Cabin Crafted

Category: farm

  • Olio – 8/15/2019

    Olio: a miscellaneous collection of things.

    Woven trapezoid is off the loom, by daylight I saw a flaw that I will need to address. It needed an over weave to fix it and blocking but I think turned into an interesting piece. The third photo is by natural daylight and the colors show better.

    The first harvest of grapes were juiced, and jelled. The second harvest is underway over the next few days. The results were so delicious that more is going to be made, then the remaining grapes left for the local wildlife that also enjoy the spoils of the garden and orchard.

    Some years the garden overwhelms with tomatoes and there are no cucumbers except those purchased at the Farmers’ Market. Some years the tomatillos don’t grow or seedlings can’t be found. This year, the tomatoes are the scarce commodity in our garden, the plants never looked very healthy, the fruit output poor. Tomatoes can be purchased by the box at a local organic practices farm for $1/pound, but I’m not sure that economically it is worth the purchase. There are 21 pints of tomatoes canned, 9 half pints of pizza sauce, and I am still gathering a few tomatoes each day or two and freezing them to make another batch of some sort of tomato product; pizza sauce, tomatoes with hot peppers, or spaghetti sauce.

    The fruit trees weren’t hit this year with a bloom frost and the fruit is too plentiful. The peach trees had fruit for the first time and every peach had worm damage and didn’t ripen. The Asian Pears are so heavy with fruit that several branches broke, I should have thinned the fruit. Lesson learned. Today I cut out the broken branches and picked some of the pears to hopefully prevent further damage. The apple trees look like they have a fair amount of fruit too, but the deer have eaten all that they can reach. It is going to take a ladder to get what is left unless I can reach it from the tractor seat.

    We started our orchard with 3 peach trees. When I started raising chickens, I deliberately put the run around one of the trees for shade and put rocks around the trunk so they wouldn’t damage the roots. That tree did not survive the chickens scratching and possibly the hot fertilizer they produce. The largest tree got out of control and I cut it back severely a couple of years ago and have tried to keep it properly pruned since. It had the most, largest but most damaged fruit this year. The third tree near it produced some small hard peaches, but looks like it isn’t going to survive.

    Winter before last I took a pruning class, but maybe I need a class on how to raise fruit organically so that the fruit is usable, or accept that I will have pears and apples only. My little fig is growing, but there won’t be fruit from it this year and the 3 year old plum keeps getting the new growth nipped by the deer, so I guess it needs a fence.

    Another round of garden harvest will happen this evening and if I get enough additional Tomatillos, another batch of Tomatillo simmer sauce with jalapenos will be made in the morning.

  • Grapes and Shawls – 8/13/2019

    More than a dozen years ago while eldest son and his wife were supervising the construction of our house, but before the erected structure was turned over to them to do all of the inside carpentry and the interior and exterior stone work, they put in a huge garden, made friends with some of the rural neighbors, and were gifted a slip of a very old grapevine from one of them. That vine has been moved a couple of times, but has never been given a proper arbor. It currently has a ring of garden fencing around it that has filled with tall grass and which has collapsed under the weight of the vine. Last year, after having been left alone for a few years, it produced enough grapes to harvest. They are a tough skinned, purple grape, each with about 3 seeds, and a very grapey flavor. Not wanting to waste them but not having enough to do too much with, I made juice, supplemented it with bottled no sugar added concord grape juice and made jelly.

    I have been watching the vine this year and it is loaded with grapes. With all the chaos of a houseful of grands for two weeks, it got by me and yesterday I realized that there are many ripe grapes and that they must have started ripening at least a week ago as there are many dried up seedy “raisens” on some of the bunches. I noted them when I went out to do chicken chores yesterday morning, then promptly forgot about them because I had a head blowing headache all day and it got so miserably hot I didn’t want to be outside anyway. At dusk when it was time to again do chicken chores, I spotted them again and by flashlight picked about 4 to 5 cups of ripe purple grapes.

