Cabin Crafted

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  • That time of year

    Every year around Thanksgiving, children draw, color, and make turkey’s, always puffed up with their tail feathers fanned. Every year I chuckle as that is a behavior only of Tom’s and only during spring mating season.

    The season has begun, the hayfield fills several times a day with a dozen birds. Most of the year, they look like feathered armadillos with head and tail down, back humped up as they slowly march across the field looking for grub. Then the mating clock chimes and flocks of Toms gather posing for each other with their chest puffed out and their tail fanned, later doing their strutting little dance trying to attract one of the Hens. It is a fascinating process to observe.

    I didn’t see my first wild turkey until 35 or 40 years ago, and they were difficult to spot in the woods of the mountains when we hiked. The most we have ever seen at one time here is about 18-20 and they aren’t very fearful of people or cars. They are such muted looking birds until you can get close and see the irridescence in their feather.

    It is amusing, the misinformation our kids learn. Probably most of their teacher’s don’t know that the classic Thanksgiving turkey pose is actually a spring mating dance.

  • It is coming

    Spring really seems to be trying to win the battle with winter with a series of mild days and nights not reaching down to freezing. The mini ground greenhouse was checked in daylight and opened so as not to overheat in yesterday’s bright sun and mild temperatures and not everything had failed as feared. It was watered and given the afternoon sun as the open sides face west. The spinach that overwintered is okay, the Komatsuma looked a little weary but will probably perk back up, most of the lettuces took a hit. One looks okay, one may recover, the others are toast but the sprouts indoors are thriving and will be planted out in a couple of weeks.

    The tiny daffodils in the garden were mostly picked prior to the freeze and are producing new buds, the full sized daffodils had yet to bloom prior to the freeze and are just now showing buds. The Daylily and Iris greens that had emerged seem to have fared okay and fortunately, the Forsythia, Lilacs, and fruit trees had not yet bloomed here on the mountain like they have in town. You can see cherry trees, forsythia, and spring flowers all over town and some of them took a hit.

    With the stress of the world news, more spinning and knitting is being done to calm my mind. Two designs are being done for hats for the Museum gift store, one easy to design, the other should be, but the paper plan so far is not satisfying me. The spinning took a turn as the new spindle that hubby gave me for our anniversary had a shaft failure. The 2022 version of this spindle has a slimmer, longer shaft and the very thin neck that provides a place for the half hitch broke off. A new shaft has been ordered, but it required a spindle change until the new one comes.

    Additionally, as the stress is causing sleep disruption, some social media has been logged out of for days and is not missed. Perhaps it will leave forever. One was kept only to keep up with kids and events from a couple of groups, but the kids send pictures via text or Instagram or Google share and the groups email as well as posting on social media. The walks have been more vigorous as stress relief and to calm the mind.

    We have rainy days for the next several, but it looks like walks can be scheduled around the rain. The spinning group challenges are still being met as they do not incur stress, but rather alleviate it. This month there is a word of the day and it is to be represented in a picture, with or without discussion including the current spindle spin. The word a few days ago was Achievement and this is the representation.

    Taken at the beginning of our daily walk in front of the map of the Huckleberry trail. We have missed fewer that a small handful of days all winter, regardless of the cold, walking avoiding icy trails, walking in snow flurries and a few rain sprinkles. Not all have been pleasant, not all at the pace we like to keep, but persistence, thus Achievement. Today’s word is Peace, much needed right now, and this is my peace.

    Our beautiful retirement farm and the garden and animal chores it brings. We all need Peace right now.

  • Oh, how fickle

    Spring in the mountains is a fickle affair. Spring time one day, winter the next, then back to spring.

    This was preceded by a 63f day, the snowy day, it fell to 14f, climbed to upper 40’s and windy yesterday and back into the 60’s today.

    I checked the greenhouse tonight, I fear the greens didn’t survive 14f. It was too dark to see for sure, but it looked like most were burned off. The tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, spinach, and Komatsuma have sprouted indoors, but nothing has been sown under the greenhouse yet, just the transplants that were overwintered or planted out there a few weeks ago.

    To confuse the schedule, as pasta was on the menu a couple nights ago, one of the bags of tomatoes was brought up and cooked down, run through the mill, and 4 pints of tomato sauce canned.

    Not the usual time of year for canning, but the 8 gallons of tomatoes in the freezer need to be made stable. Tonight, a second 2 gallon bag was brought up and a few handfuls were thawed enough to skin, chop, and add to a pot of chili that was being prepared. The next rainy day, the remaining gallons will be cooked down and canned. Not as many tomatoes are being planted this year, but enough to add more to the shelves.

