Author: Cabincrafted1

Creative in the kitchen

This morning was thick and gray and so was my mood. I don’t know why, but I just lacked all motivation to do anything or make any decisions. I didn’t want to decide even on breakfast. Usually, I cook eggs or make oatmeal or grits. Even making coffee was a challenge. Rummaging around looking for something easy, I found a bit of plain yogurt that was nearing its expiry date, some strawberries that we bought on Saturday at the Farmers Market that looked like they wouldn’t last much longer, some bananas that are getting a bit ripe. Not wanting to throw any of this out, a smoothie seemed the solution. To the banana, strawberries, and yogurt, I added a tablespoon of peanut butter for protein, a half tablespoon each of Chia seed and ground flax seed for omegas and fiber and whirred it up in the magic bullet.

A quick nutritious breakfast. What is your favorite or most creative smoothie?

June 3, 2014
A benefit of Retirement

When I used to be employed outside the house, housecleaning and laundry always had to be done on weekends or in short spurts after work. This past weekend was spent in doing more enjoyable things, going to the farmer’s market, playing outside in the dirt and with two big dogs that live in the house, there is a constant need to vacuum and dust.

Today, while Jim went off on his motorcycle for a ride, I tackled all three floors of our house. Sweeping, damp mopping, dusting, cleaning and scrubbing, floors, tables, bathrooms, kitchen. It looks good, but I know that by tomorrow, there will already be dog hair and dust again.

The injured pullet is still hanging in there, but I am afraid she may still fail, her injuries are so extreme. She misses her siblings and perks up when I walk past her crate. There is no way that I can put her in with them. The Americana, in spite of me having clipped a wing, still is figuring out how to get from coop pen into the cull pen over a 4 foot fence. I don’t see anywhere that she can get under it, but she shouldn’t be able to fly over. If she is so desperate to be with Cogburn, I’m leaving her there until he gets moved back with the Buff’s.

June 2, 2014
The Good, The Bad and I’ll spare you the Ugly

THE BAD

Last night we went on a date night, that should be good, right? The dinner was fine. The movie we went to see had started 40 minutes earlier than the time we had noted, which must have been from the previous day and it had been playing for 20 minutes when we got there, so we picked a different movie that started at 8 p.m. We have only walked out of two movies in our 36 years of marriage, one because it was longer than we thought and we had to pick eldest son up at a concert when he was too young to drive himself there and the second one was last night. Think “Animal House” with more vulgarity and no humor. We made it only half way through the movie and got up and walked out.

It was late and I was a bad chicken keeper and I didn’t go over to close the pop door to the coop or the door to the chicken tractor and my gamble was an epic fail. An O’possum got in the coop, killed one 12 week old pullet and seriously injured another. I found a pile of feathers at the coop entrance, another at the run gate, and what was left of the pullets in the cull pen. I feel like a heel. I brought the injured pullet in, cleaned her wounds and put her in a large dog crate in the garage with food and water to watch her and see if she is going to heal or if we are going to have to euthanize her. I know predators happen, but this was preventable.

She is eating a little and drinking water, and she moves around a bit in the crate, but she is so pitiful.

THE GOOD

This morning, after dealing with the mayhem, we drove into town for breakfast at our favorite local diner, then on to The Farmers’ Market. Today was customer appreciation day, so some vendors had give away goodies for their regular customers. For the past couple of years, Jim has given me a Flower CSA from our favorite local organic farmers, Stonecrop Farm. We have had to miss a couple of bouquets each summer due to travel, so this year, we decided to just buy a weekly bouquet on the weeks we are home and flowers are available from them. We purchased a bouquet, a few veggies that I’m not growing and got a bonus baggie of micro greens as a gift.

Yellow poppies, pink peonies (mine won’t bloom) and two different dianthus colors with mint and wheat stalks. Quite a stunning bouquet to put on the dining table.

After our return, we took turns wearing ourselves out trying to start the big commercial Stihl weedeater for the first time this season, always a challenge. I finally gave up and went back to weeding and spreading the mulch we bought a few days ago, when with sweat and swearing, Jim finally succeeded. When we were both were hot and worn, we took a break and made a Lowe’s trip. I was short 4 bags of mulch.

