Cabin Crafted

Author: Cabincrafted1

  • It Isn’t Over ‘Til The Fat Lady Sings. . .

    Or the garden quits producing.  The tomatoes are long gone, the Tomatillos and peppers are making up for it.  Much to my surprise, the late planting of bush beans is producing.

    I returned from my Retreat and the 12 hours of driving in 2 days, the babysitting and errands with more jars, lots of them.  I have been taking jars to NoVa for three years, full of canned goodness and have brought a few home, but today I have enough to keep me from a purchase for a while at least.

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    And bigger jars purchased for the winter storage of bulk goods.

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    I left NoVa early today and arrived home in time for lunch with Mountaingdad and wandered off to chicken chores and a garden check and was greeted with . . .

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    Peppers, 5 kinds, tomatillos and beans.  This was inducement to pull out the canner again and pickle 4 pints of Jalapenos, 5 cups of XXX Habanero/Tomatillo sauce, blanch and freeze 3 meals of beans and a quart of bell pepper slices.  The tiny hot little peppers that I bought as cayenne are being added to a bottle of vinegar as I harvest them for a couple of smaller bottles of pepper vinegar.

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    The more I put by, the more we will enjoy this winter and the more we can share.  The garden has been good to us this year.  I still plan to put up a few more pints of applesauce and a few quarts of apple slices in juice, make a gallon of cider vinegar, as much green salsa and XXX hot sauce as I have Tomatillos and peppers, pints of pickled Jalapenos until the frost hits.  The winter squash and pumpkins continue to spread and grow.  Hopefully, below all of those leaves we will find a good harvest of Buttercup squash, Seminole pumpkins and yellow and white sweet potatoes that were engulfed a couple of weeks ago.

    Lovin’ life on our mountain farm.  It is good to be home.

  • The Outing

    After traveling home from “The Retreat,” I helped Son#1 move scaffolding and clean up spilled and dripped stain until it was dark. Mountaingdad drove his car, Son#1, Grandson #1 and I drove in my car to town for an 8:30 p.m. burger before the 3 of us left for Northern Virginia. Once in town and too late on a Sunday night to do anything about it, we discovered I had a headlight out so we switched cars, moving bags of clothes, jars of canned goodies and eggs. We arrived at their house after 1 a.m. Today I am guardian/babysitter as Grand#1 has no school.
    We are all slow and sluggish today, but Son#1 was gotten to work, most of the weekend homework done except for some social studies as the book was left at school, and guitar practice done. Grand#1 and I went to lunch then to The Meadowlark Botanical Gardens.

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    We arrived as a light rain started and decided to enjoy the walk anyway. Hubby’s car had an umbrella and we each had light jackets and off we went.

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    Wet walks, huge Koi, turtles, pagodas, sculptures, old cabins, fall flowers and foliage made for a pleasant afternoon, well worth the combined $5 admission and better for us than caving in to the sluggishness at least I feel today.
    Tomorrow morning I head home to do some more staining and regular farm chores.

  • The Retreat

    Thursday morning, I departed, leaving Mountaingdad home to care for dogs, chickens, and for part of the weekend, also Son #1 and Grandson #1, while I traveled two hours west with a spinner friend to Hawks Nest State Park for a 3 day spinning retreat.  And a treat it was.  In route the other 4 of the other spinners from our local group met us at Tamarack, a delightful juried craft market with a cafe run by The Greenbrier.  We wandered and ogled the wood, glass, pottery, weaving, prints, and quilts then had our lunch in the cafe before making the last half hour trek to the park.

    There we were treated to rooms, most that overlooked a long section of the New River Gorge.

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    The view from our room and from the conference room of the retreat.
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    Check in area of the lobby.
    We didn’t even unpack before we set up our wheels and started to spin, Shetland, Mohair, Cotswold, Dorset, Alpaca, Yak and Silk.  Many vendors with more fiber to tempt this hungry group of fiber artists.

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    Spinners and weavers, tables of fluff, chatter and knitting, all lots of fun stuff.

