Cabin Crafted

Author: Cabincrafted1

  • The Storm Has Ceased

    After three days of relentless rain and wind from the northeast, it ended overnight. The temperature climbed all night instead of falling as it generally does at night and I awoke to thick as cream gravy fog. The weather and last few days of inactivity made me lazy enough to stay in bed much later than usual. I generally awaken when the sun lightens the sky outside the windows, but today I ignored it, turned over and dozed off and on for another hour.

    The morning routine, everyone has one, after getting myself together is to let the pups out, prepare their breakfast, turn the kettle on to make tea or coffee, and either put granola and yogurt in a bowl for me, or toast a couple slices of homemade bread that get topped in various ways. If there is left over cornbread, it gets pan toasted in butter. As I sit at the table with my coffee or tea and breakfast of the day, I watch the birds. The Hummingbird feeder stays out and they are busy at it early, it is on the front of the house. The back has the Shepherd’s crook hangers and the three feeders that go there get brought in to the garage at night after they were taken down and damaged by something one night, shortly after we spotted the small bear in the hay field. The mixed flock of finches, chickadees, and titmice flit around it all day. Other visitors attend their needs. We have a Red bellied Woodpecker, a Hairy Woodpecker that are frequent visitors, Cardinals, a bully Mockingbird that chases everything else off, and this spring we have had Rose Breasted Grosbeaks, new to our feeders. First I would just see an occasional male, yesterday there were 3 males and 3 females. Lovely birds, I hope they stay. There are a few Eastern Bluebirds that pop by too, I think one has a nest in one of the boxes in the garden.

    Hey hooman, it is your job to feed us, where are the feeders?

    When I went out with the feeders and chicken scratch, the creeks were raging. The news said the New River crested over 20 feet overnight, flooding the low side of the river in Radford and probably other areas along it’s route. A road we take from Blacksburg home when we aren’t in a hurry runs along a low edge of the river and though we have never seen the water up to the road, it has flooded yards, the campground, and other low areas.

    The topography of our farm is the highest elevation is at the entrance to our driveway. The house is about 80 feet lower. The west side of the farm has a creek that flows down to a sinkhole and drops through the ground at the base of a stone cliff. There is a second creek that is just a run off creek that will keep some water in it except in very dry weather, then it is totally dry. It flows the width of our property, across the road for about a quarter the width, then under the road in a culvert and angles along the top of the property until it is about 100 yards from the other creek and they converge in the sink hole. Down the west edge of our property and over on the adjacent farm is an old creek bed that dried when the sinkhole opened. When we have a lot of rain over several days, the drain hole in the bottom of the sink hole can’t cope and the flat bottom of the sink hole becomes a pond. If that pond gets high enough, the water runs down the old creek bed. Though the uncut hay was wet, after chores, I walked over to see the creeks from the top of the cliff.

    The left photo is the “pond” that forms in heavy rain and the right photo is the old creekbed raging this morning.

    Usually the creek runs clear even in heavy rain, but they recently logged up the mountain from us and I suspect that contributed to the mud.

    Walking through the tall wet hay soaked me to above the knees.

    Pants went straight in the dryer when I came back inside. The wood ferns are unfurled, the blackberries are full of blossoms, so there should be lots of berries to pick this summer. I can’t get to most of the berries until after the hay is cut.

    After the sun comes out and dries things off a bit, there is some weeding to do in the garden. The beans are beginning to sprout, more potato sprouts are up, but lots of little weeds between them. The tomatoes and peppers survived the torrents. I still don’t see corn, sunflowers, or cucumbers. The herbs and pumpkins started indoors are sprouted and they were put out on the deck this morning to get some sunshine. While the ground is soft, it will be a good time to dig the catmint under the fence edge and also a clump of thick tall grass that has entangled the bottom of the fence so I can’t weed whack it. Last week when I did the major mowing and weed whacking, I came right in after, tossed all of my clothing in the wash, showered, and I still got poison ivy on my jaw line and the back of one of my fingers. I wasn’t allergic to it when I was younger, but wow, now I am.

