Cabin Crafted

Category: farm

  • It’s Been a While

    Not to anything dire, just not wanting to keep posting the same routine.

    It has been a hot, wet summer and the garden has suffered. Raccoons got every ear of corn and started on the tomatoes as they ripened. Green beans have been very prolific as were the cucumbers. The cucumber vines have now died off and were pulled from their trellis yesterday afternoon and the first planting of green beans also pulled as I had been away for 5 days and most of the ones on the plants were too large and soft to be desirable as we don’t like the “southern” way of cooking them with fat back until they are practically mush. The second planting has just begun to provide.

    We set about on Monday to get the lawn mowed after lunch. I sent DH out to get gas for a fill up, thinking there was enough to start while he was gone, but I backed the riding mower out of the garage and it sputtered to a stop. Instead of sitting idly by, the bed of flowers by the east side of the garage was a weedy mess and the grass was hanging over into it, so much bending, stooping, and sitting on a step stool that sent me into an unplanned hard landing on the grass, and all the grass and lambs quarters were pulled, a new edge dug. He began to mow while I was doing that so the line trimmer was used to go around the house and over to the vegetable garden that had lambs quarters, wild amaranth, and horse nettles as tall as me that the line trimmer couldn’t handle. This is the result of hand weeding all of it and the orchard grass growing in the paths.

    That pile is about 2.5 feet tall, what you see behind it is the same mess that is in the closed off chicken run that I can’t access until the fence is removed. I don’t know if it will compost as I had no means of chopping it up, so it is a stack of 5 to 6 feet long stalks mixed with mats of Creeping Charlie, Bermuda grass, Smart weed, and other unwanted greenery that had taken over the end of the garden not in use this summer. I’m thinking about trying to move the inner fence to cross just above the part of the garden in use and letting the chicken have at the rest. It will leave them unprotected from the hawks but that is a chance I am willing to take.

    Yesterday a very early venture over to the garden to harvest beans and tomatoes and finish weeding a small section I never got to Monday, found all of the Tithonia and Sunflowers full of sleeping wild bees.

    Yesterday afternoon, after a trip to the nursery, flats of spinach and Romaine lettuce seedling, a row of Little Gems lettuce seed, and three rows of turnips were planted in one of the empty raised beds. The one the first green beans were in will be reserved to plant garlic when it cools more.

    The reason for my 5 day absence was to travel to Black Mountain, North Carolina for my favorite Art and Fiber Retreat. We meet at the YMCA Blue Ridge Assembly. It was rejuvenating and a bit heartbreaking. The group is a wonderful mix of ladies that spin, knit, crochet, weave, and do other paper arts. The heartbreak was to see the damage caused by Helene and know that though they have worked hard to recover, only 40% occupancy is available still as they lost a couple of buildings and had damage to many others. The motel style lodge where we stay and where meals are prepared and served by the staff was the first to be repaired and reopened. Helene took out every power pole leading up to the buildings except for 3. It took them 4 weeks to get any power back. The creek that became a river down the west side, that damaged the old gym so badly it had to be torn down is now a gully 16 feet deep and washed through the woods taking out trees and rhododendron to now look like a dry river bed.

    This is an area above the retreat that is up the mountain. All of their hiking trails in that area are impassable still and a lower priority than restoring the rest of the buildings.

    Part of the repair is placing 14 foot arches where roads were to divert the flow, instead of smaller culverts that had always handled the creeks in the past. Also where two landslides sent mud into buildings, have new reinforced walls at the top and the slides seeded as they are now open meadows.

    In addition to visiting with friends I see seldom, I finished a skein of yarn I had been spindle spinning, took a needle felting class and made two little pumpkins, and started wheel spinning 8 ounces of Coopworth and Alpaca roving purchased from a friend that raises the animals and dyes the wool before the mill processes it into roving. Also some knitting on a pair of fingerless mitts was done with the wool I purchased in Alaska in May, spun on spindles and plyed on spindles.

    Now back home, my food consumption is focusing on smaller portions and healthier choices as we always have a snack table with too much sugar and fat on it, and though I did take a walk up as far as I could go up hill above the retreat one day, I consumed too much not so healthy snacks in addition to the three meals a day they provide. Now home, I have resumed my daily walks with DH of 2-2.5 miles. It has been so humid though, it feels like you are breathing fog.

