Cabin Crafted

Category: Uncategorized

  • Neglecting friends

    As I have posted before, we don’t travel much, but somehow have found ourselves away from home as a couple for more than 40 days this past year, plus another couple of weeks where I alone went to help out one or the other of our kids for a few days to a week.  This has cut into my friend time.  My friend time is going to Knit Night on Wednesday night or Spunsters (my spinning group) on Thursday afternoon.  This week we aren’t snowed in, we aren’t away from home and I committed to going to both groups and enjoying the company of those friends.

    On Knit Night, we meet at a local coffee shop, they kindly let us take over a huge table from about 5 pm until we go home.  Most of us buy dinner, we sit and socialize, share patterns, trade yarn, tell tales and knit.  The core group is the same with assorted others that come when they can and we always have a good time.  A couple of the husbands will come and sit off at another table and read or if our group isn’t too big or too naughty, may sit with us for a while.

    The Spunsters, meet in a conference room at the local library.  Some bring their wheels, some knit or crochet, do finish work on weaving projects or just sit and visit.  This group is at the mercy of the conference room use and sometimes we convene at someone’s home for a potluck.

    Both groups challenge me to keep learning the fiber crafts and to improve my skills and socialize.  The spinning group has many fiber raisers and we help out during shearing times which is a season that is starting.

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    My current spinning project is a full pound of undyed Sheltland Wool.  I don’t know what it will become.  We will have to see how many yards of yarn it becomes then I will decide and dye it for a handknit, homespun project.

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    My current knitting project is a cardigan sweater for me, the pattern is Estelle from Quince and Co. with their Lark yarn in Delft blue.  This is a cute pattern with a ribbed empire waist and feather and fan bands down the front and as a bottom band.  Their yarn is a delight to knit.

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    Then queued up is a cowl, either the Honey Cowl or the Basic Lace Cowl from this Unplanned Peacock dk weight in Botanical colorway which I bought after one of my knitting friends and I saw a very colorful weather map of the potential winter storm aimed at us.  We enjoyed a playful banter with Natasha, the owner/dyer of the yarn about the beautiful colors.

    It is great to reconnect after a fall and winter of absence and sporadic opportunities to see these friends.

  • Today, I’m going to start something!

    By preference, I eat little meat.  I probably wouldn’t cook it at all if hubby wasn’t by choice a “meat and potatoes” man.  In fact, when we met, I wasn’t eating meat at all and realized that he wasn’t going to live on vegetables, beans, eggs and cheese.  I can’t call myself a vegetarian, certainly not a vegan, I do enjoy cheese, use milk in my coffee and some teas, and eat eggs from my hens.  If I prepare meat for him or for guests, I will generally eat a small portion, but will like as not, order a meatless meal when we go out and often will fix him a meat portion and just eat the vegetables myself.  

    I understand that people choose not to eat meat or any animal protein for various reasons.  Some for ethical reasons, some for health, others I just don’t understand. When shopping in the local grocery, in the “hippy section,” to get milk and butter, I see vegan “cheese” and TVP shaped like chicken nuggets or hamburgers and I don’t understand.  If you like the taste and texture of meat and cheese, then eat meat and cheese.  If you are avoiding animal products for ethical reasons, then why pretend that you are eating animal protein.  You don’t need soya products to get your protein.  It can be easily obtained by selection of beans, rice, legumes and vegetables. 

    If you are a TVP eating vegan or vegetarian, please explain to me your rational, I just don’t get it.

  • Holiday family time

    The gift giving frenzies are done. Two days before Christmas I feared for the worst when I awoke with Norovirus. The day was miserable and the family left me to sleep and went to see The Hobbit.  Fortunately Christmas Eve dawned over it. Our tradition is to have our Christmas dinner on the eve. The dinner was prepared, enjoyed and delicious. Christmas was a celebration of love and commercial avarice but so much fun watching the grands rip into their new gifts.

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    Santa brought me a new tablet and hubby a motorcycle jackest with armor for his new hobby.

    We are loving family time, especially hubby who granddaughter has really decided is hers alone and wanted him to sleep with her last night.

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  • A Week In Paradise

    This blog has been silent for slightly more than a week because we jetted off to a week in paradise.  On Tuesday, December 3rd, we put the pups in boarding and drove to Northern Virginia to spend the night with our eldest son’s family prior to a 6 a.m. flight out of Dulles International Airport for Mexico, via a layover in Detroit.  Don’t ask me who thought that was a good route, but it is the way it happened.  We landed in Mexico City in the early afternoon and did the customs/immigration business, had a light lunch in the airport while awaiting our air shuttle hop over to Zihuatanejo, located about 150 miles north of Mexico southern border on the Pacific Ocean.

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    It is located on a sheltered bay and is a small fishing village with hotels, boutique hotels, restaurants, and recreation opportunities surrounding the bay.  Our destination was Casa del Platero (http://www.casadelplatero.net/ ) owned by our cousin and his wife, who we were visiting.  When they are not there visiting and performing maintenance, the house is a vacation rental, just check out the link above.