    At night we partied on goodies brought from home and pot luck shared with beverages of choice.  To town we zipped for lunch at the Cathedral Cafe for homemade soup, salad and bread, then homemade Chai tea and carrot cake.  Another evening to town for pizza, salad and beer or rootbeer.

    Three days of new friends and old, food, fiber and fellowship.  Each of us leaving with a goody bag of fiber samples, notebooks, pens, pencils, patterns and a door prize each of wonderful donated weavings, fiber, photo frames, salsa and chips, bags or other wonderful surprises.

    In spite of the chattery good times, much yarn was made, much was woven or knit.  I succeeded in over 400 yards of a mixed fiber skein.

    This will be added to my growing mixed fiber yarn of naturals and colors that will be a blanket someday.
    This will be added to my growing mixed fiber yarn of naturals and colors that will be a blanket someday.
    This hot mess of overspun Merino that looks like a 106 yard long hair scrunchy.
    This hot mess of overspun Merino that looks like a 106 yard long hair scrunchy.

    And 100 grams of beautiful Merino that is awaiting the other 100 grams to be spun and plied that will become a gift scarf for some lucky person.

    The Hot Mess was Merino purchased there as is the Merino that is only half done and the 8 ounce bag of Dorset Lamb fiber the Hot Mess is sitting on.  I will enjoy more spinning reminders from the weekend and look forward to the next retreat in late winter of the one next fall.  I will return.

     

  • Watching paint dry

    As I have posted recently, we are trying to get our log house re-stained before winter. This either a tough or expensive task as the front of the house has 3 dormers on the upper floor, though the front of the house walks out onto a ground level porch but the roof is metal and steep.  The back of the house that originally was designed to have french doors that walked out to a ground level deck ended up on a walk out basement, not in the original plans and the french doors walk out onto a narrow part of the deck one story up and the deck itself sitting about 4 feet off the ground with a serious stone retaining wall under the west edge.  This makes the dog run dormer on the back of the main house on the 3rd story.  As we have set and moved scaffolding and Son #1 tries to figure out how to set up enough on the deck and in the breezeway garden to go over the breezeway roof to stain the east end of the house, we have discussed the dogrun dormer and its steep sides.

    He reminded me that when he was designing and building the deck and walkout that he suggested we extend the walkout the full length of the back of the house to accommodate an extension ladder so he could get up there.  At that point, our building funds were running low.  The painting contractor who did the house 4 years ago sent two young men up on ladders set precariously on the roof to do it, and charged us an arm and a leg for it.  There is no way we are going to let our son do that.  We will get as much as we can done then hire someone brave or fool enough to do that part.  If we come into a windfall of funds (not likely since we don’t play the lottery and don’t have any known rich relatives), we will extend that deck walkout.

    The stain we use, recommends it be applied between certain temperatures and with humidity at or below 40%.  This is Virginia, the humidity is never that low, so we have to pick the driest days with a string of expected dry days following it to get sections done and then we sit and watch the paint dry.  The stain should dry overnight, it is taking days.  Days of being careful not to brush up against it.  Days of hoping the cats and dogs stay away from it.  Days and days of waiting.

    The plan was to stain the front of the house on Monday.  It absolutely poured rain on Sunday, so we needed a drying out day.  Instead of painting, we made our annual jaunt to Mabry Mill (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mabry_Mill) for the winter supply of grits and cornmeal.  Though it is not ground there anymore, it is locally ground especially for them, it is wonderful and I like supporting the Parkway, the Mill and having local grains in the house.

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    The view from one of the overlooks on the Parkway.  A beautiful place indeed.

    This morning I was going to start early.  Nope, this is what I am waiting for the sun to dispatch.

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    Fog is definitely not low humidity.  Though the temperature last night fell to the low 40’s for the first time, when I awoke, I couldn’t see past the window panes.  Chicken chores were done by feel.