    We have a cooler week of so ahead, it should help make the walks more enjoyable. We see early Autumn in the air as the early turning leaves are coloring and some are already falling. Until I have something new, stay safe.

  • Chores and Crafts

    Yes, I am a senior in the upper half of my 70’s, but I can still work when needed. We have a couple of days of thaw and temperatures in the mid 40’s and we have about 25 fireplace logs unsplit from dead Ash trees that our south neighbor took down when he was fencing along the south border between our farms. A lot of smaller branches were cut by him and stacked for us, but the logs were in 10 foot lengths. Our young hay guy, a great and helpful man, came to remove an oak blow down that was in one of the fields he hays. While he was here, he cut the Ash into fireplace lengths and stacked them where they had been laid. We have some brutal cold expected Monday through Wednesday or Thursday of next week with single digit daytime temperatures. To be prepared to assist the heat pump and hopefully just be a supplemental heat (as long as the power stays on), I tackled the stack today and managed to get about 6 of the logs split, hauled down to the house and stacked on the front porch. The rolling wood rack was filled with older wood from the wood stack and also moved to the porch. This was an additional workout as there is still snow and ice from the past couple weeks of nastiness which makes doing anything a bit of a hazard.

    This pile is about twice as large as when the photo was taken and the rolling wood rack is on the other side of the doorway.

    All of this effort was followed with a coop clean out. They spent about 10 days without ever even peeking outside. Every day has required carrying a 3 gallon bucket of water over to them and bringing the frozen one back to thaw. The coop is a few feet higher than the garage with a several foot dip between so it was trekking up the hill without slipping on the ice. As that is the east side of the house and the house blocks the hill in the afternoon, the ice lingered.

    The driveway is finally thawing and more ground and gravel is seen every day. With today’s slightly warmer temperatures and sunshine, the ice is becoming mud. Tomorrow evening we have rain then a couple inches of snow, but hopefully warm enough to not turn to ice.

    The cold icy weather has allowed a lot of crafting time. The December “Fibre Snack” scarf has been the primary knitting project and is now about 2/3 finished. The base color is running out, it is wheel spun and there is more unspun that I will have to tackle it soon to finish the scarf. It is going to be generous, warm, and colorful when finished as I have used the daily December snack in the order they were spun.

    It has gotten too large to take to hubby’s appointments, so it is an at home only project. Spindles and fiber travel to entertain me while I wait. And it often entertains many others in the waiting rooms as well.

    Tomorrow before the rain begins, more wood will be split and covered to keep it dry in case it is needed next week.

    Stay safe, stay warm. Take care.

  • Winter Hit Hard

    Fortunately it isn’t going to last long and has been dry except for snow flurries, often with the sun shining.

    We had a wedding and reception here last weekend with about 45 guests. The bride, groom, their sons, and her parents stayed here for 4 nights a few extra guests for dinner the night before and lunch the day after and it was cold, but not as cold as it became a couple of days later. We haven’t gotten up to freezing for several days and a few mid teens nights. It is supposed to temper back to more normal for this time of year weather for the next week.

    I have mentioned that the deer population seems to be extremely high this year and they must have figured out that they can’t get shot if they are on our farm.

    As I was preparing dinner a day or two ago, I looked down the hill to our lower hay field and there were at least 20 deer grazing down there. The hunting around here doesn’t seem to be reducing the impact. With chronic wasting disease and hemorrhagic disease in deer both spreading across Virginia, it will reduce the load, but will make it more dangerous to take the meat through hunting. So far there is no evidence that the prions from chronic wasting disease has or can be spread to humans, but if it does, it would produce the same type of brain deterioration that Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease does. Wisdom would require that deer taken for meat should be checked and if infected, not eaten.

    The monthly Jenkins challenge is two fold. Those of us who wanted to participate, sent 4 ounces of fiber to one of two “Elves” who spent a couple of days together preparing small 5 gram packages labelled with the first 25 days of December and returned them to the participants. Alternatively you could just spin for 15 minutes per day. I elected to participate in the Fibre Sample group and have enjoyed the surprise and pleasure of opening the little package each morning, spinning, plying, and skeining it into a mini skein. At the end of the month, I will need to find a plan for the 25 mini skeins of yarn from different breeds, different breeds, and a variety of colors.

    Along with the daily spinning, a couple of Christmas gifts are being made.

