Cabin Crafted

Category: farm

  • Avoidance

    Another beautiful day kept me busy outdoors and away from the anxiety producing news. Saturday’s are Farmer’s Market day and breakfast out. The market was a zoo. Some protein and storage veggies, plus a loaf of rye bread with cherries, walnuts, and raisins for breakfast toast to go with an egg. Egg delivery, a small grocery run, and Tractor Supply for chicken scratch and dog kibble all made and home by 1 p.m.

    Once everything was put away, a ladder was pulled out and the carpenter bee traps were hung. It is early, but with a few days of warm weather, some will emerge. We need at least 3 or 4 more. And tomato cages are needed to stake up the raspberries and blackberries that are in the half barrels. Tractor Supply had neither, so we will venture out again soon to one of the big box hardware stores to see if the can be obtained there.

    The hydroponic and a starter pellet flat were seeded yesterday with tomatoes and peppers in the hydroponic garden, and spinach, Komatsuma, and two lettuces in the flat. The lettuces from the hydroponic garden were trimmed back for a salad and they were planted in the new mini greenhouse. Once the new seed sprouts and get enough size, they will join the spinach, Komatsuma, and lettuces in the greenhouse. We do have a couple of bitter cold nights next weekend, but by then the transplants from the hydroponic unit should have settled in and with the greenhouse closed, should be fine.

    All of the beds and most of the paths in the garden have been weeded. There are still some stakes from last year’s failed tomato trellis to be pulled, but all of the string is removed. The cornstalks and pepper bushes need to be chopped up in the compost and that entire pile turned.

    Tomorrow is another nice day and because the top of the chicken run collapsed in one of the heavy snows last winter, I am going to reconfigure the pen and try to put another top up for the period when the hawks are actively trying to feed their chicks and free ranging the hens becomes hazardous to their health and they need to be closed in except when I am out in the yard or garden with them.

  • Ready for spring

    A notice that the hydroponic pods will be received tomorrow, sent me on a flurry of activity yesterday and this morning. The Komatsu was pulled from the hydroponic unit and planted in the garden beside the overwintered spinach and covered last night with a plastic bin. This morning the lettuces were removed and potted with hopes of moving it also to the garden after tonight’s temperature drop into the 20s. The unit was scrubbed out thoroughly, refilled with fresh filtered water and fed. Once the pods arrive tomorrow, they will be seeded with two types of tomatoes and two types of hot peppers to get them started.

    The local nursery opened yesterday and a stop made to pick up seed starting pellets for the starter trays for other veggies and seed starting medium for the transplant pots as the tomatoes and peppers outgrow the hydroponic unit and before they can go in the garden.

    While we were out for our walk today, the wind picked up strongly as the front started moving through, dropping the temperature and clouding the sky. The plastic crate that was my mini greenhouse wasn’t large enough and a stop was made to pick up a larger one or a sheet of plastic to put over the hoops, hoping to get more spinach, Komatsu, and some lettuce and radish seed started in the garden. My search led me to this 3 X 6′ mini greenhouse.

    Putting the frame together was easy, it took both of us to get the cover on it in the wind. It was tied to the frame and rocks placed along the inside edge of the cover that folds to the interior. It is still very light and I feared the wind would carry the entire unit away and damage it. To solve that problem, 6 nails were hammered in to the garden box and para cord strung over in three places, hoping to tie it down. If I leave it in this box for the spring to allow greens to grow, the garden plan will have to be altered, but that is okay too. There are two boxes that it will mostly fill, but as some of the greens are already there, it is a good place to leave it. The other box will have peas in it and they will be gone by the time to start the fall greens. I think the greenhouse cover can be removed and the frame covered with row cover to allow cole crops to be grown without cabbage worm damage. With the cover in place, the season can be extended both fall and spring to get more use from our garden.

    I’m ready, knowing it is too early to get too deep in the garden yet, winter isn’t over, spring is still teasing us. It will be cold tonight, cooler than today, tomorrow, then warming up for a few days. Next week we will have cooler weather again. The local weather blogger recently posted that March is the only month in the 100 years that weather has been tracked that we have had both a 90 f day and a foot of snow. March is fickle.

