Cabin Crafted

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  • Spring? or …

    On our walks, the daffodils, crocus, pussy willow, and a low purple daisy like flower I can’t ID are blooming. The forsythia, even in our hollow is beginning to bloom and yesterday, the white blooms of our plum began opening. This is good for the early bees, though I have no active hives at the moment, but it will be terrible for fruit production if we have a freeze which is inevitable this early in the season.

    The longer days are upping the egg supply. At least 9 of the 11 hens are laying as I got 7 on Saturday and 9 yesterday. There will be fewer today and tomorrow, but last week there were more than 3.5 dozen which delights daughter and a friend who benefit from overabundance. Three or four hens would likely produce way more eggs than I would use in a week, but there is safety in numbers and as long as there are folks that want the extra, I will keep the larger flock.

    And the variety of color is a treat in a bowl or basket on the counter top.

    The coop needs exterior maintenance come consistent warmer, drier weather. The hens have pecked a small hole in the siding that is not large enough for most predators, but large enough for a snake or mouse. It needs to be filled with wood putty or a framing strip nailed over it. The exterior needs to be stained again, a job I abhor as it requires a lot of over my head reaching which my shoulders object to strongly. Maybe a sprayer would solve that problem or a long handled roller instead of trying to brush it on like I did summer before last.

    The spinning challenge for February was to “Dare” yourself to a challenge of your choice. Some chose to try to spin a different weight or style of yarn than they usually do, some to just commit to a daily amount of time if they had not been spinning as much. I want to knit a real Shetland Hap, the traditional shawl of the Shetland Islands, usually square with a simple center and a lace edge. But I also want to spindle spin all of the Shetland wool necessary for it. My challenge was to spin enough yarn for the center square. About 10 days into the challenge, I changed the pattern which made deciding how much yarn was needed a difficult calculation. The original pattern had a solid color center square and concentric bands of lace of different colors around it. The new pattern is a solid color, but knit from the center out with eyelet lace bands that then create the concentric bands for the outer bands. My math skills were never great and disuse of more than basic calculations make it even more difficult to figure it out. I ended up spinning about 43% of the yarn needed for the entire shawl, and since I am not knitting it in a single natural color, using two other naturals for the outer bands, concluded that my goal was met. I succeeded in spinning and plying 409.5 yards of fine Shetland for the month. I had purchased 200 grams of the Moorit color for the shawl and used just about 100 grams to spin the skein.

    Last night, I began the knitting, which wasn’t part of my challenge and will continue to spin more of the Shetland Moorit, White, and dark Brown. At this point, I am unsure how many bands will be the other colors, and if the Moorit is enough to do all but the Birch Lace outer most band, it may be done in the dark brown and the white saved for another day and another project.

    Since ending the cottage business, any spinning being done is being done with a specific project in mind for me, for the household, or as a gift for a family member or friend. And with that in mind, only spindles are being used for spinning. With 6 Turkish spindles in 3 sizes, there is always one available and they are so portable with a few grams of wool roving or combed top to carry in my bag in a small tin or zip case to have when there is time away from home to spin or to pull out when sitting in my chair at home.

    Life goes on one day at a time, seasons change, though this year not in a normal average pattern. Perhaps hoarding some of last year’s apple sauce, apple pear sauce, peach Sriracha sauce, and pear marmalade might be in order. There may be no fruit this year except figs and grapes (I hope).

  • Sometimes we err!

    Being one who avoids single use plastics and recycles everything the single stream recycler allows, I purchase the necessary paper products at the local natural foods store, packaged in a paper wrapper that along with the cardboard core can both be recycled. Purchasing 6 at a time fills my reuseable bag even without other purchases, so it occurred to me that perhaps purchasing a case was a good idea. Questions were asked at the check out about this option and how many rolls were in the case. The young worker/owner that was assisting me said he thought it was 24, maybe 48, so a request for a case was made. A few days ago, the call came that the case was in and to ask at the front when I arrived and it would be grabbed from the back storage area for me. Much to my surprise and chagrin, a huge box was hauled from the back, too large for me to comfortably carry, and containing, not 24, not 48, but 96 rolls, a lifetime supply. Having made it a special order, it didn’t seem right to refuse the order, so with help, the carton was loaded into the back of the car, wrestled out at home and slid across the floor to sit until a decision could be made on how to store it without potential water or rodent damage. The downstairs bath has a built in storage space with shelves, but they all contained other items such as spare linens. One shelf was cleared and this…

    Less than half the carton. One of the guest bedrooms also has built in shelving on one end that contained much of my cottage business signage, baskets, and other accoutrements before the business was closed last December, so another shelf in there was filled.