    This afternoon, Christmas cards were written and prepared to be mailed tomorrow. The house is finally decorated except for the tree which I still need to set up and decorate. Most of the gifts have been purchased or made, but a couple still are undecided. The ones that had to be mailed have been. Christmas is coming up too fast.

  • Another Month gone by

    This month brought cataract surgery for hubby. He can now see better than he ever has in his life and no longer needs glasses, except low strength readers in some instances.

    It took me to the podiatrist regarding my summer long foot discomfort and those two visits were unproductive as I had already done the elevated resting, ice, better supportive shoes, good arch supporting insoles, so she really didn’t know what to say except my 76+ year old feet have arthritis, some bony overgrowth that comes with age, bone spurs on my heels, and to keep doing what I have been doing.

    Helene was kinder to us than so many millions of people. We got a lot of rain, wind gusts to 60 MPH that took down trees in the region, but none on our farm that we have seen so far. The ones on our road and the road leading down the mountain have at least been cut back, though many trunks are still leaning over the roadway. Our state maintained gravel road has a 12 to 14″ deep rut that runs from the neighbor above us beyond the one across and down from us. It ran gullies down our driveway that slopes down about 200′ elevation from the top to the house, but I have already regraded with the tractor and blade and improved it, not repaired it. We did lose power for 56 hours. The refrigerator freezer was not opened and the meat in the bottom bin with blue ice blocks remained frozen. Some of the bagged veggies and fruit higher in the freezer thawed and was thrown out. The bags of tomatoes were beginning to thaw so the skins were slipped off, the tomatoes put in a large pot and today I have finally tackled the job of canning 9 pints of them. A bucket of apples was picked, sliced and cooked down for applesauce. The large pot to the right of the tomatoes ended up 6.5 pints of applesauce. The half will be served with tonight’s homecooked meal, the first since Thursday night. The two quart bags of chili paste used as an enchilada sauce base were cooked down and put in half pint jars that will go in the freezer as I don’t have a pressure canner.

    The power was out for 56 hours. With no power, we have no water as we are on a well. We do have a gravity fed yard hydrant down near the bottom field, fed from a water catchment system near the house that contains the rain water from the roof. Though that water is not potable, 5 gallon buckets were filled and hauled up to the house to use for handwashing and toilet flushing. Our daughter, 25 minutes away didn’t lose power and she fed us Saturday night, though now since they are are town water, they have a boil notice. Today, we had an appointment in the county seat and the parking lot of the little shopping center had about 25 power company trucks, all from Oklahoma. We made sure to go by and thank the guys standing in the lot, probably awaiting their next assignment as some left while we were there. They seemed surprised that we were thanking them and not yelling at them. That has to be a tough job, working 16 hour shifts in the rain only to be yelled at by people who didn’t get their power back first.

    As I said, we were lucky. Several communities in our county and adjacent counties along the New River were flooded and roads blocked off. There are a number of semi permanent campgrounds and people lost their campers, some vehicles, and houses close to the river. It crested as much as 17 feet above flood plain. The news said it is the second highest since records have been kept, the highest was in the 1940’s. The creek at the bottom of our mountain flooded, but didn’t breach the bridge. When will people realize that climate change is fueling these more intense storms. I have friends in western North Carolina that are totally cut off due to washed out bridges and roads. Long lines at grocery stores, taking only cash, and no fuel for generators. We all need to be thankful if we are safe and send good thoughts, goods, and money to help those who have lost it all.

    On to a new month tomorrow. Hopefully no more severe storms aimed at the areas already suffering.

  • Another Week Passes Us By

    The week has been a teaser of autumn to come. The week plus in the sturdier shoes and insoles has allowed me to walk a couple miles about half the days this past week. Two of the days wearing long pants and a light sweater. I’m sure we will have more hot weather before it settles into autumn, but I’ll take last week and the upcoming week for now.

    We managed to get to the Farmer’s Market yesterday in spite of it being a home football game day. Every parking lot near campus is closed to public parking and reserved for paid football day parking and tailgating. That makes the market a challenge.

    The week has been used making 9 batches of cold process soap. If you have never made soap, cold process soap is still hot, the lye solution is hot, the oils and plant butters have to be melted, so it seems a misnomer, but the processes are different. Nine batches makes more than 80 bars of soap, and no we don’t personally use that many a year. A big boxful goes to Son 1 for gift giving and their use. He gets me large containers of some of the oils in exchange. A batch goes to a friend in town, a batch for SIL, and some for our annual use.

