Spring is a time of new life on the farm. Birds’ nests, spring flowers, tree buds.
The grapevine I pruned sharply and got on a proper arbor has tiny buds; the peonies have flower buds, one has only 2, the other many; lilacs blooming; asparagus tips. The peas almost need trellising, there are a few tiny spinach plants. New fresh food, YAY.
The sour dough is strong and thriving. Made a loaf for the neighbor that helped with the mower and another for us. Baking every couple of days, a pleasure I had forgotten. We are excited to see spring coming, even though there is a low mid 30s night coming up. The seedlings are getting some day time hardening off to stimulate better growth. The radishes, lettuce, and cabbages are growing. I love this time of year.
We had our semi weekly date, taking the garbage down to the “convenience center” since I have caught a couple of mice in the past couple of days. That is the only place we go, no contact, no pickup at the house.
A few days ago, I said I had given up on the fencing. Today is another beautiful day and I am less sore, and have more energy, so I attacked it again. There were two long pieces of garden fencing partially loose on the ends attached to several T-posts and it served no useful purpose. I started taking it down last summer to make mowing easier but it was really overgrown in the grass and I couldn’t get it free. It is now down, the T-posts all pulled, a dozen of them. Old rotting wooden fence posts that were laid along the bottom to keep the chickens in when there was a run that it enclosed were pulled up and stacked along the edge of the large A frame coop.
The row of tall weeds is where it was, the garden fence to the right, the orchard to the left, and I am standing with my back to the chicken run where they kick out the compost. That large coop was built so I could raise some meat chickens. Maybe this fall if the virus subsides, I will get a dozen or so Freedom Rangers and some electric net fencing and put that coop back to use. It becomes the holding coop when old hens are replaced with new pullets.
Feeling smug that the task was accomplished and going back to last year’s idea of a garden fence closer to the garden inside the original sturdier fence, making a run around the perimeter of the garden for the chickens was revisited. I had done that last year, but had used 3 foot fencing in places and the chickens would get a running start and go over it and get out or in to the garden. The fence I took down is 4 feet and the exterior fence is 4 feet and if I put a cover over the end near the coop, they can’t get a running start and fly onto the egg door. The first section of that fence was put in place, but then I got down near Mrs. Wren and she got agitated, so I left her alone to sit. I went back to it after lunch and got by her so she won’t be bothered again. I got the fence put back, and the chickens can have the run of that alley and scratch the henbit, chickweed, and other goodies looking for bugs. It helps keep the weeds down, gives them some running room and more area to scratch.
It didn’t take them long to find the feast, it won’t take them long to beat down the weeds in that perimeter. There is very little left to do inside the garden fence now. A few small areas of henbit, a deteriorated tarp at the farthest end to be removed.
When the leaves fall in autumn, we look forward to the new greening in the spring. Usually we see no green hints except on scrub until early to mid May. We aren’t even to the middle of April and the trees are beginning to leaf out. This is such an atypical spring. My seedlings are thriving and get a bit of sheltered time on the back deck during the day. Some heartier house plants have been returned to the porches. I watch the weather and if a frost sneaks up on us, some will be brought back in.
The hens are being generous. The nine of them produce about 5 eggs a day, but yesterday they were in overdrive.
The oblong layer is still producing odd oblong eggs and her shells are very thin and brittle.
My birdwatching friend identified the nest as a Carolina Wren. I’m not sure if she returned to the nest last night. When I went over to let the hens out this morning, feed them, and clean their coop, I didn’t see her, but her nest is at the other end of the garden from the coop area.
When I returned from that job, I grabbed my clippers and thick leather gloves to prune back an overgrown barberry bush before it leafs out. As I approached, I was scolded loudly by a bird I couldn’t see, and found this.
Ok, so not a stellar photo as I stuck one hand into the Barberry thorns to see if there were any eggs. It appears to be another Carolina Wren. Glad she chose a bush and not the ground or a shelf in the garage.