    Last night, not wanting to spin or knit on the shawl, I decided the rainbow yarn was going to become a skinny rainbow scarf. It has a plan and a possible recipient. We will see.

  • I might be nuts . . .

    . . . or at least a bit stir crazy. For the stay at home order, I decided to do most of my spinning on spindles, rather than the wheel and to strive to spin enough yarn for a particular sweater pattern for me.

    The rainbow was partly spun on spindles, finished and plied on the wheel and it is not part of the sweater plan. It is 130.5 yards with no plan in sight.

    Whenever the weather is not conducive to walks, hikes, or garden. When I’m not cooking, baking, or cleaning, I am knitting on a shawl, slowly, or spindle spinning. The pile below is the result of a couple of months of being stuck at home. It is about 1200 yards of 2 ply light fingering to fingering weight yarn.

    There is still several ounces of the gray Shetland and the shiny blue BFL/Silk. A small amount of the maroon wools, and 4 ounces of White Shetland. The skeins to the right of the lower row are various small skeins, some will be used, some will be held out.

    We each have our means to keep busy, to settle anxiety, this has been mine. I spin on 3 Turkish spindles, I have a request for another Jenkins Turkish spindle, but so far I haven’t found one.

    As a sidenote, the sun just peeked out after three days of heavy rain, flooded creeks, threatened dams. Maybe it is going to quit before we float down to the valley.

  • Olio May 20, 2020

    Olio: a miscellaneous collection

    Ruminations of a housebound mind: Do you ever hear a voice on the radio or a podcast and “see” that person in your mind’s eye, even if you have never seen that person before? I do that all the time and am usually so far off base when I see that person’s picture. One of the podcasts that I enjoy is “The Way I Heard It” by Mike Rowe, a face everyone has seen and I see his face when I listen to the podcast. Another one I like is “99%invisible.” Now this is where my mind’s eye played serious tricks on me. After listening to the podcasts for a couple of years off and on, I googled Roman Mars, the host and let me tell you, he doesn’t look anything at all like I envisioned. Funny now when I listen, I see the picture I googled, but it just doesn’t fit. If you have never listened to this podcast, do, but start with some of the very early ones that were short with less advertising.

    Today is Day 2 of ugly weather, not drizzle, but downright miserable. It is cool, blowing from the northeast and cold, heavy rain.

    Critter chores left me soaked in minutes even in rain boots and rain jacket. They are getting lots of use, last night about the time I was going to get ready for bed, the time the pups get their last potty run for the day, I smelled skunk smell. I was inside the house, so went down with a flashlight to see if I saw the critter in the front yard. The smell was really overwhelming on the front porch. There was no way those dogs were going out there unrestrained to have a meet and greet, so again, the rain boots and jacket were donned and the pups taken out in the cold blowing rain one at a time on leash to do their nightly business. The odor was gone by this morning, fortunately, I had feared the skunk had taken refuge under our front porch.

    I had been reading a book that clearly is or will be a series. It was a free selection from Amazon Prime and the story was one of those that you were supposed to accept as believable, but no way could the actions in that book have gone unnoticed by law enforcement or be forgiven by law enforcement and the ending let you know that there is more to come. No thanks. A friend posted on Instagram that our public library is doing curbside delivery of books you put on hold. I will soon run out of re-reads here at home, so I may have to browse and hold a couple from the library.

    This is my May, social distance spinning. Everything below the rainbow fiesta is spun on those three spindles. The red, orange, and yellow of the rainbow were also spun on the larger one, but I quickly tired of it and spun the green, blue, and purple on the wheel, then plied it on the wheel. I don’t know what I was thinking when I bought those 4 punis (rolags), nor do I know what I will do with 2 ounces of chain plied fingering weight rainbow. It is only 132 yards, maybe enough for a cowl or skinny scarf. It is not sturdy enough wool for socks, enough for fingerless mitts if I want to cut each color apart, then divide in half so they are more or less matching stripes. It is drying now, will be skeined and set aside until it becomes a plan.

