I don’t know how long it takes to make a tradition, but this is the 4th Friday in a row for snow.
Another snowy wonderland for puppy play. A day to knit, spin and read.
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Knit night fail
The severe weather in the south has thankfully missed my family living in Georgia. It is raining hard here, with flash flood warnings and the threat of more trees down and power outages. The floods are not really a threat to us this high on the mountain and our creek is lower than our house. The weather was a discouragement to drive two towns over to my weekly knit night. I missed them last week while we were skiing, and I was looking forward to the socialization, but I don’t like to drive at night in good weather, so venturing out tonight wasn’t going to happen.
Instead of knitting with the ladies, I stayed in and spent the evening spinning. I finished half of a 4 ounce bag of Merino that I bought with my daughter in Florida last summer and plied about 130 yards of 9 wpi (worsted) weight yarn for her. I don’t know what she will do with it when I finish and mail it to her, but it has been interesting to spin and I learned Navajo plying to try to keep the colors interesting.
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Back in the saddle again
Riding lessons have been sporadic this winter between holidays, illness, snow and severe rain storms, and our mini ski-cation. Today we resumed our lessons, arriving as the farrier was clipping hooves and re-shoeing some of the horses. My favorite, Doc, had just done a riding lesson with a very young man who is disabled and was next up for hoof clipping, so I didn’t get to ride him today. Early on in our lessons, I rode Squirt, then he came up lame with a hoof abscess and hadn’t been available for the past couple of months, but his hoof has healed and he was ready to ride. Having not been in lessons for a while, he was pretty cooperative and somewhat spirited. He willingly did tight circles around barrels or just out in the open at a trot, would cross the poles on the ground at a trot, wanted to stop at the end of the ring where we mount and dismount, but could be urged on through that with a bit of encouragement, but he would not back up for me. Even with the instructor pushing backward on his chest. He just didn’t want to go backwards.
I entered today’s lesson with a bit of concern. Last week when we were skiing, to get back to the house we had to ski down a connector trail take off our skis and slide about 6 feet down a slope to the leaves at the bottom and then walk back to the house. In doing that, I slid too fast and slammed my tailbone into a rock or stump at the bottom and feared that bouncing in the saddle was going to be uncomfortable. It didn’t bother me too much riding, but I am aware again that I must sit gingerly.
Post riding, we did a brisk 2 mile walk with the pups as the day was beautiful springlike day before a day of severe thunderstorms tomorrow and possible snow on Thursday. -
Rededication
Hubby and I were very dedicated to improving our health and stamina and joined the gym about 3 years ago. We went about 6 days a week, walking the indoor track or on a treadmill, cycling on a stationary bike, using weight machines. This seemed to help when we went skiing and for hiking our mountain trails. Last spring, once our basement rec room was completed, we used the money we had been spending for the gym membership to invest in a treadmill and 3 pair of free weights. Our routine was for me to get up in the morning and go down to use the treadmill and hubby used it each evening. We were both in good shape, he had lost a significant amount of weight and we both felt good.
Sometime during the summer with the dogs, trips, and gardening, the dedication to walk each day faltered. Fall came and with it a series of illnesses and still we lagged from our dedication. This past week, we took a 3 day ski trip, and realized that we were helplessly out of shape with only a few weeks until a more significant ski trip out west. This was a wake up call and we decided to encourage each other to rededicate ourselves to fitness.
First day all I managed was a 30 minute performance walk with some incline and only about a mile and a half of distance. Today I was determined to get in a 5K and I wanted it in under an hour, much slower than I was doing before. I did manage it in 53 minutes with some incline and continued to walk for the remainder of the hour getting up to 3.4 miles. I’m hoping that between the walking and the riding lessons, that the western trip will be somewhat easier on us and our overall health and well-being will improve again.