    The Rainbow Rangers are huge now, they look like chicks in the bodies of adults.  Some have combs and wattles that are red, though they still behave and sound like chicks.  Their heavy bodies and thick legs make their movement amusing.  If they want to move quickly, they flap their wings and run awkwardly like they are trying to take off. They have 3 1/2 more weeks to feed and fill out before I will be back to only 12 hens and Romeo.  Just as all of the hens are finally laying, it is getting on to molting season and the two older hens will molt this year for sure.  The March hatches probably won’t molt until next year.

    I know I said I was done canning, but I can’t resist making one more batch of applesauce so that Son #1’s family can have some this winter too.  And of course, I will continue to make Tomatillo Salsa and XXX sauce until the Tomatillos and peppers quit producing.  Guess I’m going to need more jars after all.

    Lovin’ life on our mountain farm.

  • Where have you been my whole life?

    The canning was finished yesterday by early afternoon and Mountaingdad was off riding his BBH (big bad Harley) as it was a beautiful day and beautiful riding days will soon end for the season.   I drove down to the local grocery, a real small town affair with produce displayed outside and much of it local and picked up half a peck each of Golden Delicious and Rome apples and spent hours peeling, coring and chopping them for a batch of applesauce.  Thinking that it would be enough for the season, I jarred it up for canning and realized I only had 7 pints, not enough.  My hands were so sore I wasn’t looking forward to another round of peeling.  Though I am not a big fan of gadgets, trip was made to Walmart for a flat of jars and an apple peeler/corer, but it was a double fail.  This morning, a quick internet search showed that Bed, Bath and Beyond in a nearby town carried the peeler and I knew that Kroger Grocery had the jars, so we made a pre football run to make the purchases.

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    Quick work of another peck of apples, peeled, cored, sliced and chopped in about 30 minutes.  Part of that was learning how the device worked.  The apples have cooked down and another 6 pints prepared for the winter.

    The Green Tomato Chutney smelled so good yesterday, and made such a small amount that I decided to spend some time gathering and picking just about every green tomato left in the garden, many requiring significant paring of bad spots and making a double recipe of the Chutney.  It is simmering on the stove.

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    I wish you could smell my kitchen right now.  I’m hoping for at least 4 or 5 pints from it after it has cooked down.

    Last night after the canning was complete, I did finish one of my sweaters.  This is homespun yarn made by a friend and gifted to me by another friend.  It should be a great fall sweater.

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    Perhaps I should wear it with a contrasting shirt.  Now I am back to working on the other sweater and the dresses for one of our grandgirls.

    Lovin’ life on our mountain farm.

  • Tis The End

    Saturday mornings are usually spent going to the local diner for breakfast then on to the Farmers’ Market. Not today.  Today the morning was spent processing the last two baskets of tomatoes, both green and red, many with spots that had to be cut away. I started with the green, as my end product was to be Green Tomato Chutney from http://foodinjars.com/2010/11/green-tomato-chutney/. The cooking part of this one takes an hour and a half or more. It was prepped and set to simmer on a back burner. Next up were the remaining red tomatoes that were pared of cores and bad spots, diced and tossed into another large pot with some salt. On the last functional and largest burner was the pressure canner with the requisite 3 quarts of water and 2 tablespoons of white vinegar as we have hard water and I didn’t want white rings on the jars. Loaded inside were my last 7 pint jars full of hot water to heat until filling time. The red tomatoes filled those jars with some to spare, so a quick jaunt out to the garden to harvest a pound or so of Tomatillos and some hot peppers and with an onion, some garlic, a toss of herbs, a bit of chopping, the tomatoes became salsa. It was left to cook down some while the diced tomatoes canned and cooled enough to remove from the canner.
    While I was standing at the kitchen window, enjoying the outside while doing dishes, I spotted a coyote in the hayfield.

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    They have been very vocal the past few nights and while I got the binoculars to check him out and my phone to take the distant photo, I spotted two more.  All three were taking their time sauntering across the newly mowed hayfield, into the woods and up toward the house.  They passed close enough to the house that the dogs indoors became very agitated.