    The 4 boards cover 4 molds just prior to being covered with the towels to saponify overnight. Beyond them are 5 batches already cut and curing from yesterday and earlier in the week. They have to cure for about a month before they are hard enough to not just dissolve with use. The longer they cure, the harder they become. The next couple of weeks will be used making the labels for most of them.

    Last night when the kitchen scraps were taken out to the chickens, I realized that the day lilies leaves have all been eaten to the ground by the deer. The day lily bed is right up against the east wall of the garage. This morning, I saw these two and another doe just a few feet behind the house devouring the Tithonia that used to be where they are.

    Periodically, the doe would pounce toward the fawn who would then do zoomies around the back yard before returning to the doe.

    Also out there was a large groundhog. It was a frequent visitor during the spring, but has been absent since the hay was mowed in July. The hay is tall again and it was back.

    The tomatoes are reaching the last few. This basket has been bagged and put in the freezer, the Ghost peppers are infusing in olive oil with garlic and sage. And the cayennes and remaining Ghost peppers strung to dry. Some day soon, all the bags will be hauled out of the freezer, the tomatoes peeled, and a big pot of sauce made. Probably left plain so that it can become chili with peppers added, pasta sauce with onion, garlic, and herbs, or cooked down for pizza sauce.

    This week, the tomato vines will be pulled down and chopped for compost, that bed weeded and covered with hay for winter. That leaves the sweet potatoes that went in so late there may be none to harvest before the first frost. It is about time to chop the corn and sunflower stalks down and call it a year unless I can get some winter greens in a bed that can be covered for the early frosts.

    And this week, I can get back to some crafting. Some knitting and some spinning have been done. A lot of reading, trying to finish The Rose Code before it is due back to the library. It is an interesting historical fiction, I recommend it.

    Have a good week.

  • All Good Things Must End

    Yesterday was the beginning of meteorological autumn, not the autumn marked on your wall calendar if you still have one. And right on cue, we started seeing the trees beginning to show their color, or at least we noticed it. The first to turn are the Tulip Poplars and the Locust trees. This Poplar acts like a Ginkgo and turns yellow all at once in a matter of a couple of days.

    And loses it’s leaves first.

    After being away for two weekends and hobbling around for 7 weeks, I finally got out into the garden this week. The heat and time of year ended the cucumbers and bush beans, but the tomatoes and peppers are producing wildly.

    Every day a basket like this is brought in and frozen. Once they are all ripe, I will make a pot of sauce. Two pounds of peppers were cut and put in the fermenting crock to make into hot sauce in about 5 or 6 weeks.

    Yesterday afternoon, the popcorn was harvested, shucked in place and brought in. It is now in two crisscrossed layers in two large baskets to finish drying for about 2 or 3 weeks, then we will have more than a year’s worth of popcorn. It is fun to put a cob in a brown paper lunch bag and pop it in the microwave for a couple of minutes. Then you have a bag full of air popped corn.

    Fall is also the time to make soap. Soap for gift giving, soap for a friend who loves my soap, soap for us for a year. There will be 8 or 9 batches made over the next week and cut to cure in a guest room. The first two batches were made yesterday, cut today, and set to cure. I am awaiting an order of essential oils and shea butter to continue the process, but the first two batches are unscented.

    Today it much milder outdoors and as my foot still isn’t allowing exercise walks and since I did have my physical training session this morning, I tackled some garden chores. The cucumber and bean plants were pulled, given to the chickens, the bed that grew the peas in the spring and has been idle was weeded and the weeds put in a large tub to die off before being added back to that bed as compost. That bed also got a wheel barrow of chicken coop cleanings a month or so ago and it was spread out over the surface. There are now two and a half idle beds. One will likely have some fall veggies, the others covered in straw unless I can get a cover crop in quickly. The corn stalks won’t be cut until the Tithonia and sunflowers planted in a row up the middle of them finish blooming. There are so many hot peppers already canned that the rest will be allowed to turn red. The Ghost peppers will be infused in olive oil with sage and garlic, the jalapenos and cayennes will be crushed once dried for crushed red pepper. There are two tiny ornamental Thai pepper that are full of red peppers but they are very hard to harvest, though hot if you can get some.

