Cabin Crafted

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  • An Old Guy

    This fella turns 10 today. Now 10 doesn’t sound very old, but he is an English Mastiff.

    This past summer he reached the point where he could no longer manage the stairs and in the past couple of months it has gotten to where he needs help getting to his feet. We use a beach towel folded lengthwise to make a sling slipped under his belly to provide him some lift. It hurts our souls when he moves around after he is down as he pulls his back end around with his front legs. It doesn’t matter whether he is on the wood floor or the carpet, he just doesn’t have the strength in his hind quarters to get himself up. Each year, the pups get new beds for Christmas and we got this thick orthopaedic one for him this year. He will put his front half on it, but even if you get him to walk up on it and lie down, he will end up working his back legs off. You would think it would be so much more comfortable than the hard floor. He is still a very loveable old curmudgeon, demanding of attention if you sit down in the living room where he now lives.

    We laugh at some of his quirky ways. For his entire life, he and the German Shepherd have been fed in the utility room with the tile floor. As he grew, we raised his food and water on a feeder stand and this year, bought a taller one so he doesn’t have to bend down as far. The German Shepherd inherited the shorter one as she too is approaching 10 years old this spring, but is still fairly spry though with much less energy than she used to have. When Ranger goes in to eat, he has plenty of room to turn around to walk back out, but has always backed out of the room until he is in the much narrower doorway then turns around. Of course, we provide the “beep, beep” sound of a backing truck when he does it.

    When a Mastiff wants your attention, they will paw you. His paws are as large as my hands. As a young pup, we were told to do everything a child might do to him to aclimate him to pokes and prods. You can mess with his paws, ears, pull his tail, check his teeth, step over him and he patiently accepts it. He isn’t a fan of nail trims, but even that can generally be done without too much reaction. As a young dog, you would often find a grandchild laying on the floor with him with their head on his side. He travelled to Florida with us one year with his head in grandson’s lap most of the way. He considers the grands as his kids.

    The March we picked him up from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, hubby was instantly in love. I was a bit more cautious, especially when the owner of the parents called up to his welding shop and told them they could let the dogs come down the hill to us. I saw two freight trains with flapping jowls barrelling down the hill and wondered what on earth we had just done. We couldn’t have asked for a better dog.

    Happy Birthday, Ranger, old man.

  • The week before, the week between

    Son 1 arrived a few days before Christmas and we enjoyed his company until the morning of the 26th. We enjoyed Christmas eve dinner at daughter’s house along with the traditional reading of “The Night Before Christmas” by the family patriarch for the kids, including the two adult ones.

    Christmas morning was low key with Huevos Rancheros for breakfast and the exchange of gifts between the three of us. Daughter and her two kiddos arrived for a late lunch/early dinner with the fancy trimmings and gift exchange with them.

    Yesterday I went over to pick up the grands to take them to a friend’s house to see a couple new lambs and daughter was waiting to go too. She had already taken her decorations down as her tree was getting too dry and her cats were threatening her Santa collections. Since we purchased our tree the same day, even though it was in a deep basin that holds more than a gallon of water, I realized that our tree was no longer drinking up the water and it too was getting dry and droopy. I unplugged it for safety reasons, and though the rest of our decorations are still up, the tree has been taken down, moved to the woods, and the rug vacuumed of needles. The rocking chair that has to be relocated when the tree is up is back in the living room.

    Yesterday’s mail brought a letter that caused me to check my retirement online and found a very significant error that the retirement system had made. A phone call was made, a return call later, and another this morning, their error has been corrected, but my monthly deposit is way off and the balance won’t be received for a few more days later. That caused a bit of stress as we have several monthly expenses that come directly out of our account. It is resolved fortunately, but we wonder if other members of this retirement system had the same occur to them.

    The weather has been so warm that the pussy willows are blooming. I hope it doesn’t trigger the fruit trees. It will remain spring like with rain until next Monday.

    To use up the left over bits of yarn from my breed blanket, I started knitting bulky weight hats, holding several strands together on large needles. The first one went home with Son 1, the second one, I must have blinked when counting stitches and realized last night that it wouldn’t fit an infant, so this morning I ripped out the 5″ I had knit, wound a ball and restarted it.

