Author: Cabincrafted1

Maintenance

When our house was under construction and due to having a heavy timber roof, thus cathedral ceilings, we knew we were going to need scaffolding. The contractor that did the log erection and rough carpentry used a Skidsteer with a platform that his crew stood on, but our eldest son was doing the finish carpentry, stone mason work, floors, doors and cabinets with his partner and whatever other crew they could pull together. He priced renting scaffolding, but realizing how long this would take, it made economic sense to purchase our own.

The 12 sections are stored in our barn when not being loaned out or used by us. We have had to haul sections down to repair a ceiling fan and a few other repairs. One of our Farmers Market friends used it to build a washing shed on his farm, but mostly it just leans up against a wall. We are going to need it for re-caulking the logs and re-staining, so today while hubby and grandson went to a movie, I started hauling it down to the house. First wrestling with the utility trailer that occupies the same barn bay to get it on my car. The car won’t fit under the top edge of the bay and the floor slopes downhill slightly and is littered with decades old dried manure chunks. Somehow I managed to wrestle it to the hitch and pull it out of the bay.

Then the fun began. The 24 sides, as many of the cross tie bars, the feet and pins were loaded in the trailer and hauled down to the house. Unfortunately, there is another load of walk boards and more cross tie bars waiting in the barn, but I am too tired to unload the trailer, much less go refill it, so it will sit until help arrives home.

Fortunately, we purchased all the remaining necessary supplies, including a 2″ x 12″ x 16′ board to use as a connector walkboard today, so tomorrow we can unload and reload the trailer.

Oh, broody hen is still sitting on an empty nest regardless of my efforts. I wonder if she would sit on and raise the 15 meat chicks due tomorrow?

August 7, 2014
Olio – August 6, 2014

Olio: a miscellaneous collection of things.

As our last week with our grandson this summer is closing and since he was such a good traveler last week we gave him another afternoon at the Frog Pond, the public pool. He enjoys this outing. The pool has a large shallow circular pool with an island, an umbrella that showers water down and a small frog shaped slide then an attached deeper pool with two water park type tube slides into it. He slides and gets out, slides again, then gets into the shallow area and plays splash tag with other kids. Neither of us got in with him today.

Broody hen is winning. Yesterday, I repeatedly removed her from the nest, put bags of ice in the nest (she sat on them), and finally blocked off the nest (she moved over one). This morning, after I blocked off both of the ones she prefers last night, she had moved over yet another one and was sitting, puffing up and pecking at me when I try to move her. I have pulled her out of the nest and put her in the pen several times today and just a few minutes ago, I found her again, sitting on an egg. In the past 11 days, we have gotten only 2 eggs and she broke one of them.

Yesterday, I brought in several pints of jalapenos and pickled them for Jim, who eats one with nearly every dinner I prepare. There are dozens of Ancho peppers turning red, a pint of so of red cayenne’s, a handful of Habeneros. The Tomatillos skins are beginning to dry and split, showing the fruit inside.

This morning, our neighbor who has been gone for 2 years, having returned a couple of nights ago, came down to visit and say hello. He tried to help get my solar charger on the electric fence to charge the fence. The charger will shock you if you touch the connector with a wire, but won’t charge the braided wire that the charger requires. I sent him home with a grocery sack full of rainbow chard and several jars of various jams. He will be helping us over the next few weeks to get our porch and deck re-stained before winter.

Our eldest, father of the visiting grandson, will be here this weekend to begin setting up scaffolding and caulking between the logs of the garage so that we can begin staining again. Log homes require frequent staining until the logs have absorbed enough of the oil stain, then it can be done with less frequency. Knowing what we know now, though we love our wood house, we probably would not have built a log home, rather one that was easier to maintain.

The weather over the next few days is to be cooler and wet, so the final outings with grandson will have to be of the indoor variety.

August 6, 2014
Vacation

On July 27th, we packed the pups off to doggie camp, loaded the car with suitcases, guitar and amp, bike, ball gloves and a cooler and headed south. Grandson and I in the car, Jim on his motorcycle for his first major road trip. We headed off for a weeklong visit with our daughter and her family. We haven’t seen them since last Christmas and grandson hasn’t seen his cousins since last August. We had booked a hotel room about halfway there, a bit over 400 miles. It took us longer to make those miles than when it is just the two of us in the car as we stopped every 110-120 miles to reconnect with each other and for Jim to have a chance to get a drink and walk around for a bit to give his sore parts a rest. Once at the hotel, the guys took a dip in the pool, we found a Mexican restaurant catering to the Mexican population and had a good dinner, then back to let grandson ride his bike around the parking lot to let off some steam.

As the temperature reached 100ºf that day, I’m not sure if he was letting off steam or making steam.

