirds flitted in and out of the overhang to the feeder. It is easy to spot in the second photo, can you find one in the first?

    The Carolina Wren that I startled away from her nest while watering a hanging plant a couple days ago, had 5 eggs. After enjoying dinner on the porch, I climbed up on a chair to see. Three have hatched and one raised a wobbly head, open mouth, begging for food.

    They will be left alone and I will watch them fledge from the hanging pot in the next 10 days or so.

    There are a lot of rabbits about, I tried to get a picture of one last evening, but I couldn’t zoom enough to really see it.

    I needed a post that wasn’t about today’s issues.

  • Of Things Old

    Old is a number. By number, I am old, but still active, healthy in habit, and fairly strong. I am older than my Mom was when she died by almost a decade. Old here in the mountains seems to be a lower age than I have reached, but I’m from a long lived arm of the family paternally. My great grandmother lived to 94, my grandmother to 88, my father to 92.

    I love old things, but I’m not an antique collector. My parent’s home had many antiques when I was small, but most of them were replaced during the two years my mother worked outside of the home when I was in 7th and 8th grades. A few pieces were saved and a couple of those pieces have come to me. Two simple tables, hand built by past generations and kept in the family. One is a small table with three drawers that was in a kitchen long ago. When the top right drawer isn’t pushed tight shut, there is evidence of a mouse gnawing it’s way into the drawer, a small oblong hole and a keyhole with no lock.

    My Dad cleaned this beautiful little table of paint and put a wax coat on it, it is repurposed as a side table in our living room.

    I don’t know the history of this one, except hearing the story that my parents felt it was too tall, the legs had the same flattened ball shape turning at the bottoms of the legs and Dad cut them off. When it was given to me, the top was loose with nail holes in it, the finish damaged. It too had evidence of having been painted and the paint removed. I stripped the table, put L brackets under the top hidden by the drawer to tighten it and refinished it. It is the table between our chairs in the loft, where we put our beverages and my spinning bowl. It too is from my mother’s family home.

    This cedar chest was in the hall at the top of the stairs of my in-laws home. When my Mother -in-law passed and their house was sold, we got the brass accented cedar chest. It smelled of mothballs and is full of old family photos and home movies from hubby’s side of the family. It serves as our living room coffee table.

    When I was pregnant with our first child and we were moving from the duplex that I co owned with my parents into a larger home in which to raise our family, we bought me a Boston rocking chair for the nursery. It was used in the nursery for the older two children, but when we moved to a larger home in a nicer neighborhood prior to child three, I found this 1700’s pressed wood rocking chair in a shop where I bought the reed I used to make baskets. The gentleman caned chair bottoms and had begun making the pressed leather pieces that adorned some chairs from that period. This rocker came home to be in the nursery for the youngest.

    Because of it’s age, it was used, but used gently. When youngest was about 3 or 4 years old, we elected to down size to a townhouse that we could afford on my salary as a school counselor so that hubby could open his own Law Office, knowing that it would be a while before his fledgling business would be solvent. Since the boys had to share a bedroom, the chair was put in the living room. Our children knew that if they used that chair, it was to be used gently. One Thanksgiving while we were living there, I hosted the meal for some of the extended family. One member, a large man sat in that chair. Son 1 suggested to him that maybe it wasn’t an appropriate choice just prior to him leaning back and snapping the back right off the chair. There was an antique repair shop that put dowels in the broken spindles and re glued the chair so that it looks okay, but it is now just a decorative piece. The seat is sound, and it is probably safe for gentle use.

    Somewhere in our life history, a good friend purchased this antique treadle sewing machine at an auction. My husband purchased it from her for me as a gift. It has been in several locations in our homes, but fits nicely in this corner of our hallway and holds a landline phone that we must keep to have internet. The brown rectangular box basket on top is my great grandmother’s sewing basket. The machine has a leather drive band and still works, though I think it needs a good cleaning and oiling.