One of my first tasks each morning is feeding the sourdough starter. Today is day 5 of getting this one going and I could use it today, but there is still some bread in the freezer to use up first. Maybe I will start loaves tomorrow as it takes about 24 hours to go through the entire process. I quit making sourdough a while back because I was disturbed by the waste of discarding starter before feeding it and because I could buy sourdough bread locally at the Farmers’ Market and Natural food stores. Recently, I found an article that said the starter can be fed to chickens, which is a plus. When you make and feed the starter, you use equal amounts of flour and water. Every recipe I had ever found said to use 4 ounces or 125 grams of flour depending on whether they were measuring with cups or a scale. To do that you are tossing out about 1/2 cup of starter every time you feed it and it makes about 4 cups of starter which seemed too wasteful. You only use about 1 tablespoon of starter to get the leaven going. I found an article the other day that said to use only 25 grams of flour and water and feeding the chickens about 2 tablespoons of starter seems much less wasteful and it fits in a pint widemouth jar with lots of room to spare. Since two loaves of sourdough bread is plenty for a week for two of us, and since flour is hard to come by right now, this seemed ideal. I got the starter going with this plan.
This was before I fed it this morning and you can see there will be very little waste and the starter is strong and healthy. Tomorrow I will bake for the week. I still want to play with other uses for the sourdough such as pizza dough and focaccia bread. I need to get back in the routine of making the bread since going out to the Farmers’ Market to buy from the two bakers there is not in the cards right now.
Found this little butterfly stretching it’s wings in the sun on the deck. I couldn’t decide if it was damaged or still unfurling, but after a while, it flew away, so must have been unfurling.
The butterfly was followed by a Tufted titmouse sitting on my breakfast chair trying to crack open a sunflower seed.
So bear in the field yesterday, deer this morning, 2 Carolina Wren nests with eggs, and lots of colorful little songbirds enjoying the feeders. Love watching the wildlife on the farm.
These frothy white trees are blooming everywhere on our walk today. I thought they were wild cherries, but the bark doesn’t look right.
Her relative was mowing our grass again this morning. She stayed on her own farm. After the walk, some digging in the dirt was in order to weed the bed of iris, day lilies, and where the calendula was last year. Though I started calendula seed indoors, there are lots of volunteers in that spot already. And purple echinacea was started indoors too, there is room for them in the same bed.
I was tired and pretty discouraged when I posted earlier. After I rested, I restarted the weed wacker and attacked inside the stone wall. Every time I stepped on a rock, I either tossed it way up in the upper pile or found a place for it on the wall. I am not as good a rock stacker as Son 1 or DIL, but there were low places and places where they were making the wall thicker and I concentrated on those areas. The lower part is now rock free or they are buried so deep I can’t feel them walking the area. The area was weed wacked shorter until I was sure there were no more.
Totally bushed after moving rocks and dealing with the monster machine, I came in and prepared dinner for us. The day was too nice to sit inside. Bright sunny, clear skies, and warm, but not hot. Cool enough for a long sleeved cotton shirt for sun protection but too warm for the sweat shirt I started out in earlier. I have a roll of weed mat. I don’t know how much of that area it will cover or where I can get a load of leaf mulch or soil to fill behind the wall, but I would love to get some flowers and herbs growing in there this summer. To the left of the old deck pier will be patio eventually, so it isn’t getting planted.
After resting and nourishing my body, I took the hand hoe out and tackled the last garden box, a 4 X 8 foot one that is reasonable sound and will have the tomato plants in it in about 6 weeks. I pulled the few weeds that were in the blueberry bed beside it. When it was planted, the bushes were surrounded by many layers of newspaper and a 3 inch thick layer of shredded mulch applied over it, so it is easy to deal with. You can see the edge of the blueberry box under my shadow on the right.
The back left corner of that bed was left unweeded because just as I was about to hack down into the soil, I pulled the weeds back from the edge of the box and found this.
There had been a tiny brown bird flitting around the garden even before I got over there, but I paid her little heed. Finding her tiny nest of eggs let me know why and I gently laid the still growing weeds back over her nest and left her alone. I hope she returns to the nest. The fledglings should be long gone before I am ready to plant that box.
Today ended up rather productive, though I am worn out now. A shower and a Tylenol are in order. Then I will settle with my spindles, knitting, or a book.
Today’s work has the garden ready for seeds and seedlings except for the corn patch and it is on the opposite side of the garden from the nest, so I don’t think I will disturb her too much. And I still need to cover the mint to at least try to slow it down. Another day, another day.
