Cabin Crafted

Category: Olio

  • Olio-9/4/2019

    Olio: a miscellaneous collection of things.

    Some weeks are spent in the kitchen, others doing fibery crafts.

    About a week ago, I left for a fiber retreat in the south west part of the North Carolina mountains. The venue was delightful, as was the company of the friends that gathered. It began a week that has been devoted to fibery crafts. For the retreat, I had packed plenty of fiber to keep me busy spinning, but half way through the first day, I got bored with the natural colors that I generally spin and indulged in a grab bag of sunshine yellow and heirloom tomato red Romney wool. The idea was to work a gradient beginning with the yellow, but as I pulled it out of the bag, I realized that though they looked lovely together in the bag, they would not gradient, so the slightly more than 3 ounces was spun separately and it plyed up finer than I had hoped for as I wanted to weave a shawl with the 8 ounce grab bag. Once home Sunday afternoon, I began on the red using a long draw technique and got 4.9 ounces of yarn heavy enough to weave, but not enough yardage.

    At the retreat, we do door prizes and have a dirty Santa exchange and in the exchange, I got a 4ish ounce bag of Pohlworth that I realized was very compatible with the Romney.

    It was spun yesterday, plyed this morning and though I haven’t measured it off the bobbin yet, it is 4.2 ounces or similar weight long draw spun yarn.

    This day is too hot to garden or cook anything more than a stir fry this evening, so the morning was spent playing with other fibers as well. The last of the Santa Cruz wool was washed and rinsed for a 4th time and set to dry on the deck. It is so full of vegetable matter, mostly feed or weed seed that I may never get it prepped to spin.

    Before I left for the retreat, I realized that a lovely little Jacob raw fleece that I had improperly stored had several moths in it. Hoping to save it, I put it in a black garbage bag and threw it in the deep freezer. This morning, I removed it and hung the black bag in my closed car. It is supposed to get up into the 90’s today which in the superheated car should kill off any eggs that may have been layed. The freezer should have killed any moths and larva. After it has had a couple of days in the car, I will open it and examine it for damage and wash it if I caught it in time to save it.

    Though today is stifling hot, there are signs of autumn, some of the early changing trees and scrub coloring, the Autumn Joy turning pink.

    At the retreat, I took a class in Rigid Heddle weaving. It is not new to me, but looked like fun. The instructor had prewarped the looms with white cotton and I grabbed a skein of Aran weight Acrylic to use as my weft. We made two mug rugs in class and after. I failed to leave enough space between my two to get good fringe, so did rough easy to remove knots until I got home. Last night I sat and hem stitched the edges after removing my temporary knots, and evened the fringe on them.

    A gal never has too many spindles so about 10 days ago, I ordered a Jeri Brock Turkish spindle. It came today and is cute with it’s laser cut out. It is a bit stockier and more substantial than my Jenkins and looks like because the shaft is heavier, it might be better to carry in my bag with a bit of fiber to spin and save the more delicate Jenkins for home or when it can be securely packed in the middle of a suitcase along with my Snyder turk that I use for plying. When traveling not to a retreat or demonstrating event, I always have a spindle or two so I can still spin.

    My Facebook memory of today was jars and jars of tomato sauce canned and cooling on the counter. Not this year, the tomatoes failed early and the bed sits idle. I’m still toying with buying a 25 pound box when the weather cools again and getting at least a pot of spaghetti sauce cooked down. The cost is about the same as buying the Organic store brand at the local grocer, but then I would have to “doctor” it up. Indecision.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • Olio – May 8, 2015

    Olio: a miscellaneous collection of things.

    OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

    OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

    OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

    Hardened off veggie plants waiting for the garden that isn’t ready for them.

    The last free range time until we get the fencing up around the garden.  The fluffy critters ate half of the sweet potato plants I put in earlier this week.

    The annual spring Turkey dance.  Flocks of 14 or more with the Tom fluffed up with chest puffed out and tail spread like the children’s drawing of a Thanksgiving bird.

    Nearly 400 yards of undyed Dorset lamb plied and 200 yards of Coopsworth spun and plied.  I can’t decide whether to dye the Dorset or what to do with it, but the Coopsworth is for me.  A sweater once the huge bag full is all spun, plied and measured.