    The only jars left on hand were a new flat of half pints that I bought with the idea of making the chutney, so nine of them were washed, filled with hot water and scalded in the canner.  The end result was 5 half pints of salsa, 5 half pints of chutney.  One of the chutney’s didn’t even go in the canner, it will travel with me this week to the spinning retreat with a block of Neufchatel cheese and a box of crackers to share at the happy hour.  A half pint of salsa and a bag of chips will also go.

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    It has been a good season for tomatoes, unlike last year when we didn’t get enough to get up through the winter.  It was not a good year for beans thanks to the bunnies.  The shelves are stocked with tomato products.  The freezer with chicken and peas.  This week I will purchase one more flat of jars and a basket of local apples and can one batch of applesauce, then the canner will be packed away for another year.

    My session ended with a sandwich and a fried green tomato that I set aside just for my lunch.

     

  • Olio – September 19, 2014

    Olio:  a miscellaneous collection of things

    Today’s sun turned to rain, 40% that rained off and on all day, so no staining could be done.  We had an appointment to get one of the cars serviced in a nearby town, the same town in which the Sherman Williams Store is located.  After the car servicing this morning, we went to Sherman Williams as the Assistant Manager had told me on Wednesday night at the coffee shop where our Knit Night group meets, that the stain I needed would be 40% off this weekend.  When we got there, the Manager said that his Assistant was incorrect that it was only their products, but since I had been told and their sign was ambiguous, he honored the discount for us this one time only.  We came home with the 10 gallons that will be needed to finish our log home staining.

    Last night, Son #2 called to give us an update on their house renovation progress in preparation for selling their home and asked if we would check for property of about 10 acres, preferably with some sort of dwelling on it within their price range.  A bit of internet research, we came up with a list and set about today to check out some of our finds.  As we live in the mountains, in a rural county, this sent us on a 3 hour road trip.

    On our return home, we took an less than direct route to check out the address of a house on land that we had seen before and came around a curve to see a beautiful gaited dark bay riderless horse headed right down the road toward us.  He turned and trotted back around the fence, past his owner’s home to a poorly attached gate, then back to where we had first encountered him.  I got out and knocked on the house door, but no one was home, so I opened the gate and he went right in, but was quite agitated that he couldn’t get past the next gate to the other horses.  Unsure how he got out, and due to his agitation, we opened the other gate and let him join the other horses.  There was a bit of tussling between them, but we figured it was better than having him run up and down the road.  This is the second time Mountaingdad has encountered a loose horse at that farm, the first time, he and a FedEx man got him back in the fence.  Perhaps that guy should do something about his fencing.  We can never catch anyone there to let him know about his escape artist.

    This is the season that pork is less expensive and though I prefer to buy from someone I know, I couldn’t pass up the 10+ pound shoulder roast for under $2 a pound at the local grocer.  I had it cut in half and today put half in the crock pot with a mixture of raw cider vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, and crushed red pepper and slow cooked it into Barbecue, 3 1/2 pounds worth.  It has been packaged in 1 pound packages and frozen, the remaining 1/2 pound set aside for lunch in the next day or two.  The other half is frozen for now and it too will be turned into Barbecue soon.  It is nice to have such a quick meal ready in the freezer.

    Tomorrow, I will can my last batch of salsa and a batch of Green Tomato Chutney at the suggestion of a blogger friend, http://familyfaithfoodfabric.wordpress.com/, if you have never read her blog, you should.

    Lovin’ life on our mountain farm.

  • The Last. . .

    …harvest of tomatoes that is.  The vines are dry and brown, the handful of remaining tomatoes are being decimated by the stinkbugs and each day I pull and toss a vine to the chickens to pick over.  There are a few remaining green slicer tomatoes and I will enjoy them as fried green tomatoes, a treat that I rarely indulge, partly because my diet contains very little fried food and partly because I let them ripen on the vine during warm weather to enjoy sliced or canned.

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    These will be canned probably into salsa to add to the root cellar shelves to enjoy and remember a successful tomato season when the snow is falling or the cold wet wind is blowing much sooner than ready.