    This morning the sky is thick with cloud cover, severe thunderstorms are predicted, but it hasn’t gotten unbearably hot yet, so I determined to dig through the thick vines and see what was lurking under there. I had also been hesitant to reach in there a couple of weeks ago, because that is where the big rat snake went after I first saw him. After grabbing him out of the coop and relocating him, I again felt safe to reach into the thicket.

    The vines are full, many still green and most on or near the ground. I picked another cup full this morning in the light and will continue over the next few days to pick as they ripen, hoping to get the 5 cups of juice I need to make a batch of grape jelly that is juice just from our vine.

    This fall after the leaves are off, I will take the time to build an arbor of some sort for the vines to climb and make the harvest task easier next year. I think thinning the vines will produce enough cane to make a wreath or basket too.

    I mentioned in the title, shawls. Well, there are two in the works. One is a small triangular knitted shawl with lace inserts from yarn from the estate sale of our local indy dyer who passed away early spring. The other is a woven shawl of my handspun on the 5 foot tri loom.

    A few rows after what you see here, I realized that there would not be enough of the rusty colored Pohlworth to do what I had planned.

    Being in a glass half full mindset last night, I decided that if I incorporated more of the dark Jacob there might be enough. Well, the glass half full turned to glass not even half full and there isn’t enough. A design decision was made to make it a trapezoid instead of a triangle, to spin another skein of Jacob, making the center predominately the darker Jacob with the rust accent stripe down the center of the back and instead of fringed edges, use tassels or ties at the upper corners. With the plaid look and the trapezoidal shape, it will be a good wrap for jeans or a casual skirt on a cool fall evening.

    Being a fiber artist doesn’t always work out as planned, but flexibility in design can still bring success.

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  • Newport Ag Fair – 8/10/19

    This is the oldest agricultural fair in the Commonwealth and it happens in our little village today and last night. We have been attending this fair every year we are in town since we moved to our farm about 13 years ago. Each year, walking through the exhibits, watching the horse competitions, the jousting, the animal exhibits, enjoying some fair food and ice cream and when it doesn’t rain, staying to the end to listen to the music and watch the fireworks.

    Last year for the first time, I finally submitted two shawls for exhibition and won two blue ribbons, totally shocking me. It emboldened to me exhibit again, expanding to several home canned goods, a skein of hand spun yarn, the shawl I spun and knit for Shave ‘Em to Save ‘Em, and a scarf from a skein of yarn from a local indy dyer and friend who passed away early this spring.

    My submissions to the Fair.

    When the items were delivered, they could not figure out a category for the hand spun yarn, so it came home again. The Tomatillo Simmer Sauce also caused some consternation at the check in. They didn’t know what a Tomatillo was, thus they didn’t know how to categorize it. It ended up in miscellaneous vegetable category. The judging was done at 8 p.m. last night, and the header shot is my results, a red on the hand spun hand knit shawl, a blue on the commercial yarn scarf, a red and two whites on canned items. A total of 5 ribbons. I’m pleased.

    The weather has turned hot and dry, the garden is not thriving, watering had to be done, prompting thunderstorm warnings, but only sprinkles happened. The pumpkins are finally blooming. It may be too late for them to set fruit and grow pumpkins to maturity before the frost, usually mid October, but sometimes not until early November. I am hopeful for at least a couple for holiday pies and a stuffed pumpkin meal. My tomatoes are at their end, way too early, the tomatoes are just coming in to their own at the Farmers’ Market, so though I won’t have many more to can, I will be able to purchase some to enjoy sliced or in a salad.

  • More and More Jars -8/7/2019

    It is that time of year when part of every day is spent harvesting, prepping for the freezer, or canning. I don’t like to use plastic, so even most frozen stuff goes in jars, then neatly stacked in wire baskets or canvas bags in the chest freezer. Mostly now is canning. The morning harvest wasn’t huge, but since there was 1/3 of yesterday’s tomato purchase plus a couple pounds from the garden, I’m ok with that. The tomatillos are prolific, the cucumbers that I thought were done just provided half a dozen more and more growing.