    The first flowers from our garden.

    OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

    OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

    A nice weekend ahead with plans to deconstruct the compost bins, weed the remaining garden beds and get the seeds and plants in the vegetable beds.

    We are half a week from chicks, we hope.  Broody Hen is being a great Mom, I hope she is rewarded for her efforts.

    Loving our mountain farm.

  • Olio – March 27, 2015

    Olio: a miscellaneous collection of things

    For a week and a day now, we have been grandparents and in loco parentis for two of our grandchildren.  During the weekday school hours, only the three  year old is with us. The routine is for me to get up by 6:45 to dress and wake the eight year old for school.  As the kids are currently sharing a bedroom at our house, that means trying to get him up and out of the top bunk without waking the three year old in the bottom bunk.  This is not an easy task, but we have managed most mornings.  Once he is on his school bus, the animal chores have been taken care of, then the three year old has my help getting her clothes out and she dresses while I prepare her breakfast.  She will always announce what she wants, “big yogurt with honey” (plain yogurt from the quart instead of an individual serving that big brother takes to school), “a stand up egg” (a hard boiled egg), or “scrambled eggs with bacon and cheese for my plate.”  This morning, the bacon curled into a smile and I couldn’t resist. . .

    IMG_0014[1]

    So we played with our food a little.

    A couple of weeks ago, one of my friends, a fan of my lotion bars from my Etsy shop, found a deal on blocks of Shea butter and sent me a link.  Once I got on the site, I realized that I could get organic Sweet Almond Oil, organic Cocoa Butter, and organic Coconut Oil as well at a very good price.  An order was placed and I was pleased with the quick shipping and the arrival of my goodies a couple of days ago.

    IMG_0015[1]

    Tomorrow, we are off to pick up eldest Grandson for his week of Spring Break.  He will be joining the other two here until next weekend.  We will be leaving the critters and house in the care of our local house sitter and spending one night in Northern Virginia.  This will give eldest Grandson an opportunity to show off Washington DC to his Florida born cousins before we head home.  A driving trip up there always involves a good resupply of food for them and so a cooler of chicken, pork, and frozen Tomatillos will be packed along with jars of salsa and chutney, a box of pumpkins, and a few dozen eggs.  There are still more pumpkins than we will eat and they are beginning to go bad.

    IMG_0016[1]

    There were only two half pints of the XXXX Salsa left on the shelf, but the Tomatillos and Habeneros were in the freezer from when I gave up on canning in the fall, so 3 1/2 pints were made this morning.  They aren’t sealed in the canner, but I’m sure they will be eaten long before they go bad.

    Most of the laundry is done and bags getting packed.  This will be a short trip, but it will let the Grands from here see Washington DC for the first time and will give the three cousins some time together, though the 8 year old living here does have school next week until half day on Thursday.  The futon in the rec room is made and the house will be vacuumed to reduce the dog hair once the three year old gets up from her nap.

    The Cherry Blossom Yarn that I was spinning was completed and added to my Etsy shop.  It is 121 yards, 4 ounces of Worsted/Aran weight yarn and quite soft.

    OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

    My current spinning project is the most difficult fiber I have ever tried to spin.  It is a 50/50 blend of Yak and Silk and is so slippery, I find it very troublesome.  It is going to be lovely if my patience holds out and it too will likely find it’s way into my shop.

    OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAStill loving life on our mountain farm and we are excited that the spring like week and the recent rain are turning the fields emerald green and we are seeing squirrel ear leaves on some of the trees.

  • Olio – 2/12/15

    Olio: a miscellaneous collection of things

    wpid-wp-1423762661051.jpeg

    Bread day.  Grandson is being stretched each day to a healthier more natural diet.  Fast food is being reduced and the selection less Wendy’s and more Wicked Taco in choice. He has been pretty good about beverages, drinking milk, water, or lemonade if out but he has his quirks.  His favorite foods used to be spaghetti with sauce and cheese or “cheese sandwich all cooked up” (we know them as grilled cheese), but then for some reason, he decided he didn’t like cheese.  He loves pizza and lasagna, even our cheese and spinach stuffed ravoli, but insists he doesn’t like cheese.  The first time I made corn bread he refused to even try it.  Now he asks for it.  The first herb and onion bread I made for them, he went to his room and skipped dinner rather than even be at the table with it. His preferred bread is “balloon bread,” though he will eat commercial Honey Wheat.  In an effort to eliminate more colors and preservatives from his diet, I set out to make loaves of similar texture without the additives.  He also insists that his bread have the commercial shape.  This morning’s results may pass his test.  The Honey Wheat bread I made is light in texture and was allowed to rise well over the rim of the pan before baking.  We are going to make his lunch for tomorrow without saying anything and see how it goes.