    The spring flowers on our walk were recovering today, but the pussy willow that had begun to bloom are all burned and browned. Some of the catkins hadn’t opened yet, so hopefully they will open in the next couple of weeks.

    The switch to daylight savings time means nothing to the chicken flock, but throws our senior bodies into disarray, bodies that disagree with the clock as they adjust.

    In the midst of the storm on Saturday, our internet quit. Our router was 9 years old and after a cell phone chatline with tech support and a phone call from the local technician in our little rural coop phone service, we have DSL, we drove down and picked up a new router/modem programmed for us. It still didn’t work and no technicians are available on Sunday. They came out this morning and really couldn’t figure out why, but changed the filter on the line coming in the house and managed to get us back on. A couple hours later, it failed again and Son1 spent an hour on the phone with me troubleshooting. Thanks to him, we are back on again.

  • New Adventures

    We walk for fitness and health daily, both too old to jog or run, and most days it is on one of two section of the Huckleberry Rails to Trails path that are fairly level. This path follows the old Huckleberry rail from the Library in Blacksburg to the Rec Center in Christiansburg, about 7 miles. A couple of years ago, it was extended from where it passes under the main highway bypass in the opposite direction from Christiansburg into and through the Heritage Community Park and Nature Area. We have wandered around in that park many times prior to the extension of the Huckleberry and have walked from a parking area in the park back toward Blacksburg a several times, but have never gone to the other parking area in the park, a mile farther away.

    Today is cool and partly cloudy again, but calm wind and for variety, we drove down to the lower parking lot and started our walk at that terminus of the Huckleberry Trail, a very isolated area, but very pretty. The walk we did from the terminus to the road the trail crosses is a little over a mile, almost entirely uphill. Once we reached the road, we turned around and walked it back down to the car.

    The first couple hundred yards are downhill to a creek and after crossing the bridge over the creek, there were at least a dozen small trees all gnawed down by beaver. We did not see any animals, just the remaining trunks mostly devoid of branches and couldn’t see where their dam was built, though there was evidence just beyond this of overwash of the trail from the rain night before last, so it must be just a bit upstream from the bridge.

    It is a pretty section, probably will be prettier when the trees and shrubs leaf out. You can see the old silos from the Heritage Park section we used to walk. And this pretty glade of pines with a thick layer of needles below.

    Though there are many benches to rest on and several picnic shelters near the two parking areas, this glade would be a great place to bring a picnic on a warm sunny day.

    It took us several years to explore this end of the trail, but I’m glad we did as it gives us two other sections to walk.

    When the weather warms up consistently, we will add back in the hike up in the Conservancy that we also love.

  • Ewww, what’s that smell

    A shepherd friend of mine has posted periodically the making of suet cakes for the wild birds. Because everything in the pet area of Tractor Supply and the local pet supply store have either gone through the roof in price or are not available, I ask her for her recipe. Of course it requires suet as a base, so I asked the beef guy at the Farmer’s Market if he had beef fat and he did, a 2 pound package, vacuum sealed. Not having ever rendered fat before, I googled it. It can be done on the stove, in the oven, or in the microwave. I chose the microwave. It only takes 3 to 4 minutes to melt down 2 cups worth in the microwave and two pounds was 5 rounds of cut up chunks, but oh, does it ever smell bad. Once melted, you strain off the liquid fat, discard the solid chunks, which the chickens ate like it was candy.

    Once it is all melted and slightly cooled, you add peanut butter, cornmeal, oatmeal, and birdseed thoroughly stirred together. I don’t have but one metal baking pan with sides, so I have been saving the plastic squares that the commercial suet cakes come in for this project. There weren’t enough, but there was one foil cake square in the pantry.

    Tomorrow after they are cooled and solid, I will cut the cake pan into 4 pieces and they will be wrapped and stacked in the refrigerator or freezer until they are needed for the wild birds that live here year round or migrate through spring and autumn.

    I’m still trying to get rid of the odor though, the beeswax warmer is on, a beeswax candle is burning, the floor washed with a floor cleaner that actually smells better than the fat, though I normally don’t like it either. It may be time to simmer a pot of cinnamon, clove, and star anise.

    I wonder how many times I can reuse the plastic forms? And next time it will be melted on the stove, the camp stove, outdoors.