All my life I have been independent, self sufficient. My Dad insisted on that, no matter what I decided to do with my life. He taught me to do things that would make most women cringe or at least gave me the confidence to tackle the job without calling for help. I have removed, unclogged, and reset a toilet when Son 2 flushed a plastic toy. I have replaced a garbage disposal when it failed, installed deadbolts, replaced the battery in hubby’s Harley, helped son retrieve a part that fell down in the diesel engine of his truck where he couldn’t reach, run a plumbing snake under the kitchen sink after taking all the traps and pipes apart. Removed mice from traps, caught snakes to relocate, erected fencing, split firewood. Google has been a boon, you can find a video to do just about anything. But, it is getting harder for me to contort my body into cabinets or to lie on the cold concrete floor of the garage for any length of time anymore. My strength isn’t what it was, and after a broken wrist, wrist surgery years later on that wrist, there is no power in that hand any longer. This has caused me no small amount of frustration of late. Trying to take down and rebuild garden and chicken fencing totally overwhelmed me and I quit. I’M NOT A QUITTER. Trying to put the belt on the riding mower nearly brought me to tears, only to find out it was the wrong belt after conceding to help by my neighbor. He fought to get the belt on and it was so tight, the mower would not turn over. He removed the belt and the mower started right up. He and his wife are getting me a new, correct belt today and I will let him install it. With being confined to home doesn’t help my emotional state in dealing with these setbacks. I want to be able to do the things that I did 50 years ago, or even 5, but it is getting harder all the time. I am young for my age, strong for my age, but I am neither young enough nor strong enough to do some of the things I want to do, things I used to do. I hate asking for help. This morning after yesterday’s climbing over the washer and dryer, squatting and lying on the garage floor, yanking the pull cord on the mower, I am sore and yet, did not accomplish anything positive for it.
On a brighter note, today as I was about to prepare our lunch, along the edge of the woods at the very back of our property I spotted a black animal. Grabbing the binoculars that hang by the French doors, I could see that it was a young black bear, happily feasting on something it found. This isn’t a great picture because it was at least 250-300 yards away and I zoomed, cropped, and zoomed again. The little bear was small, probably a yearling. It has been several years since we have seen a bear up here.
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
After lunch, I drove the riding mower back up to the neighbors’ house and towed the gas mower. When I tried the gas mower at his house, it started right up even though it wouldn’t start at home. I left the riding mower and pulled the mower back to the house. I have mowed around the house, one mower width and mowed the actual front yard. I tackled the weed wacker and after about 25 pulls on the cord and almost giving up, it started and I edged around the house and wall in the back. I still want to get inside the wall and around the garden, but I wore out. I will finish the job later and finish mowing the rest of the yard when I get the riding mower back, so grateful to my neighbors.
My brother, after reading about our dryer issues, did some research on a possible quick fix. I was willing to try it, so the dryer was pulled out, unplugged, and the grime that built up under it vacuumed and wiped away. The vent hose was unhooked to pull it out farther and the access port opened on the side. It got a thorough vacuuming inside, but the reset button in the video wasn’t there. Oh well, it is now clean. The vent hose was cleaned out and reattached, it was plugged back in and I had to use the side of the washing machine and the log wall to monkey climb back out. The rack dried clothing from yesterday, though washed and air dried, still had a lot of dog hair on it. I guess the dryer does more than dry the clothes. I tossed hubby’s undies, tees, and socks in the dryer with a slightly damp kitchen towel to try to soften them up and remove hair, and jostling the dryer around must have done something because the clothes were warm when I opened the door.
Before I tackled that job, I tried to put the new belt on the riding mower. There is a nice diagram to show how each pulley interacts with the belt. The belt was removed from the cardboard sleeve and it didn’t want to straighten out. It was twisted in thirds and so stiff. Back in the house to Google how to deal with that and back out to fight with it more, since Google was not helpful. It told me how to put it on, but not how to relax the tight bends from it’s packaging. I got the belt on the deck pulleys, but can’t get it around the engine pulley. I guess I’m going to beg the neighbor’s help and keep my social distance.
Tried to get the gas mower started to mow around the edges in the meantime, but no go on that either. I’m afraid to even try the weed wacker. I guess I should have taken all three pieces of equipment to the shop last fall, but I didn’t. The dryer will require a call in if it quits heating again. But not until this virus subsides.
There was a time in my life when these little frustrations drove me to a solution, but somethings just require help.
Since I can’t mow and it is too windy to garden again, I have spent a lot of quality time with my spindles.
The weekend is nice, maybe one of the mowers will be working and the wind will die down enough to work in the garden.
