I think I have blogged on this topic in the past, but this week has been extremely irritating with “Big Brother.” We have two very old, high mileage cars that we are struggling to keep on the road, but fearing that another major repair bill might be the proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back, so we have both been looking at reviews and stats on various options for replacement, hoping we won’t need one. At the same time, it is approaching time for us to have a vacation, so we started looking at winter cruises and other options. It took Facebook no time to start tossing up ads for new cars and cruise lines. We didn’t use Facebook to do the searches, but they obviously are watching our online activity, hopefully can’t see our online bill paying and banking.
To add to this irritant, I had a medical appointment and an audiology test last week. The Doctor and the Hearing Clinic are separate but joined at the hip so to speak. I had hardly gotten in the car to come home until I received a text message asking for me to rate my visit. This was followed by an email asking for my opinion and when I didn’t offer it, I have been emailed two more times. Both from the doctor’s office and from the Hearing Clinic. Monday we had our HVAC system twice yearly servicing done and the technician did the invoice on a tablet. His truck wasn’t even turned around in our driveway before I got a text asking to rate his visit. Yesterday was errand day and a couple purchases were done with the debit card, and you guessed it. Emails asking how my visit with their establishment went.
On the other hand, we visited a chain Asian fast food place for lunch yesterday and as seems to be the case more often than not, they lacked the entree I wanted and haven’t had black tea brewed or bottled but once in the past year. We didn’t even get a paper receipt so I could tell them what I think of their restaurant.
I guess the only way to have privacy is to use cash and stay off the internet, but this morning’s news had an article that ATM usage fees may rise to $4 a transaction and it had become difficult to deposit cash, so I guess “they” don’t want a cash society.
My knitting adventure like most of my other crafts is mostly self taught. I tried to take up knitting as a teen as I watched the women in the back of the gift/knit shop. They, in my young eyes, were “old ladies” but the process was fascinating. I am left handed, pretty dominantly left handed, and though they were eager to sell me a sweater’s worth of yarn, a pattern, and demonstrate the basics, I was pretty much on my own. The sweater ended up a disaster. Teaching a lefty when you are right handed, or vice versa can be tricky, and allowing a brand new knitter to start with a sweater is just not fair. This was many, many years ago. I had an adult friend that had already taught me to crochet with very fine cotton and tiny hooks, and I did some basic crewel work (mostly hand monogramming) so I should have been able to learn knitting. I gave up and returned to crochet, making many afghans, a couple of vest type tops, a pillow or two, and a couple of baby blankets. Then my interest changed to counted cross stitch and making split reed baskets, learning smocking and french hand sewing, and calligraphy.
None of these crafts required a lot of equipment, all self taught except for the smocking, hand sewing, and calligraphy. About a decade and a half ago, I found out I was going to become a grandmom and I wanted to make baby things, lots and lots of baby things from organic cotton, soft undyed wool. Shirts, soakers, socks, sweaters, knitted long pants and so I started over with knitting needles, a paperback booklet of basic stitches, wool and cotton bought over the internet, and making more and more baby clothes.
After moving to our mountain area from the coast, working a few more years while our retirement home was completed and waiting to turn old enough for social security benefits, I joined a knitting group and even worked part time after retirement at a local yarn shop for a short time. The ladies there were so much more knowledgeable about knitting and I could ask questions, be taught (patiently) by them and improved my skills. One of the women remarked how slowly I knitted. This woman used mostly heavier weight yarns and larger needles while I was using smaller needles and smaller than worsted yarn for the most part. Her comment stung for some reason, though she was at least a couple decades younger than I, and by then I had already developed arthritis in one hand that required surgery and a cast for 5 weeks.
I learned to change my knitting style to take some of the strain off of that hand and it did speed up my knitting some, but I’m not in competition, I am not a production knitter, I don’t have to be a speed knitter. I knit for the joy and relaxation that it brings me. I have friends that finish large shawls and sweaters in days, it takes me weeks. Knitters who can knock out a pair of socks in a day or two, it takes me ten times longer, but I doubt they enjoy what they make any more than I do what I make.