  • Founder’s Day

    I didn’t get any garden or coop work done today because I forgot it was Founder’s Day at the museum until 90 minutes before I was to be there. We did get some more bee traps and tomato cages and hustled home for me to change. The Hance’s were Swiss and the theme is Swiss and I wasn’t sure how to dress for the event, so I wore my shift and petticoat, but left the gown at home and used the linen apron with the pinned up bib top. I was going to wear the shallow crowned flat straw hat, but I can’t keep it on in the wind.

    It was a glorious 2 hours sitting outdoors, using the 18th century quill wheel I donated to the museum, a walnut top whorl spindle, and my box loom, though the loom was a challenge without a table. I had a basket of hats, mittens, and cowls, and another of yarn, not as an aggressive vending event, but to show what can be done with the wool and available for purchase if asked.

    The half hap shawl went along as a demonstration of how 9 breeds of wool could be used and by the time the sun dropped below the buildings around 4 p.m., it ended up around my shoulders.

    No rain, warm temperature, quite a breeze that billowed my skirt and apron as I spun, but a truly nice event. Music, swiss folk dance, story time, events for the kids, and refreshments of cheese, chocolate, and beverages available. Not a huge crowd, but visiting with folks I only see there, providing some history, and making plans with the director for the next event.

    Tomorrow it rains, then cools off again for a week, but not so cold I won’t be able to finish the tasks that were planned for today before I remembered I was to be somewhere else.

  • Avoidance

    Another beautiful day kept me busy outdoors and away from the anxiety producing news. Saturday’s are Farmer’s Market day and breakfast out. The market was a zoo. Some protein and storage veggies, plus a loaf of rye bread with cherries, walnuts, and raisins for breakfast toast to go with an egg. Egg delivery, a small grocery run, and Tractor Supply for chicken scratch and dog kibble all made and home by 1 p.m.

    Once everything was put away, a ladder was pulled out and the carpenter bee traps were hung. It is early, but with a few days of warm weather, some will emerge. We need at least 3 or 4 more. And tomato cages are needed to stake up the raspberries and blackberries that are in the half barrels. Tractor Supply had neither, so we will venture out again soon to one of the big box hardware stores to see if the can be obtained there.

    The hydroponic and a starter pellet flat were seeded yesterday with tomatoes and peppers in the hydroponic garden, and spinach, Komatsuma, and two lettuces in the flat. The lettuces from the hydroponic garden were trimmed back for a salad and they were planted in the new mini greenhouse. Once the new seed sprouts and get enough size, they will join the spinach, Komatsuma, and lettuces in the greenhouse. We do have a couple of bitter cold nights next weekend, but by then the transplants from the hydroponic unit should have settled in and with the greenhouse closed, should be fine.

    All of the beds and most of the paths in the garden have been weeded. There are still some stakes from last year’s failed tomato trellis to be pulled, but all of the string is removed. The cornstalks and pepper bushes need to be chopped up in the compost and that entire pile turned.

    Tomorrow is another nice day and because the top of the chicken run collapsed in one of the heavy snows last winter, I am going to reconfigure the pen and try to put another top up for the period when the hawks are actively trying to feed their chicks and free ranging the hens becomes hazardous to their health and they need to be closed in except when I am out in the yard or garden with them.

  • Anxiety

    The past few years have fed an underlying anxiety. Being an introvert, I have always had a level of anxiety that invades my being. There are many factors that play into it’s underlying cause from surviving a sexual assault while in high school, the Cuban Missile crisis at an age when anxiety runs high anyway as you realize you are facing making your own choices, leaving home for college or job, new relationships and still wanting to be protected by the adults in your life. There have been health scares for kids, grandkids, hubby, and me.

    Then on the political front, watching this country take giant steps backwards from the advancements toward racial and sexual equality to the “Make American ‘White’ Again” movement. Our state going from progress to exclusion again.

    And there is the pandemic. Living in an area where the majority didn’t and still don’t take it seriously, or even believe it is real. Mask mandates lifted as the CDC says they are still needed indoors in some areas, ours being one of them, but seeing them now, they are few and far between. Only those of use with underlying health condition, age, or having an immune compromised family member or members wearing them at all.

    To add to all of this, a total madman has invaded an innocent Democracy, targeting civilians, firing missiles at apartment building, hospitals, and infrastructure and lying to his people about what he is doing and why. The constant flow of devastating news and the fear of nuclear war rising, adds to this level of anxiety.

    Last night, my system couldn’t deal anymore and I escaped to a hot bath and a book in bed, hoping to get a good night’s sleep.

