Cabin Crafted

Category: Family time

  • Return

    Sunday eve found Son#1, Grandson#1, and me motoring back to Northern Virginia.  The original plan had been to work on the scaffolding and sharpen knives on Saturday, deal with the meat chickens on Sunday, and have some hiking or other recreation on Monday, Columbus Day, and then I was going to take them home.  Friday as Son#1 was preparing to leave work for home and then the bus trip here, he realized that he wasn’t off on Monday, but Grandson#1 didn’t have school.  Plans changed, we accomplished the Saturday and Sunday plan and took off on Sunday eve for their house.  I spent two nights there to provide care for Grandson#1.  Leaving for home early this morning and encountering much semi traffic and intermittent rain, I decided to take a non interstate route home, at least most of the way.

    The route was a beautiful drive, though it took about 90 minutes longer and I drove through a few very severe storms.  The route took me through a good portion of the poultry raising parts of Shenandoah.  This is why I humanely raise and kill my own chickens and buy our turkey from a local free range farmer.

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    This is one of hundreds of poultry “houses” along the route. The sign that I tried to capture said, “Absolute no trespassing, no visitors.”

    This is what the inside of a “free range” building looks like. Photo from the internet, source unknown.

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    A poultry processing factory, it covered about 2 blocks. The entire town smelled like death and stench.
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    One of half a dozen trucks I passed going to the factory, each with 120 of these cages so low the turkeys can’t stand in them and each cage holding about a dozen turkeys.
    The birds beaks were clipped so they couldn’t harm each other.  This is grocery store poultry.

    On a more pleasant note, though the rain was intense at times, part of the route paralleled the Maury River.

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    The leaves were beautiful, the river sometimes well below the road like the picture above and at other times it was only feet from the edge of the road.  It was a certainly a prettier trip than the interstate, but the trip expanded to 6 hours instead of the usual 4 1/2.  Was it worth avoiding the semis?  I guess it was, but I’m glad to be home again.

     

     

     

  • Olio, October 6, 2014

    Olio: A miscellaneous collection of things.

    The garden survived a 31ºf night and a 37ºf night through the aid of some row cover over the peppers and tomatillos.  The beans that haven’t been eaten by the deer that have breeched the electric fence also survived.  The pumpkins/winter squash patch is finally beginning to die back and there are dozens of the Burgess Buttercup squash beginning to show through.  So far I don’t see a single Seminole Pumpkin which is disappointing.  Today I waded through the thigh high patch, pulled back the squash vines and tried to dig the sweet potatoes.

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    I’m sure there are more there, but the vines will have to die back more before I try again.  Now that they are harvested, they require a few days of curing at 80ºf.  I don’t know how that will happen with the daytime temperatures at least 15 degrees lower than that and we haven’t turned the heat on in the house so it is 20 degrees cooler.  I put them out on a rack in the sun this morning, but then the rains started, so they are in the utility room until we see sunshine again.

    In July when visited our daughter’s family in Florida, our granddaughter came out in the cutest sun dress.

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    She and her mom love it because she can dress herself in it and it has no fasteners.  Over confident Mountaingmom announced, “That would be so easy to make.”  The bodice was traced on printer paper, the tiers measured approximately and brought home to the farm.  Later two packets of fat quarters were purchased and I stalled.  Before the Spinning retreat, I decided to begin them.  First off, I failed to cut the front on a fold, I do know better.  Second error was attempting to use three strands of narrow elastic to gather the back, I ended up buying wide underwear elastic later.  Third error was in the measurements I had made of the ruffles which I realized before cutting.  Daughter remeasured everything for me and a few days ago, I got serious about finishing the first dress.

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    Yesterday after finishing it, I decided that dress #2 was going to be made with a pattern and I purchased a simple A-line toddler dress pattern from McCall.  As I still wanted to use the fat quarter that I bought for the second dress, The solution was to cut wide strips, sew them end to end, then side to side to create a large striped panel that was used to cut the pattern.  I had some unbleached muslin that I used as facing as the pattern called for binding the edges with bias tape and I didn’t want to do that. Dress #2 was much easier to assemble.

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    As granddaughter lives in Florida, she will be able to wear them all year with a long sleeve T-shirt under them, so 3 T’s were bought to add to the package.  Also in the package is a giraffe.  Yes, a giraffe.  Two Christmases ago, we bought her a little barn that has various activity parts to it and a collection of farm animals to put inside.  Their dog got a couple of the animals and chewed them up, some of which were replaced, she selected a moose for her farm.  Near their home is a farm that has a giraffe.  We don’t know why or how they obtained it, but it is a source of amusement as we drive by, so her barn will now also have a giraffe.