A decade or so ago, my Dad made me a little wooden decorative wheelbarrow. It has lived at a couple of houses now and is usually filled with flowers in the summer and pumpkins and gourds in the fall with a mum. It had fallen into disrepair, so before we left for Lowes, I repaired it and decided that a couple of flower baskets needed to be purchased to fill it as well. At the Farmers’ Market, I added a few more herbs to my collection and they needed pretty pots for the deck as that is where the bulk of my herbs live.

The front of the house, the perennial bed in the breezeway alcove are weeded and mulched, the herb collection is potted up except for the fennel and one lavender that will go in the garden tomorrow when I have the energy to move again. Jim has weed wacked the culverts, the well head, around the house and around the trees and shrubs on the driveway hill. I pushed the gas powered mower and cut the front and back yards. When I thought I was done, I decided that the last flower bed, a small one that started out as a nursery bed by the side of the deck also got weeded. We are spent.

Dinner is “Mustgo,” ever had it? It is the leftovers in the fridge that must go. Tonight’s Mustgo is left over pot roast, pork tenderloin and a huge new salad with micro greens and green onions.

The house and gardens look great. Now we rest.

May 31, 2014
Spinventory

I’m on a spinning roll. As soon as I finished the Random Colors Merino last night I started on a top of Romney that has long color gradient.

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It starts with yellow and moves through sunset colors to midnight blue.

After reading a Yarn Harlot post quite a while ago, I have wanted to try to spin a long color gradient yarn and I found some lovely tops at The Homestead Hobbyist on Etsy. After dividing the top down the middle lengthwise, I spun two bobbins beginning with the yellow and ending with the midnight blue.

The result after plying today is a skein 136 yards long of light worsted yarn, named Midday to Midnight. What else could it be called.

Once it was finished and I was rummaging around in my fiber basket trying to decide what I want to spin next, I decided that I really should put my inventory on Ravelry in my notebook. If you are a knitter or crocheter, please feel free to browse, http://www.ravelry.com/people/Mountain-g-mom, maybe something will catch your eye. Some of my yarn is for sale at Greenberry House in Meadows of Dan, VA, some I still have here and can’t decide whether to use it or sell it too. At least, I now know what I have on hand, well most of it, there is a sampler of fiber that are tiny hanks that haven’t been spun or inventoried. They will likely be added to my Funky Fiber yarn that will some day become a knitted throw. I didn’t decide what to start. Perhaps I should finish the Tunis with the Finn X Jacob and have that yarn ready to knit when I get out of the spinning mode and want to make the Rib Warmer for fall.

May 30, 2014
Olio May 29, 2014

Olio: a miscellaneous collection of things

Today’s harvest, a bowl of fresh eggs and a basket of chard for our dinner.

The beautiful Merino roving became this lovely 125 yards of Navajo plied yarn. I can’t decide whether to make a scarf out of it or put it up for sale. It has been soaked is currently drying. It seemed appropriate to Navajo ply it as the book that I am currently reading is

Navajo Autumn, R. Allen Chappell

The morning was humid, but not too hot, so some more of the breezeway flower bed was weeded and more mulch applied. A few more mornings and that task will be complete. The afternoon turned stormy, thunder, lightening and heavy rain showers, so the garden is getting a good soaking, but no work in it.

May 29, 2014
Crafty Wednesday

Since the spin in last weekend and the completion of the Tunis/FinnXJacob yarn, I stalled on spinning for a few days. Last February, just before David took his stock of Green Dragon yarn and roving to Hawk’s Nest, he had the most luscious hanks of Random Colors-Merino for spinning. He sold every last one of the ones he had made but since they were so popular, he made more for his shop. A couple of weeks ago, I purchased one to try and it is so delightful to spin. The one I purchased has rather muted colors, maroon, teal, camel with shades of lighter colors that blend into a wonderful single. The Merino is so soft and the fiber is long enough to make the drafting smoother and consistent. The colors of the single are interesting on the bobbin and I can’t decide what to do with it to not dilute the beautiful colors. It could be Navajo plied, but that significantly reduces the yardage of finished yarn. I’m afraid that plying two bobbins of it together will muddy the finished yarn. Maybe I should ply it with a solid, fairly dark neutral. The hank of roving is 100 grams. My single is fine, so the yarn is going to be lightweight.

Spinner readers, any suggestions?