  • Saturday with the Grands

    After my post yesterday, the grands and I set out to finish the pruning task. As soon as we got out there and started on the big peach, we spotted this:

    This was the biggest Eastern mole I have ever seen and it has been tearing up the yard. It was in the grass and I had leather gloves on, so I picked it up to remove it away from the yard, away from the chickens and the neighbor cat. It was removed to the woods, but will surely return. Did you know that moles bite. Fortunately, not hard enough to get through leather gloves.

    We managed to get a good portion of the pruning done, except one very over grown apple tree that has a badly damaged secondary trunk. The top was broken out and there was older damage farther down that trunk. It had two thumb thick branches that bent down and were rubbing the damaged trunk. Tall grandson, on a step stool was able to remove the broken top and cut off one of the bent branches. We finally decided that the trunk needed to be cut below the damaged areas and worked on it, but it was getting to be dinner prep time and our fingers were frozen. We quit for the day, but will have to return to finish removing the damaged wood. The burn barrel is full and there is a huge pile of branches to be removed away from the orchard.

    This is just a portion of what was cut. This was a task that was years past due. More will have to be pruned next year to bring these trees back to good condition, but the inside of each crown is opened up to allow more airflow and light. No more crossed branches, no more water shoots. Guidance says not remove too much in one year. Hopefully, once they are in healthy condition again, it will become an easier annual task. There is still a dead peach tree to remove, it has been dead for several years and is small, but has never been taken down.

    While we were out and about, we saw the local Maine Coon cat who decided that he could tackle a full grown free ranging chicken. The chicken is slightly injured, it looks like a puncture wound near her breast, the cat is ok according to his owner. Unfortunately, the injured Buff Orpington is the one hen who won’t let me anywhere near her to pick her up and try to assess the damage. It occurred to me to get her from the coop last night after dark, but forgot. This morning, as usual, she wouldn’t come out of the coop with me in the run. There are a few bloodied feathers on the lower left side of her breast but above her thigh. She is moving with no impairment. Monitoring her over the next few days is in order and if necessary, just close her in the coop after the rest have departed and try to catch her in the enclosed space to see the damage. They are free ranging again today since the run cover failed, the run doesn’t keep them in and they need to be able to get in and out of the gate. If one flies over the fence they are too stupid to realize they can fly back in.

    Sunday morning hot blueberry made from scratch muffins have been consumed by hungry kiddos. A plan to entertain them is in order for the day. Tonight we return to their house so I can get them off to school tomorrow and help with evening schedule until their Mom gets back around bedtime. I love having this opportunity with these kids.

  • Letting Go

    Tuesday morning in the drizzling rain, the recliner was unloaded at the dump. It was much easier to unload than to load, but it is gone and so is all the other trash we picked up while hoisting it up the bank and along the road.

    The German Shepherd again has an infection and was due for heartworm test, Lyme test, and two vaccines. After the dump run, we loaded her into the car and headed to town for her appointment with the vet. Because we were early, she took our walk with us, the rain had quit. We only did 2 miles, but other than a couple startles, she did great. It has been a long time since we tried walking her on a leash in public, but she stayed right by my side for the most part and kept a slack leash, just like she was trained to do when she was young. We only passed one other dog and that pup didn’t seem interested in meeting, but she didn’t over react to it either. Her biggest fears are bikes and other wheeled riders, like skates, skateboards, or scooters, but there weren’t any out in the damp day.

    Her vet visit was long and pricey and she came home with 21 days worth of antibiotics and a very expensive anaerobic culture sent to the Vet school for analysis. She has had an on again/off again infection all of her life. All we have been able to do in the past is put her on antibiotics until it calms down and wait for it to flare up again. Like the big guy, she is an old dog now, she will be 10 next month.

    I finished knitting another hat, but can’t find the pom pom maker. This one is a mill spun yarn doubled to make another bulky hat. I’m really trying to use up the bits of left over yarns that occupy space around here. The bulky hats are quick and can be sold inexpensively. Another is on the needles, half hand spun and half mill spun yarn.

    The caramel colored one is all mill spun superwash. The black and pink is a mix. The black is 75% acrylic/25% wool mill spun, the pink which really is more red is a variegated reds to black and is all handspun wool of unknown origin. Since I can’t find the pom pom maker and don’t want to cut them out of cardboard, I will attempt to purchase a new one at one of the local arts and crafts stores today, unless the old one miraculously reappears.