    There are a few other small items, a child’s chair that is from my Dad’s childhood, another child’s chair that belongs to one of our Daughters in law, a bentwood doll’s chair made for my mother, and a small pottery jug that came from my mother’s family home. And in our loft, the large Walking Wheel seen in the header photo. That wheel, a gift from hubby a few years ago, purchased in an antique shop in Front Royal, Virginia on a visit to Son 1’s family. It is a functional wheel and knowing now what I didn’t know then, we paid about twice what it is worth, but it is beautiful and I love it.

    Whether these pieces stay with our children when we are gone or not, this is so they know some history. I have thought about putting the history of each on a card and tucking the card in a drawer or under the lid. They haven’t all “fit” in some of our homes, but they are all perfect for this log home in the middle of a farm.

  • Avoidance

    I believe in peaceful protest, but not riots that bring out people who use the crowds to vandalize, loot, and arson. I am a Caucasian female, born to a middle class family of two parents, so no, I don’t know what it is like to be a targeted black male. I am old enough to have lived through the 1960’s as a teen and young adult, drove a mini van with curtains in the windows, so got stopped a couple of times for minor offences or license checks, but never felt threatened by those stops. I was taught right from wrong, how to be polite, but not to be racist.

    I joined social media to connect with friends and family that I rarely get to see, to get updates on groups to which I am a member, but between the 24/7 onslaught on the news about politics, Covid, and now BLM, and every other post addressing one of those issues, social media has driven me away. I try to avoid the television, but if it is on and I want to spend time with hubby, I am in the same room with it and it is like a train wreck, you can’t avoid watching it. Last night after Trump had a peaceful protest attacked with tear gas, flashbang granades, and rubber bullets so he could have a photo op, I couldn’t take it anymore. I turned my chair away from the screen, put on headphones and played music, probably louder than I should have to drown it out.

    I go outside, play in the dirt, take walks and pictures of the pastoral scene. I spin, mostly on my Jenkins Turkish spindles, and knit with the yarn I spin. And still I am stressed and have trouble sleeping.

    The Jenkins spindle spin along in which I participate, starts new every month. I started the month with empty spindles and a brand new braid of wool in Peacock colors. The goal each month is a minimum of 25 grams of spun singles or plied yarn. That is less than an ounce. In two days, I have already spun 23.49 grams. I started with two colors pulled off of the gradient braid and divided it lengthwise into two equal pieces, weighed them to be sure they were.

    This is half of the purple and blue, the next part to spin.

    Here are the 23+ grams still on the apple wood spindle with the other half behind it and the rest of the braid under it. I can’t spin that much every day, but it is my sanity for now. I thought our country had made progress in social relations, but the past 4 years have changed my mind. It hurts my heart and soul that such bad behavior occurs. We are all the same color on the inside. Children aren’t born racists, they learn it. Stop teaching it to them.

    “To make a difference in someone’s life, you don’t have to be brilliant, rich, beautiful, or perfect. You just have to care.”

  • Morning Song

    Last evening as the night chores were being done, the sky had this gorgeous pink swathe in the sky.

    As I was planning last evening’s meal, the frozen green vegetables in the freezer did not appeal. I knew I had among the last of this spring’s harvest of asparagus, which I love, but are not favorites of hubby, I remembered that 4 of the plants in the row of spinach I had planted survived the chicken onslaught a few weeks ago. A quick pop over to the garden and the two smaller heads, a handful of pea shoots, and a couple of asparagus that had emerged were harvested and a salad plan was made. Fresh raw spinach with pea shoots and shavings of the most delicious vintage aged cheddar cheese and a mild vinegarette. A nice fresh from the garden addition to dinner.

    The morning chores were greeted by the song of the cicadas that have emerged up the hill in the woods. I stopped during my walk yesterday and recorded their sound. In our south woods or in the tall hay, a gobbler was sounding his call. No traffic sounds, no jets like I grew up with, just natures calls and bird songs.