Tonight is knit night. Jim is taking his motorcycle over to the dealer to get his Tour Pack installed and I am a bit leery of taking my car as the other day it acted as though the starter motor may be failing. I guess if it does, I’m only a few hundred yards from the Honda dealer and Jim can come get me after knitting in his car once he gets home on his bike.

May 28, 2014
Retired Means

Tired again, and that is what I am. Bright and early this morning, Jim left to ride to Charlottesville avoiding the Interstates to meet our youngest son and his family who drove there from Virginia Beach. The ride took him more than 3 hours, but he got to have lunch and a visit with them prior to starting his ride back on a different route, still avoiding the Interstates. I drove his monster SUV into town and had breakfast with him then we went our separate ways for the day. My first stop of the day was to Lowes to stock up on a few plants and a lot of bags of mulch, though not nearly enough. Three years ago, once the final grading was completed at our house, we set about to landscape. One of our shrub purchases was one that we later found out, should not even be sold in this planting zone and it did not survive the first winter. The others were Pygmy Barberry and Dwarf Nandina and they did fine the first winter. To do this landscaping, I first had to move all of the grape iris that I had been given in a trade and the English Daisies that I bought from a local friend and had planted on the front of the house. They had multiplied and were divided into beds on the east side of the garage and in the bed created by the east side of the house and west side of the garage, bounded on the south by the breezeway. That bed has been planted with shade loving perennials toward the breezeway and daylilies, iris, and daisies toward the front where they get more light. When we did the landscaping, we put down weed mat and heavily mulched that area, but the ground cherries, plantain, dandelions, wild geranium and chickweed thrive in there.

This past winter after a cool wet summer last year, nearly did the Nandinas in. I was ready to dig them all up when I noticed that though they really look scraggly, they are putting out new growth. The dead shrubs were well spaced to add 3 new Pygmy Barberry shrubs. When I got home with the car full of goodies, the short handled digging tool was brought out and I sat down and inched my way across the full front of the house, weeding and digging out all of the misplaced wildflowers, planting the three new shrubs, and mulching the entire bed.

With potted flowers at each end of the two beds, a fresh hanging plant on the shepherds crook, the spider plants hanging from the porch, the front looks presentable again. Though some weeding was done in the breezeway bed, it was sprayed with a vinegar/Epsom Salt/Dawn detergent mixture to hopefully kill back the tender weeds then more mulch will be added to that bed as well.

The tomatoes and some of the peppers finally made it into the garden today. While I was at Lowe’s, I picked up a few heirloom peppers that already had some size on them to get things going. Some of the exotic heirlooms that are starts will be added as soon as they are more than an inch tall. A row of heirloom Tomatillos was also planted and the entire veggie garden was soaked down with the sprinkler since we aren’t getting rain for a few more days.

After a late lunch, the same treatment was given to the east side of the garage bed, and a shrub was divided and planted on the front corner of the garage. I hope it survives the move. Tomorrow, more mulch will be purchased and that bed will be given a new layer as well. It appears that the Iris need to be divided again. I don’t like to throw them away, but everyone up here has beds and beds of them in their yards.

My final task for the day was to put the American Flag on the banner pole between the garage doors. It seems only fitting since it is Memorial Day. After a dinner prep of a slow cooking pot roast with vegetables, a long hot shower and scrub, I’m sitting on the porch with a glass of iced tea, resting and waiting for the wayward traveler to get home and see my efforts from the past two days. I love it when my labors show and everything is neat and tidy.

May 26, 2014
Payback Day

Yesterday I played, all day. After the spin in and potluck, I came home and finished the last few yards of the Finn X Jacob roving and started plying it with the Red Tunis. I ended up with 230 yards of lovely yarn to add to the 202 that I had previously spun.

Today Jim took off on his motorcycle around 10:30 a.m. and I started on some house cleaning, trying to rid the house of a few pounds of dog hair. I took a break for lunch and then tackled outdoor chores. Mowing first on the tractor around the house and between the house and barn, then with the lawnmower to get closer to the house, around the garden and chicken pens and also around the fruit trees. The tractor will do most of the orchard, but not close to the trees.

Yesterday at the spin in, one of my friends gave me a handful of sweet potato slips, both white and orange and I put them in water overnight to perk them back up.