    The chicken tunnel has been mostly a success. There are a few plants that grow into the tunnel they won’t eat, but do keep mostly scratched down, and the creeping charlie and smartweed that are reachable through the wire, they ignore so another day will have to be spent clearing the blueberry bed. The raspberry and blackberry half barrels were mostly a failure, though I see some volunteers outside the barrels. With all the wineberries and wild blackberries that are on the property, I should just not bother with the barrels. There are also several you pick berry farms around here.

    Not much spinning was done last month. Reading, a little travel to visit Son 1 and then to a retreat where I did spin both on my wheel and spindles, knit, and took both a wet felting class to make a small bowl and a project bag sewing class occupied my time with visiting friends I see only rarely. If I ever finish the knitting project, I will finish spinning the fiber I have worked on for two months slowly. I got a lovely braid to spin as a door prize at the retreat and a bag of felting wool from the gift exchange game.

    So you see from this, I am alive and well, not posting much here, on Facebook, or Instagram, but still here. Take care, enjoy the fall colors if you live where they occur, and get ready for another winter.

  • Summer before the Solstice

    The weather is hot. And dry. We did benefit from some rain a few days ago that was spotty around the area, but did give us a little respite from the heat and the dryness.

    Yesterday, I was sitting on the front porch with Randy. Randy was our postal carrier for most of the years since we built and moved here, but he retired a few years ago. He also runs cattle with two younger men, men about our sons’ ages. He had come over to let us know that they were going to mow our hay today so I wouldn’t let critters out that might be harmed by huge mowers and we were just sitting and visiting when he looked beyond me and asked if that was a snake on the porch rail. Sure enough, a black rat snake about 6- 6.5 feet long, just chillin’ on the rail behind me. Black rat snakes are our friends as long as they stay out of the house and out of the coop. He probably had been feasting on the chipmunks that have taken over since the dogs and barn cats have all passed away. The snake had been hanging out up near the barn, but had moseyed on down to the house. I went through the house, grabbed leather garden gloves, a 5 gallon bucket, and lid and came back out to relocate it. Randy looked at me like I was nuts and said, “Don’t ask me to help.” He did take the photo though.

    This is the 5th one that we have relocated from the house or coop. The bucket was taken a couple miles away and the snake turned loose in the woods by a field.

    Last night I did finish the June spinning challenge and finished plying the rainbow yarn.

    It ended up 558 yards almost 4 ounces done totally on the spindles in the photo in 18 days. A project has already been begun.

    The mowers did arrive this afternoon, two mowers and a tractor with a tedder to fluff up what was mowed. They will return Friday and bale it. I don’t think they are going to have a very good harvest as it didn’t get mowed in the fall and it didn’t get fertilized this spring. Randy said they are already about 60 bales short of what they usually get before reaching us, so he may not have much to sell this year, hopefully enough for their cattle.

    The dry heat had caused the pea vines to yellow, so while they mowed, I harvested peas, the potatoes that were in one of the pea beds, a handful of Jalapenos, and a basket of plums. There are about that many more plums still ripening. They sure are good, not very large, but very sweet. And I also pulled the pea vines to be chopped up and put in the compost. My clippers are old and dull and wouldn’t do the job, so I may ask to borrow my daughter’s.

    It took 3 hours to shell all of those peas, filling a bucket with empty pods, and yielding several quarts of peas. We enjoyed some for dinner and the rest frozen for meals when fresh veggies aren’t available except trucked across the country. In a couple of days, the tiny green beans will be large enough to start enjoying them and freezing more for later meals. The tomatoes have flowers, but no fruit yet and flowers on the cucumbers, but again, no fruit yet. One of the pea beds will be planted with more green beans, the other covered with old hay until cooler weather allows fall greens to be started.

    We saw the doe with the singleton fawn, still a tiny one after the mowers left. Probably wondering where their tall grass covering had gone.

    While I was talking to one of the younger mowers, we realized that a large branch in the top of one of my Asian pears is totally dead with pears on it, so recently dead. It doesn’t look like a lightening strike, but at some point it is going to have to be cut out. I don’t know what caused it. It is concerning as that is the tree that produces the most pears.

    More heat and no rain for the next 10 days. At least the grass doesn’t grow fast when it is hot and dry.

    Take care, stay cool, be safe.

