Cabin Crafted

Category: Homesteading

  • The Good, The Bad and I’ll spare you the Ugly

    THE BAD

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

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

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

    THE GOOD

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

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

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

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

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

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

    The house and gardens look great.  Now we rest.

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  • Olio May 29, 2014

    Olio: a miscellaneous collection of things

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    Today’s harvest, a bowl of fresh eggs and a basket of chard for our dinner.IMG_20140528_102504

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

    Navajo Autumn, R. Allen Chappell

    Navajo Autumn

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

     

     

  • Retired Means

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

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

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

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

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

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

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  • Payback Day

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Life is an adventure on our mountain farm.

     

     

     

     

  • Garden Day

    The afternoon had a 60% chance of rain and after lunch it was mostly overcast.  It seemed a good idea to at least attempt to finish getting the garden cleaned up and planted for the season.  Between yesterday’s burn and today’s 4 + hours in the garden, I should have my quota of Vitamin D, however, due to a prior bout of skin cancer, I stay totally covered with a wide brimmed hat, long sleeves and long pants.  Much crawling around on my aging knees and rooting around in the dirt with bare fingers, the weeds are cleared.

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    Cleared beds and a ground eye view of the raspberry bed as I inched along that path pulling weeds.  After my efforts, 4 rows of black wax bush beans, 1 row of lemon cucumbers, 1 row of spacemaker cucumbers, a small patch of carrots, and several hills of yellow squash have been planted.  I still need to transplant the pepper and tomato starts and get a thick layer of spoiled hay in the paths to try to keep the weeds down and to get a bit more around the raspberries and grapes.  I still have a space between the garden and the chicken run that is full of tiny stones and some weeds that needs attention, but I gave out and it was dinner prep time.  Wouldn’t you know that the rain chance has diminished to 40% without a shower and the sky has alternately cleared and clouded while I worked.

    The chickens love my efforts as I take armloads of weeds and bugs to them to peck through.  Everytime I go to the fence they come running to see what the load contains.  They particularly like when it is full of chickweed or if I dig up a grub or two.  I was rewarded with 7 eggs collected in my hat as I quit for the day.

    My hope is to try to stay ahead of the garden this year and not be faced with a later season weeding as I usually have to do.  As soon as the garlic is harvested, a second planting of bush beans and a fall planting of kale and cabbage will be planted in those two beds.  I still haven’t figured out where to plant the pie pumpkins and winter squash, but I am leaning toward putting them near the berries and let them run where they can’t do any harm.

    Life is an adventure on our mountain farm.

     

  • First Harvest

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    The first harvest from this year’s garden, a mess of curly kale cooking with some of last year’s garlic. Yum.

  • Critters and Weeds

    We had almost 2″ of rain yesterday.  The creeks are roaring and the low spots are soggy.  After a few hours of dry out this morning, I attacked more of the garden, prepping it for seed and baby plants within the next couple of days.  It amazes me how quickly the weeds grow.  Just a few weeks ago, I dumped a tractor bucket of compost into one of the beds to spread it around and build up the bed where it was dumped.  This is what it looked like today.

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    Lambs quarter, jimsonweed, oxalis, wild geraniums, Bermuda grass and these two I can’t identify but they are generous contributors to the disarray.

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    This is what a couple of hours of work have accomplished with muddy knees and grubby nails.

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    Ready for an assortment of hot and sweet peppers.  A bed that wintered covered in straw wasn’t as bad and the few weeds that did emerge were dispatched and will be planted with carrots, bush beans, cucumbers and summer squash tomorrow.  The tomato bed was also covered over the winter and needs only a little work, but there are still 2 1/2 paths that need effort.  In another few days, the garden will be cleaned up, planted and just maintenance required until harvest.  I have pumpkins and winter squash seed, but can’t figure out a place to put them.  Maybe they can be planted on the edge of the grape bed and trained into the adjacent path.

    My efforts kept Mr.and Mrs. Bluebird upset and I had to keep moving away so they could feed their littles,

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    but I did sneak a peek before I left the garden.  I can’t tell how many are in there, it is too high to peek in.  One time when I walked away to let them feed, I went over to collect eggs and stumbled on this fellow.

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    I encouraged him to move on.  I like them in the yard, but not quite so close to the coops.

    Life is an adventure on our mountain farm.