    So you say, where did the title come from today? Well, in part because I am using up little bits of yarn to sell items cheaply, clearing out, and in part because I have reached a point in my life where things I don’t use or don’t love, don’t need to stay in the house to cause clutter. This winter has been a destash winter, many items sold or donated to clear out “stuff.” It is by no means done, but a work in progress, boxes of clothing, household items that just occupy space. Today, a spindle. A tiny little beauty of a spindle, gorgeous wood, made by my favorite spindle maker, but it just sits. It is too small for me to use comfortably and I hate for it to just sit unused. Jenkins spindles sell as soon as you list them or offer them to someone seeking one and that is the case here. It is packed up and labelled to be dropped off in town when we brave the current monsoons to go get supplies.

    We went from springtime back to winter overnight. During the winter, I have been wearing an Eddie Bower down short hooded jacket that I used to use when we could still trust our aging bodies to ski. When worn with ski pants, it was fine, but with jeans or twills, my lower body gets chilled while walking, even if leggings or long johns are under my pants. Over the weekend, I saw a great sale at Eddie Bauer and purchased a mid thigh down coat and hope it arrives within the next day or so as it is again cold. There likely won’t be a walk today as it looks like the rain has set in for the entire day. This purchase of an item in, means the ski jacket will be donated and probably another hooded coat that gets little use, so item in, at least one item out. There is a donation pile of other clothing and household goods forming, but I need to find a box to hold it all. When the box is full, it goes to one of the thrift stores. There is still so much that might be someone else’s treasure that need to go in the box.

  • Dinner Earned

    A beautiful spring like day, sunny and in the 60’s. We loaded a very heavy destroyed recliner in the back of the old CRV. The back would not come off like most do, so it was a struggle to load, but we did and drove to the convenience center. I feel like Arlo, who knew the dump was closed on President’s Day. The chair is still in the back of the car and we will have to unload it tomorrow in the rain. Maybe the attendant will take pity on us and help.

    We took a nice long walk along the river and returned home. I have had erosion fence laying over the east garage bed that is full of day lilies and Dutch Iris, protecting it from the chicken scratching. The bed on the south side of the garage has Bearded Iris, day lilies, lavendar, echinachea, and where I plant much of the calendula was left bare and the chickens have dug in it, kicking out mulch, and digging holes. I took time to stand the erosion fence up and add to it to enclose both of the beds, weeding as I went. The day lilies and bearded iris are beginning to show new growth and the deer and chickens now need to be kept out.

    Of course since I was out there, the hens thought I must be bringing them treats and were quite confused that they were now blocked from them.

    Because it was still gorgeous out, the garden clean up was also begun. The north edge of the garden had a weed that didn’t seem to be bothered by the frigid period we had and was beginning to spread. My photo memory from today a number of years ago had me weeding the asparagus bed which is at that end of the garden.

    A couple hours later, it is cleared and the last box end finally attached. Some of the soil will be shoveled into the bed then newpaper and wood chips or spoiled hay will be placed there. The asparagus bed is cleared and a couple of the beds also done.

    The next 4 days are rainy, so no more will be done there for a while. After the rain ends, the cold returns. But it is started and seed has been ordered.

  • We Did It!

    The wind finally died down over night, the sun is bright, the day still chilly, but doesn’t feel frigid with it calm and sunny. We took our walk, a bit longer than most days, just because it was nice, then came home to tackle “the dump.”

    It takes a very inconsiderate a**wipe to dump discarded furniture on someone’s private property when one of the county convenience centers is only 2.5 miles from here and the other less than 5, both will huge dump trailers and assistance at the farther one.

    We hauled the double hooked tow strap up to the tractor and on down the road to the creek edge. The chair was about 20 feet down an embankment, near the edge of the creek. With the tractor directed the way it looked like the chair would be easiest to drag up the embankment, I scrambled down and attached a hook to the metal framework, hubby attached the other end to the back of the tractor. The tractor pulled it up the hill until it got caught on a small tree. Hubby couldn’t free it, so we turned the tractor around and started pulling the opposite way, it freed from that tree but got caught near a larger tree. Another reverse of direction as the road is narrow and banked, shortening the strap by hooking both hooks on the frame and looped around the tractor blade frame and it popped up onto the road.

