Cabin Crafted

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  • A Break

    With thunder pounding, lightning flashing, and torrents of rain falling, the heat dome finally broke. We are expected about 10 degree cooler weather for the next 10 days and nice cool nights. We try to go out to dinner about once a week and were in the next town west, a small town, but bigger than our village. They have a great Mexican Restaurant that we enjoy, and we got in before it started. Electricity flickered during dinner. We left running to the car only three spaces from the exit and got soaked. The highway had ponds of water on it and every driver was proceeding at a snail’s pace, except the fuel tank truck that dangerously barreled past, like his product had an expiration date of yesterday, sending rooster tails of water down on those of us who realized the lack of visibility was an issue.

    Monday, the young neighbor that mows our hay for his cattle came and cut the fields in the 96f heat. It sat on the ground Tuesday, and when we got home from errands and a walk on Wednesday, he and an older gentleman were raking and baling it.

    The heat and the mowing activity increased the field mouse activity and living in a hayfield, we keep traps set year round. The other requirement is to keep the attractants like bags of nuts, sugar, pasta, in jars.

    A second quart jar of cucumbers were started to ferment for dills, so 2 are in the works now.

    My chicken coop has a small pen with plastic mesh over the top, and a 2 foot wide tunnel (also covered with plastic mesh) that surrounds about 4/5s of the vegetable garden. The coop has a battery powered pop door that raises at about 6:30 a.m. and was closing around 9 p.m. About 10 days ago, I went out in the morning and two hens were missing. The hay mower found their remains halfway to the lower field. I started monitoring whether the hens were getting in before the door closed and found two hens in an apple tree, one on the coop egg door, and one on the mesh pen cover. They were rounded up and the timer on the door changed to give them until 9:30 to get in. Yesterday morning, I went out to find 2 more hens dead in the tunnel around the garden. They must not have gone in before the door closed.

    The cost, responsibility, and loss are taking a toll on me. I have been using only about half a dozen eggs a week except during holidays for years and the remaining eggs have gone to my children’s families, or neighbors. It is time to give it up, I think. I can buy eggs at the Farmer’s Market when I need them. The coop will be repaired, restained, and maybe I will try again in a year or so.

    The garden is smaller this year, but the area not designated by raised bed boxes is a mass of weeds. The overall fenced area can’t really be reduced as the blueberries are at one end and the asparagus at the other. A solution to stay on top of the weed mess needs to be found. I thought planting pumpkins there would cover and smother the weeds, but they are growing very slowly in the dry heat.

    In the past week, two spinning projects were finished and yesterday at the spinning group, one was plyed, and the other plyed last night. They need to be wound off the bobbins and soaked. Both have tentative use plans. The darker one was the small amount of Dorset wool roving I bought in Skagway, Alaska on our cruise in May and it was plyed with a multicolored strand of BFL that I had spun. The lighter one is Rommeldale and Bamboo and it will be the border on a shawl I am knitting slowly.

    Today’s walk should be less onerous with temperatures only climbing into the mid 80’s. Sunscreen and a water bottle to prevent a burn and dehydration.

  • I could fry an egg…

    Like much of the US right now, we could proverbially, “fry an egg on the sidewalk,” if we had a sidewalk. We have been sweltering in upper 80’s-low 90’s for a week now and high humidity, so it feels like you breath thick fog. Today, we had to take a trip to the “city” about 45 minutes away and lower in elevation and the thermometer there was 96 before noon. We are glad to be home in the air conditioned house.

    The garden is providing. The garlic has cured enough that the roots were trimmed and the stalks cut back to just a few inches. The peas have all been harvested, shelled and frozen with a couple meals enjoyed in the process. The vines have been pulled and need to be chopped into the compost pile. The cucumbers are beginning to produce, so the first 8 small ones were cut and are now fermenting on the kitchen counter to become dills in a few weeks. My plan is to try to stay on top of the production and harvest when they are only 3-5″ long and pickle them whole. Whole pickles can always be slices or quarters when wanted that way.