    Soon there will be fresh peas, the two beds are full of white blossoms.

    The potatoes look like they need topping again. I am excited to have potatoes in the garden again this year, though they aren’t a long keeping variety, they will be enjoyed fresh, maybe a few small ones will be able to be dug from the edges when the bush beans are ready, that is a delightful combination.

    On summer mornings, when I go out to turn the hens out, I carry a hoe with me and in the cool of the morning, the weeding is done. More mint was dug and pulled this morning and I realized that I had not put down cardboard around the potato bed and covered it, so that task needs to be undertaken. Though I don’t like plastic in the garden, that feed sack is tucked under the edge of that bed and will have to remain there until the potatoes are dug unless I can tug it out before putting down cardboard and spoiled hay.

    More spring flowers were cut last night for the dining table. The Dutch Iris are blooming now that the Bearded Iris are fading, the Coreopsis is blooming and lots of Comfrey flowers.

    I am a failure at flower arranging, but love a bouquet of fresh cut flowers on the table during the season.

    After chores last night, I finished spinning the second bobbin of the gray Shetland and plied a very full 4 ounce bobbin. There is still about 6 more ounces of the wool, some on the two bobbins that didn’t fit on the plying bobbin, so I will weigh them, subtract the bobbin weight, divide the remaining Shetland so that each of those bobbins end up with 2 ounces and spin and ply another 4 ounces. I think there is plenty now to knit the sweater for me for next winter.

    It was spun with a pattern in mind, then I bought this Peacock gradient braid and I think a yoke style sweater with the Peacock at the yoke and the gray below would be stunning, so now I am in a quandry.

    This morning is cool enough for a light hoodie, too cool to enjoy my coffee on the deck, so maybe I should take advantage and though I have already spent some time in the garden this morning, I should put down the two paths of cardboard and hay and put a layer of mulch on the asparagus bed that will now be allowed to send up it’s pencil thin ferny shoots to feed the crowns for next year’s harvest. The cycle of life.

    “When the power of love, overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.” Jimi Hendricks

  • A Break from Isolation

    With a socially distanced, outdoor adventure with daughter and her two youngs, and hubby. She owns two tandem kayaks and wanted to take her kiddos out for a fun afternoon. She asked us earlier in the week if we wanted to join them for a socially distanced outing. My car has the kayak rack that can be easily attached and she had borrowed it to see if it could be adapted to her car, but to do so would have cost her as much as a new rack and she wants to be sure of what to get, so we drove over and wrestled the two monsters up on the racks, tied them down securely and took off for the river. We were in my car, she and her kids in her car, and all 5 with masks for the loading and unloading. The river is still very full and muddy from the heavy rains.

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    We had a grand time. It has been years since we were out on kayaks, we loaned ours to Son1 as they live near the Shenandoah River and enjoy going out. The local lakes here have too many power boats to feel safe in a kayak and if you do the river, you need two cars for put in and take out and that is too difficult for us as seniors so this was delightful.

    As we came out of the river while I waited with kayaks and kids and daughter and hubby went to get the car from the put in point, I found out I had been one of 14 people who won the chance to purchase a new design spindle from my favorite craftsman.

    After we arrived home, I treated hubby to his favorite meal of homemade tacos, enchiladas, and guacamole.

    Dinner is enjoyed and cleaned up, we have both showered and laundry started, and the spindle email has been sent. I am now awaiting my invoice to pay for it.

  • Rainy Day Activity

    Bertha has been providing us with rain all day long. Another front has stalled over our area and we are looking at 3 or 4 more days of rain on our saturated soil and full creeks. Another flash flood warning is in place. We are high above the creeks and sloped, but flat enough hopefully to not have mud slide activity, though there has been a lot of that including destroying a property and making a home uninhabitable in our tiny village.