    I love the marled look of holding 4 different strands together and the bulky weight makes the hat go quickly.

    Right before Christmas, I purchased myself a box/tape loom and it arrived on Christmas eve’s eve. Beginning with a very simple ribbon pattern I have been working to learn to keep my edges even.

    Several years ago, I purchased a kit to make one of the looms but it was made of plywood, laser cut, so it couldn’t be used at historical events. This one can. This first tape won’t be pretty, but hopefully will improve my skills so the next one will be more consistent. I deliberately used strongly contrasting colors so I can see where I need practice.

    The New Year will be celebrated here at home again. Maybe one year soon, it will be safe to return to Mountain Lake Lodge for their party with dinner, room, and breakfast.

    Hope you have a safe Happy New Year.

  • Another year is closing

    Today marked the last Farmer’s Market of the year, as the next two Saturday’s are holidays. It also means that some of the vendors are finished until spring and I will miss being able to do the bulk of our weekly groceries locally sourced, regeneratively and/or organically grown. There will be a few vendors through the winter when travel from their farms allow and some products still available, but it is always sad knowing this marks the beginning of real winter.

    Today was also the last Holiday Market as well and this year I didn’t participate for several reasons. There are more and more vendors selling similar products, and competition is good unless your handspun, handknit hat is competing with bulky knit acrylic one. And the uncertainty of Covid sent me in a different direction last year, slowly spinning on spindles and knitting a blanket for us instead of product for sale, so my stock was low. And the cost of participating was too great for my stock availability. I limited my events to three at Wilderness Road Regional Museum, and one outdoor event at Montgomery Museum this past year and not until I was fully vaccinated. At times, I wonder if that adventure should cease and just donate my time spinning at the Museum or heritage craft events without vending. With this in mind, some of my equipment is being sold off and keeping only that which I love and use. Now with the new variant spreading like the wild fires of the midwest and western states, we are again wearing masks even in crowded outdoor venue, and I guess will stop going in restaurants again for a while, though that had only resumed occasionally.

    This week hasn’t felt much like winter, with warm daytime temperatures and mild nights, but tomorrow is supposed to be more seasonable. Today it is raining, yesterday too, but we squeezed in a walk only getting a light shower during part of it. I don’t think we will get one today. We won’t have a white Christmas this year, but it may be cold enough for a fire in the fireplace. We won’t be totally isolated from our family this year either, but still only a tiny gathering. We were so fortunate to be able to meet up with Son 2 and his family week before last and enjoy their children.

    One of my hydroponic gardens has not been doing well, so this morning, I broke it down, totally cleaned it, reset the plants that were growing and started some new salad greens. The other one has gotten off schedule with maintenance power outage by the power company and power flickers due to wind. I may put both of them on an easy to control power bar with a timer as the internal timers on the units can only be reset by getting up very early and restarting them and they don’t run for the same number of hours.

    I will end this not very positive missive with a holiday photo.

  • What a ride

    It is done. What a joyous ride this past year has been on this delightful project. I spun 26 breeds, used 25 of them, knit 43 squares but one was too small so finished it is 42 squares. It is spun entirely with my Jenkins Turks, plied entirely with them also, and put together with Jenkins spun yarn. It was a stress free goal, let me try wools I had never heard of or handled along with many I already loved. One huge thank you goes out to Lisa who started following my progress after I bought a Jenkins Finch spindle from her destash. She is in Sweden and sent me the spindle packed in Helsinge wool. When I posted about it in my blog, she sent me enough more to make two more squares with it, then when I mentioned in my blog I needed darker squares for the last two months, she sent me Jamtland and Gotland lamb. There are two Jamtland squares and one Gotland lamb square in the blanket with more to spin for another project, so she provided 1/7 of the fiber for the blanket. Now I need to find a new project. There are lots of small balls of left over yarn from this project that can be used.

    As I knit the squares, I pinned tags of the breed on the squares. Tonight, hubby helped me make a chart in order by row and I removed the tags. A larger chart, perhaps a photo of the blanket with each square labelled on the picture will be made and taken with the blanket when I go to do demonstration spinning.