    In spite of daily soaking with the garden hose, the back deck plants are unhappy with the heat, and the front porch petunias with not enough sunlight. The petunia baskets might get moved to the sunny side of the house for a sunny vacation. The deer are decimating all of my day lilies, Autumn Joy, Coral bells, and Helianthus salicifolius a perennial sunflower that doesn’t stand a chance of blooming this year.

    If you are a reader and like variations on a classic, I highly recommend “James” by Percival Everett.

  • Animal Behavior

    We have lived here for about 18 years now, and for 15 of them we had either barn cats or large dogs. All are gone now. Early on, because we have 30 acres of fields and woods, we allowed some hunting on the property, but after an incident when one of the young hunters, invited a friend we did not know and the friend then showed up alone with his 5 year old son, we cancelled hunting privileges for non family and no one in the family has hunted here for years. With no domestic animals in or near the house and no hunters on the land, the wild animal behaviors have changed.

    We used to park the cars in the driveway and every spring, we had to cover the side mirrors to keep the male cardinal, that calls the side yard his habitat, from constant attacks against the “intruder.” The cars now get parked in the garage.

    The male bird aggression is interesting. This morning a tiny sparrow repeatedly bashed his breast and head against the French doors of the dining room. I tried turning on the inside light, putting a dining room chair against the glass, and finally hung a paper owl from the back of the chair to keep it from a concussion or broken neck.

    We have always had deer foraging and crossing the property, but now they rest in the shade of the row of pine trees on the edge of the mowed lawn just to the west of the house and barely flinch when we go outside to water plants, fill hummingbird feeders, or go over to the chicken pen and coop. The hay is still high and unmowed and it is fawning season where the does drop their young. There is a new mom doe (probably a first time as she only has one fawn) that feels safe enough that she had her tiny little one near the house. As their behavior is to hide the fawn and move off from it, coming back to nurse a few times a day, and then moving the fawn to a new location, we have seen her bring the little one in to the mowed yard where it is easier to walk, then take it back into the tall grass to hide. We can tell approximately where the fawn is hidden by where she goes to graze.

    I won’t look for the fawn, there is no reason to disturb them, but we look out the south windows to see if we see where the doe is grazing. She is a brown hump in the tall grass when grazing and will look up if she hears a noise. The area she is using is about 2 football fields in size. After the fawn is about 3 weeks old and starting to eat more solid food, it will begin to follow the doe around and the two of them will like form a small herd with other does with fawns or other does that she is related to.

    The other wildlife whose behaviors have changed in the absence of cats and dogs are the rabbits and chipmunks that come right up to the house, the chipmunks even up on the deck. And we have a groundhog that seems to prefer the mowed lawn to graze but lives near or under a cedar tree right on the edge of the hayfield. I haven’t caught it out to take a photo lately, it has been rainy for the past 4 days.

    Last weekend, our eldest, his wife, and their son came to our local grandson’s high school graduation. His son is city born and city raised and he spent the entire weekend looking for o’possums and groundhogs to no avail. We did see rabbits and deer to show him and warned him about nighttime wandering to look for them due to skunks and coyotes. I haven’t heard the coyotes this spring yet.

    Life in a rural area is ever changing. The hen turkeys should be hatching poults soon and we will see them. The toms are in male groups now and if they are in the fields, we can’t see them due to the height and thickness of the hay. Within the next month, weather permitting, the hay will be mowed and baled, hauled off to other farms and the animals will be visible in the mowed fields again. I love the rural mountain life.

  • A Week Of Chaos, Noise, and Destruction

    In the name of progress, our little rural phone co-op is entering the world of fiber optics. Most of the folks in the county have their power and communications lines strung from pole to pole to house. When we built nearly 2 decades ago, we chose to run ours underground for appearance and safety sake.