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Strange Days
We have arrived home from our mini ski-cation with our local ski club. The group that participated in this trip was fun for the most part, ranged in age from 11 months to 81 years old. The venue was a small ski resort in West Virginia, which like the rest of us has experienced weird weather the past two winters, much too warm most of the time for natural or even man made snow. We lucked out on a cold snap so every run on one of the small handful of open trails took you through the blast of tiny ice pellets of snow making, blinding you, even with goggles on and stinging any exposed skin, and there wasn’t much of that.
The high we experience over the 3 days was 8 degrees F. The wind whipped up the only intermediate slope open and for the first two days we were there, they didn’t move the snowmaking machines at all, so this morning, one of the trails we had skied on day one was literally knee deep in man made snow, so coming off of the wind blown upper part to the sheltered lower part of man made snow was a jolt. On top of this blown snow, we got 3 inches of real natural snow overnight, making this morning’s skiing a much different experience than the first two days, though not any warmer. Because of the cold, we skied only for a short time each day.
The evening of the first night, I dropped my cell phone in water, quickly retrieved it, opened the back and removed the battery. Not having a bag of rice to put it in, I just wrapped it in a bath towel. Since we didn’t have any cell service anyway and since I did take my tablet for computer access, I didn’t worry too much about it. We have a spare phone at home for emergencies and I was prepared to have it reactivated if necessary. It isn’t necessary. The phone seemed quite dry this morning and when reassembled and recharged, it seems to be working fine. If it fails, I do have the fall back phone.
Our return trip was over and through many mountain passes and lots of snow covered roads, but uneventful. As we approached our home area, we see that the roads have all been pretreated in anticipation of tomorrow’s snow event here at home. We are really hoping this one doesn’t leave us in the dark and cold again like last week’s storm did, especially since there is again a huge basket of laundry and ski clothes to be washed, dried and repacked for the next ski-cation later this winter.
It is strangely quiet in the house tonight as we arrived home too late to go get the pups from doggie camp, so we have no critters to bug us for attention and trips outdoors.
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Crazy People
We had signed up for a 3 day ski trip with our local ski club as a warm up for a Colorado trip a bit later in the winter. Our power had come back on, laundry had been done at the laundromat and we figured since it was paid for, we should go ahead and enjoy it. The trip was to one of West Virginia’s ski resorts. The club had rented a 5 story house that sleeps an army and we arrived with a couple dozen others just as the bottom fell out of the thermometer. We awoke today to negative 3 temperature and a wind chill taking it into the double digit negatives. No one rushed to get out, though the temps are low and they are making snow as fast as they can, they have had periods of cold then warm and have had a hard time accumulating a base, so very few runs are open and -3 is cold. The high today was 8 degrees. No exposed skin is safe and my goggles arrived unusable. Another skier loaned me another pair, but they weren’t designed to fit over glasses and fogged both my glasses and the goggles as soon as I put them on. After 2 runs this late morning, we quit, went into town away from the slopes for lunch and to a ski shop to find me new goggles designed for glasses. Back out to the slopes for a couple more frigid runs and we quit for the day. The hot tub is on a back deck and felt wonderful while you were in it, but getting too and from was hypothermic. The house also has an indoor pool, but we haven’t ventured into it.
Tomorrow is supposed to make it to the mid teens, so maybe a few more minutes can be tolerated outdoors.