It is a process, not a contest. And I am grateful to those who were willing to teach me, not critique, I can read a pattern, a knitting chart, design a pattern, adjust one to make it fit me or the person for whom it is being made. So I am a slow knitter, so what!
About mid week, I realized that one of my interchangeable needle tips being used to knit the Hitchhiker scarf, my car project, not only wouldn’t stay tightened, but when an attempt to tighten was made it would just keep turning. I switched the tip from the other end to see if it was the cable which would have been an easy fix as there are extras, but no, the tip itself was stripped. I felt like something was wrong when I first started using it, but went into denial mode until it became a problem. My supplier for the Knitter’s Pride Karbonz needles is a small online shop out of Burlington, NC, Knit Bin. She is quick in processing orders and answering questions. I contacted her, reminded her that I had just purchased them in May and ask about Knitter’s Pride warranty. She contacted them, they didn’t want the flawed one back, she mailed me a new tip on Thursday and I got it on Friday. Such great service, so that project is back in my bag when I am the passenger in the car.
Because that project was stalled, I worked on the Free Your Fade from Andrea Mowry that I started with the Only the Finest yarn I bought at Black Mountain in late August.
It is the 4 mini skeins and the full skein wound in the center of this photo. I began it with the gray, moved to the darker blue gray, and I’m now on the variegated one tucked under the reddish roving on the right. Next will be the lavender, and finally the Merlot color to end the knit. You can see the gray, the blue gray, and the start of the fade into the variegated in the picture below. This is going to be a very generous shawl/scarf just for me this time.
There has been little spinning done this week, a bit of white Cormo on a Turkish spindle, but nothing to show off.
It has been hot and extremely dry this week. We have walked our usual 2.25 to 2.5 miles almost every day, usually after dinner as the sun is low and the temperature falling. Today they called for 40% scattered showers and for a change, we were in the path. We had a light shower followed a couple hours later by a good hard rain that lasted maybe half an hour. It won’t break the drought, but it did cool off the day from near 90 to 79 and settled the dust, maybe reduced the fire risk a little.
I have been an avid reader all my life. Hubby is too, as are two of our children, and all of the reading age grandchildren. Being a reader is relaxing and can take you to places you’ve never been. Years ago, someone from the knit group or spinning group mentioned the Louise Penney series set is a small (not real) village in Quebec with the main character holding various roles during the series, mostly as an officer of some level in the provincial police. I tired of the series and quit reading them for a couple of years, then picked up another more recent one where he was in charge of a school. A good friend is a fan of the books and suggested I read the two that follow that one. Being out of anything at home, I looked at the electronic selection from our library and found the next in the series. The author is excellent in descriptions.
I grew up being served “Shepherd’s Pie” and later preparing the same for my family. The version didn’t differ much from Girl Scout Stew, a mix of ground beef, canned or frozen mixed vegetables, but the pie topped with a ring of mashed potatoes (they were usually instant when I was a kid.)
Bear with me, here. In the book above, the Bistro in the village was preparing “Shepherd’s Pie,” the description different from what I grew up with, but described so vividly that I could practically smell and taste it. The one in the book was savory with ground beef, onions, garlic, mushrooms, and herbed gravy, topped with mashed potatoes in which Gruyere cheese had been melted. I had decided that it was too tempting not to try. I envisioned aromatic herbs such as Rosemary and Thyme. This morning I thawed a pound of ground beef from the Farmers Market and purchased Yukon gold potatoes and mushrooms while there today. I had what I needed to make it. Then I read a blog post on corn bread, Northern vs Southern style, why sugar was added to the recipe; with and without flour in the batter. I make excellent corn bread, it has to be made in the 8″ cast iron skillet. Well, now I wanted corn bread too. Mind you, there are only two of us in this household at this point, but left over pan toasted cornbread is delicious. For dinner tonight, I made the Shepherd’s Pie per the book description, ground beef with onions and garlic, gravy rich with rosemary and thyme, Yukon gold mashed potatoes, but I didn’t have Gruyere, however I did have a delicious cheese from the Farmers Market, so I added chunks of it to the hot potatoes and mashed it in with the butter and milk, topped the casserole and baked. Of course I mixed up corn bread while it was baking and upped the oven temperature, added the hot skillet of batter and finished baking them both.