    The Hot Mess yarn that I spun at the retreat, was soaked and hung with a weight on it.  The treatment helped relax the over twist some, so now I have a 106 yard skein of smooth, but tight yarn.

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    I have no idea what to do with it.  It is too little for anything other than trim on something.  There isn’t even enough to make a market bag.

    The yarn on the bobbin is the random color Merino that I purchased at the retreat.  The color isn’t showing up very well with no sun out and only house lighting to photograph it in, but it is basically lilac color with gold and maroon highlight.  I haven’t finished plying it yet to measure, but it looks like it will be a couple hundred yards of fingering weight yarn.

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    Lovin’ life on our mountain farm.

     

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • Fall Gardening

    The sunny day yesterday did not really happen, but it didn’t really rain either. It was only in the mid 60’s most of the day and partly to mostly cloudy, so a perfect day to garden.

    Since eggs are a premium around here still, we went out to breakfast at our local diner. I have gotten 2 pullet eggs in the past couple of days. There are 11 pullets, so we are hoping they will all get the message soon. Their eggs are so cute next to the hens eggs.

    After breakfast, we ventured down to Tractor Supply for pine shavings for the brooder and to replace the solar charger that is supposed to protect my garden and the chickens, but failed right before we left for vacation. When we purchased it, we only got a 6V solar charger. The batteries on them only last about 3 years and it probably needs a new battery, but Tractor Supply had a 12V on sale  for a price I couldn’t pass up. It is mounted and charging to be connected after I return from taking our grandson home today. Our adventure yesterday also took us to our favorite local nursery for fall vegetable starts. Having grandson here, activities with him, and our vacation just got in the way of starting my own. Once home, a bit of grubbing in the soil with my awesome hoe and my hands, cleared two beds, weeded the bean patch where I realized that the gnawed off shoots were growing new leaves. Planted were 4 Rainbow Chard, 8 Broccoli, 4 Kale plants.
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    Once they were safely tucked in the soil and mulched with some spoiled hay, row cover was placed over them and the beans to thwart the bunnies and the cabbage moths. Perhaps we will get some beans this season after all. We have about 60 days until our average first frost date, so I am hopeful.
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    In recent years, I have been reluctant to plant radishes and turnips in our garden as they always seem to be attacked by the little white maggots. Recently I read that if you sprinkle wood ash in your furrow that they won’t be a problem. I hadn’t really saved any wood ash, but found a couple of cups worth in the bottom of the woodstove and added it to about a cup of diatomaceous earth and planted a row of red radishes, a row of white icicle radishes and a row of turnip seed as a test, sprinkling the mix in the row and on top of the covered seed. We will see if that experiment works, if so I will save more wood ash next year. This bed was also covered with a row cover to thwart the bunnies.
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    My son says I should sit out there with my .22 and dispatch them and eat them. Unfortunately, I don’t like rabbit and I couldn’t clean them if I succeeded in shooting one. I will continue to deter them with row cover and maybe once I get the electric fence charged to keep the deer and dogs out, I will string plastic bunny fence around the vegetable garden.

    I couldn’t get cabbage starts at our local nursery, they were all sold out, but Lowes just got theirs in yesterday afternoon and a scored a flat of 9.  This morning they were planted. , Now it’s time to thin the raspberries, harvest and preserve for the winter.

    Life is an adventure on our mountain farm.

  • Book Challenge

    One of my avid passions is reading. My favorites are forensic science fiction, historical fiction and fiction by local authors or authors that set their books in areas or regions that are familiar to me, though I often read books recommended by friends, family, or public reviews..

    Last year I joined a 100 book challenge a bit into the year and succeeded in reading 90+ books. This year, again I joined the challenge and have read almost 50 books so far. The challenge is a group including many of my friends, however, it is on Facebook and I have decided to deactivate my account. I will miss the book suggestions and reviews from this group.

    I have always loved books and have several that I read repeatedly such as Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and the classic To Kill A Mockingbird.

    All of our family are readers and I have been in awe of our 9 year old grandson, who while staying with us this summer has read in excess of 4000 pages of novels.  Though he still picks up some books that would be considered 3rd to 4th grade level, he has read the entire Seven Wonders series, the entire Eragon series (3 of the 4 are over 750 pages each), and reread the first book of the Hunger Games series. He not only can read them, but will sit and discuss them with you. In that sense he reminds me of his Dad at that age. Such a great passion, love of books.

  • Olio – August 6, 2014

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    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.

  • 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.

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    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.

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    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.

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    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.

  • 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.