    Well progress finally reached us and the initial contractor hung a huge loop of the cable on the pole in the right of way at the top of our driveway. We figured that would be the cable run to the house eventually, also figuring we would be asked/told we had to pay for it. About 2 weeks ago, a representative of the electricity provider came and marked the power line from the pole to where it entered the house. We pointed out that an additional line ran from the house to the well head, under the front yard and driveway, underground up a slope and eventually to the well. His response was that wasn’t his responsibility and the cable contractor would have to mark that. Fortunately, we were here when they first arrived to begin to bury the fiber optic line as they had no means of locating the power and water lines. Their decision was to run it on the outer edge of the power marking which then took it around the cedar trees that have grown up around the transformer box and old phone line pedestal.

    Last week with a much smaller robotic ditch witch, they installed the line from the house to the new pedestal about where the back of the large red ditch witch is parked. Several days ago, the brought two trailers in, one with the ditch witch, the other with the yellow backhoe and began laying the cable to 18″ deep. As I have mentioned before, this county’s main “crop” is rocks. You can’t hammer in a T post or dig a hole without hitting rocks, some the size of a small car. As a result of their efforts, the side of our driveway has been torn up, large rocks dug up with the backhoe whenever the ditch witch encountered one, creating more areas of destroyed grass. This late afternoon, they finally got to the pedestal from the top of the driveway and have sprinkled grass seed and a little bit of straw over the raw areas. There has been no respect for our upper field and lawn areas as they drive wherever in their trucks, park in the grass, leave trailers and spools of cable in the grass. With any luck, all the equipment will be loaded and hauled out tomorrow before we have several days of forecast rain. I expect we will have muddy rivulets running down the driveway and new gullies created.

    The positive, is we didn’t directly have to pay to have this run, but I’m sure we will see a significant fee increase once it becomes operational and maybe we will have high speed internet.

  • Current Politics

    Those who know me, know my political ideologies. I have long time friends who have different beliefs and that is life, not reason to cease being friends.

    I went into the past election with hope that the progress that has been made over my adult lifetime was good and safe. I lived a time when women had to wear dresses or skirts to work and school; had to have husband’s permission to make decisions about our female health and reproduction; could not get a loan or credit card without husband’s or father’s approval. Where my friends of different races not only couldn’t date and marry, but could be arrested for doing so. I remember segregation in schools. I could continue this list but you get the point. We saw positive changes in these issues and women in jobs other than clerical, nursing, teaching. Then it started deteriorating. People who were racist and bigots becoming vocal and encouraged by a leader who exhibited those same traits.

    When he as a convicted felon and convicted of falsifying business records in hush money payments to an adult film actress was reelected, I had hopes that at least the checks and balance system I was taught in 12th grade government class, the three branch system would at least temper his ability to become “King” (he said it himself) or a dictator and we would continue to live in a Democracy for the people and by the people. The Cabinet members were chosen not by qualification, but rather by fealty. If your opinion is different, you are fired, or banned from press conferences, or rounded up and deported.

    We are a country of immigrants. His family was, his wife is. The Statue of Liberty wears a poem by Emma Lazarus, welcoming the tired and poor seeking refuge in this great country. Instead, we are seeing an approach to remove anyone “different” than white Americans. Even the native Americans who were here first are having to carry documents to keep from being rounded up. Personally, I am horrified at what is going on.

    Horrified that health safety is being lead by a non scientist anti vaxer. Horrified that the EPA Director is a climate change denier. Horrified that Roe v Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court and women again have no autonomy over their bodies. Horrified that DEI is overturned and that we are returning to a point where you can’t serve our country in the military if you are trans or openly gay. That our National Parks are being gutted. And that the President is systematically making enemies of our neighboring countries and ally countries.

    Where and how will it end? How will it affect my children and grandchildren? I am old and may not see this deterioration of our democracy end. I just hope for the safety and security of family and friends who have medical issues requiring regular treatment, for family and friends who are trans or gay, for immigrants who have been forced from their homelands because of war, gangs, or poverty seeking shelter and a better life here that they stay safe.

