Today was even warmer than yesterday and another beautiful day for a walk. No photos of it today, but we did walk farther.
First thing this morning, the seed starter flat was set up on the warming tray and seeded.
The growlight frame was 3 inches too tall to sit in that position and as there is no other convenient place to put it, out came the jig saw and the frame was knocked apart, the legs shortened by 3 inches. Now we can get plates out of the cabinet above it. I never could understand why it was so tall in the first place. The light will be lowered to within an inch of the dome once seeds sprout, but if anything gets as tall as the light can be raised, they will be leggy and fragile.
After the walk, two more boxes were built from the corners and boards from the deteriorating boxes. There are now 6 in two rows across the top of the garden. The mint box was removed, now to try to rid the garden of all the mint and put some of it where it can grow without over taking the garden. The remaining two deteriorating boxes will be rebuilt into two 4 X 4 foot boxes and any remaining boards will be stored to use for repairs or to build a box where the mint is, if I can get control there.
The center top box with green mesh around it is the asparagus, the one closest to the camera is the garlic and onions.
In the kitchen window is a confused Thanksgiving cactus, thinking it is an Easter cactus. It blooms a few blooms every year around this time.
Tomorrow is still warm, but rain is expected, so the sore back from two days of garden can recover some.
I still need to figure out how to deal with the fencing.
After the walk, I pulled out the box of saved seed, the new seed, the newly purchased seed starter tray. Grabbed some garden tools and headed to the garden, trying not to be overwhelmed because of the weeds, the wobbly fence, and the deteriorating raised bed boxes. The upper edge of the garden has the compost pile, the asparagus bed, and a 4 by 4′ box. A bit of weeding around the boxes, cleaning up the asparagus bed, and the box. After pulling the spoiled hay off of the box, I planted 4 row feet of spinach seed.
The next row below is a sound 4 x 4′ box that is planted with garlic and perennial onions, some straw needed to be pulled back from the onions, the garlic comes up right through it. Next to that box was a 4 X 8′ box that had not been levelled well when built and was breaking apart. I took the drill and some screws out, dismantled the box, created a spot immediately below the top row box, in line with it with a slightly narrower aisle, laid down newsprint and cardboard in the aisle and bottom of the proposed box. Using the old corners and boards, instead of putting it together in the corner grooves, using screws the boards were fastened to the corner posts to make sturdier though a few inches smaller box. Soil from the dismantled box was shifted to the new box and between that box and the one above it, 24 row feet of dwarf shelling peas were planted. The aisles and beds are full of this.
Fortunately it is fairly easy to pull and it attracts native bees, so it only is pulled from the boxes. It is not going down to freezing tonight and tomorrow is another beautiful day, so I am going to take the rest of the 4 x 8 box and boards and corners from another box to build a fourth box between the one planted today and the garlic. I will try to get more newsprint down under that box and move the rest of the soil. The chicken pen is full of good compost, so I will move a barrow or two over to the garden. If I rebuild the long boxes that are falling apart and level the spots where they will be placed, a little at a time, the garden should be ready for the warm weather planting after Mother’s Day.
Two long boxes are sound, one has the blueberry bushes in it, the other will be cleaned up and compost added to it. One smaller box is the out of control mint bed. If the boards from that box are removed, perhaps I can dig up some of the mints.
Now that dinner has been prepared and eaten, the grow light and warm mat are going to be brought up from storage and the tomatoes, peppers, Chinese Cabbage, and Tomatillos will be sown and started indoors. The cabbages can be planted in about a month, the rest will go in the garden after the last frost date.
Now I need a strong body to help me remove the existing fence, reset the t-posts, remount the fencing in a stronger straighter garden fence. And while that is being done, the chicken pen needs attention too.
Most of last week felt like spring. It looked like spring with daffodils, crocuses, snow drops, pussy willow all in bloom. With scrub beginning to leaf out, signs of swelling buds on the trees and bushes around the house and on our walks.
This morning when I awoke, it was 41 degrees f, the sun was shining, the sky was blue. Two and a half hours later, it was doing this…
If the temperature hadn’t hovered near 38 degrees all day, we would have 6 inches of snow, but instead, the ground would get coated, the sun would break through and it would melt, then it would snow again, repeat over and over.