  • Hot Weather and Harvest time

    Much to our delight, the hayfields mowed and baled just before ours were done late this week and there is no rain in the forecast next week, so we might actually have our fields cleared this week. It is going to be brutally hot though, highs in the 90’s every day. That will make garden time happen only in the early morning and I will have to be sure the chicken’s water stays filled. They already are digging dust bath holes in the shade of the asparagus that are now more than 5 feet tall and full fern mode.

    Every day, a cup of blueberries, a basket of peas, a few new potatoes, and a handful of delicious plums come in. The tomatoes and cucumbers have flowers. The green beans are full height and blooming, and there are small hot peppers on several of the plants. A few Jalapenos were brought in this week. The peas are reaching the end of their season and most of the potatoes had already died back and been dug. There are peas in the freezer and we have been enjoying fresh ones a few times a week. There may only be 1 more basket full to harvest, then the vines will be pulled and chopped for compost, the bed covered with straw until it cools enough to plant some fall crops later in the season.

    Trying to stay out of the boot in the house as much as possible means that when I go downstairs in the morning to fix my coffee and breakfast, I often sit on the couch looking out the front windows, up the driveway. The doe with a singleton fawn was out there a couple days ago, standing patiently on the edge of the driveway, while her little one nursed. I have never seen that happen out in the open, so with no dogs here, she must feel safe.

    Not the best photo as it was taken from inside the house, through the screen, and zoomed so as not to chase her off. She would periodically turn and clean the little one while it ate.

    This morning was Farmer’s Market Day and every week, we purchase some flowers from our friends that grow flowers for market and weddings. Once a month, I get the larger bouquet and today’s one is so colorful and gorgeous.

    We are halfway through the month and I am almost finished with the June Jenkins spindle challenge to spin a rainbow. We were challenged to spin at least 10 grams of each of the 7 colors, but I have chosen to spin the entire pigtail of each one, about 16 to 18 grams per color. The photo shows the 5 finished ones and the indigo ready to spin, but it is now more than half spun. Once it is done, only the violet will remain.

    Next month we do a daily scavenger hunt and post our spindle with the found object. It usually only requires a single gram per day but I’m sure more will actually be spun. I need to get back to work on the pound of gray Shetland wool that is on my spinning wheel, but I think I need to give my foot another week to heal first.

    I did resume my sessions with my physical trainer this week after 3 weeks off with us having had visitors, her going on vacation, and me wearing a new boot. We did only upper body on the various machines. The area where we usually train with hand weights is getting new flooring, so all the machines and equipment are moved out of that area. About 2/3 of the gym has thick padded glued down rubber mat type flooring. The other 1/3 had carpet with rolled out mat pads that had shifted due to the movement of the equipment and there were wrinkles that were hazardous if you weren’t paying attention. All the carpet and old rolled out mat pads are being removed and that area is getting the same type of flooring as the rest of the gym. It makes using areas awkward but the end result will be great. At home, I continue to use resistance bands and hand weights.

    Stay safe, and if travelling, be careful until we meet here again.

  • Getting Old Ain’t for Sissies

    The PC visit went about how I figured. She is reasonably sure I have a stress fracture in a metatarsal but sent me for Xrays to make sure there wasn’t a more significant break or dislocation. When I get up in the morning, I think all is well, but 10-15 minutes walking around or standing to prepare a meal without the boot sends the throbbing ache back with a vengeance. The Xray did not show dislocation and most stress fractures don’t show in them, so my PC feels the best way to treat the issue is an Orthopedic Walking boot for at least 4 weeks and to stay off of it as much as possible. She said I can walk around as needed in the boot. What she didn’t say and I didn’t know from experience is that the boot throws your posture off and more than a little while walking in it causes back pain. So, I guess, other than meal prep, necessary errands and grocery shopping, I will spend a lot of time for the next 4 weeks in my recliner with my feet up. I can still go to my trainer, but we have to work only on upper body and core. Maybe I will join the Rec Center pool so I can at least get some cardio without impact to further aggravate my foot. Definitely not how I planned to spend my summer. I guess that is what I get for pushing myself to over 4 mph on the treadmill as a septuagenarian.

    The time down has allowed me to spin more on the rainbow challenge.

    The red and orange are done, a total of 155 yards of spun and plyed yarn and the yellow has been started.