    The last two squares were knit on Wednesday and Thursday in the car as we travelled part of the way across the state to meet up with Son 2 and most of his family for an evening at Busch Gardens Williamsburg Winter Wonderland. This gave us the opportunity to chat with the adults and their oldest daughter and get to know the younger ones better while also meeting the newest granddaughter. They have a beautiful family. The oldest wasn’t with them because he was near where we live at a multi day swim meet. Today we went by the aquatic center hoping to run into him, but there are 1000 swimmers so only the ones scheduled for time blocks are there. His mom sent us approximate times he will swim tomorrow and Sunday, so we will go back and watch him compete.

  • WIND!!

    Sometimes a front brings a breeze, sometimes a wind, last night it was WIND. Wake you from a deep sleep wind. Being awakened by hubby who thought the roof was coming off (it wasn’t, no damage there).

    This morning, it is again calm, the sun is bright, the temperature fell 40 degrees f from yesterday and will remain cold through today and tomorrow, but the damage is evident. Fortunately, nothing signicant. The back deck has a round glass topped table that I had yet to fold and store for winter and it blew off the deck and landed folded on it’s face on the rock patio under construction. Somehow it didn’t break. The huge gas grill which had blown over once before causing some cosmetic damage, blew down the hill a bit and the rusting burners destroyed, the grill plates scattered.

    I haven’t gotten it back upright and up the hill, the wheels are mostly non functional and it is too heavy for me to carry alone especially since several of the frame pieces have rusted through. I removed the gas tank from it. The table is folded and tucked behind the chairs on the deck, but will be moved to the basement utility area before our first snow is expected (not counting tomorrow’s flurries).

    The most damage occurred to Huck’s coop, the chicken tractor that we had placed on a cedar log raft off the ground many years ago. In a prior storm, the lift half of the top had blown off and was leaning against the side. Much of the wood is rotten, the cedar raft caved in and I had removed most of the hardware from it last summer with the idea of either replacing the rotting wood or totally dismantling it, saving the hardware cloth and buring the wood if there is a calm wet day. Last night made the decision for me. It will have to be dismantled now.

    In walking around the house in the cold this morning, that seems to be the only issues. I don’t see any trees down in the edges of the fields, but I haven’t walked the woods to see if any came down there. It definitely was a strong front that blew through. It had begun when we were taking our walk yesterday, but nothing like last night.

    P.S. I remade the Cranberry Orange Shortbread, this time pressed in the 8″ pan and it came out perfectly.

  • Results

    I found a cookie recipe for a shortbread cookie with chopped cranberries and orange zest and in the picture, they baked to 1 cm thick rounds, lightly browned on the bottom. I followed the recipe exactly, the dough seemed a good consistence, it was rolled into the log in parchment paper and chilled for several hours before slicing and placing on the parchment paper lined cold baking tray and put in the oven at the proper temperature. They took about 3 minutes longer than the recipe called for and they spread out to very thin shapes that had to be cut apart.

    Shortbread is one of my go to cookie varieties that I make plain, topped with dark chocolate and toffee cumbles, and I thought this. Usually, I press the dough into a lined 8″ square pan and I wish I had this time as well. They are tasty, but so soft they don’t hold together well and may not be appropriate for my planned use. There are still cranberries, I will need another orange, I have the butter, sugar, and flour, so maybe I will try again and press them in the 8″ square pan to be cut into squares after fully cooled. I need a sturdier cookie that can be put in a tin or covered and kept overnight for an event.

    My December breed, Charollais for my blanket is spun and almost all plied so I can knit it into a square. The rest of that wool will be used in Gnomes, a cowl or hat stripe. The second wool for the month is a repeat, but is a very dark gray, much darker than the two samples spun before and it is a lamb fleece. This wool is Gotland and I found the lighter gray samples rather coarse, but this lamb is so soft, it will make a pretty last square.

    This was taken last night before plying began and before the smaller spindle of Gotland lamb filled up. I need to start a second spindle of it and get it spun and plied as well.