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The Event
It is Saturday morning, a bright sparkling 19 degrees outside as I write this, a chilly 52 degrees indoors.For those of you who are just joining this blog, here is a brief background. In December 2004, we bought a 30 acre farm in Southwest Virginia to build a log home for retirement. In December 2005, the construction of the home commenced after getting all of the requisite permits, having a perk test to make sure we could have a septic system and digging a nearly 800 foot well to insure we would have water that wasn’t coming from a spring that opens into a creek above ground for a quarter of a mile before crossing our property. There are no springs on our property. We found a contractor, who we refuse to name and will not recommend, to do the log erection and the rough carpentry. He proved to be slow and of a very poor quality. Our son, his partner and whatever crew he could pull together, including me, did all the interior of the house, the deck and all of the stone masonry work. The original plan did not include a basement nor a garage, however, when we purchased our logs, the company was offering a “free” garage (the logs, window and side door), slab, roof, garage doors and drywall ceiling were not included. The contractor convinced us that digging a poured basement would be a minimal extra cost and would allow a place for the air handler, water heater, and pressure tank, so we agreed. I wanted a cistern to catch roof water for gardening and eventual animal watering. It took the contractor more than a year to do his part; we did begin some of the interior work during this period, but had to stay out of his way. Our son took over and it took another 9 months to get the structure to a point that we could get a temporary occupancy permit, which gave us a place to live while it was being finished. The June after we broke ground, I got a job in the neighboring county and left my husband and youngest son in Virginia Beach so hubby could wind down his law practice, I moved into an apartment in Blacksburg and our eldest son and his family were in an apartment in the town of our address until the house was approved for that permit.At the time of construction, we discussed installing a whole house generator, since we live rurally but as the contractor was finding so many additions and additional costs, we decided against it. We had a small generator that was being used during construction before the electricity was run to the house. This is a decision that we haven’t regretted until 2 days ago. We have never lost power here for more than a few hours except during last summer’s Derocho storm when it was out for about 42 hours. And the small generator hasn’t been started in years, so it likely won’t start now.The last time we had a real snow was January 2010 and we wanted snow this winter and snow it did on Thursday, 10 inches of wet snow in a matter of about 8 hours. Four hours into this storm, we lost power, around 5 p.m. Thursday afternoon. Thursday night it stayed about 30 degrees out and yesterday dawned sunny. We have a great fireplace in the living room, so we built a fire and kept it going until bedtime. Rebuilt it yesterday morning and kept the house at about 58 degrees all day, wondering when the power might be restored. Now living rurally means that when we have no power, we not only don’t have lights and heat, but we don’t have water. No electricity, no well pump. The cistern that the contractor built was a good idea, but he had no clue and we couldn’t get water from it. Two summers ago, our son, our daughter by love, hubby and I dug out the cistern tanks, refitted all the plumbing to it, added a gravity fed yard hydrant that is several hundred feet south of the house, down the hill.Last winter, we found a different contractor to finish our basement into a 4thbedroom, recreation room and utility area. Prior to this, our son finished the fireplace facing down into the basement and he and I laid a tile floor in front of it. This was for a wood stove to be installed with the idea of trying to help heat the house with it. As all of the stone used on our house came from our land, it had to dry for a year before we could start a fire down there. The first fire was set on Christmas eve and the basement filled with smoke. The chimney has 3 flues, one for the main fireplace, one for the woodstove and one to just balance the look. It appears that our incompetent contractor, capped the wrong flue and the woodstove is unusable until we can get someone to go up and break out the cap, so we are relying only on the Rumford fireplace in the living room for heat right now.Yesterday, I hauled a sled down to the yard hydrant and brought 5 gallons of water back up the hill for necessary flushing and dog watering. We pulled down the 2 burner propane camp stove and I can make tea and coffee, and washed the dishes from Thursday night. The refrigerator perishables are packed in snow in a cooler on the shaded north porch. The produce we grew and froze and the grassfed beef and pork we have purchased from the farmer’s market is probably thawing in the chest freezer in the basement.To add insult to the situation, the news, which we are getting from our smartphones, that do work if we charge them in the car, is that the power company predicts it will be Tuesday night before power is restored to the more than 6000 homes in our county that do not have power. The county only has 15000 residents, so that is a good portion of the homes here. We might get lucky, but I’m not holding my breath on that. -
Comfort Day
It is a dark, dreary morning, the rain continuing to fall, the creeks full to capacity and over. The day dawned about the same temperature it was when I went to bed, in the low 40’s, but the weatherman says it is going to change, soon, in the next couple of hours. The temperature is going to fall to freezing, the rain to snow and up to a foot to accumulate before tomorrow morning. We have not had any real snow this year so far. I love snow, to walk in the quiet, looking for tracks, seeing it pile gently on the branches. I’m looking forward to this, a pot of stew will simmer all day on the back of the stove for dinner tonight and likely for lunch tomorrow, for if we really get a foot, we won’t get out, even in the 4 wheel drive Xterra.