    Yesterday was fresh bread day. Two loaves started first thing yesterday morning and baked by noon of half whole wheat yeast bread for sandwiches. I love my cast iron bread pan that hubby gave me for Christmas and since I always make bread two loaves at a time, I ordered a second one which should be here before next week’s bake.

    Before the pandemic, bread baking here had all but disappeared except for pizza dough and occasional biscuits. It was a staple in our house when the kids were growing. It is a pleasant activity to have returned to now that we are eating all meals in, and there is nothing better than the smell of fresh bread baking.

    Stay safe out there as the world begins to reopen. We will continue to stay at home with a few curbside delivery outings as required, wearing our masks for your protection (and ours if you are wearing yours.)

  • It didn’t rain after all

    Most of the day has been sunny, occasional cloud cover and a light mist once or twice, but no rain yet. The next 4 days look like there will really be rain, so after delivering the masks and some asparagus to daughter’s house, I tackled the chicken problem.

    First part of the job was to remove the inside fence that they were getting under when they were in the garden run. It was rolled and tossed over the fence on the east of the garden, the stakes pulled and sorted. I have two sizes of the garden stakes, one is right at 4 feet when pounded in the depth you are supposed to pound them, the rest are about a foot shorter. The longer ones and some sturdier T posts that are 4 feet when pounded in were set 3 feet to the east of the sturdy garden fence. The wire that had been removed was fastened to those posts. The chickens lost about 4 square feet of pen, I gained 4 square feet of compost, and that fence was attached to the other piece to change the configuration of their pen to a smaller square with a long 3 foot wide run off of it. The second piece of wire that I had removed was then used to provide a cover to the new run so the hawk can’t catch a chicken in that area. It was a fair amount of work and I didn’t finish cleaning up because I was worn out and it was time to prep dinner. There are about 15 T posts laying in the grass that need to be gathered and stored and several sizable rocks that were inside the pen blocking holes that need to be returned to one of the many rock piles.

    It won’t take them long to make it a barren wasteland, but I have been putting large sheets of the spoiled hay bale in there and using more of it in the garden so that when the hay men come, they can give me a fresh bale for the upcoming year. I usually get one that either didn’t get properly tied or one that wasn’t full sized for me to use in their run and in the garden as mulch.

    About a dozen years ago, I planted this Dogwood on the hill by the driveway. It had to be protected year after year from the deer nipping off the new growth. All of the native Dogwoods have bloomed out, but this one is just beginning.

    OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

    Our kitchen window and French doors from the dining room face south to the depth of our property. When I went down to prep dinner, I spotted a bear in the lower hay field. This is zoomed as much as the camera would zoom, then the photo cropped so that you can actually see the bear. This one is much larger than the little one we saw a few weeks ago, probably 125 to 150 pounds. It was a couple football fields away and seemed totally unaware of me on the deck taking it’s picture. It finally moved closer to the house, but stayed on the other side of the lower hay field fence, the disappeared into the woods to the west. Some years we don’t see any, this year we have had three sightings, two on our property and one near the bottom of the road near the creek.

    Ah, the rain has begun, the veggie starts and seeds will get watered, I will take a few days off to read, spin, and knit. After the storms end around weeks end, there is weeding to be done between the garden proper and the outer fence. The chickens did a pretty good job when they were allowed in there, but they don’t like Creeping Charlie and a plant I haven’t identified that has a similar shaped leaf but is larger, spreading out 360 degrees from a substantial stem. They will eat the catmint leaves, but where it grows right under the fence, it needs to be dug out. I’m sure after 4 days of rain, there will be more found mint to dig out as well. It is less each time I work that area, but man that stuff is tenacious. After a few days of rain, the soil will be softer and easier to rid the fence line of grass and the outer path of weeds. I need more cardboard to put down so I can pile spoiled hay on it, that helps too.