Visiting was active for the three grands, with biking, Lego building, Light saber battles, reading, soccer and baseball, a beach visit, a day at Busch Gardens in Tampa. The Busch Gardens day was hot and humid, but everyone from the 2 1/2 year old to the 70 somethings found rides to ride, shows to see, snacks to eat.

Riding a camel on the carousel. We rode it about 5 times and she never would get on a horse that went up and down.

Sunday we started our return journey home, leaving early to try to miss the afternoon rain showers. Again stopping every couple of hours to reconnect and spending a night in a hotel a bit more than half way home. The afternoon arrival was greeted with a delightfully cool house that had been closed up with no A/C on, temps in the upper 70’s, a deliciously chilly night in our own bed.

My stop at the neighbor who chicken sits for us, revealed that she didn’t get a single egg, I’m glad I took her two dozen on our way out and brought her a pound of Orange Blossom honey from Florida. My visit to the coop, I found a still broody hen on one fragile egg that she broke when she puffed up and tried to prevent me from moving her off the nest.

This morning, she got a surprise as I removed her from the nest and put re-freezable ice packs in her nest and the next one over. She is nearing 22 days of broodiness on an empty nest.

Later this week, a delivery of 15 Rainbow Ranger meat chicks will be delivered and we will begin raising them for 11 weeks.

The heavy straw mulch on the garden has kept the weeds down. There were a few over developed squash and cucumbers that got fed to the chickens, more harvested for us. Lots of peppers that I need to process today. Basil that needs to be pulled and dried. Yellow wax beans pulled and dumped in the chicken pen. Bunnies or deer got in the garden and ate most of the new green beans down. I will cover them today and see if there is any recovery. There are three beds that need some fall crops planted before it is too late.

This morning, grandson and I went to pick up the pups. They seem to be glad to be home.

We have one more week and a half with grandson and I will return him home. The weeks have gone by so quickly, but it has been a delight having him with us.

August 5, 2014
Olio – July 25, 2014

Olio: a miscellaneous collection of things.

Phone saga continued. . . after numerous visits to the cell phone store, learning that they are retail outlets with zero authority to do anything but make a phone call; agreeing to accept a “Network Extender” refurbished with a monthly discount to help pay for the thing, knowing that it probably wouldn’t work since we don’t have high speed internet with our phone co-op, just DSL; receiving the extender (a new one 3X cost, not a refurbished one) 10 days ago; hooking it up to have service, maybe, if you were sitting right in front of it; receiving our bill (still no reliable service) and there being a charge for a new extender, no reduction of cost; we took both phones, the extender, and a major case of attitude back to the store yet again. This time, the poor young man on whom we unloaded, was very sympathetic, knew what to say to customer service and finally got our contract cancelled without penalty. Another couple of hours in the old provider’s store that we knew had service on our mountain and we have new phones, and amazingly, service.

Now reality, this was probably all my fault in the first place. I wanted an Iphone, the provider we had didn’t have them; my service with this provider was good here in the mountains, but spotty when I went to babysit in Northern Virginia a few times a year. I didn’t get an Iphone when we switched, the service was better in Northern Virginia, but the two times we had a crisis here, we couldn’t even call each other within shouting distance if we had both been outdoors. Back with the original provider, they do now have Iphones and I got one. Hubby got the next generation of the phone he had and liked and we can make and receive calls on our property, up our road, and in our house. I will suffer spotty service when I travel to have a phone at home.

Broody hen is still being difficult. I put plastic buckets in her two preferred nesting boxes, there are still 4 others, so she is hunkered down just outside of the boxes. She tried to peck me when I shooed her out the pop door and got a swat for doing so. Our egg production is less than one a day right now. I know that in a few weeks, we will be overrun with eggs once all 13 girls are laying.

On Tuesday, both pups had a new vet visit. When we first got them, we took them to a vet in our county, but it was 18 miles in a direction we rarely go. We tried to switch to a vet that was much nearer us, but they didn’t carry the Trifexis that we had the dogs on for heartworms and fleas, so we switched to one about 18 miles away in a direction we do travel, but he is nearing retirement and has a new younger vet part time in the office that we did not care for. During the time we were using him, our pups decided that they wouldn’t willingly take Trifexis. Surprisingly, the big guy, the English Mastiff would let me force feed his, the much smaller German Shepherd would have no part of it and nothing I did would trick her into taking it. During this 14 months or so, the vet nearest us retired and the two vets that took over his practice, are great as well as doing house calls if necessary. They switched the pups to Sentinel and Nextgard and both dogs will take them willingly. Win/win!