    …the last pullet figured out the egg laying business, sort of.  There was a tiny egg this morning, apparently laid yesterday in the run and not seen until this morning when I went to let them out.  It was dark when I locked them up last night when I came in from knit night.  Surprisingly, nothing found it during the night.  Now, if she will just lay them in the nesting boxes with the other hens.  Romeo is a very frustrated young roo.  None of his ladies in waiting will stand still for him to mount them, they run and peck.  When he was first added to the run, several squatted in submission, but not now.  It is going to be hard for us to raise a heritage flock if that behavior continues.

    …of the 5 gallon bucket of stain will be mixed this morning once the fog clears, to stain the soffit and fascia board overhang from the front porch.  At knit night last night, I ran into the manager of the Sherman Williams in the coffee shop and he suggested I wait until this weekend to buy more as the stain that we use will be on sale for 40% off and that is a significant savings in dollars for our budget.  That also gives me two days for my sore and painful shoulder to calm down before I tackle the log wall of the front of the house.  Saturday is to be mild and breezy with humidity in the right range for the project, so that will be the day to complete the task.

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    …the last few rows of the beautiful handspun sweater.  The photo doesn’t do the color justice but it is lovely.  It should be ready for the spinning retreat I will be attending soon.

  • I’m getting too old for this!

    I’m getting too old for this!

    The weather has been beautiful.  Mid 50’s at night, great sleeping weather with a window open, 70 for the day’s high.  Occasional clouds, some of them quite lovely.

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    Last night it was so beautiful outside that after I finished staining the garage doors with Mountaingdad and then finished the half wall on the garage that Son #1 didn’t have time to finish, we grilled out and ate on the back deck.  I was tired and sore and needed some zen time, so I spend about an hour near sundown mowing in one of the back fields.  It really is quite zen to ride the tractor and watch the goings on around you on the farm.

    Today being a copy of yesterday, I began earlier to get the front and back walls of the breezeway stained.  This critter with her brood of babies on her back watched from the stone wall nearby for quite a time.

     

     

     

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    While I was doing the breezeway, our handyman neighbor was staining the ceiling of the front porch and we worked together to get the front porch posts to use up the remaining stain mix that was made today.  Once the additives are mixed in, it must be used within 6 hours.  As we were working on that, I spotted another spider’s work.

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    It is spun to the contour of the A frame bird house.  This is the best I could do to get a photo.

    The only parts of the house left for me to stain are the front log wall, seen in the background of the photo above and the 8 windows that are in the areas that I have or will stain.

    About 38 years ago, I separated my left shoulder on the second day of skiing with my hubby.  We weren’t married then, though he says that my skiing for several more days after that injury helped him decide that I was the woman he had been looking for.  I am a southpaw, so I work that shoulder and arm a lot and when I do, whether gardening or staining like I am doing now, that old injury makes my shoulder quite sore.  I may need a day or two break before I tackle that front wall.  It will take me several hours to complete.  For now, I’m going to get cleaned up and go socialize with my friends at knit night.  As a bonus, I have 4 dozen eggs to sell to them.

  • Pooped Pair

    Yesterday Son #1 started as soon as he felt exterior surfaces of the logs were dry. With only a break for lunch and minimal help from me staining, he managed to do almost all of the garage. I did the door frame and window and frame. We put up scaffolding, took down scaffolding, shifted it around and put feet under sections that didn’t have them, leaving a set up that will allow me to get the last few logs on one side of the garage and the front breezeway wall. The back breezeway wall can be reached from the deck with a short ladder, as can the front wall of the house and the garage door tops. That is my job for the rest of the week, but today I rest.  I rest because we didn’t stop until 6 p.m. and he had to be at work at 9 a.m. today, 4 1/2 hours away, so we ended our day with the two of us sharing the drive, arriving near midnight, me sleeping there, getting him to work and driving back home this morning.

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    It is amazing how dark the house looks when first stained and how light it turns in just a year or so.

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    Left half still to be stained, right half done yesterday.
    Today my back is sore and my body weary, so I am limiting myself to kitchen cleaning and laundry. Tomorrow I will stain.