Cabin Crafted

Author: Cabincrafted1

  • Winter Life

    My love gave me 4 sessions with a Physical Trainer for Christmas. My first session was last Thursday and I was very pleased with the trainer assigned to me. My second session was scheduled for this morning, but as she has a 2nd grader and a 4 year old, with the 2 hour school delay, we had to reschedule. It turned out, she found an alternate for the 4 year old, whose preschool is just 3 hours, so the 2 hour delay eliminated a place for her to go. We met at 11:30 and she is an awesome trainer. I wanted to work on upper body strength and flexibility as the left shoulder bursitis and ruptured left bicep tendon, had really taken a toll on what I could do. This gal believes in slow, repetitive, and stretching with weights no more than 15 pounds, and everything she has taught me can be done at home with our 5, 10, and 15 pound free weights, plus a 30 pound resistance band that I did have to purchase. She also believes in using the whole body, so squats with weight, and Romanian deadlifts, along with certain floor exercises are working my lower body as well. This has allowed me to work out at home. Today’s session offered some different exercises and stretches so the first two plans can be rotated. I have two more sessions with her with the option of continuing with more afterward. If an exercise causes pain in my shoulder, she modifies or switches it to a different one. So far, so good as far as not exacerbating the bursitis, though there are two exercises we had to modify or eliminate.

    Today was supposed to be warmer, reaching the low 40’s, so on my way to meet her at the gym, I stopped for chicken supplies and pine shavings to clean the coop. The weather prognosticator got it wrong again. It is only at freezing and the litter in the floor of the coop was a solid mass. Much scraping with a flat hoe, hay rake, and square nosed shovel got most of the litter out. There is an area in the center of the floor that nothing would remove it. It is better than it was and an entire bale of fine pine shavings was added to the coop. Since they have changed our forecast to now predict 3-4″ of snow over night with 1/10″ of ice on top, the birds will at least have a dry coop. The water was removed and the black tub in the run was filled, so they can’t dump a partial bucket of water onto the floor again.

    When I started the chores in the coop, my entire body was cold, even with the barn coat, boots, and gloves. By the time I finished, only my toes were cold. Rubber barn boots just aren’t warm in the snow. But I did get quite a workout added to my prescribed workout earlier.

    It is good that I have added this structure to my winter days as dealing with feeding and watering the chickens, dog, and wild birds, just doesn’t provide enough workout that I get during garden season. The garden needs some time, but it is going to have to warm up some to allow me to finish cutting down the asparagus fronds, and moving a garden box over them with some additional soil. The compost pile is under several inches of snow and probably frozen, so adding it to the asparagus bed won’t happen until the snow melts and the temperatures warm some. I haven’t even started looking at seeds or thinking about what is to be planted this spring. Since last year was such a failure and being able to get so much good locally grown food at the Farmer’s Market, my incentive to garden has waned some. I do want to grow tomatoes, beans, peas, and peppers, but beyond that, I have no plan. I guess soon the seed catalogs will fill the mailbox and I can dream of flowers and vegetables.

    Stay warm.

  • We Have Winter

    Last year, there was a brutally cold week around Christmas, but otherwise a warm winter and no snow. We have had a few days of snow showers with only a dusting to show for it, that quickly melted away. The most recent nearly nationwide storm gave us snow. Not a lot, only a few inches, but so pretty.

    My social media memory from two years ago showed quite a bit more snow this week and a brief sledding adventure on one of our hills before fleeing back into the house to warm up. No sledding on this, it isn’t really deep enough, but more snow showers are due Friday, probably not enough to make a difference. At least some of this will still linger as we do have cold. Last night it went down to 6*f and not expected to go above 24 today. With a few more nights in the teens or single digits expected before it warms back up above freezing at night next week.

    The Nandina bushes across the front of the house are probably not happy, they all looked like they died last winter. Most of them tried to come back last summer, but look skimpy. This cold may be the end of them. Something low and more hardy may have to replace them this spring.