The garden is more or less stalled due to the hot weather. There are lots of tomatoes, but none of them are turning red yet. There are some peppers and I will likely have to pickle another jar or two soon. Chard is thriving, but grandson doesn’t like it. Berries are done. We don’t like the yellow wax beans and the green beans are just sprouting. There are a few white scallop squash and an occasional lemon cucumber. There will be dozens of small Seminole pumpkins come fall and it looks like a stellar crop of yellow and white sweet potatoes. Two beds are awaiting some fall greens in another couple of weeks. This fall, the raspberry bed is going to be dug out, a reasonable number of shoots moved to the orchard and that bed prepped to return to part of the vegetable garden, there just wasn’t quite enough space this year with blueberries, raspberries, and grapes occupying about half of the garden beds. The huge multibin compost structure is coming down, it is actually falling down, so it will be pulled down, the compost spread and a compost pile initiated. That area will continue to be utilized for the vegetables that spread so viciously throughout the garden.

Any photos that I had taken are on the SD card of the old phone and haven’t been transferred to the computer or the cloud to add to the new phone and blog, so just words today.

July 25, 2014
Broody Girl

On July 3, Brown Dog, belonging to our neighbor feasted on two of my United Nations flock of cull chickens, after causing significant damage to the chicken tractor in which they were housed. On July 4, eldest son and I killed the remainder of them and frozen them for stewing chickens plus 1 rooster, the Buff Orpington, the King of the Domain. He had gotten too aggressive toward the hens and toward us. Neither of the then 14 month old hens was showing any signs of broodiness though I really had wanted a self sustaining flock and hen set chicks. The next day, Brown Dog managed to scare the teenagers enough that one flew out of the pen the dog couldn’t get in and he trotted home with a young Buff Orpington pullet in his mouth. Brown Dog hasn’t been seen since then, and the Buffs are maturing to a point where I expect the 3 that are 22 weeks old to start laying very soon and the 20 week olds to begin within a couple more weeks. Since July 4, we have averaged only 1 egg a day from the two adults.

Beginning night before last, when I went to check for eggs and lock up the girls, I found one of the mature hens sitting in the nesting box that they both use. I chased her out, took the egg and closed them up for the night. The next morning, she didn’t come out to eat with the rest of the girls and sure enough, she was on the box again and puffed herself all up at me. I chased her out again and found her there again last night, this morning and this afternoon. This evening, though there are no eggs to collect, I put an upside down bucket in that nesting box. She is quite indignant with me, puffing up and trying to peck my hand when I shoo her away. She probably won’t be too amused to find the bucket in her space, but now that Cogburn is in freezer camp, it is pointless to let her continue to be broody as there are no fertilized eggs for her to sit. Silly chicken.

I have 15 Rainbow Ranger chicks due here the end of the first week of August to raise in the second pen and chicken tractor and I don’t need Buff Orpington chicks in the coop that won’t mature enough to put in the freezer this fall. Perhaps next spring I will replace Cogburn with a new young rooster and let one or more of the hens go broody and see if we get chicks in the coop. For now, I just need to break Buttercup’s heart and her broodiness.

July 24, 2014
Curmudgeon

I was fortunate to have my paternal grandfather in my life until I was in my early 30’s. When I was a teen and my great grandmother was in a geriatric ward for a couple of years, he would tell me tales of his young life. He grew up in a railroad family and was known to “ride the rails.” As a young man, he injured and lost one of his eyes with a pocket knife accident and had a glass eye. Though he had an interesting young life and was probably a bit of a bad boy, he was a gentle, hardworking man that owned his own business and raised two sons that both far exceeded his 8th grade education, both getting University degrees in engineering. As an older man, he was a bit of a curmudgeon.

I was the first grandchild and always felt a special bond with him. As a young adult, I would go to the farmers’ market then take baskets of peas or butter beans to my grandparents home and my grandmom and I would shell them for dinner and for the freezer. More than once, Pop as all of us grandkids called him would sit on the porch with us and would pick up a handful of beans and start shelling. My grandmom would comment that she had never seen him do that before.

I had a young kitten and once asked them if they would keep it for a week while I flew to Hawaii to met my husband on R & R. They had no pets as Pop wasn’t fond of them, but indeed they did keep my kitten. One of the things he disliked was having the cat rub around his legs as cats are prone to do. It is strange that as I am aging, I don’t like a cat to rub on me and though we have two outdoor cats and two dogs, I don’t like them to lick me.

Once I asked him if he had seen a comic in the paper and though he was reading the paper, he told me he didn’t read the comics. I couldn’t believe that anyone didn’t read them, but other than the occasional one that my husband points out to me, I no longer read them, none of the good ones are in print anymore.

When my first husband and I started having marital problems, it was obviously distressing to him. After I divorced and met my current husband, the love of my life, my grandfather took him aside and informed Jim that if he ever hurt me, that he would have to answer to him. As it turned out, when Pop had a heart attack at home and my grandmother called me to come to her, I was a city away at work. Jim was close by and he hurried to their home to help my grandmom while the medics were there and until I could get there.

