Cabin Crafted

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  • 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.

  • How does your garden grow

    Yesterday was a perfect day and the last Living History class group of the spring. They were a delightful group of about 50 second graders, well behaved, engaged, and even had some great questions. Summer time is hot to wear all of the frontier woman’s clothing, but I do miss doing the groups during the summer. Fall will bring fourth and sixth graders, and more of the surrounding counties are taking advantage of the offering of history as it applies to their SOL objectives.

    Today the temperature begins an uptick to a few days of mid summer type weather with it reaching near or achieving 90 f before it returns to normal spingtime. It seemed like a good day to take the next step in garden planting for the season. After our usual Saturday morning breakfast out, Farmer’s Market purchases, and walk along the Huckleberry Trail, a pointed hoe and packets of seeds were carried out to the garden. The green beans were planted, the peppers staked, and a box that wasn’t in the vegetable plan this year, planted with mixed sunflowers and tithonia, and the adjacent area with Sweet Annie and Calendula. Since they were newly planted and no rain forcast for a few days, the sprinkler is on it now.

    The blueberries need weeding, some paths week whacked and the three sister’s garden started. I also want some flax seed for the row of the flower box that isn’t planted yet.

    The box with the flower seed in it is deteriorating and will removed at the end of the season, probably replaced with another metal box next spring. The very long one to the left of the peppers, peas, and newly planted beans if rotted so badly that it has become dangerous and local grandson is going to come over and help me cut it up, remove it from the garden and haul it to the dump. Under one of the apple trees is the remnant of a small chicken tractor that blew over about 4 or 5 years ago and he is also going to help finish deconstructing that to haul away so that mowing near the apple trees and chicken coop and pen is easier. Sure is nice having older teens/young adults that are willing to work for tuition money (or to just help grandmom out, but will be paid.)

  • The Blog

    Blogs are developed for several reasons. Mine is basically a journal. I have tried paper journalling, however, writing is much slower than I think or type, so the blog evolved. If my thought are deeper than I wish to share, there is a private typed journal that occassionally I use.

    This week has been full of life. After our Anniversary dinner last weekend, we have had a busy but usual week. With the chick teenagers now in the coop, daily trips over to check on them and carrying a plastic cup with a handful of dried mealworms as a treat. The cup is shaken from the garage to the coop and as the door is opened and the treat poured into a small dish. The idea, to train them that the noise, the yellow cup, and me mean a treat so that when they begin to free range, they will come when called with the treat cup. It is about time to let them into the run, so most of a bale of hay has been spread in the run, areas of the fence that either had a broken wire or not tight to the ground were reinforced, and the battery operated pop door reset for times, but still wedged shut. We have two days of winter wet starting tonight with rain, turning to snow tomorrow into Monday night, so the door will remain closed for a couple more days. I don’t want to have to be out there in snow and cold to encourage any of them that don’t find their way back inside the coop as night falls. They are looking like small chickens now, less awkward.

    The two black ones are Mystic Onyx breed, one I had never seen before. They are a cross of Silkies and meat birds, medium sized, gentle nature, black legs, beaks, combs, and feathers. One of these has feathered feet and a head tuft more like a Silkie.

    We had several beautiful days this week where we could take our daily walk outdoors on the rails to trails trail. The mid section still hasn’t reopened from bridge repair, but is supposed to reopen in the next couple of weeks. Getting outdoors encourages a longer walk than when we walk indoors in the mall. We have managed a couple of 3 mile walks this week. When the weather warms a bit more and the spring flowers are showing more, we will extend the walk to the Hahn Garden on campus.

    With the nice day today, we made it back to our routine with breakfast followed by the local Saturday Farmer’s Market for the first time in several weeks. Being able to get some fresh greens, radishes, bread, and a small roast is wonderful.

    The new spindle has been the spindle of choice this week. It is Koa wood, hubby selected as a reminder of our trip last November to Kaua’i.

    I love the smaller spindles, this one is a bit larger than 3 of mine, but still small enough for travel and tucking in my daily bag, but large enough to hold more spun fiber.

    The hydroponic garden has 6 young herb plants sprouted. Soon they will be large enough to begin to enjoy some fresh herbs in cooking and salads. Our favorite garden center reopens next weekend and seeds needed for this year ‘s garden can be purchased. There are some left over seeds from last year, but not enough peas or beans, and after the raccoons got all of the sweet corn, I will go back to planting popcorn instead. The brightly colored popcorn can be used for fall decorating and popping and the raccoons don’t seem to like it as well. Last year I tried to cover the unplanted areas with pumpkins and failed. I don’t want to deal with the weed load this year, so a plan needs to be developed. Maybe gourds that can be used also for fall decorating and shared with daughter. If that fails, the line trimmer will have to be used more frequently as the garden fencing hasn’t been moved.

    Spring can’t come soon enough, we are tired of the cold and the ridiculously high energy bills.

  • 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.