    The chickens haven’t left the coop in 3 days and probably won’t today either. The water freezes even in the coop. Once the weather warms enough to melt the snow, the coop will be thoroughly cleaned and the water removed to the run. I am thinking about using coarse sand in the coop now that can be scooped and added to as needed. And keeping the water out of the coop to keep it drier in there. The east side has a screened drop down wooden panel that needs to be replaced with a more air and water tight option. There are two small round bales of hay that were left to put in the run, but it is too cold to go out there to spread it. Providing water, food, and scratch is all I can manage in single digit temperatures.

    Egg production is picking up. There are tiny green, blue, and chocolate pullet eggs, and green, pink, and brown hen eggs appearing daily now. Usually around 4 eggs a day. Shadow, the GSD and I are able to enjoy an egg each day and still provide daughter and her family with eggs. The two young roosters seem to get along, but I don’t need two roosters with 8 hens. I need to find a new home for one of them and figure out how to catch him. With the days lengthening, the electric pop door hours will have to be adjusted soon, so no birds end up locked out at night. It might be time to replace the batteries as well.

    The two French doors on the back of the house are both showing light between them on the lower edge. New weather stripping needs to be applied, if I can find the right product for the job.

    Spring, summer, and autumn are beautiful on the mountain. Winter is depressing except when there is snow to change the bleak gray to bright white. This was the first accumulating snow in two years, I’m sure there will be more in our future, we have gotten snow as late as the end of March, but this one wasn’t deep enough to strand us in the hollow and VDOT actually plowed our gravel state maintained road yesterday.

    Not a lot of crafting or reading is getting done lately. The second cataract surgery also produced cornea swelling and so far it hasn’t totally resolved. The surgeon put me on a hypertonic saline drop last week to try to help it resolve. It seems to be helping.

    Stay warm and safe with the extreme storms that have hammered the world lately.

  • New Year’s Traditions

    New Year is here and we still haven’t celebrated Christmas with family, or even each other. In past years, decorations were taken down and packed up on January 1. They would have been up for about a month and the day after or soon following January 1, we would return to school and work. This year, the decorations will stay up for one more week so we can have a post Covid celebration with two of our kids and their families. Christmas dinner will occur then also.

    Another tradition adopted by our family from hubby’s youth, is having Huevos Rancheros for New Year’s Day breakfast. Though it was just the two of us, his traditional breakfast was prepared and enjoyed.

    My family’s tradition was black eyed peas and collards for dinner. I love both, though hubby is not a fan. The peas were simmered this afternoon, the collards came from a can to keep the quantity low. We purchased a rotisserie chicken when we went to town to walk this afternoon and a boiled potato and spinach salad prepared for his vegetables. Two substantial helpings of peas and collards were enjoyed by me. And at least one more meal of them were put away for another night.

    I should have made cornbread, but opted for biscuits instead. I hope the traditions bring us luck in the coming year.

    Happy New Year to all of you.

  • And the rooster crows

    It is a miserably rainy day, a good day to nap the Covid symptoms away. When I looked over to the coop area this morning, I saw that several birds had found their way into the open garden but couldn’t figure out how to get back out. Their appearance looked like perhaps they had spend the rainy night in there. Eventually they either went back out the open gate or climbed a pallet leaning against the fence and went over the top.

    With a Cooper hawk hanging out nearby, they aren’t free ranging much, but a few minute’s ago, most were in the front yard.

    The two hatchlings from last summer both ended up roosters and for the first time one crowed.

    I’m not sure which one is vocal, but at least it isn’t an unpleasant squawk.

  • Best Laid Plans

    This was supposed to be Christmas with Son 1’s family and Daughter’s family, but Saturday, all plans changed.

    On Friday, hubby started having “cold” symptoms and prior to Son 1 getting on the road south west on Saturday, we did Covid tests. He was positive, I was negative, but postponing Christmas celebrations seemed the advisable plan. Late yesterday, he was feeling miserable and I was just beginning to have symptoms. This morning, I also tested positive and so far my symptoms are manageable and hope they stay that way. And he is feeling somewhat better.

    As a result, we will delay our Christmas gift exchange and dinner for two weeks. Not what we had hoped for, but sometimes safety overrules plans.