Recently, I have thought of him many times, when an impatient driver behind us honked his horn at Jim, I was reminded of how Pop would continue to sit, roll down his window and point over the top of his car; as I fuss at the cat for rubbing against my legs on the porch or as one of the dogs tries to “kiss” me; when Jim points out a comic in the paper that he thought I would appreciate. Perhaps, I too am becoming a curmudgeon.

July 23, 2014
It’s Finally Done

Last night as the sun went down and the evening cooled, the edge of the garden, the empty chicken pen, and between the T posts that son and I set two and a half weeks ago were mowed in preparation for finally finishing the job that he and I started, I worked on and quit.

We had a couple of places that we couldn’t pound a T post in but they were going to only hold polybraided electric fence wire. I did get the fencing up on the second chicken pen, the one that will be used for meat birds and culls, surrounding the chicken tractor which is too heavy for me to move daily and will serve as the coop for those birds. I still haven’t reinforced the hardware cloth that the dog tore free from the frame, but I won’t have chicks until mid August and even then, they will be in the brooder for 5 to 6 weeks, so I still have time. A week or so ago, I started putting the insulators on the T posts outside the welded wire fence and realized that I needed longer ones for the posts that also had fencing on them and stopped. Grandson and I bought the longer insulators, but they have just been sitting on the workbench taunting me each time I walked by. Brown Dog hasn’t been back, so I wasn’t in too big a hurry.

During the time that we were setting posts, our haying neighbor came down with a half bale of hay that was in the baler and he was done haying for the season, so he dropped it outside my garden for me to use as mulch. Grandson attacked it with a fiberglass stake and spread it over a rather wide section of back lawn. This morning before it got too hot, I decided that I better put it in the garden where it would smother weeds instead of all over the yard where it was smothering grass. That proved to be a hefty task, pulling it back into a usable stack with the pitchfork and hauling fork after fork into the garden. I also finally installed the longer insulators and realized that the corners were going to be a problem as the insulators only fit in one direction on the posts.

A few step-in posts solved the problem, setting the electric off the corner post by a couple of inches and placing a less sturdy post where we couldn’t pound in the T posts. Wire is strung, charge is set. Our dogs were wary of the electric when it surrounded the entire orchard and garden, but have gotten used to going over to “check on” the chickens since it has been down. They are in for a shock, literally though mild, when they venture over now. Hopefully, it will keep Brown Dog out as well, should he decide to revisit us.

July 21, 2014
Sunshine on a Cloudy Day

Sunflowers to brighten another cloudy day. A tiny hummingbird was zipping from flower to flower.

Silly success with math practice.

My space to read and blog, or eat. Wish I could weave like this, or throw pottery mugs.

Best buddies. This will be one sad dog at summer’s end when L returns home.

July 20, 2014
Olio July 17, 2014

Olio: a miscellaneous collection of things.

Rainbow at sunset.

An overflowing 8 quart bucket of garlic now curing in the root cellar.

Peppers and sunflowers, newly planted bush beans.

Pumpkins, winter squash, sweet potatoes taking over half of the compost bins.

Chard and sunflowers.

Haircuts for grandson and granddad.

It has been a busy week with bike riding learning sessions for grandson and he can now ride around the bus loop, in and out of grass, stop with the brakes if he is going slow enough, ride up and down an incline, start without help and says, “This is easy!” Why oh why did he make such a fuss just a few short days ago.

We have had several trips to the library, have done the daily writing and math practice and he is doing his chores with minimal complaint.

On a less positive note, I just got a call from my father and my sis who had Rotator Cuff surgery today, instead of going home has been put in ICU on a ventilator because of breathing problems. Thoughts and prayers sent on the way to Kansas are welcome.

July 17, 2014
Olio – July 13, 2014

Olio: A miscellaneous collection of things

Grandson’s play with the big guy backfired. He is under there somewhere.

First pint of pickled jalapenos from the garden. It will take dozens more to get Jim through the year, especially if Todd wants some too.

First summer squash and bell pepper. The little pepper is a cayenne that broke off before ripening. There are small cucumbers, still lots of greens, the first of the bush beans and the last of the peas. The garden is full on providing most of what we want in veggies now. The winter squash and pumpkins are taking over the compost bins, the sweet potato vines are thriving.

Yesterday, grandson was afraid of his bike, by the end of a session he would coast down a short hill.

Today it was a longer hill and then as I was running beside him holding his seat, I let go and he rode the length of the school parking lot, over and over. He still needs an assist to get going, but once he is moving, he is off. I took a video, but can’t figure out how to upload it here.

July 13, 2014