    image

    When they moved here and we purchased twin over double bunk beds for the room, he being the oldest got the top bunk.  To read or write in his journal at night, he had to climb back down to put the book or journal on the night table then climb back up to sleep.  A few days ago, his Mom hauled out her fabrics and snaps and we made him a pouch that holds his book, journal and a couple of pencils that snaps with straps over the side rail of his bed.  He was really excited when he came home from school and saw it.  To complete the idea, his Mom gave him a clip on book light that clips to the rail as well.

    image

    In spite of Daughter’s Tom Boyishness growing up, granddaughter is a little girly girl and she does not like loud noise, though she can screech like a banshee herself when upset.  She also has had an unnatural fear reaction to the typical bugs found in a mountain house in the middle of a hay field, the occasional Lady Bug, Stink Bug, house fly or little spiders.  I don’t like spiders either, but I don’t run shrieking from the room if I see one. Little by little, we have been trying to help her overcome both.  When I find a Lady Bug alive, I will pick it up in her presence and she has let me put it on her shirt.  She will hold a dead one, but still not a live one.  She now points out stinkbugs, dead or alive instead of screaming and waits for her brother or an adult to remove it.  Flys and spiders are still a work in progress.  I managed to get to her “scoop up” a Lady Bug carcass and some dog hair with the mini vacuum that she had been terrified of.  You still have to warn her that you are turning it on, but she no longer runs crying from the room and she will use it herself now.

    imageMy girls having some quiet time after dropping brother off at his very early school bus.  She wiggled and squirmed on and over her Mom then fell asleep with her head on Mom’s hip and covered in the blanket Mom had draped over her own legs.  They slept like that for about an hour.

    Our spring like days fled overnight.  Our high of 32f (0c) occurred at 6 a.m. and we are falling to 8f (-13.33c) tonight.  It is snowing but not really expected to accumulate much and we are under another high wind warning and wind chill warning.  I’m betting that schools have at least a 2 hour delay tomorrow. The weekend nights are expected to be around 0f (-17.8c).  Monday was to be a school holiday, but is now scheduled to be a weather make up day and we are being threatened with several inches of snow on Monday and Tuesday, so it might yet be a school holiday and the make up day will have to be made up along with another day.

    Son #1 and Grandson #1 are bringing my car home on Friday night and staying for the weekend before riding a bus back home.  It will be good to see them.  The weather will be in the teens so I don’t think we will get the compost bin disassembled and relocated this weekend.  Maybe he will help us build a “dress up” closet for Granddaughter’s dress up clothes.

    image

    My current knitting project is a 320 stitch Moebius cowl.  The pattern is Gradient cowl and as I don’t have truly gradient yarn, but rather a cake that had 5 equal amounts of increasing darker yarns, I working from lighter to darker using one color, then alternating in the next darker color for a few rows, then using the darker color and so on.  I am on the third color now and will end up with a cowl about 38-40″ long by 5-6″ wide.  I think that there will be enough yarn left to make a hat, though probably not the one I want to make as I would like to knit Wurm on Ravelry using the gradient colors from light at the face edge and the darkest at the top.  The yarn is Green Dragon Yarns Sport weight in Teal.  As David has closed his shop and is no longer dying yarn, I want to use up every inch of it that I can and treasure it.

  • Olio – November 13, 2014

    Olio: a miscellanous collection of things.