    I am not hoarding like was happening during the early days of Covid when such supplies were limited and you were lucky to be able to even find it, but maybe someday, it will become a good barter item, or certainly keep us supplied into eternity.

  • 45 and Counting

    Forty five years ago we became Mr. and Mrs. A special day on a significant day. It has been a great run and I hope for more to come.

    When our children were young, my parents or a babysitter would stay with the kids and we would go out to a nice dinner at a restaurant we could barely afford, and one year left an 18 year old babysitter over night and stayed in a hotel on the beach in a snow storm. With the kids grown and gone, most years we have gone to one of 3 nicer restaurants in our nearby town, often in a snow storm. Five years ago, we took a cruise and spent our Anniversary swimming with dolphins and rays, riding horses on the beach in Honduras, and enjoying warm weather in the winter.

    With Covid and continued healing from the fall medical issues, we have not been able to travel and this year even have to postpone our dinner out until much later in the week.

    For three out of the past several anniversaries, my love has managed to get me a spindle from my favorite spindle craftsman, Ed Jenkins with the help of his wife Wanda. This year’s spindle is extra special as it has our anniversary date and a heart on the date arm.

    This is a lovely gift from my dear, that indulges my hobby and contributes to it, helping my well being. I love him dearly and hope for many more.

  • Just In Time

    This is a part of Virginia that gets at least a couple of several inch snows each winter, once in a while, a foot or foot and a half that prevents us from leaving for a few days as the State 700 roads are the last to be cleared, plus we live downhill about 2/10 of a mile on a dirt and gravel driveway. This winter has been an anomaly. There have been flurries and barely dusting bare surfaces, an inch or two that lasted a mere 6 hours before there wasn’t a trace left. If all the rain we have gotten since September was snow, we would never get out. Each time the forecast says snow possible, weather patterns shift just enough for it to be wintery mix or rain. There is another weather event predicted that could/might unload 2 up to 4 inches late Sunday, but chances are it will just be another cold rain.

    As I was walking back from releasing the hens into the yard, you can see a few inches of Daylily leaves emerging and the daffodils in the back garden have buds. The snow won’t bother the daffodils, the Daylilies won’t be too happy, but will be okay. The Snowdrops on one of our walks are blooming. They will be fine, they often bloom in the snow when it happens.

    In the fall, during hubby’s early months dealing with the health issues, an online friend offered to proxy shop for a spindle for me from the craftsman who makes the best Turkish style spindles available, Ed Jenkins, Jenkins Yarn Tools. They are in Oregon and only do events within a couple hours from home. Linda bought me a lovely Crabapple Finch, a smaller size that I love and wrapped it in some gorgeous black Merino/Alpaca/Silk blend roving, a very generous amount. About a month or so later, she was going to attend another event where Ed and Wanda were set up and offered again, this time getting me a Lilac Finch, and packed it in the same blend in a camel brown color. Those fibers were spun on the spindles they came with and a shawl/scarf was started for me. Last night, I cast off “Linda’s Hug,” soaked it, blocked it, and because it is so delicate, the yarn spun to 20 wraps per inch or lace weight yarn, it dried over night.

    The two yarns were used together and in spite of the light weight (50.94 g or 1.8 ounces) of the shawl, it is very warm with the Alpaca and Silk, just in time for a possible winter blast.

    I am ever grateful to the friends I have met through my Jenkins group and also my two local friends who I taught to spindle spin and hooked on the Jenkins spindles. They have been very generous in their time and support first through the Covid lockdowns and then through the early days of hubby’s issues. Each time I wear this shawl, I am reminded of love and concern.

  • Spoiled Pups

    For several years, I have subscribed to a blog, The Kitchen’s Garden written by a New Zealander living on a farm in the midwest. She is definitely a soulmate in philosophy, avoiding waste, reusing, recycling, growing organically, re-establishing trees and converting fields to organic practice growing. Though her farm has many more and varied animals than ours, she does raise chickens and has two older dogs.

    For a while, I have been bothered by both the cost and quality of commercial dog food, but had not taken the time to research a homemade healthier alternative. I have often made feed for the hens in lieu of the commercial layer pellets, though a good organic layer pellet and a multi grain scratch are usually less expensive than making it as the grains that are needed to get organic come from the local natural foods store. Recently, Cecilia posted her recipe for homemade dog food and the quantity she feeds her dogs. I purchased the ingredients that I didn’t have on hand and compared the cost to the commercial feed and it is about $1+/day cheaper to make it. Everything in the mix is human grade food, the “stew” though unsalted could easily be eaten by us. The mix contains meat, whole grain, pulses, fruit or sweet potatoes, pumpkin, vegetables. For her recipe, you can go to her blog. The recipe makes enough to feed both of our dogs for 6 or 7 days, 2 meals per day.