    Though I am unhappy with the cookie results, I have thoroughly enjoyed the year long project of sampling breeds, spun on my Jenkins Turkish spindles, and knitting them into squares for the blanket. Soon the 42 squares representing 25 breeds will be fully assembled and shown off here. It seemed so strange to spend Saturday spinning on my wheel after a year almost solely using spindles.

  • We did it!

    Daughter, GS 3, GD 2, hubby, and I drove to one of the local Christmas tree farms to hunt for and cut our trees. We took two cars so we didn’t have to untangle them here or retie theirs to her car. The kids typically walk much farther into the farm than we do when we go alone. Our goal was about a 6 foot tree and one was fairly near the entry, but we walked to the back of the farm, up and down the hills, searching for perfect tree for each house. They were looking for an 8 foot full tree. We both found trees way in the back, got ours cut with the bow saw and carried out to the tractor road to wait for the farm truck to come pick it up. It is in the 7.5-8 foot range. They took longer to pick one and by the time it was cut, the truck was gone. The truck came back by, but didn’t come down the hill. A young couple carried their’s to the cross road, so we took turns carrying DD’s tree up the hill to make it one pick up on the next round. On our walk out, we had some photo fun and got our walk in on the farm today.

    DD took another photo here with the three of them and me too. The trees were already wrapped and tagged when we got back and ours had to be trimmed of lower branches and drilled for the stand we bought from the farm a few years ago. When we got home,the kids helped get the tree off the car while I retrieved the stand from the basement and then helped us get the tree into the stand in the place we wanted it placed.

    The tree is watered, decorated, rug vacuumed and the stockings hung. An email notice was received that the last gift is due to be delivered tomorrow. One more wrapping session is on the schedule, some cookies baked for my spinning group gathering which due to the newest variant of Covid circulating, may be the last again for a while.

    Then I am going to sit back and enjoy the decorations for the month and some family time as it is offered.

  • Last Vending Event

    Today, I had the opportunity to set up my shop at the Wilderness Road Regional Museum Noel Nights Heritage Barn Bazaar. Dressed in my period outfit, with a spinning wheel for demonstrating spinning. The Bazaar was from 3 to 7 and I arrived about 2:15 to set up and was able to choose my spot. Outside the barn where we were set up was a trio of fiddle, banjo, and guitar, and inside the museum were other musical performers.

    You never know what is going to be popular at an event. In the fall it was yarn and knits. I was sure the holiday soaps and Gnomes were going to be the popular items tonight but it was guest soaps and salves. Only two holiday soaps and 1 gnome, but also a scarf and fingerless mitts sold. It was a fun afternoon and other than holiday soaps and yarn, not too much stock left and I love setting up in this old barn. If Cabin Crafted is going to continue, some of that yarn will have to be woven or knit for next year and more wool spun.

    Over the past week, Christmas gifts were wrapped except for a couple that have yet to arrive and a few small items for stockings. When I arrived home tonight and unloaded the car, the closet in which all of my stock and display items are stored was cleaned up and organized as most of the items were out giving me a clean start. Over the years, my set up has morphed and some early items no longer are used and removed. Some of them had already been sold.

    Tomorrow, we will go with daughter and two grands to the Christmas tree farm. I guess our tree will go up a week or so earlier than most years. Later this week, we get to meet our newest granddaughter and see her siblings and their parents.

    The holidays are coming. The house is decorated (except for the tree). I hope this will be a no stress holiday.

  • Weeks go by

    In the past week, our family celebrated three birthdays and Thanksgiving. One of the birthday’s was mine, entering me into the beginning of my 75th year. Unlike last year when we were all locked in and isolated, we were able to share. We are all vaccinated and the adults all boosted. Last year I took an outdoor hike with daughter and her kids, all of us masked because they hadn’t decided that outdoors was safe without a mask. We drove separate cars because of Covid. This year we took a couple walks with family here for Thanksgiving Dinner on Thursday and the next night for a Mexican feast.

    This year we even went into restaurants for two of the birthdays, but wore masks except to eat. Last year we had Thanksgiving alone, this year we had some of our family together to enjoy the fellowship of preparation and dining.

    It is concerning that there is yet another variant to the virus, not knowing how it will impact. Travel is still out for us, except short car trips to visit family.