    You can see the creek down the hill over the arm of the chair.

    We loaded it into the bucket of the tractor, picked up bottles, styrofoam clam shell containers and plates, and loaded it back down to barn.

    The convenience center isn’t open on Sunday, so it will have to wait until tomorrow to be loaded into the old CRV (I think it will fit in the back) and driven down to where it should have been taken in the first place.

    By removing it, the cooler, and the trash, we hope to indicate that it isn’t a dump. In those first few years here, we removed a water heater, a stove, a washing machine, part of a vehicle, and dozens and dozens of tires, along with the bottles and cans that were impacting the creek and someone’s water supply, maybe ours.

    I wish everyone felt the same way we do about treating the environment and other’s property with respect.

  • So much wind!

    It has been very windy for 3 days. Thursday was warm and windy, Friday and today were cold and windy. Still we have walked. This winter, we have missed only a handful of days not doing our daily walk, in spite of the cold. The only days we missed were raining hard or the couple days we couldn’t get out of our driveway and road due to snow. We have walked the Huckleberry Rails to Trails when the 10 foot wide path was narrowed to a single person track because of ice, walked in light rain and snow flurries. But the wind makes it an uncomfortable event. No matter how many layers we wear or how fast we walk, a strong wind on a cold day is miserable.

    After our walk today and egg delivery, I bundled up in the barn coat and a hat and got part of the pruning done, but not cleaned up. The rose, the grape vine, and the small plum tree were taken care of. You can see in the background, the chicken tractor that blew over and broke that still hasn’t been dealt with.

    I might have to re visit the grape vine after I refresh my knowledge on how far back to cut the vines. When it starts leafing out this year, I am going to “fence” it in so the deer don’t decimate it again. The little plum is kind of sorry looking. The deer nibbled off the main trunk when it was very small so it has developed an alternate main trunk. All I did with it was remove the shoots growing inward. It too needs to be fenced in. I may just run the electric fence from the garden around both of them and retrain myself to go around the other side of the woodpile to get to the chicken coop. It was too windy to deal with the larger fruit trees that also need some serious pruning. I think I will just gather it all and put it in the burn barrel and let it dry out there until the late winter/spring annual burn ban is lifted, then run the hose down to the burn barrel to control and grass burning off around it.

    After doing that and returning to the house, I was too restless on this cold but sunny day, so I bundled back up, put on my boots, and went up to survey the stuff that was dumped near the top of our creek. The cooler was brought back up the bank, the branches that were broken by the tumbling chair were removed, and the situation evaluated. We have a wide webbed auto tow strap with hooks on both ends and it appears that the chair is a rocking recliner on a round base that the strap can be wrapped around. When hooked up to the tractor, pulling it back up the bank shouldn’t be too difficult. Walking back up the road to the driveway, assorted trash that had been dumped or blown from elsewhere was gathered in the cooler to be taken to the dump along with the chair next week. It truly amazes me that people just toss trash out of their vehicle windows or put it in the back of a pick up truck where it blows out. We live on a gravel road less than a mile long with only 9 houses on it. There is a man we see many times each week cleaning up the trash that is dropped or blown across the road from the houses near the walking trail. Every couple of days, he picks up a garbage bag full of beer boxes, pizza boxes, cans, bottles, discarded masks, plastic bags, and other debris. We clean up our road from the edge of our property to the main road. Anything we pick up there has been discarded by someone who lives on this road as it doesn’t go through. And we have taken it upon ourselves to clean the ditches down the main road until the back of the car is full of bags.

    The amount of time out in the wind today wore me out and contributed to a headache. I tried zooming with the spinning group, but ended up sitting in the dark and not contributing much, signing off before it was over.

    Tomorrow is supposed to be about 10 degrees warmer and not as windy. We will tackle the chair removal then. And hope that whoever dumped it there, doesn’t decide that our property is their personal dumping ground.

  • Where is springtime?