    The first time I made it in a large pot and had some scorching at the bottom of the pot. Today, the rice, lentils, oats, sweet potato, and pumpkin with the water were cooked first in the Instant Pot, the meat in the large pot on the stove, and then mixed together with the frozen peas and carrots before ladling it into reusable containers and wide mouth pint jars, some to freeze, some to go into the refrigerator for the next couple of days meals.

    This was prepared this morning before hubby got up.

    The dogs love it. It is healthier, less expensive, and hopefully both pups will shed a few pounds on it. A side benefit is that Shadow, the German Shepherd who seems to be constantly on some med or another will take the pills in the food without having to resort to trickery and it should help reduce the UTI’s that she experiences.

    As the meat can be of various sources and since there are too many frozen chickens in the basement freezer, a couple of them may be the protein source for a few batches before the next round are replaced with younger birds and more tough old hens added to the supply.

  • 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.

  • A Warm Winter?

    During Christmas week, we had a -9 f (-23 c) night and many, many nights in the teens and twenties with daytime temperatures in the upper 30’s and low 40’s since then. Many, many days with light sleet and snow flurries, but until last night, no accumulated snow. The local weather prognosticators say it has been a warm winter.

    This morning, we awoke to our first measurable snow. Not a lot, maybe two inches with it hanging heavy in the evergreens.

    And frozen fog.

    It was pretty while it lasted. Never covering the driveway or the roads. By the time we headed out to town for supplies and our walk, it was already melting and the grass beginning to show through. By the time we returned, about 6 hours after the above photos, this was the scene.

    The past two day’s walks have been quite chilly, glad to have a down coat, warm hat, and the heated ski gloves that hubby got me for Christmas. Whenever it gets cold, my right hand gets frigid. The circulation has never been good since I broke that wrist in my early 50’s and even worse after having a trapeziectomy on the same wrist due to arthritis in my mid 60’s. The heated gloves help. Tonight it going to get frigid and not even reach freezing for the high tomorrow.

    Once home, a thick layer of hay was put down in the muddy chicken pen and they were let out to scratch through it. They won’t leave the coop if there is snow on the ground. With the days beginning to lengthen and molt finally over, egg production is picking up a little. For a while there were none, then one or two every couple days, now 3 or 4 most days and with different colors and sizes, I can tell more are joining in each day.

    The Groundhog saw his shadow in Punxsutawney, he wouldn’t have seen it here, but regardless, there will be 6 more weeks of winter, at least according to the calendar.

  • Startled Awake

    At 3 a.m., we were startled awake by the smoke alarm blaring and screaming “FIRE, FIRE.” It stopped very quickly, like someone had pushed the test button, but no one was here but hubby and me and we were both soundly asleep. Needless to say, I bolted from bed, I didn’t see flames, didn’t smell smoke, but still went into every room, touched every outlet, checked the utility area of the finished basement, and the circuit breaker boxes, peered into the garage, even stepped out on the rear deck to look at the heat pump and to determine if I smelled smoke as many of the folks up here heat with wood, some indoors, some in the outdoor wood furnaces. There was no indication of fire, no smoke visible or by smell, so back into bed with the adrenalin pumping. The detector in our bedroom was flashing a red light every 10 seconds.

    After a few hours of restless tossing and turning, I finally dozed back off, the alarms silent, the red light flashing.

    A google search of the manual indicated the flashing light was a low battery indicator, but there was no accompanying chirp, so I guess it triggered the alarm. The alarms themselves are only about a year old. Son 1 when he was here one weekend replaced all the 16 year old alarms with new ones, but the batteries hadn’t been changed since then. Most of the alarms are easy for me to reach with or without a low stool, but the two in the loft and our bedroom are very high. The 8 foot ladder is a challenge for my senior body with achy shoulders, but changing those batteries was a necessity so hauling it upstairs had to be done. It requires negotiating it around the stair railing and not knocking the wall, avoiding ceiling fans and hanging light fixtures once it is upstairs to climb up.

    During the restless early morning hours of tossing and turning, wondering what we would do if there really was a fire and could my anxious brain remember everything for the insurance company. I know there are some very, very old photos from prior houses with some of the furniture in them stashed in the safe as an inventory, but this morning as soon as I was up and dressed, I created an album in my Google photos of pictures taken at various times of the rooms in this house and filling in with photos this morning of areas not found and uploaded them to the cloud. To accompany the photos, a Goggle Doc written inventory by room is in the works. These could be accessed by us on any computer at any time should we ever have to prove what was in the house.