    My blogging goes through spits and spurts, sometimes my creativity is just not there, or focused on other issues.  As the winter sets in, I am more content to sit and read or knit, sometimes both at the same time, if my book is on my tablet and my knitting is mindless.  I have been going through books at a record rate lately, some of them not worthy of mention, but several quite noteworthy.  The Orphan Train, Christina Baker Kline fascinated me.  The period of time related to my Dad’s young life and I recommended it to him and my stepmom.  They both loved it too and set out on some research to see if her grandfather was one of the orphans.  He was an immigrant orphan, adopted in that part of the US.  They are still trying to prize out information for her, and her mother’s maiden name happens to be Baker.  The Glassblowers, Petra Durst-Benning, a translation from German totally enthralled me. A loose historical fiction of the glassblowing village of Lauscha in Germany and three young women as they struggle to survive and break the gender barrier to create some of the earliest blown glass Christmas ornaments.  Another good one was The Light Between Ocean’s, M. L. Stedman, a tale of love, loss, and deception, set at a lighthouse off Western Australia.

    wpid-img_20141113_090635.jpg

    This is Yellow Cat, a sickly intact male barn kitty that rarely goes to the barn, spending much of his day on our front porch.  He is a rescue that was born with Feline Aids and can’t be neutered because every time we try to take him to the vet, he has a rhinovirus attack.  He is pitiful, wheezes like Darth Vader, but is loving, friendly with the dogs, and keeps most of the mice out of the house by his presence.  He was enjoying the 5 minutes of morning sunshine we had on this brisk cloudy day.  We certainly aren’t suffering the cold and snow of parts of the country, but the temperature is 20 degrees below normal for this time of the year and we are having snow flurries and very cold in the teens nights.
    On my way to my spinning group today, riding shotgun for hubby, I finished knitting granddaughter #1’s sweater. The ends are woven in, it has been washed and is blocking on the downstairs bed. I can’t decide whether to use plain buttons the color of the sweater or go looking for something cute and three year old appropriate. I guess I’ll decide that tomorrow. I still have two kid sweaters to get done by Christmas, then I will get back to my own sweater.
    image

    I did get some spinning done today. My arthritic right thumb has been noncooperative lately and so I have only played a bit with the Turkish drop spindle, but today I spun on my wheel. Though I’m not a fan of pink and am not sure why I bought fiber that color, the darker purples and grays are making an interesting single.
    image

    image
    Loving life on our mountain farm.

  • Olio – October 28, 2014

    Olio: a miscellaneous collection of things.

    We have had two absolutely gorgeous days in a row with mild nights.  It has been windy off and on, but Mountaingdad has had two great motorcycle outings, probably the last two of the season.  Tomorrow we return to fall weather, late fall weather, if the weather prognosticators are correct we will see snow flurries on Saturday.  I am definitely not ready for the white stuff or any frozen form of precipitation.  If it does happen, the pumpkins vines will finish dying off and the rest of the harvest will be made, the pepper plants and tomatillo plants will be tossed in the chicken pen for them to pick over.  I really need to get the garlic planted and well mulched before the ground freezes.

    While Mountaingdad was off riding, I was enjoying quiet time at home.  Having planned on running errands and perhaps getting lunch out, instead I read, ate leftovers and did a bit of yard and garden work.  Late yesterday, a package I had been awaiting arrived, a Turkish Spindle from Snyder Spindles on Etsy.  I learned to spin on a top whorl spindle and wish I had learned on a Turkish spindle.  After watching a You Tube to see how to set it up, I was off quickly spinning some maroon colored Merino.  I love the way you wind the single on the spindle to create a center pull ball that can then be plied with another ball or plied off of itself.  Though most of my spinning is done on a wheel, it is nice to have a spindle that is portable to take when visiting our kids.  A few ounces of fiber and the spindle take up little room in my bag.

    image

    As I was spinning the fiber, I realized how similar in color it is to the yarn that I am using to knit the fingerless mitts to go with my hat and scarf.  I had hoped that the mitts wouldn’t be needed for quite a while yet, but they may be welcome in just a day or two.  I was unhappy with the first one and selected a different pattern to make it over and make the second one.  I don’t really have enough done to show them off yet.

    On Sunday, we were notified by one neighbor that another neighbor who we knew had been sick and hospitalized but released and home for a few days had been taken back to the hospital by ambulance and his prognosis was poor.  This saddened us as he was one of the first neighbors we met and though we were wary of him at first, he and his wife had become friendly with the strangers in their midst.  We were even more saddened to learn yesterday morning that he had passed Sunday evening with his family by his side.  He and his wife are our age contemporaries on the mountain. He has had several health issues over the past couple of years and their cumulative effect were more than his body could take this time.  Our hearts go out to his family at this time.