While I await this winter beauty, I will sit and read, and knit. I finally finished the black lace sweater my daughter requested. It is being sewn together a bit at a time. The plan is to mail it to her this weekend. As I was preparing to ride the bus to Northern Virginia last week, I decided to take the recycled yarn from my favorite shawl that the shepherd destroyed and design a cowl. I cast on 399 stitches and have been working my way through about an inch of linen stitch, trying to decide what lace or interesting stitch pattern to use for the center couple of inches when I get there.
Once it is decided and finished, I’ll share the pattern if I like it. Last night at our knit night group, one of my friends brought to me a scarf she had woven from my first decent handspun. The scarf is beautiful and is now calling for a hat to go with it. She used so little of the yarn that there is plenty for the hat and a small cowl of simple stockinette that I started for a friend. This friend does not know she is getting the cowl, unless she stumbles on this blog. She is the type of friend who you may not hear from for a while, then out of the blue, she is there and it is like we visit daily. The type of friend who on a whim sends a wee gift because it reminded her of me. She commented when I posted a photo of the yarn that “it was just her color.” I think she will be pleased.
Also on my needles is the start of a raglan cardi for me, from a lovely sport weight Corriedale wool from Bovidae Farm in Mars Hill, NC. I purchased the winterberry color when my friend and I went to SAFF in the fall and at the same time, purchased 5 lovely Raku buttons that matched the yarn. This will be a slow knit, but knitting like reading is for the pleasure, not the product.
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The Gamut
The climate indeed seems to be shifting. But is it? The weekend brought 70 degree temperatures and sunshine. Driving the mountain roads, you can see evidence on some of the trees that change is occurring. Change that is generally not seen until March.
The past 3 days have brought intense rain and cooler, mid 40′ s range weather. There are flood watches along the rivers and the mountain creeks are full. Our grading project of two summers ago, seems to have done its job and the rain is not cascading down our driveway toward our garage, the driveway seems sound and the runoff is, as it is supposed to, going around the house. We live about 100 feet lower than the dirt and gravel road, down a dirt and gravel driveway that is a couple hundred yards long and the property continues dropping several hundred more feet before a slight rise on the south end. This makes for good sledding on the winters we have snow, but not for the past couple. The winters have reminded me of my lifetime in Virginia Beach, cold, gray and rainy.
The forecast for tomorrow has changed from cold and sunny to a winter storm watch with 3 to 5″ of snow expected. This will stunt the fruit trees that are beginning to swell, the willows that have started to look like early spring will likely be ok, but it appears that winter has arrived. For this we are somewhat grateful, as we have a ski trip to West Virginia planned soon and they have not had much snow or cold weather since our freak pre Halloween snow either.
But as we wonder if this is indeed climate change, a friend posted a picture taken at Fancy Gap, about an hour southwest of here, just as you cross from Virginia into North Carolina. This picture was taken in May of 1960.
Perhaps this is just cyclical mountain weather.
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Winter?
Where has it gone? The past two days have been 70, shirtsleeve weather and we have reveled in it. The pups found the creek again yesterday and as the day was so warm, they didn’t want to leave it, Shadow sitting in the cold rushing water.
Once removed, rinsed and dried, they have been treated to two walks on the Huckleberry Trail in Blacksburg, meeting other pups, their owners, and kids, all out enjoying this midwinter tease.
A tease it is too, with clouds, rain, and seasonal temperatures expected for the next several days and then seasonal temperatures for the remainder of the week. As we are coming up on a short local ski trip with the ski club, we are hoping for colder weather to allow for snowmaking and to improve the quality of the snow.
It is looking like we may again have a winter with no real snowfall here, we were hoping to introduce the pups to the fluffy white stuff. Perhaps it will happen, maybe not this year.
Cabin Crafted 