    A windy warm walk yesterday, an inch of rain, high wind, and a 35 degree temperature drop overnight and it is still falling. Snow flurries while dealing with the chooks this morning.

    Even the Thanksgiving cacti are confused.

    Both of them are blooming and the Christmas cactus has buds.

    Yesterday was repair day. There have been some issues in our bathroom for a while and it was time to replace and clean out, a great excuse to give that room a deep cleaning too. Plumbing doesn’t intimidate me like electricity, so taking a trap apart or replacing toilet parts is no issue. Hubby’s tub is a giant jacuzi style that is not jetted but spa sized. To clean it, I have to get in it which I don’t like to do with cleaner sprayed all over the inside. I read you can use dish soap and a broom, but I can’t imagine how you would rinse it all out. As for electricity, I gave up on the dining room light after a conversation with Son 1 who concluded we have a short in there somewhere, not a switch issue. It is off and the switch taped to prevent accidently switching it. Next time he visits, he will examine it, repair it if possible, or replace it with a new fan and light if not. In the meantime, we moved dinner time a bit earlier so we can see what is on our plates.

    I finished plying and skeining the Christmas gift wool. It ended up 492 yards of 18 WPI yarn. I’m still trying to pick a pattern for it and toying with spinning a complementary color to use with it to make a generous wrap. It is a pretty, subtle gradient and very soft.

    A few years ago, I knit a pattern that was popular at the time called “Free Your Fade,” using 5 distinct colors that you blend with alternate rows as you are ready to change colors. It is one of my favorite wraps, it is huge, can be worn as a shawl to cover shoulders or a generous neck wrap over a sweater or coat. With the gradient, I wouldn’t have to alternate rows except to change skeins if I can decide on the coordinate skein. It wouldn’t be quite as large, but still a nice size.

    It is too overcast to capture the colors from gray on the left to wine on the right, but you can see it’s size.

    It is pruning time. The fruit trees, the grape vine, and the rose all need pruning. Not today, it is too cold outside to want to work out there. It is still falling toward a 25f night, the forecast says it feels like 21f now. By Sunday it warms back up into the 50s for a few days, maybe I can get it done then before the 4 days of rain expected next week. I’m not sure what I will do with all the clippings though as we have a burn ban in place. They can be hauled to one of the areas we can’t mow or hay and leave them to become part of the floor of the woods at some point. There are two small trees that have fallen into the haying areas, the tractor can pull them out of the way.

    Yesterday, on our way home from the hardware and our walk, we drove on along the upper edge of our property on the road. We hadn’t done that for a long while and some jerk has dumped a huge upholstered chair and a broken cooler into our property down the hill almost into the creek. I think we can put a tow strap around it and haul it back up to the road using the tractor, but then I don’t know what we will do with it. Neither of our cars can pull the trailer any longer. We may have to enlist daughter’s help to pull the trailer to the dump. People can be such inconsiderate slobs.

  • Market Day

    We have snow showers in the forecast for tonight and tomorrow morning. They salted the roads yesterday which will send everyone scurrying to the grocer to buy up all the bread, milk, and beer (it is Super Bowl Weekend). I don’t drink, don’t need milk, can make my own bread or get it at the Farmer’s Market, so I will avoid the grocer. We supplied up on dog foods earlier in the week, but are having difficulty getting hubby’s preferred cola. The shelves have been stocked with lots of options, but not caffeine free diet and this has been an off and on problem all fall and winter. I don’t drink soda either, but it is his preferred beverage. I’m not braving a grocery today for it though.

    My preorders were be ready at the Farmer’s Market and I scanned the other vendors to see if there was anything else I want. The Market was a zoo, too many people for my comfort level. Hubby wanted one thing for breakfast out that could be picked up and eaten in the car, I didn’t want that and figured to just get breakfast at the market. All of the lines were too long to wait, the local coffee shop near the market had people out the door, the local bagel shop near where we drop off eggs was mobbed. Fortunately, after trying two other places, we found one that I could get a bite and coffee. Weekly eggs were delivered, we took our walk and came home. There are a few chores to do like vacuuming, but there is an obstacle in my way.

    The old guy won’t get up on his bed, but he does use it as a pillow and since we have to use a beach towel under his belly to help him get on his feet now, I don’t want to disturb him.