Peas cooked as a vegetable and oh boy am I full. I will never make Shepherd’s Pie the “old” way again. This is savory and delicious. Reading can be dangerous and delicious.
Now we need to go walk it off before it gets dark.
I recently sent off applications for 4 craft events, one just before Thanksgiving and 3 Holiday Markets, the first 3 Saturdays in December. Today, I was notified that the Holiday Market one was approved. At hubby’s suggestion, I ordered some soap molds in holiday shapes and will make some soaps for those events.
I always have something on the needles for these events, in this case, I have a scarf/mini shawl. Some handspun worsted weights that will become fingerless mitts or mittens in various sizes sitting in the wings.
But also on the needles is Free Your Fade Shawl by Andrea Mowry. When I was at Black Mountain at the Knotty Ladies retreat last month, I purchased Only the Finest yarn, a 788 yard (8 oz) multi skein of 4 two ounce skeins of coordinated fingering weight yarn that is 97% Alpaca and 3% Blue Faced Leicester. Also a full skein, 395 yards (4 oz) of a 5th color. The yarn is delightfully soft and the colors very much my fall/winter colors.
The colors left to right are the order I will use. I have used the first two ounces and faded to the second color. The fades will be narrower than the pattern as it uses only 2 fades of 3 colors, but the Merlot wine color will be the widest and will be at the edge against my face. The total yardage of the yarn I purchased is slightly more than needed, but I’m sure the remnants can be used in a hat. It is rare for me to knit for myself, but between the cost of the yarn and the time it will take to knit 1000 yards, I couldn’t ask enough to sell it, not that I would want to.
I am certain that my Great Grandmother who grew up in eastern rural North Carolina in a large family was raised with a huge garden, yard chickens, and the knowledge to can and otherwise preserve what could not be eaten right away to have for the non productive winter months. They probably could grow collards or kale well into the winter, likely made kraut and pickles in large crocks to be dipped into all winter, cold stored apples and pumpkins.
My Grandmother was born in the same environment, but moved to the city as a young woman and I am unaware whether she canned, but I know she didn’t after I was born, she was working outside the home at a bank by then. My mother made a few attempts when I was a young teen, but I remember jars of foods she had prepared, bursting on the shelves in the room off the garage.
Though I had a garden of some size through most of my adult life in nearly every home and making Pomegranate jelly with my Dad most autumns, I really didn’t get into canning until we retired and bought our farm. I keep a decent sized garden, have a small orchard, and many wild berries. This area has a strong ethic of buy local and eat local and the environmental impact of doing so spoke loudly to me. I knew that I wanted to raise chickens for eggs and grow much of our food. That which I can’t or don’t grow, I try to purchase from the Farmers’ Market, both meat and produce. Though I don’t buy produce to can, I do try to save as much of what we grow as I possible by freezing, fermenting, or canning.
The Asian Pear trees produce much more than fruit than we can consume. Last year, we gathered the apples and pears and took them to Wilderness Road Regional Museum and pressed them into a delicious fruit cider. Some of the pears were made into marmalade and jam. This year I was away from about the time the fruit was ripening until the middle of last week. The deer got a lot of it, but enough remained to make 7 pints of applesauce, 3 pints of pear sauce, more than 5 half pints of Pear Marmalade. And a enough of the undamaged ones to enjoy fresh and to barter for some hot peppers in two varieties that I don’t grow.