  • A Sewing Day

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    A few weeks ago, I made 5 cloth masks, 2 for each of us and 1 for daughter as she has been doing grocery runs for us. This morning daughter initiated a text exchange and finally a phone call asking for a mask for her daughter so she can resume Taekwondo outdoor classes. They will be limiting the number of participants, spread out 10 feet apart, and must wear a mask. We ended up on the phone to determine style and size. While on the phone, her son asked for one too and we decided daughter needed a second one. I don’t have any fun fabrics, but do have two different gray fabrics and some ribbon that could be used as ties. The afternoon was spent cutting and sewing 5 more masks so they each have two for being out in public.

    Hopefully this will help keep them safe as the state is allowing more and more activities to resume. We are still self isolating except for curbside pick up of some groceries and animal supplies. We will go through a drive through or curbside food delivery occasionally if we are out on one of the other errands.

    Daughter set out today to get the remaining plant starts for the garden for her daughter that I helped with via emailed garden plans, instructions, and support. They wanted two Jalapenos plants in what they bought, but couldn’t find any. There are a couple of other places to try, but I may end up starting the seed for her which will slow them down some, but they will still get peppers before the season ends in the fall. They sent me a picture of granddaughter’s garden with plant seed up and starts planted. I wish I could have helped more with it, but pleased that I could provide guidance and planning.

    Such a neat little garden and a great lesson for the 8 year old.

    Two nights ago, when I went out to lock up the hens, 5 of them had apparently gone under the garden gate and again wrecked havoc. They dug up 3 of the tomatoes, trampled peas, scattered the hay from the aisles. I had to call for help to get them out, did repairs in the falling dark and finished the job yesterday morning. I finally got a new battery for one of my solar fence chargers, so I will be stringing electric wire to keep the deer and fence climbers out. The charger isn’t my preferred one, but I can’t get that one open to see what battery it needs. The back is screwed on with tiny star headed screws and I don’t have a star bit that small. I put a board across the opening under the gate, but I haven’t given the hens any free range time since. I guess I will have to expand their run and only free range them when they can be supervised. Several of them will go over the gate in the garden.

    I really don’t want them in there now that the sunflowers and corn have been planted this evening in anticipation of 5 days of rain. In a week or two, the pole beans can be planted in there as well.

    The blueberries have berries, the raspberries have flowers, and there are potato sprouts showing. The garden is now fully planted except for the pole beans, a second planting of bush beans in a few weeks, and some herbs that will be tucked between the tomatoes and peppers so that we can have dilly beans and pesto. The pumpkins are started in a flat and will be planted out when they have secondary leaves and I can see where the sunflowers are. The corn block is 4.5 feet by 13.5 feet. That should be a sufficient sized block to get some corn. If the electric will stop the raccoons.

  • The Yard (Wo)Man

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    The grass was tall again, the morning beautiful, the mate still in bed, so after critter chores and breakfast, I took to the mower.

    Front northwest. It takes several hours to mow what gets done on the riding mower. You can see the delineation between the hay line and the lawn line. This was the third mowing this year and should have been done a week ago, but it is done. There is hay behind that row of trees and hay to the northeast, east, and south of the mowed area. The hens had supervised free range time while I was doing the mowing. It stirs up bugs and they have a feast. After a break, I broke out the monster Stihl line trimmer, got it re wound with new line, fresh fuel, and worked around the culverts, the transformer box, and the well head. I still need to do around the mailbox and around the lower yard hydrant so the hay men don’t hit it.

    Haying has begun in the region, but the guys that do ours either haven’t started yet or they are doing more distant fields, I haven’t seen any evidence of them being out. We are one of the last on their list so it is usually the second week in June before we see them.

    The bearded Iris were gorgeous this morning.

    Last night after dinner, I plied the two balls from my spindles. I ended up with a tangle on the lace weight and lost a couple grams of yarn, but got 109 yards, 19.7 grams of lace weight yarn from the shiny blue Merino/silk blend and 132 yards, 42.08 grams of fingering weight from the gray Shetland. Only one spindle has been started again, with the Rainbow punis that arrived in yesterday’s mail.