     

  • Progress and memories

    Today we had summer time with heavy rain and cooler temperatures tomorrow.  We will then have a series of cooler, more seasonable days and not much rain.  We trekked off to my favorite local nursery and bought 2 blueberry bushes.  The first batch I bought several years ago were purchased from a website.  They were tiny, bare rooted and have been a very poor purchase.  Last year I replaced three of the originals with bushes from this nursery and over the winter another of the originals died.  That one was replaced and the second one today went on the end of the row, making a nice collection of early, mid and late season varieties.  Before they could be planted, however, the berry beds needed significant attention. The rainy spring has encouraged a plethora of wildflowers where they aren’t wanted (aka weeds); chickweed, dandelion, burdock, thistles, fleabane and several I can’t remember.  The berry beds make up about 40% of the garden.  The weeds had to be pulled, the volunteer raspberries that had escaped from their bed had to be removed, the two new bushes planted in the warm rich soil and watered in well and finally, a hefty layer of old hay spread over the areas of the bed where it was needed.

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    After tomorrow’s rain, while the soil is soft, the south end of the bed is going to be terraced with logs and stones to make maintaining the steep two foot slope easier.  Then the young peppers, tomatoes, basil and tomatillo plants will be planted along with seed for bush beans, carrots, cucumbers, sunflowers and squash and the rest of the weeds pulled and aisles deeply mulched with more old hay.  The hay is too moldy to use in the hen house, so it is perfect to use as mulch.

    The cabbages, kale and chard plants that were planted a couple of weeks ago are thriving.  The garlic is beginning to form scapes, so some garlic scape pesto is in order.  The grapes need a better trellis.  I can’t decide whether to try to build one or see if I can find a commercial one that appeals to me.  In my weeding today, I carefully left every volunteer sunflower plant I saw.  I love their look, the birds and chickens love their seed.  I think sunflowers may be my favorite summer flower.

    Within the garden are two birdhouses.  My efforts today kept disturbing the bluebird that has occupied one of the boxes as she does each spring.  Her young have hatched but not yet fledged as she flew in repeatedly with food for them.  The other box seems to be housing a tree sparrow which seems odd to me as a nesting box is generally not their preferred spot, but I love watching them dart and fly over the garden catching insects on the wing.

    After my efforts and a thorough clean up, there were some errands needed in town and as I was out and about, I saw this

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    As my first car was a 1958 VW convertible, this really amused me.  I asked permission to take the photo and told the owner, a couple near my age that I loved their car.

    Life is good on our mountain farm.  I continue to love the changing seasons, the beautiful views and of course the mountains.

     

  • Mother’s Wonders

    As spring began and I set out to refill the deck pots with flowers and herbs, I discovered two Preying Mantis egg cases on a spent Geranium in one of the pots.  I carefully cut the cases off and placed one in the new Rosemary plant and the other in a pot of parsley that overwintered in the house.

    I have been watching them for the past couple of weeks, knowing that they would soon hatch.  This morning, the one in the parsley rewarded me with this glimpse into the life cycle.

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    One of the cases with emerging nymphs.

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    A few of the tiny creatures, making their way to the sun.

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    There are hundreds of them on the plant and working their way to the outside of the deck.

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    Two that have made their way to the sunny side of a deck post.

    I am glad that I saw this miracle occur today.  The Preying Mantis are welcome on our farm, one of the more interesting and voracious predators of unwanted pests.

     

  • Olio

    Olio: a miscellaneous collection of things

    Today the post is all over the place.  First, chickens are mean.  This is the result of the hens establishing pecking order.

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    One of the hens has pecked the upper wing of several of the others, plucking their feathers, but not drawing blood.  The shake up has allowed the feathers to begin growing back in.

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    Her bare back is the result of the over zealous rooster.  He is picking on the hens in the cull pen now and this gals feathers are coming back out as well.

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    Go away and give me some privacy!  I’m trying to lay an egg.

    The lace on the shawl on which I was working, did not win!  I did.  The shawl was completed this afternoon as Jim watched the last rounds of the football draft.  I am pleased with the finished product.  It is fairly generous in proportion, the color is rich, and the leaf lace border is interesting.  It is currently being blocked with hopes that it will be dry to wear with a skirt to Mother’s Day Brunch at Mountain Lake Lodge tomorrow.

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    It is pinned to a double bed to give you an idea of it’s size.

    This afternoon, our daughter sent an adorable picture of her daughter and she gave me permission to share.  I particularly enjoyed the photo because when our daughter, our second child was born, I was excited to have a little girl to dress up.  I took a smocking class and made dresses and bonnets.  As soon as she was old enough to assert her opinion, which was quite early, she always wanted pants, sweaters or t shirts and mismatched socks.  I would buy her skirts for school and she would pull out pants instead.  She was an athlete, playing soccer for years and softball in middle school.  When she found out she was pregnant for the second time, she told everyone that if she had a girl, she would not put her in pink.  She decorated the nursery with a musical theme in greens, blues, teal and brown.  Now that this little princess is old enough to assert her opinion, she chooses skirts and dresses.  This is her afternoon outfit.

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    Life and good, I love being a Mom and a Grandmom.