After a decade of trying to water bath can in an 8 quart stock pot, constantly looking for a shallow “rack” to put under the jars, I purchased a real water bath canner, a 21.5 quart one with a real rack.
Though the tomatoes didn’t do well this year, there are jars of tomato sauce, pizza sauce, and salsa. The cucumbers thrived and many jars of pickles were canned, other varieties fermented and stored in the refrigerator. The hot peppers are still producing and 5 quarts are pickled in the refrigerator, the rest to be shelf stable canned, or being turned into fermented hot sauces in the style of Sriracha or dried.
There are just the two of us with occasional visits from grown children, some of the pickles and sauces will be shared, but we should eat well. The garden is still producing green beans to be enjoyed and frozen, hot peppers to be canned, and pumpkins that won’t be revealed until the leaves die back or we get a frost.
Each year I look at the shelves and wonder if we will eat it all, each spring I anxiously await fresh foods from the Farmers’ Market and early garden as the shelves empty of preserved garden goodness and fill with empty jars awaiting a new season of canning. The canner won’t be put away until the last pepper is picked and the excess pumpkin canned for holiday pies, then the canning tools and food mill will be packed in the big pot and stored away for another year. Waste not, want not.
The Autumnal Equinox is just 5 days away. We have days of cool fall like weather (today) and days of Hades hot (like yesterday). The days are shorter by about 2 minutes each day, the trees are beginning to color, some leaves are falling. The shorter days and cooler nights are when the peppers produce like there will be no tomorrow. The pumpkins that I feared wouldn’t do anything have taken over the entire lower edge of the garden and the blueberry bed and there are green pumpkins that will ultimately turn tan as Seminole pumpkins do.
Yesterday I posted that I harvested apples and pears upon my return home. Later in the afternoon, I picked a whole basket of peppers and enough beans to cook with dinner. The second planting of beans all came from the same seed package, however the beans growing are two different varieties.
The peppers were tackled as dinner was being prepared and 5 quarts of Jalapenos were pickled, the red ones set aside to make more Sriracha style sauce, and the rest cut in half and seeded to dry. They sat overnight in a basket and this afternoon were put in a very low oven to finish drying.
The Anchos are beginning to develop and turn red. One of the plants didn’t survive to develop, so there won’t be too many of them this year. They are going to be solar dried for enchilada sauce. Also this afternoon the bucket of fruit was addressed with a batch of Pear Orange Marmalade made and canned.
That is my favorite of the sweet preserves that I make and it hardly put a dent in the number of pears picked yesterday. Tomorrow I will address the apples, making applesauce and then will decide what to do with more pears.
I didn’t think the deer ate the pears, but all of yesterday’s windfall were gone this morning, so I shook the tree to bring down more for them to clean up tonight.
Fall also brings delivery of the Alliums to be fall planted. Yesterday I got a notice that they had been shipped and today they were in the mailbox.
Outside the chicken pen some volunteers sprouted a while back. At first I thought it was corn, but as it developed, I realized that the volunteers were actually sorghum. The heads were cut to dry this morning so that the seed can be added to birdfeed for the wild birds this winter.
The Alliums will have to wait for another few weeks before they can be planted here. In the meantime, they will be stored and the bed for them enriched with compost and prepared for the planting.
I love the produce of fall, but hate that it signals the upcoming cold and short days.
I’ve been away for 6 days helping family as they renovate a house in preparation to move. Being there has allowed the adults to work after their day jobs and on weekends without having to worry about the young teen. I was able to be with him on a day off from school, pick him up on two other days as the bus from this school doesn’t run to his current home, and get him to school this morning. It allowed me to help with daily household chores such as laundry and preparing dinner so they could work longer without having to get home to him.
I also filled boxes. They are true bibliophiles and music lovers. Books were packed and boxes and bookcases moved. Extra linens packed and moved. The kitchen and big furniture will have to be moved once the renovation is complete enough to allow them to function in the house, but they are getting closer.