    With my spindle spinning, I am participating in a spin along using only the Jenkins spindles. Since I had filled them all a couple of days ago, I elected to report my results for the month and wait until June 1 to work with them again. I have a new to me spindle due in the mail tomorrow or Friday and received a gorgeous braid of wool a few days ago that I am anxious to begin spinning. To occupy my time, I have been using my wheel to try to make a bigger dent in the pound of gray Shetland that I have been spinning on spindles for two months. And knitting on the shawl that has been on the needles about that long. The first Shetland bobbin is nearly full and I will fill another before plying. The shawl was finished tonight, soaked and is pinned out to dry. I played a bit of yarn chicken with it and finished with only about a yard left, not enough for another row.

    I have enough yarn spun to begin my sweater, but knitting a sweater when the weather is hot is not something I want to begin. With the current pandemic cancelling events daily, knitting more items for my shop seems futile, there won’t be craft shows and holiday markets this year. Most people don’t want to buy knitted or woven garments online without being able to handle them, try them on. I have a knitting request from a family member, but it will need to be superwash wool, which I haven’t purchased yet, and it is another sweater. Maybe I will just work on the Shetland, perhaps even one spindle that I can clear before the first of the month. We are going to be indoors for a couple more days, but I did get a bit of weeding done in the walled garden between rain showers today.

    When the rain ends, I plan to make a compost bin to put in one corner of the garden. If I can make it sufficiently large, I will gather the composting material from where I moved the chicken run and use it as a base to finish composting along with kitchen scraps to have it ready to supplement beds as they get harvested and replanted. I really hope to fill the freezer and the canning shelves with homegrown produce for the winter season.

  • It’s done . . .

    . . . now it is just maintenance, harvest, and putting by for another year. After taking down the inner fence and mulching that area, I realize how much space there is that could have more beds. I already planned on putting a 4 by 8 foot box where the three sisters bed it this year, a 4 by 4 foot box where the mint was and where the asparagus is now. Looking at this photo, I could easily put a 2 or 3 by 8 foot box along the near left beside where the peas are this year.

    Once upon a time, the raspberries were there but threatened to take over the garden. They are contained in 3 half barrels that are rotting away and no longer have bottoms so the raspberries are starting to escape. Maybe a couple of shallow feed troughs with drain holes buried half way would allow the raspberries to be moved back to that area safely and another 4 by 4 foot box added where the barrels are now. I would love to have 4 galvanized panel long raised beds that run the width of the garden with the southern edge the fruits. The blueberry bed is the southern most bed with the raspberry barrels off the end of it.

    The chicken coop was cleaned, some of their fouled bedding put around the comfrey plant. Soon the comfrey will be cut and the leaves put in water to produce excellent fertilizer for the garden. Once cut, they send up a second growth of leaves. The leaves can also be used as mulch around plantings. The large green patch that looks like it has a birdhouse in it is a large patch of comfrey and there is another patch in the breezeway garden. I used pelletized horse bedding in the coop this time, they probably won’t like it for a few days, but it takes a whole bale of pine chips which quickly begin to smell of ammonia. For some reason straw has been hard to come by, but a straw bale will usually last for a couple of cleanings and usually doesn’t smell until it is very dirty.

    Mulch did get put around the flowers planted a couple of days ago, but I only needed one bag. The second one will be spread around the Iris once they are thinned.

    There is still more cardboard from daughter’s donation and she says there are a few more boxes soon. That will all go in the walled garden that will become the herb and dye garden eventually.

    For now we await the next round of rain. It is thick and gloomy outside now, but warm and close. Rain is expected off and on for the next three days. At least I’m not having to water.

  • The Garden Thrives

    Between morning showers and afternoon thunderstorms, some garden work has been done. Daughter provided a windfall of cardboard boxes. The upper edge of the west side and the north side were done one day. Then she appeared with more boxes and today I got about 2/3 of the east side done and dug the Creeping Charlie from the last third. The potatoes have sprouted nicely so I shoveled a new layer of soil over them. Planted and tied up 4 Tomatillos, and weeded the planted beds.