    There are 4 one-half ounce punis in the package, 2 each of the red, orange, yellow and green, blue, purple. I am going to spin them in rainbow sequence and then ply them in the same sequence. It should make an interesting scarf or cowl from the finished yarn.

    I guess I should get back to work and see if I can finish the lawn chores before time to prepare dinner. Different hats for different times of the day.

  • A Super Day

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    From freeze warnings to upper 70’s. The local weather blogger and news reporter at the local paper, posted dates in history where the area went from a freeze to 80+ degrees overnight. Winter is over, the trees are green, the peppers and tomatoes have spent two nights outside, so after some morning showers and a run to the garbage drop off, I started planting and light weeding. The tomatoes and peppers are in the ground and stakes pounded in on the edges to provide support for the string that will hold them as they grow. The far end of the third box south, 8 cucumbers were planted and post set to hold their trellis. Half of the bush bean bed was planted with 72 bean seed. In a few weeks, a second planting will be made so we have fresh beans all summer and enough to make dilly beans and freeze for the winter. The edge of the 3 sisters garden got a row of mixed sunflower seed, but it is too soon to plant the corn. I am watching the local gardeners and farmers on that. The fields that will get feed corn have had their winter cover crop sprayed, a practice I hate, but when they plant their corn, I will know it is time to plant mine. The pole beans follow a couple weeks after the corn sprouts. The pumpkins will be started indoors tonight so that they are ready to be tucked in among the sunflowers and help shade the soil for the corn and pole beans. By planting two kinds of beans, I won’t be able to save seed, but I would rather have the fresh beans and the dried pintos.

    Every time I go out, I find more mint and dig more roots from that area. I hope I can stay on top of the garden and keep it as neat as it is now. The asparagus bed is not doing as well this year as the past couple of years. Son 1 asked if I had ever re dug it and thinned them and I haven’t. Early next spring, I think I will relocate it to the deep soil where the mint was (assuming I have won the mint battle), and will put a new growing box where the asparagus bed is now. The makeshift box that is around the asparagus had deteriorated to a few rotten boards with screws protruding. If I put a new box where the mint was dug, plant the asparagus there, I can put posts at the corners to tie up the ferns for the summer and still get to the other beds.

    I have been busy spinning on my spindles and wound about 70 grams of singles into ply balls. I haven’t plied it yet, maybe after dinner, but it cleared 3 of the 4 spindles. Just in time for a 2 ounce package of rainbow punis to arrive to spin.

    When I am out in the garden, the tree swallows seem to have no fear of me, they come and go from the two houses and sit on the fences so close I could practically stroke their iridescent backs. When I mow, they soar around the mower catching any insects that try to flee.

    Each evening before our freeze warnings, I cut yellow bearded Iris and filled jars and vases all over the house. Now the remaining ones will bloom in the garden and that bed looks like it needs a major overhaul when they are done. Some of the purple ones that were thinned and dumped just out of the mowed area of the yard will have to be dug and some of them brought back to the gardens. The deck destruction and reconstruction as well as all the rocks moved and the soil compacted seems to have affected them where they were planted. The yellow ones came from a neighbor several years ago, along with a red one. The red one did not come back and I was going to dig more this year, but he did a burn pile right in the middle of the area he has them planted and there will be no blooms there this year for me to figure out which cluster to dig. Maybe next spring and by then the walled garden should be ready for flowers.

    The seed and seedlings that were planted, just had a heavy rain shower to help set them in and now the sun is out again. The next few days look like warm and showers, just what is needed to get things started. Soon it will be time to harvest peas and spinach. The lettuce, radishes, and cabbages in the half barrels are beginning to develop too, so we may begin to get good home grown food soon.

    I love garden season and hope I can stay ahead of it this year.

  • How will it be?

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    Will we ever get to meet our newest grandson? Get a hug from our sons, daughter(s), and grands? Will we ever be able to fulfill our Christmas gift trip to three of our grands? How about craft shows? History events? Fiber retreats?