    Somehow, we managed to avoid this plague for almost 4 years. I guess it was inevitable that we eventually caught it. The telehealth Doctor congratulated us on avoiding it this long. Masks, vaccines, and avoidance helped us. It is likely that walking in the gym on cold, rainy days probably is where we caught it but Christmas and grocery shopping may have contributed even though masked. Because of our ages, I guess we will again avoid eating indoors in restaurants and becoming even more diligent about masks and hand sanitizing. Three of our favorite restaurants do have outdoor seating during warm months.

  • Time passes in my absence

    My activity here has been sparse lately. This in part because of trying to get ready for the holidays between having cataract surgery first on my left eye in mid November and my right eye two days ago. The first one produced lots of swelling of my cornea, proving to be quite uncomfortable the day of surgery, like someone rubbing sandpaper on my eye every time I blinked. Thus, much of that day was spent reclined with my eyes closed and dozing. It then produced 5 days of very blurry vision in that eye. As soon as the vision cleared, I realized that my brain just would not/could not adapt to the disparity of vision between the eyes. At the two week re check, when I discussed it with the surgeon, she did a quick check on my right eye acuity and scheduled me for a more comprehensive exam and surgery on the the right eye. My vision had significantly deteriorated in the three months since the exam that generated the referral to her in the first place, or the initial exam from elsewhere was flawed. Now two days out from that surgery, there is only slight vision fuzz, no discomfort, and cheap reading glasses stashed all over the place as I can no longer see any text closer than several feet away. As she and my eldest said, I now have bionic eyes.

    In between the surgeries, Thanksgiving dinner was prepared and enjoyed here for 8 family members and Christmas gifts wrapped and sorted, one box mailed off. The stocking stuffers have mostly been gathered and sorted by recipient. We were set to go look for our Christmas tree sometime during the first week of December, only to find out that the two local cut your own farms both shut down, one on November 26, the other on December 3. I guess the drought from the summer affected their trees’ health. As a result, we ended up buying an artificial prelit tree on sale. Both of us were finding the cold hike through the farms taxing now, so we will just use this tree as long as it lasts.

    Also in the middle of the two surgeries, we celebrate several family birthdays. At my birthday dinner, local grandson approached me and ask for assistance on a project. Forty odd years ago, we purchased candy cane yarn rope garland for our tree. Ever since daughter was on her own with her own tree, she has coveted the garland. Her son has tried for several years to locate some and purchase it for her to no avail. His project was to see if his wool spinning grandmother could help him make some. Challenge accepted after my search for it was also futile. A huge ball of super bulky chenille white yarn and another of red were purchased. I attempted to make one length on my own but wasn’t happy with it. He was invited over so we could figure it out together and between his intelligent engineering oriented mind and my spinning knowledge and equipment, we succeeded in making 12 very long garlands.

    There is an awesome video that hubby took for the process of making one, but I can’t get it to load here.

    And a few days ago, we had our first snow of the winter, about the most we received in all of 2023 and it was only a couple of inches after a day of 3 inches of rain.

    Hopefully, the rain and the snow are omens of more wet to follow and hopefully break the 2023 drought.

    The littles are all grown, the two hatchlings both young roosters. They haven’t started crowing yet, but at 20-21 weeks old, it will happen any time now. The young pullets haven’t begun laying yet, but they should start soon. The old girls are all in stages of molt, so eggs had to be purchased at the Farmer’s Market last weekend.

    We continue our daily walks outdoors unless it is too cold or raining. Then we walk the mall or go to the gym 1/9th mile track and walk a numbing 36 laps.

    Right now it is quiet on the farm. We will have some of our family here for Christmas and Christmas dinner and look forward to that.

    Wishing you all happy holidays, depending on which you celebrate.

  • Away and back again

    A few weeks ago, we lost our gentle giant of a dog. His lack of mobility had kept us from any travel without finding a farm sitter strong enough to help him to his feet and he weighed 200 lbs. It was very sad for us, but he was nearly 12 years old and had lived a good life. His partner in crime is a 95 lb German Shepherd who is 11 1/2, but still able to get into the back of the car with a running start and sometimes a human assist. We decided to board her and get away for a few days. Our travel had ceased with Covid then human health issues, and the big dog’s issues.