  • So Much For Schedules

    Late last week, we received a call asking if today, Wednesday was a good day to deliver my new rocking recliner. Nothing taking us far from home was planned, so we said yes. We were then informed that we would receive a call yesterday to let us know when we had to be home for the delivery. No call, but later in the evening, I spotted a text message saying it would be between 1:30 and 4:30 p.m.

    This morning with that in mind, we set out for town by 10:30 to take the old chair to the dump, pick up some groceries, a med that had been refilled, to get fuel for the car, and grab a quick lunch. We had plenty of time to do that and be home before 1:30. At 11:30, a text was received that they would be there in 20 minutes, but I was driving and didn’t see it until I had parked and there was a second text that they were 10 minutes out. Town is 20 minutes from our house. Stressing that we would miss them and they wouldn’t leave the chair, we dropped all errands yet undone and headed home. About 5 minutes from home, they called wondering where we were. Hubby told them we had been notified that the delivery wouldn’t be before 1:30 and they apologized indicating that they were quicker than expected and would it be ok to just leave it on the porch. Yes, of course. But we continued on the 5 more minutes, passing the truck as it went down the mountain. The huge box was marked on all 4 sides with instructions for them “Do not open,” “Drop ship only.” Getting the box slide into the house was fairly easy and to ensure that there was no damage, we went on and opened the carton. The seat back was easy enough to remove and carry up the stairs. The seat part was another story. After splaying out all of the flaps and turning the box over, we extricated the main part of the chair from the box, but it was too heavy for me to carry upstairs alone.

    Since hubby is still recovering from his most recent bout of illness, we left it sitting and returned to town to pick up where we left off on the errand list. Of course, this entire time, my mind is busy trying to figure out how we were going to manage this without calling in the assistance of a strong grandson and daughter’s fiance, or begging a neighbor.

    Errands accomplished, groceries stored away, trash cleaned up from the packing material and we decided that if I was on the upside, lifting a step or two at a time with rest periods allowed, we could manage it. I managed to pinch hubby’s hand between the chair and the footrest, but we got it to the top. Once there, I could finish the job of placing it, putting the back on it and testing it out.

    It seems like a good place to nap or read.

    Thank you for my new chair, Babe.

  • Best Laid Plans

    This was supposed to be Christmas with Son 1’s family and Daughter’s family, but Saturday, all plans changed.

    On Friday, hubby started having “cold” symptoms and prior to Son 1 getting on the road south west on Saturday, we did Covid tests. He was positive, I was negative, but postponing Christmas celebrations seemed the advisable plan. Late yesterday, he was feeling miserable and I was just beginning to have symptoms. This morning, I also tested positive and so far my symptoms are manageable and hope they stay that way. And he is feeling somewhat better.

    As a result, we will delay our Christmas gift exchange and dinner for two weeks. Not what we had hoped for, but sometimes safety overrules plans.

    Somehow, we managed to avoid this plague for almost 4 years. I guess it was inevitable that we eventually caught it. The telehealth Doctor congratulated us on avoiding it this long. Masks, vaccines, and avoidance helped us. It is likely that walking in the gym on cold, rainy days probably is where we caught it but Christmas and grocery shopping may have contributed even though masked. Because of our ages, I guess we will again avoid eating indoors in restaurants and becoming even more diligent about masks and hand sanitizing. Three of our favorite restaurants do have outdoor seating during warm months.