    The product that takes the longest prep are the spicy Bread and Butter pickles, so the cucumbers, peppers, and onions were sliced and salted and stowed away in the refrigerator until time to heat them in the sugar brine and can them. One daughter in law loves them and I usually only make a single batch of 4 or 5 pints as the past few years the cucumbers haven’t produced much. This year there will be 3 batches done by the end of today, a total of 14 pints. One pint was delivered to her when grandson was returned home last weekend.

    Once they were salted, the tomatoes that were harvested this morning were blanched and peeled, the frozen ones dumped in a sink of water to thaw enough to peel and chop, dumped in the big pot with herbs, salt, and citric acid and cooked down for canning.

    Also from this morning was the start of the pepper harvest and some of them were cut and seeded to dehydrate, 2 were added to the pickles, and 3 were used with the tomatillos to make another batch of Tomatillo Jalapeno jam.

    There are still several quarts of pickled Jalapenos from last year, so some of this year’s will be dehydrated and some sliced and frozen to use in chili and casseroles this winter.

    The final result today from the remaining tomatoes, and the bucket of produce from this morning’s harvest was 8.5 pints of tomato sauce, 5 half pints of Tomatillo Jalapeno Jam, and 4 pints of spicy Bread and Butter pickles.

    I started at 8:30 this morning, took a lunch break and trip to the local village store for more lids, and I ended at 2:50 p.m. with jars and more jars cooling on the counter to be added to the shelves tomorrow. Now time to rest.

    The garden had me intimidated earlier this summer, but now that it is producing, the putting by being done, I look forward to enjoying and sharing the labors when the cold winds blow and the snow flurries this winter.

  • Olio- 8/6/2019

    Olio: a miscellaneous collection of things

    I arrived home yesterday morning, having left son’s house at 6:15 a.m. when he and grandson left to catch the vanpool for son to go to work and grandson to begin another basketball camp hosted by the University coach. We had the vet due at the farm about an hour and a half later. The big guy can no longer load and unload and he needed a couple of vaccines and a snap test. Since she was going to be here, we had her look at the German Shepherd who has a lump on her snout and also needed the snap test done. Both dogs are heartworm free and the cytology on the snout lump showed no infection so we are on watch mode there. The big guy loves most people, doesn’t mind the vet, seeming to enjoy the extra attention. The German Shepherd is skittish as they can be and has to be on a leash and wearing a soft muzzle for most of her exam, but she allowed the attempt to draw fluid from the lump without too much squirming.

    After that visit, I felt like I had already done a full day so we went to town to run errands and get lunch only to find that a huge area housing many of the non fast food places were experiencing a power outage that ended up lasting well into the evening. We decided to get a bit farther away from there and stopped at Zaxby’s. The clerk at the counter looked like either a recent retiree or soon to be retiree. After taking our order, he said, “I guess I could give you the senior discount.” We didn’t know they had one and I quipped, we certainly are eligible. He smirked and said, “I bet I have a year or two on you, I will be 61 in September.” Well, I couldn’t resist letting him know that I have more than a decade on him and hubby stating that he was older than I was. That made me feel good for the day.

    This morning, we set out to get a newspaper, chicken feed, and dog food, and they were just putting out fresh produce at the community store. I know it isn’t local nor organic, but my tomatoes aren’t doing well, so we purchased a 25 pound box of tomatoes to bring home. After several hours of standing coring, peeling, chopping, cooking, and canning, I no longer feel young. I got about 2/3 of them done, cored the rest and put them in the freezer to finish with some from the garden tomorrow. My water bath canner holds 6 pints or 8 half pints. The first batch was herbed tomato sauce and ended up with 8 pints, so two were packed in wide mouth jars and will go in the freeze, the other 6 were canned. Batch two was pizza sauce and there was enough to fill 9.5 half pint jars, 8 were canned, one will go in the freezer and the remaining quarter pint fit in an open jar of pizza sauce in the freezer to be used first.

    The remaining tomatoes will probably be made into spaghetti sauce and a few half pints of it cooked down to more pizza sauce. We do enjoy homemade pizza with my sauce, local mozarella and local Italian sausage.