This was much later in the afternoon after several snow bursts and melts. The birds clinging to the feeders as the wind howled. As it got dark and the temperature fell, the snow accumulated. It looks like about 3″ on the ground. The wind driven snow has blown all the way across the 8′ wide covered front porch, right over to the front door.
Tomorrow is clearer, no precipitation expected, but still fairly cold, but by Sunday, we are back in the mid 60’s.
After returning from the fiber retreat on Sunday, I dedicated most of my at home craft time to finish weaving the scarf that I warped last week. I had spun a beautiful skein of fingering weight Romeldale CVM roving that I had purchased from my friend and local shepherd at Sunrise Valley Farm, Gail Groot. It was soft and even, but not enough to do an entire scarf. An online friend, Ellen Sakornbut, of Fiber Curios on Etsy has some lovely fingering weight mill spun yarn of 60% Shetland Lamb and 40% baby Alpaca that coordinated beautifully with the CVM.
After the above photo was taken, I repaired the lead row, I had failed to shift the shed after inserting the spacer, so I pulled that one and pushed the next one up firmly. The loom was warped with both yarns and the weft weave alternated the two yarns in 8″ long blocks.
Tonight I cut it from the loom, it is 5’8″ long plus 4″ fringe on each end. It is slightly more than 7″ wide.
After the fringe was twisted, this photo was taken before it was soaked and laid out to block and dry overnight.
It is soft with the beautiful yarns. I hope it finds a home with someone who will love it and enjoy it.
I left early Thursday morning in light snow to travel west to my weekend retreat. These retreats are to quote a friend who was there, are like family reunions but with people who aren’t related. This one was smaller and I got to know a few folks who were only names and faces at the other larger ones. Because this retreat was in Jonesborough, TN, many of the folks that attend these events live there, or within an hour of there, so we had a variety of drop ins for a morning or afternoon, and the organizer couple, plus 4 or 5 that were there most of the weekend. We had real snow, a few inches worth on Friday and it was beautiful, and warm enough that it didn’t stay on the roads for more than an hour.
We had dyeing lessons, fleece scouring lessons, machine carding reminders, knitting, weaving, socializing.
Today when I left for home, it was sunny and mid 50s. My car stayed parked at the B & B where 3 of us stayed all weekend. It was only a few blocks walk to the event location. When I got ready to move my frosted over car this morning to the site so I could pack up my wheel and basket of fiber, I noticed a very low tire. Before I packed up, I pulled out the little compressor that runs on the car battery and reinflated the tire, but it took so long that the compressor drained the battery enough that the car wouldn’t start. I got jumped, loaded and headed for home around 1 p.m. It is just about a 3 hour trip if uneventful. There was a wicked accident just after I got back into Virginia. A large pickup truck looked like King Kong had grabbed the front and back bumpers and twisted it and a flat bed tow truck was way up the embankment skewered by a tree. That had brought traffic to a very slow stop and go roll and added some travel time.
Looking at my weekend’s production, it looks like I spent more time socializing than spinning or knitting.
There was too much good food, too much junk food, lots of laughs, hugs, and fun. I am renewed, restored, and ready to return to routine. I so appreciate my love being willing to stay and critter sit so I can do this a couple times a year.
We live in rural SW Virginia on a gravel road and a gravel driveway. The gravel road is about 8/10 of a mile long from the paved road to the end of state maintenance, we are about 2/10 of a mile from the paved road, all downhill. Our driveway is another 2/10 of a mile from the state road to the house, also downhill. About twice a year, the 4 houses beyond us call in VDOT because heavy rain, tractor use, and the steep hill between them and us cause the road to deteriorate to a rutted mess. From the paved road to our driveway generally fairs better, but when VDOT comes, they start at the paved road and work to the end, many, many passes with this…
As you can see, this road isn’t very wide, a car coming in the opposite direction requires one of the vehicles to back up to a wide spot or driveway. This guy doesn’t go anywhere in a hurry and I got home from helping daughter this morning, just as he was starting another pass down. He was here just beginning to work as I left 4 hours earlier. I inched down behind him, giving him plenty of room. Our driveway is still ahead of him. They always do the swale in the wrong direction, all the ditches are on the left, the road is highest on the left. Bet they leave our ditch and culvert blocked again and I will have to call them back to come clear it. I’m not going out there with a shovel to do it.