  • Living local

    As I re-read Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable Miracle, a book I reread every couple of years, it re-dedicates me to live locally. We have the best Farmer’s Market I have ever shopped. They are open April through October on Wednesday afternoon and on Saturday mornings year round with more vendors. During winter, there are fewer vendors, but still some products are available including storage vegetables, eggs, meat, breads, and cheese. Each spring, I plant a garden and we have an orchard with 4 kinds of fruit trees and 3 kinds of cultivated berries, but other than tomato sauces, peppers canned and dried, tomatillos for salsas, and cucumbers for pickles, I don’t grow enough variety or quantity to supply us year round. This year, in support of the vendors, I decided to buy extras of items that can be blanched and frozen for winter use. This week was the first week of making these extra purchases and I came home with extra Sugar Snap Peas, celery, and carrots. The peas have been getting added to the freezer for a few weeks as I had extras and are coming to an end. The celery sliced for Mirepoix, the carrots sliced for soups and stews. Herbs are grown here in the garden to be dried and others in the Aerogarden for fresh use. Meats and poultry are available year round so don’t have to be stockpiled. One farm, in addition to beef and eggs, grows corn for meal, oats for oatmeal, and wheat for flour. Being able to watch my flour ground and bagged, unbromated whole wheat with bran is wonderful.

    A bag was brought home, a loaf of artisan bread started last evening that was baked this morning. What doesn’t get used immediately will be frozen so there will be flour for bread this winter as well.

    The finished bread is a little more dense than I had hoped, it was a new recipe that I will tweak in the future.

    After putting the produce away and some frozen, dinner prepared using plenty of fresh vegetables from market and garden to make a salad, a little garden time was enjoyed. This week has been so wet, it was nice to be able to get in there, weed a little, pick berries, and pull the 34 heads of garlic to cure in today’s sun.

    All but two are large and full and this should be enough to last us the year. The fall garlic seed needs to be ordered.

    Soon there will be peas from our garden to enjoy and freeze. And the beans are beginning to have blossoms, the first zucchini is forming, tiny peppers and tomatoes are developing. The apple and Asian pear trees are heavy with fruit to be enjoyed raw or made into sauces later in the fall.

    There was cheese purchased, Garlic Chive Chevre that was enjoyed on the salad, and a weekly treat of a bouquet of flowers from our friend’s farm.

    Keep it close to home if you can, better for the environment, better for your health.

  • Signs of Spring

    Though a single Hummingbird is visiting during the day, only the one has been spotted and not frequently enough to try to catch a photo. But other signs abound.

    The apple blossoms against a bright blue sky, as I mowed below them yesterday, the second mowing already this spring, though less of the property is being mowed, with the hope of either more hay mowing or at least a wild meadow. Son 1 suggested last year when he mowed for me that too much was being done on the little riding mower. Without consistent teen helpers around, I agreed and less is being done this year. The section below the garden where the garden used to extend, and between the garden and the orchard where an extended chicken run used to be are very rough and hard on the mowing machine and the mower rider. I have self debated whether it could be smoothed with the tractor blade and reseeded, but somehow the chickens would have to be kept out while the grass grew or the effort would be fruitless. They have denuded two areas where the grass was thin to dustbathe already since being freed back to wander the farm. Trying to keep them penned is an act of frustration as they dig out under the fence and once a hen has succeeded, others follow. The entire run needs to be disassembled, expanded with new fence wire, a chicken wire base that turns inward a foot or so to prevent tunnelling, and a top. It isn’t worth the effort or expense to do that, so they free range and become hawk bait.

    Part of the entourage that run to see what “treat” is in store whenever anyone steps out of the house.

    A very poor photo, zoomed to the extent of my phone and cropped to further enlarge, of two Toms doing their spring dance to entice the 3 hen turkeys nearby. Zoomed as they are about 200 yards away. This dance is a sure sign of spring.

    The first bird nest of the year in a Viola hanging pot, just put up a few days ago. Probably the Wren that builds in one of the pots each year, but I haven’t seen the bird on the rim yet and there are no eggs to identify. In a day or two, there will be eggs and in about 24 days, babies. It is hard on the plants in the baskets, but providing a nesting spot for the little Wrens is more important. Watering those plants has to be done carefully so as not to soak the eggs and nest. The only time I see them is on the planters, as Wrens don’t come to the feeders.