    With the batteries changed, the light quit flashing. With the morning efforts underway, my mind is more settled. We do have fire extinguishers throughout the house, in easy reach, but hope never to have to use them.

    This is third time I have been startled awake by smoke alarms. The first was in my single days when my Dad and I bought a duplex that I lived in the upper half and we rented out the lower half. My tenants were less than stellar, playing loud music all night, and it turned out doing hard drugs down there, setting a chair on fire with a lit cigarette (before laws that prohibited smoking in rentals) after falling into a drug induced stupor and setting off the alarm. I had never heard one before, they were a new invention then. The second time woke us and our three children and it turned out to be a carbon monoxide alarm had failed. We ended up going to the all night pharmacy and buying a new one to make sure we didn’t actually have a carbon monoxide issue.

    Hopefully, this will not happen again, but I was one battery short of replacing all six so tomorrow one more will be acquired and that one is a bit more challenging to change, but not as bad as the upstairs two.

  • False Spring

    After typical winter for weeks with cold, damp, gray days and lots of wind, today is glorious. It is 50f (10c), clear, sunny, and calm. A couple of springs ago, a new metal raised bed was added to the garden with the idea of restarting the asparagus bed in a controlled area. Nothing came up from the crowns that were planted there and the bed was not in a good location. I moved it out of the way last year, moving the soil with it and put the third planting of beans in it that the bean beetles destroyed before they could produce. Where I moved it was also not a good location because it was hard up against the fence, an area with every noxious weed under the fence, and in a position that prevented getting the wheelbarrow to the compost pile. Last fall, Son 1 turned the compost pile for me and as I had moved a non productive bed box over my blueberries and heavily mulched them, he moved my raspberry and blackberry half barrels to where the old bed had been and it created the perfect spot for the raised bed.

    Today because it was too nice to stay indoors, I moved the metal box frame to it’s new and permanent location and since I wanted it full, not just a couple inches of soil, it became a Hugelkultur bed. The sunflower stalks and corn stalks from last year’s garden were cut and layered in the bottom on a cardboard base and a layer of wood chips fouled with chicken manure shoveled on top.

    On top of that, a layer of straw:

    On top of the straw was a wheelbarrow full of the compost from the turned pile.

    Then the soil that had been in the box was weeded and shoveled into the barrow and added on top and top dressed with another layer of compost to fill the box nicely and have it ready for early peas in another month or so.

    While out there, the bed that had the flying greenhouse in it was weeded, hoping that with this week’s potential snow that it will stay clear, and another 4 X 8 bed that had a layer of old chicken bedding piled in it was turned to help it break down. Finally, the compost pile was shoveled back into a pile, trying to turn it a bit more to add to the bed nearest it when the weather warms a bit and the kitchen scrap pile beside it was fenced off with temporary fencing and top and an opening from the chicken run created to allow them to eat the weeds and kitchen scraps and make more compost in that location.

    It didn’t take the hens long to discover the new territory.

    As I was coming back in the house, I saw a text from a west coast friend, asking if we could chat as there is no Zoom session today and ended up with a delightful half hour or so on the phone, sitting in the warm sun on the front porch and sharing stories. Such a delightful way to end an afternoon outdoors.

    Tomorrow the weather takes a turn back to cooler and rainy with wintery mix, possibly snow mid week. We will see, there hasn’t been any so far this winter.

  • Failure

    The local bee group is offering pollen cakes for sale this weekend. Before I made the effort to get there and possibly have a chance to get one or two, I decided to check on my last remaining hive. I hadn’t checked since before the Christmas week Arctic freeze, actually, when I installed the sugar board to feed them. It wasn’t very strong then, but I hoped that with 10 pounds of food, they would struggle through the winter and hopefully survive to thrive this spring. At first I just listened to try to detect a hum, no sound. I popped the outer lid and peeked under the inner lid to see if I saw or heard any activity or if they had eaten any of the sugar. No activity and no sound. Fearing the worst, I removed the sugar board and the bottom cover and only saw dead bees. So, my first year of bee keeping was a total failure.

    That hive will be dismantled and the frames put in the freezer for a few days then sealed in black plastic contractor bags. One or two nuks of bees will be ordered from one of the local beekeepers and I will try again this spring with only one or two hives, much more knowledge, and in medium boxes that I can handle. That is going to leave 8 deep boxes some with new frames, some built out frames that Son 2 purchased that he can take for his use, or sell as he wishes. I will keep the medium boxes and frames to try to get a couple of hives thriving.

    At least the two bears we saw on the farm this summer left them alone, so I guess our 12V charger is doing it’s job.