Our couple of beautiful warm springlike days are about to come to an abrupt end. A front is coming through, the temperature is already starting a sudden drop with a wind advisory and rain and snow flurries expected to begin within the next half hour or so. The next few days will be seasonably cold. Tomorrow’s high is 30 degrees f colder than today’s high. The wind has already begun.
Since our property slopes downhill from the top of the driveway to the bottom of the hay field, there is no natural level spot on the farm. As a result, my chicken run and garden slope downhill too. The garden isn’t too much of a problem because I have boxed raised beds and just the aisles are sloped with the gate about halfway down the slope. The chicken run is another issue. The coop is raised about 18″ off the ground on the uphill side and an extra cinder block higher on the downhill side. The uphill side has the large clean out door, the downhill side has the pop door. The gate to the fence is on the uphill side. The chickens have scratched every blade of green from their run when they are confined. They get a lot of free range time, but not when the dogs are out or when the Red Tailed Hawks are active. Because of their scratching and this winter’s rain, going from the gate to the pop door is taking your safety in your hands as your slip and slide down the side of the coop. When I know it is going to rain or snow, I try to toss down a thick layer of spoiled hay from the gate to the pop door. This provide endless entertainment for the hens as they scratch through it looking for bugs and seeds and in the process, making great compost as they scratch it downhill. I beat the rain with about a foot or so of old hay and the chickens are working at moving it away from our safe path.
With winter drawing to a close and with the longer days, all 9 of the hens are laying again. On my way back to the house from forking hay, I gathered 7 beautiful eggs. That is the second time this late winter I have gotten so many. There are plenty of eggs to eat now.
Earlier in my spinning adventures, I subscribed to a monthly fiber club. Each month I received 4 ounces of the fiber/color of the month. When daughter and her family were living with us, each time a skein that I spun was green or had green in it, she would oooh and aaah over it and she was just learning to knit, so several of those skeins ended up in her stash. But she is a working mom of elementary and middle school children, a Taekwondo instructor and youth soccer coach on the side, so she doesn’t have much time to knit. I struck a deal with her to reclaim a couple of those skeins. She gets a scarf and a hat, I get to make a second hat for my shop from the larger skein. The colors are gorgeous, my spinning I see has improved significantly, but they are clearly doable for the projects in queue.
The spindles are to show how much finer and more consistent my spinning is now, both on spindles and on the wheel.
My car is packed with my wheel and fiber, my suitcase is awaiting the dryer to finish. Everything that won’t freeze if it gets as cold as predicted tonight is in the car. A final tote and my purse will leave with me in the morning to go to Tennessee for a weekend of fiber fun with friends, leaving hubby in charge of the house, the critters, and to fend for himself. I love him in general, but really appreciate being given the freedom to go away a couple times each year for these retreats.
About 10 days ago, we found out that we were the victim of credit card fraud. Fortunately, our card holder is terrific and they caught it before we did, notified us and hubby had an extensive conversation with them to establish which transactions were ours and which weren’t. They had already refused the fraudulent charge attempts and cancelled the card. We were told to destroy the card and a new one would be priority shipped. In the course of the conversation, it appeared to be hubby’s card so we destroyed it. No new card arrived.
Last Thursday, we took our German Shepherd to the vet to get her routine vaccinations and tried to use my card. It was denied, so a different card was used. Once home, I called the card company to find out why, only to discover it was my card that had been hacked, not hubby’s, so I had the card company send a new one to him. His arrived today, mine was still missing. Another call made to the card company. They said they would cancel the new card even though it had not been activated and would send another new card, and in the course of the conversation, I was told who the shipping company was, not the USPS. I asked them to not send the new card priority, just send it via USPS and explained that I had a history of missed deliveries by that shipping company.
After being told how it was shipped and finishing my call, I decided to scour the front area of the house. I had not been given a delivery notification, did not have a tracking number. On our front porch is an old fashioned milk can with a collection of walking sticks in it. Folded in half and stuffed to the bottom of the can was the envelope containing the missing card. According to the delivery date on the envelope, it has been there for almost a week. No note on the door, no electronic delivery notice. I am not in the habit of checking the inside of that can for mail or packages.