    We reserved 3 nights at Big Meadows Lodge on the Skyline Drive, Shenandoah National Park and two days before we were to leave, we received a call that the electricity had been cut to the Lodge for the safety of the firefighters who were fighting a slow moving wildfire that started outside the park on the east side, but had encroached into the park, not threatening any building, but requiring the power cut and seriously impacting the air quality in that part of the park due to the smoke. We were offered a full refund, a change of reservation to next year, or change to Skyland 10 miles farther north. We chose that option but just for 2 nights. Hiked some, climbed Big Stony Man and looked down on the valley and also down on our cabin. It was pleasant, but not the same as our preferred Big Meadows where we have very fond memories with our children as they grew up. We hiked in shirt sleeves on Thursday.

    And Friday, we awoke to snow and ice, but not more than an inch before we left and drove another hour plus to pick up Son 1 at work and let him drive us to Bethesda, Md were they live and to our hotel. The hotel, a high rise 4 star venue that was gorgeous until we found out our room was infested with cockroaches, a major turn off. The weather in Bethesda was very nice Friday night and until we left after breakfast today. We enjoyed a delightful dinner our with son, his gal and her son, a trip to the Smithsonian Udvar-Hazy space museum on Saturday with all, then a lovely Tex Mex meal at their apartment afterward. This morning, breakfast at their apartment then the trip home.

    It was so nice to get away for a few days. The boarded pup was retrieved, dinner prepped and enjoyed, and the laundry will wait until tomorrow.

    Tuesday, my left eye will get it’s cataract surgery to improve my eye health and vision.

    As usual, I packed more non clothing items than I needed by far, too many snacks, too much fiber, knitting I never touched. It is all put away now. Tonight we sleep in our own bed.

  • Olio – October 20, 2023

    Olio: A miscellaneous collection of things

    Fall is in the air. The daily walks are more vivid each day. A few days ago, we ventured farther into Heritage Park than we have ever walked before doing two more miles on the Huckleberry Trail. The park was a farm purchased by the town of Blackburg. One terminus of the Huckleberry is at one end of the farm and we have walked through the edge of the park many times but have never ventured into the fields. There are several of the old farm building and silos still there and several large fields that are mowed for hay still. Walking the perimeters of two of the large fields, we discovered a Play Park between the field and the old farm buildings.

    The pullets have fully integrated into the flock or visa versa. They all reside in the coop together and free range as a unit now. The Orphans being a smaller breed don’t look as large as the others yet, but the Hatchlings and Marans that was added in with them are as large as the hens, but still lack much in the way of combs. The old Olive egger that was surrogate Mama Hen is being the most consistent layer, but a few days ago, she produced a robin’s egg blue egg that was as gritty as sand on the surface, but normal green eggs on the adjacent days. That has never happened before.

    One of the Buff Orpingtons hasn’t laid an egg all summer. Her comb is small and pale. I think she may be removed from the flock. The older hens are all beginning to molt and the pullets are still weeks from starting to lay, so eggs are going to be scarce for a while.

    Last weekend was a living history day at the Museum. I love this photo that was taken of me as I sat and demonstrated spinning, probably between visitors as I stood and talked when they were present.

    The garden is still an overgrown mess. We may have our first frost Sunday night. I’m hoping so. I will then gather pumpkins and pull the vines, cut down tomato vines, cut back the asparagus, and prune the berries. Maybe then I can clear out a bed to plant next year’s garlic crop and move a wooden box over the asparagus bed to define their patch and add some soil and compost to the stalks before layering straw for the winter, and see if there are any potatoes and sweet potatoes in the hidden box.

    The garden wasn’t as prolific as years past, but no fall garden was planted and the pumpkins just took over. There are pickles, pickled peppers, tomatoes and sauce, a small batch of apple/Asian pear sauce, and a very few quart bags of beans and peas. It looks like a couple dozen small Seminole pumpkins are hiding out in the vines.

    Early mornings and evenings are being spent knitting on my sweater. Much more yarn than was needed was spun, so another project will have to be found for the remainder. The spindles get some time each day working on another batch of yarn.

    On Sunday afternoon and evening, I will again participate in the Museum Spirit Trail event, portraying Mary Draper Ingalls, then Tuesday and Thursday, demonstrate for 4th graders at the museum in the mornings.