    We can’t be part of the herd immunity theory, we are both in the at risk category by age and prexisting conditions. If we were to disregard this SARS-2 virus, likely we would die, not become immune. Our exposure is very limited, wearing masks when we are away from home. Only I will go into the plant nursery or the post office, leaving hubby at home or in the car. We did finally break down to do drive through food occasionally since there have been no reports of transmission by that means and the number of cases in this part of the state are fairly low.

    How will our children fair if it lingers and impacts their jobs? Though the two eldest can both work from home now, there are furloughs being suggested in their fields.

    Will schools reopen and how? At first the fear wasn’t for children to catch the virus, but rather become vectors, but now there are serious cases and deaths to children as well.

    So much history has occurred in my lifetime: Korean conflict, Vietnam war, Cold war, space flight, moon landings, technology to improve power production. Negatives such as factory farms, climate change, pollution by smog and plastic, fracking. We have seen the arrival of HIV/AIDS, SARS, MERS, resistant bacterial infections, but this virus is frightening. It infects across all ages, affects people so differently or not at all as they asymptomatically spread it. It has brought out the worst kinds of behaviors in people who believe that safety measures are infringements on their rights. “Your rights end where my nose begins..” and I don’t want you spreading your illness to me. What has happened to respect and civility in this country.

    For now, I will stay home and spin, knit, garden, and take care of us.

  • Polar or Equatorial

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    Spring in Virginia can never make up it’s mind. Usually by mid May it has settled into predictable days and nights, but this week it is yoyoing. We had two freeze warnings for Friday and Saturday nights, yesterday, I worked in short sleeves. Today it is mid 40’s, gray, and very windy again with freeze warnings tonight and tomorrow night, but we are expecting daytime temperatures in upper 70s to lower 80s by the weekend.

    Today’s walk was winter clad, wool hoody, quilted long sleeve jacket, gloves. The wind blowing down the mountain burned my face and though after doing some steep uphill walking I could partially unzip the jacket, I never did warm up.

    I came up the hill right behind this tree with clusters of purple bell shaped flowers and still holding seed/nut hulls from the fall.

    I took a steep but slightly shorter walk, just because of the cold wind.

    Last weekend, I did a spindle exchange with another spinner from Minnesota. I got the one I was sending in the mail promptly and she mailed the one I was receiving also on Saturday. Much to my surprise and hers, it arrived in today’s mail. I’m sure she won’t see the one I sent for a couple more days.

    This one has the largest wingspan by about a half inch, but is 3 grams lighter than the next largest one. It is made of apple wood, next smaller is Osage Orange wood, the larger of the tiny ones is Purple Heart, the smallest is Olive wood.

    I have thoroughly enjoyed spinning on these tools.

  • Mother’s Day in the Gardens

    After two frigid nights, we had a beautiful day. We violated our self isolation to go through a drive through for wings and fries then over to the nursery to get a second pot of petunias for the front of the house. Then I spent some time in the back working on the rock path and planting some pots for color in the back. It has been a great day outside.

    The path isn’t done by any means but every time I work on it, it gets better, more level, less unstable.

    Part of the effort was creating a pad for the grill that was large enough and stable enough to use it. There was a messy nest in the firebox, a suspect a rodent, it was removed and a serious burn will be held in there before I consider using it. It has reached that age where the gas guts are deteriorating and this may be the last season for it.

    Some sod was removed in the walled garden. Some of the small rocks are going to be moved to the back side of the wall to reinforce it and improve the drainage, then hopefully a load of composted soil can be brought in and dumped for more flowers, herbs, and the dye garden.

    The strange weather continues until midweek when it finally warms up day and night and will rain. I guess the tomatoes and peppers will have to wait until Friday to go in the garden and some of what was planted today may have to be covered a couple more nights though we didn’t get a frost on either of the two nights it was threatened this weekend.

    Right after I finished getting all of the spoiled hay down in the paths of the garden, all but the broody hen got in the garden, they trashed what I had done, dug in the peas, destroyed the spinach, and dug in the potatoes. Some of that damage has been mitigated, but I think the chicken run is going to have to be moved so they can’t get into the garden area at all except during the winter when having them scratch around is welcomed.