Cabin Crafted

Category: nature

  • Olio – May 31, 2026

    Olio: a miscellaneous collection of things

    The month is drawing to a close. It has been a good month, with a trip to see youngest son and family, a month long spinning challenge, a very heavy work day with local grandson making headway on cleaning up parts of the property, walks and wildlife, seeing more production from the pullets, some social time, some living history, and not enough gardening.

    We often see snakes, turtles, or today, a lizard on the paved trail. The morning was cool enough that it was warming on the dark pavement, and yet delightful for a brisk walk.

    We saw our first fawn of the season this week, crossing our gravel road into the woods. Tiny little one that quickly tucked itself between Mom’s back legs as we were approaching.

    Yesterday on my way to an annual spring spin in at a friend’s house, I saw another with it’s Mom in route, then yet another on our gravel road on my way home. The spin in is always enjoyable, the weather was a delight and the potluck ended up mostly salads, many Mediterrean in flavor. A good friend who I see only at this event and at an Arts and Fiber retreat once a year as she and her husband live a state away, gifted me a tiny spindle made by my favorite spindle maker, Ed Jenkins. Most of my spindles are on the smaller size, but this one is really tiny. Seen next to a US quarter for reference. Much to my surprise, it spins for an amazingly long time once a little fiber is added.

    For the spinning challenge, all done on Jenkin’s spindles, I spun 165 g of wool. Other spinning was done during the month on other types of spindles, some at living history groups at the museum, some on my own at home as I work toward enough to finish the other 3/4 of the blanket in progress. So in total, I probably spun about half a pound of wool this month. And I started lessons for one of my friends and fellow living history re-enactors. This month, I won’t participate in the challenge and there are no scheduled groups other than the weekly session with the local spinning group. I will likely meet up with my friend again for another lesson for her.

    The garden is growing, the raised beds are doing well and have been weeded a couple of times, but I never did get the rest of the garden set for corn and pumpkins, nor have I gotten the blueberry bed weeded. We did get almost a week of rain toward the end of the month.

    The pullets, I think are now all laying. The most I have gotten on any one day was today and there were 7 eggs (9 pullets). The Marans that I didn’t think had started, have given me 4 eggs in the past couple days and two of them today, so I know they are both laying. As I don’t know for sure what color the Mystic Onyx breed lays. The web says light brown and there are 3 Buff Orpingtons that also lay light brown. I did get 3 light brown eggs in the mix today, so at least 3 of the 5 light brown layers are providing.

    As they get the hang of production, we sometimes get an oddball one. This one on the left when cracked open, had 3+ yolks. The one on the right is a normal sized pullet egg.

    I have gotten doubles before, especially when they are young and soon after starting to lay again after molt, but three is a record for here.

    After our walk, a few quick stops, we managed to get the yard mowed, partly edged, and the fence around the young oak planted on our pup’s grave reinforced. It is now time to let the day fade, spin a little more, or maybe knit a few rows, and look forward to a new month beginning tomorrow with new adventures.

  • Flora and fauna

    It has been wet! For 5 days it has rained off and on, sometimes heavy enough to cause damage to the unpaved road leading to our driveway which is also unpaved. We have walked laps of the mall for 3 of those days, caught breaks in the rain for the other two to get our daily walk in. Today, we drove to a nearby town that has a riverwalk path along the New River and across the road beside a creek that feeds into the river. When we stopped for lunch, it began to rain and it appeared that our venture over to one of those paths was going to be thwarted. By the time we finished lunch, it had stopped and each carrying an umbrella just in case, we were able to get our walk in.

    It was a day of flora and fauna. The first was White Jelly fungus, seen on a very wet, rotting log. This is a fungus that was unfamiliar to me.

    We chose the creekside trail today as it is more wooded, and spotted this Swallowtail caterpillar munching on a trailside shrub. The eye pattern on the top is fascinating.

    On the return trip, a groundhog was grazing the mowed area near the picnic shelter on the edge of the creek.

    As we crossed back to the river side to continue adding a few more steps, there was a large patch of Virginia Dayflower in bloom.

    For summer camp at the museum, I will be teaching spindle spinning and herbal medicine and we will be making salves from a few of the native plants that the Native Americans and frontier folk used for healing. Sticking with several that are safe for children. One that is commonly still used is Broadleaf Plantain and a great example was by the fence on the side of the trail.

    Back home, a coop check on the young birds that have since Mother’s Day been providing a couple of eggs each day as more develop, there were 5 today. Unless the Marans I got are not the ones to lay chocolate brown eggs, they still are not providing,

    The pullet eggs are still small, but the supply is increasing.

    We have more thunderstorms over the next few days with it moving back to summer time temperatures, but the rain chance is decreasing a bit each day. The rain though inconvenient for gardening and daily walks is much needed. We have been in near drought conditions for a couple of years. Most of the rain has been slow enough to sink in and not just run off, except for a few times of torrents that create the gullies in the road and driveway.