    Wednesday, I have my consult for cataract surgery. I am a bit anxious about that even though I have been reassured by many people who have already had it done that it isn’t a big deal and I will be so happy once it is done.

  • The Farm in Autumn

    The garden is now one huge pumpkin patch. Planting Seminole pumpkins in there was an error on my part. Somewhere beneath the vines are potatoes, sweet potatoes, and peppers. They have nearly taken over the blueberry bed and are creeping through the fence and forming pumpkins outside the garden as well. The deer are loving that, eating the leaves and flowers, and gnawing the still green pumpkins outside of the fence. The tomatillos are finally flowering so there may be some of them after all. The tomatoes are brown stalks standing in the midst of the pumpkins vines and the peppers are engulfed.

    As the leaves fall from the apple trees, the fruit is more visible and a bucket was harvested yesterday and applesauce will be made today. The apple pears will be added to that sauce, it makes a delicious fruit sauce.

    There are two hens in with the littles now. No aggression is shown, but favoritism is definitely shown for the ones Mama Hen raised, so the orphans are still orphaned. They are all looking like little hens now. Mornings are foggy as they set out on their daily forage. Later in the day, the two hens will go off and the 5 littles will rejoin nearer the coop.

    The 4 hens in the Palace, still isolated are producing few eggs. I want to know which two are producing, so later this week, I will let one of the Marans out and to rejoin the coop and see if I get a dark colored egg in the coop. Mama Hen started laying again and has produced a green egg every day for a week. Little Red hen lays about 4 a week. If there are no dark eggs provided in the coop, that Marans will be returned to the Palace at night and the other one put in the coop as I know one of them is laying. Then the same process will occur with the Buff Orpingtons. It is the only way I can figure out who is laying and who is not.

    Yesterday as the lawn was being mowed, I noticed that Ranger’s Memorial tree is sporting autumnal colors. Leaves are changing and falling, but the color in the mountains isn’t very vivid this year.

    During our walk yesterday, I spotted this huge mushroom. It was on the other side of a chain link fence so now the best photo, but it must have been 15″ in diameter.

    Daily foggy morning, obscuring the south ridge behind our farm.

    Welcome to October.

  • Day to day

    Every day, hubby and I take a walk. We aim for 4 miles and enjoy walking outdoors when the weather allows. If it is rainy, we do have a 1/9th mile track in the local gym, but 36 laps gets boring quickly. Generally, we walk one of several sections of the Huckleberry Trail, a rails to trails paved path that covers about 15 miles in the county adjacent to ours. One of our walks takes us through part of the Virginia Tech campus and through the Hahn Gardens on campus. The gardens have been beautiful with flowers, shrubs, trees, and art displays that can be voted on, some sculptures, some hanging banners in the trees. When there isn’t an event going on in the gardens, the Pavilion is open with restrooms and a water fountain.

    Today while crossing the creek in the gardens, this display of mushrooms was found beneath a tree.

    And just on the other side of the creek, a display of ceramic mushrooms.

    The bees are being fed 2:1 syrup to help them prepare for the upcoming winter. Two quart jar feeders were placed in each hive about a week ago and today a gallon of syrup was carried down to refill the jars. Three of the jars were mostly empty, one still had a few ounces. The bees were very active around the feeders, but these are the most gentle bees ever. I did wear my veil and gloves, but didn’t remember to put on my boots with my pants tucked in, yet there was no aggression.

    While refilling the syrup feeders, I added the sugar trays which give the jars a little extra room, they are the narrow box just below the top boxes under the lids. When it gets too cold for the syrup, sugar bricks will be placed on the sugar trays on top of the top box of frames to give them more help through the winter. If we end up with a week of single digit weather with sub zero temperatures like last Christmas, I may take a couple of kid size sleeping bags we have stored and wrap the hives. So far they are successful this year and it would be nice to keep it that way.

    This evening, I had the opportunity to teach a hand’s on soap making class at the museum where I volunteer. Five folks worked to learn to make traditional Lye soap, of course with a bit of history on Colonial soap making and we even melted the lard in a cast iron spider pot on a small fire in the yard.

    Fun, a new skill, and great folks enjoyed the evening.