    Daylily season if my favorite flower season. Of the dozen or so varieties, this one, call Sear’s Tower, given to me by a friend, is the last one blooming, the rest finished a couple of weeks ago.

    The old timers here, have a saying that every day of August that has fog will produce a snow during winter. I am not superstitious, if it were true we would never get out this winter. This is the 6th of August and we have had dense fog every morning so far.

    Once the fog cleared and I was standing at the kitchen sink dealing with tomatoes, I looked out to see a flock of 8 Tom turkeys grazing across the back yard.

    The broody Oliver egger won’t give up. I have tried cold water, isolating her from the nesting boxes and other hens for 48 hours and nothing has worked. This is the third time she has become broody this summer, stopping and laying for a week or so then going back to broodiness. I give up. I guess she will give up eventually, I take eggs many times a day so she is sitting on empty nests. I think this fall, I will purchase 4 Buff Orpington chicks if I can get them and raise them over the fall so they will lay next spring and not try to raise more than that, they will provide enough eggs for us. In the spring, a small flock of Freedom Ranger or similar meat birds that grow to full size in only a couple of months will be purchased and raised separately from the egg laying hens. The cost of pasture raised chicken at the farmers’ market, since we have the facilities to raise them, makes it worth our time and effort.

  • Quiet Monday Back Home- 8/5/2019

    The past few weeks have been quite active. Three weeks ago, eldest grandson came for his annual summer visit. We love having his visits for a few weeks. He loves it here and helps out with the garden and getting to drive the riding mower and tractor. Between the last time I saw him and this trip, only a few short months, he sprouted taller than I, though I still outweigh him by too much.

    We got some projects accomplished, though not all I hoped for due to persistent heat, thunderstorms, then other activities getting in the way, like a day trip.

    Week two, we added two of his cousins to the mix, two grandchildren that live nearby. We had arranged for them to participate in a history summer camp for the week, with eldest grandson and me as volunteeer helpers. I think we all had fun and some history learned. Following camp, the younger two came back to our house til their Mom got off work. During the weekend, eldest grandson and I did get some garden work done.

    Week three, we had all three kids all day for the week. During one day when they were “playing” together (not sure that their activity was really play or ganging up on each other), I got some fall vegetables planted in the garden.

    Sprouts in the fall veggie bed, but nothing in the cover crop bed behind it.
    Machado pumpkins, not a single bloom, but they are keeping the weeds at bay.

    Grandson eldest ended his visit with us with a couple of days of basketball camp in Roanoke about an hour away. His camp was Friday evening and we stayed in Roanoke for the three hours, getting dinner and browsing the bookstore before picking him up and returning home. Saturday was all day, I took him in the morning, returned home to do some canning and cleaning and prepped dinner while hubby went to pick him up in the evening. Yesterday, hubby took him in the morning while I gathered belongings, got laundry done, finished cleaning, and drove over to pick him up and drive him 3 more hours to his home. It has been a busy, often hectic three weeks and we loved it. Now for a few days of rest.

    Up next will be fall canning, a fall fiber retreat at a new location, and possibly some help with eldest grandson as his family works on a new to them dwelling and move as school starts and jobs conflict.

    No more signs of snakes in the coop, I guess the 6 footer was the culprit and he is now far away.

    If you have been missing me, the blog has had some technical issues. It looks different now, there are no archives, but there is a “Like” you can use, still a place to comments, and a place at the bottom to subscribe if you are a new reader and want to be notified when new posts are made.

  • I’m Back, well sort of -7/28/2019

    The blog has had some technical issues that still aren’t quite resolved, you can’t get to the archives at this point.

    Life has been busy.
    History events:

    Gardening and canning

    Civil War Camp for two grands, one grand as a helper, me as an adult assistant for a week.

    Critters eating eggs in my coop to be caught and relocated, others eating bugs in my gardens as helpful insects.

    As I get used to the new format, I will try to post some blogs. We have enjoyed two weeks with eldest grand with a week to go before he returns home for a final week of basketball camp and the start of a new school year as a high schooler. It can’t be so.

    In the meantime, my technical advisor/builder/support system and I hope that you can see this. Archives are still being sought.