    The rain we have been getting had the grass getting entirely too tall and thick, and since mowing means riding around on the riding mower, I did get it done today while we have a milder, dryer day. The trimming with the line trimmer will have to wait a few weeks. While mowing, I notice the Dogwood, I think a Japanese Dogwood, that blooms well after all of the natives, has red speckled petals.

    I have never noticed that before and don’t know if it is a natural occurrence or a disease. The tan spots are a sign of disease. I hate that we might lose this little tree.

    Also while mowing, I survey the development of the various fruits. Most of the apple trees have lots of young fruit. One of the Asian pears is bearing, though for the second year, the other one is sparse. There are peaches coming, grapes on the vines, though the deer are eating the grape leaves. The plums are ripening and I ate the first two of the season while riding around. Maybe after dinner, I will hobble over to gather whatever berries have ripened in the past couple days if the birds haven’t beat me to them. This week there should be shelling peas and plenty more Sugar snap peas to enjoy. The tomatoes need to be tied up higher on the trellis, the cucumbers urged to grow up their trellis and not sprawl on the ground. Soon there will be onions and probably some new potatoes can be teased out from the plants. Green beans are growing, but not blooming yet but there are blooms on some of the peppers. I’m so glad, the young couple helped me get the cardboard and old hay down in the paths, so the garden maintenance is minimal.

    No one is mowing hay on our mountain yet. I guess it will be July before they get to us again this year. The tall hay hides the fawns and Turkey poults as they trail along behind their Mom’s. We have seen a doe with a single fawn and another with twins. This morning, a hen Turkey with poults, but all you could see was the grass moving, so I don’t know how many she has. In a few weeks, they will be tall enough to see and count. Spring on the farm.

    Stay well, stay safe, until next time.

  • Another Week Goes By

    It has been a cool week with two record breaking lows at night, but not low enough to damage the garden. Things are warming back up this week to come.

    Going out to gather eggs this evening, I spied a few ripe raspberries in the garden and once in there, realized there were a few ripe blueberries also. The cultivated berry season is short and over before the wild wineberries and blackberries are ripe, though I can’t get to any of them until the hay is mowed and the hay men haven’t even begun the near fields. We are among the last on the list, so maybe as late as early July. By then, the wineberries are gone, but blackberries will still be available. I will start watching the schedule for the local berry farms and go pick there.

    And while in the garden, the Sugar Snap peas are ready to begin harvest, so nice fresh veggies this week and some for the freezer too. The shelling peas aren’t ready quite yet.

    The Iris, both bearded and Dutch have finished, just in time for the Daylilies to begin to come into bloom.

    The spindle challenge this month is to spin a rainbow. An indie dyer prepped and dyed pigtails of the 7 colors, for anyone in the challenge group that wanted to purchase them. The red is a bit too pink, but the rest of the colors are great.

    I divided each color half to make two ply mini skeins. The blue and purple fiber on the left was some I bought last month to spin for a shawlette or scarf. Part of it has already been spun, but I couldn’t start on the rainbow until yesterday. Our local spinning group had an annual porch spin in and potluck lunch at one of the member’s homes yesterday. It was a beautiful day and a chance to see some friends that either come into town for this event or due to other commitments can’t make it to the Thursday afternoon sessions. It was a great afternoon. Some of the gray Shetland I am spinning was worked on the wheel while the red for the rainbow was started on a spindle.

    My walks are on hiatus as I have either developed tendonitis or a stress fracture in my left foot. Tomorrow, I will explore with my PC whether I need to have it checked or just continue with elevation, ice, and Tylenol (can’t take NSAIDs). It is frustrating because we enjoy our 4 miles walks together and it is going to impact what I can do with my trainer.

    When I got home from the spin in yesterday, we had another small swarm of bees enter the house. As much as I hate killing pollinators, there is no choice but to use the shop vac and a very long tube to extract them from the windows of the dormer in the living room, about 12 feet up. We noted where they entered from outside, so this week, the local grandson is going to come climb the ladder to fill the gap with “Great Stuff.” We had a swarm last year about this time and again this year. They need to find a better place to settle than inside the house.

    It will be another 6 weeks before I can expect eggs from the young birds. It won’t be too soon as the two old ladies (about 3 1/2 years old) are really slowing down on production. The two 1 year olds are providing most of the current egg production and barely meeting daughter’s and my needs.

    Until we meet again here, have a good, safe time.