    Today we found out that the company proposing the pipeline has filed their preliminary paperwork with FERC, so letter writing will occupy our time for a few days.  Tonight we are attending a meeting on our legal rights.  There may be nothing we can do, but we are going to fight to the end on this project.  As oil prices drop, fracking become less desirable and new wells aren’t drilled.  Keep hoping that the oil prices drop low enough to stop this.  A sign we saw in town says it all, “Stop the fracking pipeline.  Preserve the NRV.”  If you want to read more about this issue, go to http://www.preservethenrv.com.  While you are looking, do a search for the pipeline explosion in Appomattox, VA in 2008 and look at the photos of the damage that a much smaller pipeline explosion wrought.

     

     

     

  • Olio – October 24, 2014

    Olio: a miscellaneous collection of things.

    Our internet issues seem to be finally resolved, many months and many mistakes later, we are back with our original cell provider and our original internet/phone provider.  The lines have been repaired, the speed boosted as much as it can be boosted given our physical distance from the nearest booster from our small community cooperative telephone/internet provider.  They also provide cable TV service, but their HD is not HD, so we opt to receive cable elsewhere.  Life was so much simpler with an antenna, a house phone line, no internet and no cell phones; cheaper too.

    The sweater was ripped out and restarted using a yoke pattern instead of a raglan pattern, the sleeves have been put on waste yarn and the body is being worked slowly.  This pattern is from one of Ann Budd’s formula books, so it should fit.

    wpid-img_20141021_105632.jpg

    The twisty rib pattern at the top is interesting.  Hopefully it will block into a nice yoke for the sweater that is otherwise very plain.

    As the sweater has already gotten too bulky to want to tote around with me when I am the car passenger, I finally started the mitts that are made of Unplanned Peacock Superwash Merino in a colorway named for me as it was dyed especially for me to match a skein I purchased from her several years ago and from which I designed and made Ruby Hat (http://goo.gl/yAfQV) and later Ruby Scarf (http://goo.gl/uzjTFo), both free patterns on Ravelry.  Ruby Hat is my favorite hat and has its own story, but that is for another day.  The mitts are also being made from one of Ann Budd’s formula books to wear with the hat and scarf or just around the house at night when my hands get cold.  They are the perfect portable pocket project for the car.

    wpid-img_20141024_144749.jpg

    I am frequently amused at questions I get from folks that I know have grown up their entire lives in this rural county.  Today, the phone/internet installer saw my chickens wandering about the yard and ask me very innocently if my hens were laying now that the weather is cooling down.  My response was yes, except for the one who was molting.  I could tell from his expression that he didn’t have a clue what I was talking about and he said his egg production from 10 hens was down to only a couple each day.  I asked him how old his hens were and most of them are only about a year and a half old, so experiencing their first molt this season, thus his lack of eggs.  He also wasn’t feeding them any calcium, not even giving them back their own shells.  He left educated by the city girl with a ziplock sack of crushed oyster shell to free feed his hens and a promise that once their feathers were back in that he would start seeing eggs again.  He also was surprised that Son#1 and I could kill and process our culls and meat birds.  He said though he could shoot and dress a deer, he wasn’t sure he could do a chicken.  Our flock is enjoying their daily freedom to dig in the gardens, to look for bugs and tender blades of grass.  When we need them safely away from the dogs or driveway, I just go out like the Pied Piper with my little cup of scratch that I shake and they come running and follow me back to the safety of the electric fence.