    As soon as I came in to shower and start dinner prep, daughter showed up to return our trailer she had used to move her furniture back into her house now that all the repairs are completed, and she brought me more cardboard. There is enough to finish the job and have a good path around the perimeter of the garden covered and mulched to help keep down weeds. While I was out there today, I also strung the electric wire to make the top of the fence hot. The new battery has been in place charging for about a week. The bush beans have sprouted with some damage where the hens scratched when they last got in the garden. Some of the cucumbers have sprouted and so have some sunflowers, but I still don’t see corn. The peas have blooms, so soon there will be pods and fresh peas.

    Yesterday we got some flowers from the nursery and I planted half barrels and also Zinneas, which my Dad loved, in the bed along the back of the garage. I need to get a couple bags of mulch to spread around them. We have a curbside pickup scheduled at Tractor Supply for dog food and coop bedding so I will add a couple bags of mulch to the order.

    I started digging out the area to be terraced where the mint bed was. Every time I go out with a digging fork or shovel, I dig up so much mint root still in that area. I hope that if I keep at it, I will win that battle.

  • It was short lived

    The sun came out, it only dried off a little before it rained again, most of the afternoon, though not as torrential, mostly light drizzle. This morning was thick fog again and it is beginning to rain now and tomorrow. During the brief respite yesterday, I did get most of the catmint dug from under the garden fence line as well as the thick clump of that dreaded grass with the long stolens underground that send it everywhere. A little more weeding inside the fence was begun and then the rain started so I quit again.

    Before lunch yesterday we made our weekly trip to get our curbside pickup from the local natural foods store and we always use my car when we go because the lift hatch on the Xterra doesn’t stay up unless someone stands there and holds it. A week or so ago when we went out in my car after a rain, there was a very wet floor mat on the front passenger side and some water in a dash cubbyhole. Early on in the 3 day torrent, I put my car in the garage because of that prior leak, not knowing where it is coming in. Yesterday when I backed the car out to load the garbage on our way to the store, I noticed that the passenger seat, armrest, and floor mat were damp, so obviously I didn’t get it inside in time. I think the seal around the sunroof and/or windshield is leaking. The car is 15 years old and has well over 233,000 miles on it. Not worth having the seal replaced, but maybe the entire sunroof can be sealed shut. I will ask our mechanic the next time it goes in for an oil change.

    Daughter had a plumbing flood at her house a couple of months ago and because of the damage, had to pack up lots of books, clothes, and other goods to store until it was repaired. Her house is finally back together and stuff is being unpacked and returned to the home giving me a windfall of empty cardboard to use in the former chicken run around the garden. The entire perimeter is going to finally be covered with cardboard or weed mat and thick spoiled hay to keep the weeds down. With the fence line cleared from the outside, I should be able to get a clean line with the line trimmer around the garden. I really hope that I have created a lower maintenance garden this year. Any extra boxes are going in the walled garden and will be weighted down with more spoiled hay and ultimately compost and soil. I know it is going to get too hot to want to spend a lot of time in the garden soon, so having it lower maintenance will mean I can weed and harvest in the early mornings when it is cooler or at dusk.

    This is from the bridge we have to cross over what is usually a calm creek about 15 feet wide to get off of our mountain, taken yesterday morning. There is a road to the left just before the bridge that runs along the creek, sometimes just a few feet above the waterline when the creek is high. That road was closed to all traffic yesterday. There are a few houses in low areas along the creek, I hope they fared well, one of them the residents just got back in their home from where it had to have major repairs done from having a large tree fall across the kitchen end of the house early last spring. We have never seen this creek this flooded before. There are reports and photos from the 1980’s where this bridge would have had water flowing over it, but we weren’t here then. I often wonder the wisdom of building in low areas near a large creek or river.

    It looks like it may be Monday before I can get back in the garden.