This was my second trip to help out since they purchased the house just as school began and I know that they are grateful as they repeatedly let me know. On this trip, I was talking about trying to pick the apples when I got home, that the deer had not already pulled down and eaten, being fruit that was all over my reach. The Asian pears also heavy with fruit that the birds were damaging and fruit was beginning to fall. The deer don’t seem to want the pears. Generally I pull the tractor near the trees, stand on the seat and grab what I can. They asked me why I didn’t have a fruit picker tool, I didn’t even know they existed. They showed up on Sunday with a brand new extension pole fruit picking basket for me as a gift.
After arrived home today, getting unpacked, and laundry started, I took my new tool out to try.
What a genius idea. Though some of the fruit is bird damaged, there are plenty of apples to make applesauce, and plenty of pears to make Pear and Orange marmalade, my favorite.
The 8 gallon bucket was half filled with the remaining apples and filled to the top with pears. There are many more pears out there, most very small or bird damaged, but I harvested more than enough to can. We generally have a later frost that kills the early fruit blooms and the later blooms produce enough fruit for our use and the fruit gets larger because it isn’t crowded. We did not have that frost this year and one of the two Asian pears had so much fruit that it broke several branches and mostly the fruit is small. If there isn’t a later frost next year, I know I must thin the pears and once it gets cold, I must prune the damaged branches.
I love my gift. I was safely able to get a harvest and the rest of the week is supposed to be a bit cooler, so I will can applesauce and jam.
We live a few miles from Blacksburg, Virginia, home of Virginia Tech, thus home of many home sport events. Each of these events bring large numbers of visitors to the town; alumnae, parents of current students, visitors from the other teams. Being a large university, there are organized social groups, such as fraternities and sororities and some not so organized gatherings, tailgate parties, and both legal and underage drinking.
Blacksburg also has some beautiful and some unique features. Each spring the roadway medians are planted with seasonal flowers. A bit later in the spring, large hanging pots of flowers are hung from the lamp posts. The medians are well cared for with new flowers planted as the seasons change providing blooms of color to enjoy. Also placed around town are “Hokie Birds,” fiberglass statues about 5 feet tall painted by local artists in varied themes and sponsored or owned by businesses and individuals.
I don’t know how many of them there are, but you see them everywhere. Over the years since they were erected, several have been stolen or vandalized, usually around home sporting event days.
The original town of Blacksburg had 16 blocks and those blocks are designated on signage. A couple of years ago, a local artist produced 16 bronze frogs based on the local green frog and they were placed around town on walls, concrete pedestals, and the curb type edge around some of the flower beds.
One of the frogs was stolen from in front of the Lyric, the local historical movie theater in town, right across from campus. Then another disappeared, reducing the number to 14. Last evening as we were taking our daily walk, this time on the Huckleberry Trail, we spotted this:
The little green frog that sat on a substantial concrete pier is gone along with the pier. Taken during or after the home football game. The path is used by many to get from local parking to an access point to the stadium. The football goers have caused enough property damage to private properties abutting the trail, that the town had to erect a 48″ wire fence to prevent shortcuts through peoples yards.
Most of the stolen and vandalized Hokie birds have been recovered and repaired, but the 3 frogs are gone. This is a crime, not a prank. It troubles me that anyone would even consider stealing or vandalizing the art. They certainly can’t display it in their home and they have deprived others of the enjoyment of seeing it in passing.
Though we don’t live within the town, we consider it our town too and such theft and destruction hurts, that people can be so inconsiderate and crass.
The brain is a miraculous organ. It keeps our bodies functioning even when disease robs us of our memories. We use only a portion of this amazing living computer. Sometimes an accident or illness cause it to glitch.