When you can’t go out and they can’t come in, you make do. Beginning a few weeks ago, our clothes dryer was taking longer and longer to dry clothes, then over the weekend when I washed sheets and our quilt, it worked for 2 1/2 hours and still didn’t get it dry. Fortunately, I bought a huge drying rack from the Amish furniture store after we moved here. I thought that someday, I would get a clothes line up, but never did. The quilt was folded in half and draped over the rack to finish drying overnight. Knowing that the heating coil has likely failed, laundry is being done more often and in smaller loads and hung on the rack. Also some time in the past, I purchased another rack that hangs over the clothes dryer.
Someday, I will get the dryer repaired.
Along with the dryer failure, I ran out of dish soap. I am a soap maker, so a DIY moment and a bottle of liquid dishsoap was made this morning.
With the pandemic, and the stay at home orders, the panic buying and the changing suggestions, hand sanitizer and masks are impossible items. I grow aloe and still had a bottle of Isopropyl alcohol, so two small bottles of hand sanitizer were made. First we were told not to wear masks, now the recommendation is to wear one if you have to be out as they now believe that the virus can be spread even by breath. I had some cotton fabric that I had purchased for lining a woven bag and had entirely too much. A quick search online provided patterns for DIY masks.
Though we aren’t going out, if it becomes necessary, at least we will have a mask. Two layers of the cotton with a layer of a bandana in the middle and we have 3 layer masks.
From early January, we bought double with each food shopping trip. The basement chest freezer that gets utilized as the garden provides and emptied through the winter was not very full this year. By January, the dreaded virus was already in our country and though we had no idea that 3 short months later, we would be on self imposed house arrest to keep our senior bodies healthy. The freezer filled up, but because of the way we were purchasing and loading it, what was in there in what quantity was an enigma. The last trip was loaded in the refrigerator freezer and that is what we have been working on. Today, hubby and I ventured to the basement with a pad of paper and a pen and while I sorted and organized in wire baskets, boxes, and a bag or two, he recorded an inventory. We now know what is in the freezer and about how many meals it will make for us. All of the half gallon jars had been called into use for extra rice, dry beans, and other staples. Flour as well as sugar and salt for canning were already in the large jars. One of the open upper cabinets built by Son 1 when the house was finished, holds quart jars of beans, grains, and other frequently used staples. The other upper cabinets also hold the year’s jams, teas, mugs, and pottery dinner ware. All of the drawers and shelves were vacuumed and wiped this morning and the kitchen cabinets and counter tops scrubbed down. Two utensil crocks were blended into one with the utensils that actually are used and the smaller of the two became the sourdough crock. My sourdough was rejuvenated so bread can be made with it in a few days.
Now we know where we stand as most states have gone to the stay at home orders to try to beat back the virus. With our inventory and the upcoming garden, we should be good for quite a while. Though our daughter would go to the grocery for us, we don’t want her out any more than she absolutely has to be.
The veggie starts are doing better than I have ever had them do, except for the spinach. It must have been old seed. I will get a few plants between what came up in the garden and the house starts.
The house has been getting cleaned much more often than usual. Walks up the dead end road whenever I can get out between rain showers helps keep me busy, along with knitting, spinning, reading, and bird watching.
I have been watching this little guy turn from his winter brown to spring gold. He has almost finished his molt. I love watching the little flocks of them in their roller coaster flight across the fields.
The porch thermometer showed 47 f (8.33 c) when I got up this morning. In the damp, it felt colder. It is down to 40 f (4.44 c) by late afternoon. It was 85 f (29.44) on Sunday, quite a difference. And it rained all day long. As I was putting the finishing touches on dinner, there were snowflakes mixed in with the rain. It isn’t supposed to freeze tonight so I am not bringing in any plants.
When I was a kid, on cold, usually snowy days, Mom would make vegetable beef soup. I remember lots of cans being opened, but it was comfort food on a cold day. This morning called for hot soup tonight. As I have become the master of extending a small amount of meat to multiple meals, I pulled about a half pound of stew beef from the freezer, thawed and seared it in hot oil, threw in a handful of chopped onion, celery that I had chopped and frozen, some fresh parsley that I had frozen, a pint of homemade broth, water, and a boullion cube and set it to simmer around noon. At the same time, I mixed up the dough for another artisan loaf, this one full of rosemary and left it to rise. As the afternoon when on, checks on the simmering stock and beef and how the bread was rising were made. Mid afternoon, a couple handfuls of Pequino beans (a small red heritage bean) were tossed in to cook and finally chopped potatoes, carrots, some frozen corn, peas, and green beans added and allowed to simmer for another hour. During that hour, the pizza stone was preheated as the oven heated to 550 f and the bread folded a few times and allowed a second rise and bake. The aromas in the house were delightful.