    The pumpkin vines are dying back more each day and revealing more of the winter squash.  I thought that only the Burgess Buttercup survived and that I didn’t get any Seminole pumpkins, but realize that it is a half and half mix, except the pumpkins for the most part haven’t turned tan.  The ones that I picked and put on the picnic table are beginning to turn.  The wormy ones get split with a hatchet and thrown into the chicken run for them to enjoy.  A side benefit is that the seeds are a natural anti parasitic for the chickens.  The peppers and tomatillos survived the cold nights predicted in the last post.  I am letting the remaining fruits mature until we are threatened again and I will do another harvest.  The last batch was made into another 4 pints of Tomatillo/Habanero sauce, the hottest batch yet.  Maybe I should change it’s name from XXX to Insanity.  I sure can’t eat it, but Son#1 will love it.  The Farmers’ Market last week had many vendors of apples.  I came home with another peck of mixed crisp red apples and realizing that they would not stay crisp until we finished them all, I used about a third to make another batch of Apple Cranberry Chutney (http://wp.me/p3JVVn-Ja), using 1 cup of honey instead of brown sugar this time.  The shelves are full of goodies even after having taken two crates of canned goodness to Northern Virginia on the last two trips to return son and grandson.

    Lovin’ life on our mountain farm and continuing to gather knowledge to fight the pipeline.

     

  • Olio, October 6, 2014

    Olio: A miscellaneous collection of things.

    The garden survived a 31ºf night and a 37ºf night through the aid of some row cover over the peppers and tomatillos.  The beans that haven’t been eaten by the deer that have breeched the electric fence also survived.  The pumpkins/winter squash patch is finally beginning to die back and there are dozens of the Burgess Buttercup squash beginning to show through.  So far I don’t see a single Seminole Pumpkin which is disappointing.  Today I waded through the thigh high patch, pulled back the squash vines and tried to dig the sweet potatoes.

    IMG_0270[1]

    I’m sure there are more there, but the vines will have to die back more before I try again.  Now that they are harvested, they require a few days of curing at 80ºf.  I don’t know how that will happen with the daytime temperatures at least 15 degrees lower than that and we haven’t turned the heat on in the house so it is 20 degrees cooler.  I put them out on a rack in the sun this morning, but then the rains started, so they are in the utility room until we see sunshine again.

    In July when visited our daughter’s family in Florida, our granddaughter came out in the cutest sun dress.

    IMG_0093[1]

    She and her mom love it because she can dress herself in it and it has no fasteners.  Over confident Mountaingmom announced, “That would be so easy to make.”  The bodice was traced on printer paper, the tiers measured approximately and brought home to the farm.  Later two packets of fat quarters were purchased and I stalled.  Before the Spinning retreat, I decided to begin them.  First off, I failed to cut the front on a fold, I do know better.  Second error was attempting to use three strands of narrow elastic to gather the back, I ended up buying wide underwear elastic later.  Third error was in the measurements I had made of the ruffles which I realized before cutting.  Daughter remeasured everything for me and a few days ago, I got serious about finishing the first dress.

    IMG_0272[1]

    Yesterday after finishing it, I decided that dress #2 was going to be made with a pattern and I purchased a simple A-line toddler dress pattern from McCall.  As I still wanted to use the fat quarter that I bought for the second dress, The solution was to cut wide strips, sew them end to end, then side to side to create a large striped panel that was used to cut the pattern.  I had some unbleached muslin that I used as facing as the pattern called for binding the edges with bias tape and I didn’t want to do that. Dress #2 was much easier to assemble.

    IMG_0271[1]

    As granddaughter lives in Florida, she will be able to wear them all year with a long sleeve T-shirt under them, so 3 T’s were bought to add to the package.  Also in the package is a giraffe.  Yes, a giraffe.  Two Christmases ago, we bought her a little barn that has various activity parts to it and a collection of farm animals to put inside.  Their dog got a couple of the animals and chewed them up, some of which were replaced, she selected a moose for her farm.  Near their home is a farm that has a giraffe.  We don’t know why or how they obtained it, but it is a source of amusement as we drive by, so her barn will now also have a giraffe.

    The Hot Mess yarn that I spun at the retreat, was soaked and hung with a weight on it.  The treatment helped relax the over twist some, so now I have a 106 yard skein of smooth, but tight yarn.

    IMG_0274[1]

    I have no idea what to do with it.  It is too little for anything other than trim on something.  There isn’t even enough to make a market bag.

    The yarn on the bobbin is the random color Merino that I purchased at the retreat.  The color isn’t showing up very well with no sun out and only house lighting to photograph it in, but it is basically lilac color with gold and maroon highlight.  I haven’t finished plying it yet to measure, but it looks like it will be a couple hundred yards of fingering weight yarn.

    IMG_0273[1]

    Lovin’ life on our mountain farm.