There are many historical events in my life that I remember with clarity, where I was, what I was doing having lived through 7 decades so far. I was sitting in typing class in high school when the P.A. crackled to life to tell us that our President had been shot, it was the day after my 16th birthday and a party had been planned and then cancelled. I was an occupational counselor in a high school when the space shuttle Challenger blew up over our country on re-entry and all activity stopped as we watched on the handful of TVs in the library. The 9/11/2001 terrorists attacks occurred when I was a high school counselor in a brand new High School and Technology Center with a TV in every classroom and public place in the building. In a city that was a major military hub of the east coast of the USA, many of our student’s having parents working in the Pentagon as we watched horrified as the Twin Towers burned and fell and the Pentagon burned from the strike on it. There are dozen of events etched in my mind, Nixon resigning, Saigon evacuation, Reagan shot, Bobby Kennedy assassinated, the Cuba missile crisis, etc.
But a glitch in the form of a ski fall a few years ago resulting in a concussion, followed by an auto accident this past February with another concussion and now I can’t remember a simple 8 line knitting pattern that I have knit 3 prior times. Every line has to be marked as I knit. It is not a complicated lace, simply remembering which end of the row to increase until the 8th row, binding off some stitches and then repeat. It is frustrating, it is making doing more complex lace pattern almost impossible. Most of the symptoms, such as headache and dizziness are rare now, some simple tasks like releasing the parking brake on the car before backing up have resolved, the occular migraines are much less occurrent, but basic math functions require a calculator, and knitting requires a magnetic marker. I don’t know if these functions will ever fully return or if I will have to keep my knitting simpler and keep my smart phone nearby for it’s calculator function (who still has a real calculator except high school and college math students.) I hope it heals, but at least I have tools to help me through.
Each time I have a vending opportunity and sell little or nothing, I have second thoughts about the whole process. Is it worth it to load it all up, set it all up, sit there for hours, only to pack it up with maybe a few dollars in my pocket? Then the notices start arriving about opportunities that I haven’t tried before, hubby suggests new shapes or scents for soaps, I try a new product for myself and think it will sell and start downloading the applications.
Last night I ordered some “holiday” shaped molds and a flower shaped mold for cold process soap. Last spring, I added a sheep, a goat, and a couple traditional shapes. I rarely make the loaf shape that has to be sliced anymore. I played with a gorgeous swirl, but it didn’t set up properly and had to be re batched which caused the swirl to be incorporated. Then last night, shortly after I completed applications for two events I have never done before, a friend and I chatted and she may have yet another we can do together, both demonstrating fiber prep and spinning as well as vending our wares. The Holiday Markets at the Blacksburg Farmers’ Market, that I have done those for several years and had mixed results will conflict with one of the others, but I can still possibly do two of them. If they all pan out, that will be 5 events in a couple of months and will hopefully reduce my stock so I can reassess what sells and what doesn’t. Oddly, the two soaps that are preferred by my eldest’s family and by me are two that don’t sell at events very well.
I started out with mostly body care products and a few knit hats. As I have continued my adventure in spinning, more knits and weaves have been added, but the types of markets that I am doing generally don’t support the cost that a hand spun, hand knit or hand woven garment require. If I were to value my time invested in the process, the prices would be so high as to frighten off lookers. As a result, I generally try to recoup my fiber cost and some tiny amount for my design and time, but mostly consider it my entertainment expense. If a 4 ounces bag of wool costs $15-$25, pricing a hand spun, hand knit hat at $30 causes folks pause, but really doesn’t pay me for my time at all. It takes several hours to spin the fiber and several more to knit a hat out of medium weight yarn, my hand spun is often finer and so takes longer, so the pay for my time is $5-$15 total for 8-10 hours of work, not even sweatshop pay.
Maybe I’m going about this wrong. I started making soap for family, but only one son’s family wants it. With jobs and kids in the house, they need easy to care for clothing, so hand washable hand knit woolens aren’t favored. I have tried online shops and don’t sell much if anything there either. Maybe I should just make enough soap for the two families, spin and knit what I will wear and not worry about selling any of it.
Can you tell, I am discouraged, but still hopeful?
Cabin Crafted 