    My focus has shifted from so much crafting to prepping for the holidays. Yesterday and today spent wrapping a birthday gift for Daughter and the Christmas gifts that have been accumulating for the past month or so. I like to have the shopping done, whether in person or online prior to the Black Friday, Cyber Monday and post Thanksgiving madness. Now that Daughter has had her birthday, we can begin to pull out some of the Christmas decorations. Fortunately I did a deep cleaning prior to Thanksgiving, so daily vacuuming and light dusting are all that is necessary.

    There is still some spinning being done for the Breed Blanket and always having a small spindle in the car. I knit a couple of Christmas gifts, one I’ve shown here, one a fiddly knit, then discovered a pattern for Gnomes. They are quick and fun, so adorable that several have been knit for the Christmas Barn Bazaar this coming Saturday.

    Time permitting, another one or two will be knit before Saturday, but I have another square for the blanket to knit so I’m not in a bind trying to finish it in December by the end of the month deadline.

    I have been waiting for a warmer day to finish putting the garden to bed for winter. The asparagus tops need to be cut down and a bit of weeding done behind that bed. The tomato, pepper, and tomatillo vines never got chopped up to expedite their breaking down into compost and the greens didn’t get covered, but still seem to be hanging in there. The salad hydroponic was restarted with new salad greens during Thanksgiving weekend and the herb one is producing way more than I am using, so some are being cut and dried for later use.

    While Son 1 was here, he and GS3 tackled a couple of big projects, repairing the basement ceiling where the failed dishwasher last winter damaged the drywall, rebuilt a section of the walled garden that had collapsed, and made significant progress on a stone patio off the back deck. Hubby and I had hauled 1500 pounds of sand, six 50 pound bags at a time over a couple of weeks. The rest will be delivered and dumped loose on a tarp to finish back there. Once the patio is done, a dump truck of topsoil will be added to the walled garden to bring the soil level up to the top of the wall and the edge of the patio. That will require digging up the perennials back there long enough to spread the soil as the garden will be 6 inches to 2 feet deeper. The chickens keep digging up the bulbs and scratching around the plants. I can’t keep them out of there and when the soil level is to the top of the wall, it will be worse. Today because the past 3 days, there have been fewer eggs, they were left penned up with a deep layer of hay in their run and a scoop of scratch to entertain them. I am trying to determine if I have one or two hiding eggs or if it is just attrition due to the shorter daylight hours.

    The bed along that back garage wall above needs to be redefined, weeded, and mulched, but again, the chickens just scratch it off into the grass, so a means of keeping them out is necessary.

    A few nights ago when I went to lock the hens up, I brought their feed bucket back to the garage and filled it, returned it to the coop and turned around to find this.

    Pepe Le Pew was between me and the house and headed for the open side garage door. Fortunately he changed his mind and scurried off across the front yard to the cedar thicket. I was amazed at how fast they can move and thankful that spraying only happens when you really harrass them. Though I have smelled them near the house before, that is the first one I have seen.

    This was really just a checking in for those of you who keep up with our goings on here. Hope you had a great Thanksgiving.

  • Another Sunday on the farm

    This week’s 24 seconds from the front door is gray, gloomy, bare trees. The weather prognosticators are warning of snow flurries and wind tonight and tomorrow morning. I guess it is that time of year. I’ll lay the two fires in case we lose power.

    It has been a fairly productive week getting ready for the Heritage Craft Barn Bazaar on December 4th and finishing this month’s official square for the Breed Blanket Project. A cowl was knit, soaps and salves finished, photographed and put on the website, a square of Jamtland wool from Sweden was combed, spun, and knit into a beautiful, soft, dark chocolate colored square. More of that fiber is being combed for another square and while I am prepping it, I am spinning Zwartbles, a Norwegian wool that is also dark chocolate to become a single square.

    A very Christmasy skein of wool was plied yesterday and wound off this morning. It is BFL, an extremely soft wool, spun to fingering weight and about 267 yards of yarn.

    With the onset of “winter” here this weekend, I will lay low, spin, try to finish a knitted gift, cook a nice hot meal for dinner and perhaps sit by a fire with a cup of tea.