Today was a gorgeous day, perfect for lunch out and a walk on the Huckleberry Trail. The scrub bushes are beginning to leaf out, some of the trees are about to flower and it is too early. We will have a freeze but in the meantime, seeing the snowdrops, the crocuses, and the buds swelling on the daffodils is delightful.
The nice weather has the hens laying nearly as well as summer. A bad day now is 4 eggs from the 9 hens. A good day is 7. It always amuses me when all three Oliver Eggers lay the same day. One lays green eggs, one lays Khaki colored eggs, and one lays pink eggs.
Daughter had a “I want to move to Australia” week, so we had them over for dinner. Fifty years ago on a flight to Hawaii, I found a recipe for Hawaiian ribs. The recipe works equally well for pork chops, so that was on the menu along with egg noodles, peas, Naan bread liberally spread with homemade garlic butter. Daughter brought an Angel food cake, strawberries, and whipped cream, so we had dessert too.
Some time was spend spinning on the little Jenkins Delight Turkish spindle, spinning a colorful fiber sample. It is a dark wool base with silk, silk noils, bamboo. I’m not a fan of noils, but spun it to lacy weight noils and all. I will ply it tomorrow and measure it out.
We have no appointments this week. I will be leaving on Thursday for a fiber retreat, leaving hubby to deal with the critters.
For Christmas, my love gave me a 16″ rigid heddle loom (in pieces). Christmas afternoon, I got it well waxed, assembled, and warped with some yarn on hand. Using the instruction booklet that came with it, I wove the samplet shawl/scarf pattern trying out various techniques. Christmas also brought the announcement that another grandson was due imminently, so I quickly rewarped the loom with cotton to weave a baby blanket and erred in tracking the panel length, so the second panel didn’t have enough warp left to make it the same length as the first. All of that was cut off the loom, ends secured, and the loom rewarped again to make the second panel. The blanket was shipped off to arrive as it turned out on the day the young man came home.
I had some Romeldale CVM that I wanted to weave, but not enough to warp and weft a scarf, but an online friend had some Shetland lamb, Baby Alpaca mill spun in a color that complemented the CVM and so I ordered 400 yards from her. It has been sitting in a bag waiting for me to warp and weave. I really like to weave, but am not a fan of warping the loom. I learned direct warping and that is what the booklet teaches and I don’t have a warping board. Direct warping requires a lot of walking back and forth from the loom to the warping peg. This yarn is fingering weight, so a finer heddle was required which means more warp threads per inch. Finally today, since I don’t want to put anything on my wheel before next weekend’s retreat, I wound the yarn into balls and warped for an 8″ wide, 6′ long scarf.
The warp uses both yarns and the remaining yarn was weighed so the shuttle has enough for each section of the pattern planned. The loom won’t travel with me, but I’m in no hurry to finish this project.
At least I quit procrastinating and got the loom warped.
I enjoy spinning on my wheel. It is more production as I can fill a bobbin, ply and make a skein of yarn in a few hours. I started spinning less than a decade ago on a drop spindle. The instructor was excellent, though the class was brief. She brought many different wools for us to experiment with and I was quickly hooked on the process and though I moved on to the wheel after a couple of years, I still find a great deal of joy in making yarn using a spindle. The process is much slower, I find it very relaxing and I love the portability. The soothing precision on the Turkish spindle of the winding on of the cop, a God’s Eye pattern that creates a center pull ball that can be plyed on itself, or the cone on a top or bottom whorl drop spindle is. That one has to be wound off or two spindles worth of singles plyed off onto a third spindle or onto a bobbin on the wheel.
I will never use or get rid of my first skein of drop spindle spun yarn. It is thick and lumpy, a sample of about 4 different wools.
When I spin on my wheel, my yarn is now consistent and fingering weight or dk weight unless I really work at making a thicker worsted or aran weight yarn. On my spindles, the yarn is generally much finer, lace to light fingering weight and very consistent.
Both of these spindles have silver Shetland being spun on them. There is a pound of it and a half pound of white. Already spun on my wheel is a skein of light fingering weight pale gray Shetland. I am hoping to spin all of the silver and the white on spindles and have enough for a Shetland shawl. With two Turkish spindles and two top whorl spindles, I can spin quite a bit before it needs to be plied and the plying will probably be done on the wheel working to fill a couple of bobbins.
The cop on the Turkish spindle is the yarn that I have spun today when there was time to sit and spin.
Cabin Crafted 