    Today, the swallows were checking out the nesting box that they steal from the bluebirds every year. The bluebirds will get the second one as the swallows won’t occupy two as close together as the two in the garden are set. I still want at least one more house for the garden area. The birds help keep the insect load in the garden reduced.

    The Peony’s are up. Though they are about 15 years old, they only began blooming a couple of years ago. Hopefully, they will bloom this year. It isn’t the best location for them.

    And the lilacs are beginning to bloom.

    The tomatoes and tomatillos have been planted deeply in tall single use plastic cups from fast food to allow them to grow more roots up their stems as many nightshades are prone to do, it will make for stronger seedlings when time to plant. At that time, they will still be planted more deeply than they are in the cups. Along with the pepper starts, they are spending their days on the back deck table in deep mesh baskets to protect them somewhat from the breezes, to harden them off and strengthen them for planting out next month.

    Another sign is the proliferation of Carpenter bees. Living in a log home, they are inevitable, drilling into the fascia boards to nest and emerging on every warm day. Though we dislike the damage the woodpeckers do trying to get at the larvae, the bees do not sting and are pollinators like other bees. The fascia boards could be replaced with a material they wouldn’t use, but then the fear is they would attack the logs instead.

    Definite signs that the dark winter has drawn to an end. There will be more chilly days, even a frost or two, but the worst is over. Today it will approach 80f here with clear, blue, sunny skies. There are a few days of cooler, not cold temperatures and some rain in the half week, but the trend is toward more consistent warmer weather.

  • Crafting and Winter Blues

    Shortly after the Christmas Amaryllis gifted bulb quit blooming, it was cut back and put in a pot of soil. Much to my delight, it has begun to grow new leaves, so with any luck, it will survive to bloom again.

    Shortly after it ceased, Kroger started displaying various forced bulbs. Walking past their display many times, I finally succumbed to the temptation and purchased the tall clear glass container with about 7 tulip bulbs growing in it. Unfortunately, the water in the container quickly took on the odor of a dirty fish tank and even if changing it every couple of days, it would again become cloudy and stinky. Yesterday when I grabbed the rim of the container, I realized it had a significant chip on the inside edge and cut my left thumb (I am a southpaw, so ouch) and left a tiny glass splinter that had to be removed. Once that was taken care of, and since flower buds are beginning to show on several of the bulbs, a decision to remove them from water and place them in one of my hand thrown pottery bowl planters with soil in hopes that they will thrive and bloom to later be planted outdoors in the back garden, so they too can bloom again another year. Having the blooms on the table is cheerful in the gray gloom of the short winter days.

    As some of the leaves are yellowing, perhaps having them in soil where they can be given some houseplant food will help their health.

    I accepted the February DARE TO DO IT spindle challenge, but may have dared myself beyond my capability by trying to spin enough yarn to knit the center square of a traditional Shetland Hap, the traditional shawl of the Shetland Islands. The shawl needs about 6-7 ounces of fingering weight yarn for that part and at my current rate, I’m already behind my goal having spun only 9 grams in 2+ days, I will need to spin about 12 more grams today to be on schedule.

    This has put my knitting on my other unfinished shawl on hold for now as I am also trying to knit a ski band/ear warmer that hubby can wear under a billed hat when we walk. It is being knit out of some Coopworth that I spun about 3 years ago and has been sitting ever since as it wasn’t a lot of yardage.

    It seems that everything I am currently working on is natural colors in camel, moorit, and dark brown or black. The darker knitting is difficult in the poor light of winter, but I am really dedicated to finishing the two knitting projects.

    I took two hours this afternoon to Zoom with the spindle group and that gave me time to knit and spin. Still behind and not finished with the ski band, but much closer than I was when I began this post.

    Stay warm, it hasn’t been here today, but should warm back up some by the end of the weekend.