A hearty, belly warming meal with half a loaf of bread and 2 quarts of soup left for lunches in the coming days. It looks like we are going to go through slightly more than two loaves a week plus some buns while we stay at home. I hope the flour holds out.
The day between food prep was spent spinning on three of the Turkish spindles. A different fiber on each.
When I went to the fiber retreat in late February, I got two skeins of lovely yarn from the hostess. It is a blend of her goats’ mohair and wool. Last night I started a curved asymmetrical shawl and though I went up a needle size from the recommended, it still feels like too dense a fabric for my taste. I am debating continuing or ripping it out and finding a different pattern for the yarn.
It is very soft, so I may just keep going. Tomorrow is a repeat of today as far as weather, then it starts another warm up and a few dry days so maybe more of the garden will get prepped for planting in a month of so.
Daughter brought over the belt for the broken riding mower and some chicken and household supplies she had picked up for us. We stood across the garage and talked for a little while and it was so hard not to go give her a huge hug. She is working from home and her kids are at home due to closed schools, but their Dad is still going on site to work and comes to see the kids, so being around them is not possible for now. Tomorrow, I will put on gloves, sanitize what needs to come inside, put the chicken feed in lidded buckets and go through the strip and wash routine again so that neither of us get sick. Nothing she brought is perishable.
Yesterday morning, we had two neighbors visit and help with the grass mowing since the belt for the riding mower still hasn’t come in.
Meet Jumper Jr. and her sister “Bad” Penny. They belong to the neighbor to the west and find our spring grass greener than their own every year. The neighbor is a female farmer and she spends too much of her time in the spring trying to outsmart these two with new strands of barbed wire, new posts, new fencing, but Jumper Jr. like her Mom would, will go over the fence. When she makes a hole, she sometimes bring along other visitors.
After preparing and eating lunch, I donned sunscreen, a wide brimmed hat securely tied down, and a long sleeved shirt, gathered some weeding tools and headed out to the garden. It was very, very windy, I think it tried to rip my head off a few times when it grabbed at the hat.
Three of the rebuilt boxes had not been weeded when the boxes were set, so my project was to get the weeds out from inside the boxes and from the paths between boxes. Also it was time to remove the hay from the asparagus bed and in doing so, I broke off the very first spear, white from being covered and about 3 inches long. Not to waste fresh food, it was wiped clean and eaten right in the garden. I didn’t see any more new spears, but the hay is off and they will start emerging now. They are such a delight each spring.
The boxes were cleared, the weeds piled in a tub to dump in the chicken run for them to dig through, eat the leaves, and make more compost. Because of the slope of their run, I try to keep a layer of spoiled hay on the ground, also when I clean the coop, the dirty straw or pine chips go in the run, and all kitchen scraps go to the chickens. They dig through all of that matter, adding chicken fertilizer to it and kicking a good amount of thoroughly broken down material through the fence at the down hill end of the run. This was raked and shoveled into the garden cart and wheeled around the garden. Each of the three boxes weeded today received an entire cart full of rich compost and a few fat earthworms that had taken up residence in it.
Those boxes will be easy to keep weeded now until time to plant beans, cucumbers, and the tomato and pepper starts. There is still a 4 X 8 foot bed that hasn’t been weeded and a new 4 X 4 foot box that needs a load of compost. The corn bed needs to be weeded and the hills dug, but it is still 4 or 5 weeks before it can be planted. See the mint on the center right. I think I am going to sacrifice a dark tarp and hold it down with heavy rocks on the edges, just leave it in place for a year. The sun will kill the mint off. While adding a bit of compost to the raspberry barrels, I spotted a Preying Mantis nest, YAY! It is inside the garden and will hatch in late April or May. Helping keep the pests at bay.
Today and tomorrow are rainy, so no garden work for a couple of days. Today’s high is 40 degrees (f) colder than it was three days ago. Ah, spring fickleness.
Yesterday before gardening, I finished the second skinny scarf for daughter’s wardrobe accent. I love knitting and weaving for family rather than taking the time and effort to spin yarn, knit or weave and then put it in my shop for less than it is worth in time and skill. These two days will be for spinning and knitting.
Oh, and that gorgeous handstitched (not machine stitched) quilt, I won on a $.50 ticket to a raffle about 15 years ago. It is a treasure.
Cabin Crafted 