    The nice weather is allowing daily walks, some work in the garden during the day, all efforts to avoid what I cannot change.

  • Ready for spring

    A notice that the hydroponic pods will be received tomorrow, sent me on a flurry of activity yesterday and this morning. The Komatsu was pulled from the hydroponic unit and planted in the garden beside the overwintered spinach and covered last night with a plastic bin. This morning the lettuces were removed and potted with hopes of moving it also to the garden after tonight’s temperature drop into the 20s. The unit was scrubbed out thoroughly, refilled with fresh filtered water and fed. Once the pods arrive tomorrow, they will be seeded with two types of tomatoes and two types of hot peppers to get them started.

    The local nursery opened yesterday and a stop made to pick up seed starting pellets for the starter trays for other veggies and seed starting medium for the transplant pots as the tomatoes and peppers outgrow the hydroponic unit and before they can go in the garden.

    While we were out for our walk today, the wind picked up strongly as the front started moving through, dropping the temperature and clouding the sky. The plastic crate that was my mini greenhouse wasn’t large enough and a stop was made to pick up a larger one or a sheet of plastic to put over the hoops, hoping to get more spinach, Komatsu, and some lettuce and radish seed started in the garden. My search led me to this 3 X 6′ mini greenhouse.

    Putting the frame together was easy, it took both of us to get the cover on it in the wind. It was tied to the frame and rocks placed along the inside edge of the cover that folds to the interior. It is still very light and I feared the wind would carry the entire unit away and damage it. To solve that problem, 6 nails were hammered in to the garden box and para cord strung over in three places, hoping to tie it down. If I leave it in this box for the spring to allow greens to grow, the garden plan will have to be altered, but that is okay too. There are two boxes that it will mostly fill, but as some of the greens are already there, it is a good place to leave it. The other box will have peas in it and they will be gone by the time to start the fall greens. I think the greenhouse cover can be removed and the frame covered with row cover to allow cole crops to be grown without cabbage worm damage. With the cover in place, the season can be extended both fall and spring to get more use from our garden.

    I’m ready, knowing it is too early to get too deep in the garden yet, winter isn’t over, spring is still teasing us. It will be cold tonight, cooler than today, tomorrow, then warming up for a few days. Next week we will have cooler weather again. The local weather blogger recently posted that March is the only month in the 100 years that weather has been tracked that we have had both a 90 f day and a foot of snow. March is fickle.

  • Just Us Again

    Our weekend with the kids ended a few hours earlier than originally predicted. Their Mom and companion quit skiing at lunch time yesterday and headed home arriving about the same time as Granddaughter’s bus, so I left them with the dinner I had planned and came home to prepare dinner for hubby and myself. It was great having the kids this weekend, they got off to school yesterday with little intervention on my part. Hubby met me in town for lunch and a walk and we parted company again so I could meet the buses and be ready to prepare dinner. A lot of reading got done, not much spinning and no knitting, though all were taken with me.

    We have been very good about walking this winter. We feared that when it got cold, we would wimp out, but we haven’t and have encouraged each other on days when one or the other felt indifferent to the idea. It helps that there is a community walking group that self reports the week’s progress to “our leader” who sends out weekly updates with pictures, or information on other Newport’s around the world if we have accumulated enough miles as a group to have “walked” there. At times, I have been a poor reporter, even when we were doing the walks, but am keeping a log now so that I report as soon as his weekly post from prior comes out. His posts are about two weeks behind the current week to give everyone time to get their mileage turned in.

    When we walked today, there are Snow Drops blooming, the Forsythia in town is already in bloom, the crocuses and daffodil greens are up. There are ahead of us as far as development of spring time, but today was near 60 f when we walked and there are no “cold” days in the 10 day forecast. Winter isn’t over, there will be frosts still, we have even has snow in March and flurries in early April, but buds are forming, you can see the change in color from flat winter gray to reds, pinks, and greens as the trees in the woods begin to develop their flowers and new leaves. The heat will run less, the grass will green up and mowing will have to begin again, but winter will be in the rear view mirror soon.

    Within the next couple of days, the tomato and pepper seeds will be sown in starter pods, maybe a bit later as an order for the pods for the larger hydroponic garden has been placed. I was out of them. It will continue to provide us with lettuce and komatsu until they arrive. Last year’s success starting the plants in the hydroponic has encouraged me to do it again that way this year. Most everything else will be direct sown and those plants that I would like to give a headstart other than tomatoes and peppers will go in starter pots in a tray in the sun.