    We may or may not leave the house tomorrow depending on whether we get a dusting or several inches, there is no need at our ages (or any age) to risk going out on snowy roads when unnecessary. I can always make chili for lunch or dinner. And since I got fresh cornmeal last weekend, corn bread is always favored, hot from the oven. I once ordered a tiny skillet of cornbread that was topped with goat cheese, it was maybe the best cornbread I have ever had, but have never been able to duplicate it.

    This afternoon is Zoom day with the spindle group. A visit with them is in order as I missed last weekend because we went into town to get a pizza from a small chain restaurant but when we arrived the line was out the door. There was an indoor track meet with 4 Universities over last weekend and three hotels within walking distance. As we sat in an Asian fast food drive thru line instead, the waves of college students swarming around our car was a good indication that we had chosen the wrong night to get the pizza.

    The month is almost half over, we will celebrate our 44th anniversary on Monday. Four years ago we were on a cruise to celebrate the 40th. Maybe someday we will be able to safely travel again. With only the couple of weeks behind me, I have already nearly finished my batt of colored wool that was my February spin challenge, have finished 25 grams of another fiber for my second blanket, knit two breeds on to the blanket. I have picked another fiber sample new to me to spin and it and plying the fiber below and the one for my blanket will occupy the rest of the month.

    A relatively quiet weekend, just the two of us.

  • Mouse traps

    As you can see from my header photo, we live on acreage. The house sits in the midst of fields that in the past have been used for grazing, but mostly used to grow hay to be cut for local farmers use with their cattle. The upper part of the farm above the barn in an alluvial dump from the last ice age and is littered with rocks and boulders too large and too numerous to move and has been left alone since we bought the property. The prior owner had a herd of miniature horses and donkey’s here and they grazed down much of the brush and cedar trees. The area has a creek that is very dependent on rain across most of the width of the north edge of the property that joins with a creek that has never totally run dry since we moved here that serves as a water source for the house to the north of us and as it meanders back and forth under the fence line that divides us from the farm to the west, serves to water cattle before the two creeks merge and disappear into a sink hole below a rock face. The old creek bed runs just off the west edge of our farm and in heavy rain still carries the water that fills the lowest part of the sinkhole faster than it can disappear into the ground.

    The first thing we did after the land was turned over to us and the horses and donkeys removed was to plant daylilies and River Birch trees along the top run off creek to help stabilize it’s path and keep it from running out into the road beyond our house, and about a half dozen trees in the alluvial field, though I am unsure any of them survived, the Birch trees are gorgeous. But by not having grazers on the land, the alluvial field has filled in with volunteer oaks, Tulip poplars, cedars, maples, and some less desirable scrub like Autumn Olive and blackberries.

    The fields are hayed each spring and mowed or hayed each fall depending on the summer weather, but as hay fields, they harbor groundhogs, field mice, chipmunks, rabbits, squirrels that run from one rock pile to another as each rockpile has one or more trees growing in it.

    The rodents except the mice stay clear of the house, because of having two large dogs in and out and a flock of chickens loose during all daylight hours. But the mice sometimes find their way into the house and evidence of them found usually in the cabinet under the utility sink in the laundry room, but very occasionally, one makes it into the main downstairs part of the house. This requires that they be removed. I am not putting out poison as I don’t want to kill the birds that might eat a poisoned mouse, nor will I use glue traps. If you have ever seen a mouse caught in a glue trap, you know that that is not humane at all. If I caught them in safe release traps they would just turn around and come right back in again. That leaves snap traps. Now PETA would have a fit, but a snap trap is quick and rids the house of the disease carrying rodents, but snap traps are tricky to load. I have never had one snap down fully on a finger, but have had them snap in my hand. Right now, there is a wily one that has gotten the bait off two traps without getting caught. This morning, rebaiting them I did catch the edge of finger on the nail. No permanent damage, but WOW, that stings a bit. I know PETA would say, serves you right. Let them live with mice in their houses, I won’t.

    You might say, have a cat, but when daughter and her family lived with us for a couple of years with 2 cats, there was no change in the number entering the house, and when we had a barn cat that slept in a box on our front porch, her food seemed to attract more than she caught.