I wasn’t sure where I still had space in the garden and I still hadn’t planted the Seminole Pumpkins and the winter squash and while I was working I had a flash of inspiration. Last year when I started raising chickens and bought straight run chicks from Tractor Supply, I ended up with more than my share of cockrells and needed to do something about them until our eldest son could come build the chicken tractor. I lined one of my 4 compost bins with chicken wire, put a tarp over the top and fenced in pen in front of it. I was delighted that they cleared all of the weeds out of it. This year when I got the 10 Buff Orpington chicks and divided the coop into keepers and culls, I again employed the compost bin idea, but put the chicken tractor in front of two of the bins then used two sides of the coop run as two sides of the cull pen and added some more fencing to give them a run too. Again, they cleared all the weeds for me. There is still more than a foot of good composed horse manure mixed with chicken manure. I moved the chicken tractor parallel to the coop, changed the fence arrangement, taking away some of their space, but still giving them a good grass area and two compost bins to scratch in.

This opens up the two compost bins that they have so kindly cleared for me, leaving me only two young pokeberry and one burdock to dig out. The bins were forked deeply to blend the chicken manure into the compost and to turn any seedling in and planted 14 sweet potato slips in one bin and the pumpkins and winter squash in the other.

Two more 5 X 5 foot beds instantly with nice rich soil. Now hopefully, the flea beetles will leave the sweet potatoes alone and the squash borers will leave the pumpkins and winter squash alone. They will all be nice additions to the fall harvest. The chickens are doing a nice job of breaking up some large stalks in the other two bins and dispatching the weeds. I do need to dig out some pokeberry and burdock in them.

Tomorrow, I am finally going to put the tomato starts and most of the pepper starts in their beds.

For now, I’m tired. Tomorrow is another day I can work the garden while Jim rides his motorcycle to meet our youngest son and maybe his family for lunch a couple of hours from here.

Life is an adventure on our mountain farm.

May 25, 2014
Food and Fun
Today was the Spunster, my spinning group’s annual Spin In and Potluck located in a beautiful valley in our mountains at the home of our delightful hostess and host. We get to sit around and spin on the lovely porches, socialize, and eat and our significant others are encouraged to participate with us for this event. An afternoon of crafting, walking the woods, touring their business, Strauch Fiber Equipment (http://www.strauchfiber.com/) and enjoying the delicious food contributions.

Today, I contributed two salad favorites.

Ranch Pasta & Potato Salad
- 6 small Red Potatoes with skins on cubed 1/2″
- 6 oz spiral pasta (approx 2 c) {Gluten free is fine}
- 1/2 c chopped red bell pepper
- 1/4 c chopped green onion, bulb and stem
- 8 slices bacon cooked crisp and chopped
- 1/2 c mayonnaise
- 1/2 c Ranch dressing (I use the light version)
Boil the potatoes for 3-4 minutes, add pasta and cook about 9 minutes til pasta is soft cooked (not al dente). Rinse with cold water and drain well. Toss with chopped vegetables. Blend dressing and toss into salad with bacon. Cover and refrigerate at least 1 hour.

This makes about 8-9 cups of salad. I got this recipe from my daughter, who got it from a friend, who got it from ???? I have seen variations of it on the internet, so I don’t know where to give credit.

My other contribution was:

Three Bean Salad

I think this one came off a can of beans many years ago, maybe…
- 1 each 15 oz can of Red Kidney, Cannelini, and Garbanzo beans
- 3 c chopped vegetables ( I use the other half of the red bell pepper, carrot, onion)
- 2 Tbs Olive Oil
- 1/3 c wine vinegar or Apple cider vinegar
- 2 finely minced gloves of garlic
- 1/2-1 tsp Italian Seasoning (I don’t buy mixed seasoning, so I use basil, oregano, thyme, parsley)
- 2 Tbs Parmesan cheese
Drain beans and combine with chopped vegetables. Sprinkle with parmesan cheese. Blend Olive oil, vinegar and herbs well in blender or with wand blender and pour over bean mixture. Stir and chill several hours.

This makes about 7 cups of salad.

There was a lot of yarn spun, some knitting done, much eating, socializing and a beer or two consumed. It was a delightful afternoon with a wonderful group of friends.
May 24, 2014
A Week on the Farm – May 23, 2014

Garden weeded and mulched with spoiled hay.

The big burn.

Tree sparrow feeding time.

Lazy barn kitties in the sun.

New delux grill on sale just in time for summer cook outs.

Life is grand on our mountain farm.

May 23, 2014