    Their home is beautiful, set in a secure walled setting with gardens of tropical plants, a lovely open dining porch and an open napping porch for the downstairs house, a tiled infinity pool overlooking the bay shared by the upstairs and downstairs houses and colorfully cushioned seating throughout.

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    The house sits just above Playa la Ropa, a beach of white sand with available sailing, parasailing, swimming and fishing right there.

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    Hubby parasailing

    The next beach over, a short walk on a rocky path or a quick hop on a water taxi is a row of vendors of food and equipment for snorkling with strolling musicians and Indians hawking their wares from handmade shell and stone jewelry, Mexican pottery, baskets, to fresh tropical fruits on skewers and lots more white sand.

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    We walked, sailed, snorkeled, swam in the pool, ate and rested until there was no stress to be found.  The village and surrounds have restaurants that serve seafood, traditional Mexican food, Italian, Thai, even American hamburgers.  There are Indian market stalls selling painted pottery, silver jewelry, T shirts and embroidered Mexican shirts, leather goods, coffee and vanilla.  We were there during the celebration of the Virgin of Guadalupe and saw parades  on the streets and the water, entertainment every night on the waterfront and fireworks.

    It is a beautiful location to visit and our cousin’s home has a delightful couple that serve as caretakers and cooks for guests staying with them or renting their home.  If you need a place to unwind in the tropical weather, this is the spot.

    We arrived back last night to snow on the ground in Northern Virginia and along our route back, evidence of the ice storm we missed and awoke today to a balmy 23f degrees.  I think it is already time to go back.

  • What were you doing 50 years ago today?

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    Most of us have historic events that stand out strongly in our minds.  You can recite what you were doing, where you were, when the event occurred.  The first that stands out to me was November 22, 1963.  I was a sophomore in high school, sitting in class when the Principal came over the public address system and announced that President Kennedy had been shot in Dallas, Texas.  The classroom was stunned to silence, some girls sobbed.  This was nothing we had experienced in our lifetimes.

    The day was a Friday, the day after my 16th birthday and I was to have one of the few birthday parties of my lifetime, a friend that had moved to Richmond was on a bus coming for the weekend.  Needless to say, plans changed.  The friend did stay the night before going home to her family the next day.

    I wish that was only event of it’s kind in my history, but sadly, I also remember vividly the day his brother was also assassinated, the day the Challenger blew up and the day the World Trade towers were destroyed by terrorists.  I hope not to have any more of these memories, just happy ones and wish for my grandchildren that they don’t have to experience them either.

  • Like a Cat

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    Like a cat, I sit in the pool of warm sunlight, enjoying my hot cereal and coffee.  Outside the day is bright, The morning is 21f, the cat and chicken waterers frozen solid, diamond dust is sparkling in the sun and the wind from yesterday’s Arctic front that blew through leaving only a dusting of light snow has still not totally dissipated.  Our first blast of winter will be short lived, returning to more autumn like weather by the weekend, but it is the beginning and if the old timers are correct, there will be much more of this to come.

    Life is good on our mountain farm.

  • Autumn Sunset

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    Peach sky, crescent moon, crisp air.
    Beautiful Autumn night

  • An Anomaly

    Our mountain life began almost a 9 years ago when we began looking for 10 acres of wooded mountain property on which to build our retirement home.  We began our quest in November, found our piece of heaven in December, three times larger than we were seeking and basically open fields. We closed in January just as snow began to fall, walked the perimeter in flurries then headed home a day early in real snowfall to avoid getting snowed in. The following November the house was begun and almost two years later we moved in.
    Our home is surrounded by farms. Each of these farms has rock piles where the past generations have painstaking hand collected them from the fields and gardens and piled them out of the way of mowers.

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    Because this county is so rocky the primary products are animals. Many raise beef cattle, a few sheep, pigs or goats, and horses. Fields of hay are mowed for winter feed and provide pasture for the cattle. Few have chickens for meat or eggs.
    While each homestead has a vegetable garden and most households put away some produce, almost none of them harvest their grass fed beef for their own use. They sell to a fedlot where their beeves will be fattened on grain for commercial sale. It amazes me to see our neighbors in the grocery purchasing eggs, canned ir out of season fruits and vegetables and feedlot meat when we pay a premium at the farmer’s market for grass finished meat from one of the few who do eat and sell their own grass finished meat.
        If this is something you have never considered and holds any interest, read Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.

  • Monday Heat Wave

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    Due to my increased frustration with Blogger, my blog can now be found at the above link.

  • Sunday Thankfulness – July 14, 2013

    https://fstafford165.wordpress.com/2013/07/14/sunday-thankfulness-july-14-2013/

    Due to my increased frustration with Blogger, my blog will now be found at the above link.