Cabin Crafted

Blog

  • Dealership Hell

    I am in my 7o’s and have been driving since I was 15, so approaching 50 years. In that time, I have purchased a number of vehicles, one with my Dad, several on my own, a few with hubby. Most of those vehicles have been in my or our lives for only a few years before they had to be replaced or were replaced because they shouldn’t have been purchased in the first place. That changed 16 years ago. We purchased me a brand new Honda CRV not financed and it is still on the road with 252K miles on her. Three years later, we purchased a new Nissan Xterra which finally quit during the first wave of the pandemic with 250K miles on it. We have been using the 16 year old car solely since then and hoping that: 1) the pandemic would end; 2) the lack of computer chips for the vehicles would resolve, and we could seek a car and keep the old CRV as a sporadically used backup vehicle.

    Two weeks ago when things took a tumble in our lives with daughter’s serious car totaling accident, me landing in the hospital for 5 days, Son 1 coming to the rescue, but having to put his car in the shop for a few days while here and being forced to rely on my old car to drive daughter around, drive hubby to the hospital, pick up groceries, pick me up from the hospital, etc., we realized that we shouldn’t count on the one aged vehicle as our sole transportation source. I have never liked the car buying experience. The least irritating was when we purchased hubby a new Saturn and they had a fixed sticker price and no negotiating games. Usually, the process is so very irksome. You test drive a car or two, perhaps decide you have found the one you are going to purchase, and then they sit you in a tiny office cubicle with a glass wall so they can make sure you don’t slip out and disappear to “work on the numbers.”

    The process was no different yesterday. Hubby had done online research, had the cost of several vehicles noted, reached out to several dealers regarding availability, and off we went, an hour plus west into the adjacent state (where they actually had a few cars on the lot). We wanted a hybrid, all wheel drive, not white exterior or interior. They had 1. We test drove a non hybrid a bit smaller than the one they had, but it lacked most of the new safety features. We test drove a non hybrid the size of the hybrid, but the hybrid was only slightly more expensive and had a nicer add on package. BUT, the car had an additional sticker in the window that indicated a market upcharge of almost $3000 that wasn’t on the website. The manager, of course, apologized all over the place, said prices weren’t supposed to be on the website at all, and more bull shit. Then we were put in the cubicle to wear down our resistance. When the manager finally came in, he had “worked the numbers” and could take $100 off. Really! Oh horse patties. Then the upsale begins. We can knock off x if you buy the extended warranty (that by the way is owned by the dealership owner and cost $3000). No thank you.

    Four and a half hours later, we drove off the lot with the hybrid, having been given a $500 reduction for hubby’s military service, but otherwise, the sticker price we saw going in. Such a frustrating business. I guess, this might be the last new car we buy since we are both aging like my old CRV. My CRV will be cleaned up, kept maintained, and driven a bit, but it will be our back up car, one to use when the new one is in the shop for maintenance or when we both have to be out in different directions.

  • Recovery, Rest, and Resurrection

    Life is resuming. Daughter is doing better. Son 1 has returned to his home, his family, and his job. Each day, a bit more is being done here at home. After 5 days in the hospital and now 5 days home, we are working on my stamina. We have taken a few walks, the first a slow slightly less than a mile, the second a mile and a half, but still slow and with a halfway point rest. Today, I challenged myself with a 30 minute interval walk; 5 minutes warm-up, 20 minutes at a much livlier pace, and 5 minute cool down and did it without a rest. It was just barely over a mile and a half.

    The month’s spinning challenge is a relatively easy one, just spin 15 minutes each day. The month challenge begun with the wool for my breed blanket. It is Shropshire, not my favorite of the breeds spun. I am spinning it plying on the fly so making a three ply yarn. It will make a fairly dense square when finished and knit.

    The wool spun last month was plied on my wheel, making about 500 yards of very soft fingering weight yarn. It is currently drying.

    In the past couple of days, I have knit more of the Helsinge wool that I also spun last month into two more squares for my blanket. Those two squares are blocked and drying.

    I am indebted to Lisa who sent me the wool in two separate packages, the first with a spindle purchased from her, the second as a gift. This provided me enough wool to knit three squares to be added to the project.

    The young hens are laying well. Most days there are at least 11 eggs. One day, hubby gathered 13, one per hen. Though each egg is usually about 1.7 ounces, yesterday I got one that was 3.1 ounce and a double yolked egg. Today there was another about 2.5 ounces and I’m betting it too will have 2 yolks.

    Life moves on at a slower pace, but moving on. Daughter and her kids came over this morning to pick apples and we brought another bucket in the house for me to make another batch of applesauce. I am going to attempt the reuseable lids again, but be prepared to freeze the jars if they don’t seal properly. The freezer has many tomatoes, but I think they will just be used as needed. Other than planting garlic in early November, the planned fall garden won’t happen this year. The second crop of bush beans have been totally eaten to stems, so there won’t be any crop there. There will be peppers, but not enough to pickle jars and jars for the winter. It will soon be time to clean up the beds and let it rest until spring.

  • When life throws you a curved ball!

    Without a lot of details, this family has had it’s share in the past month. A grandson diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, one of our children involved in a very serious auto accident. Our daughter is okay, sore and without her own wheels.

    A much anticipated retreat with friends I hadn’t seen in 2 years to sit and spin, knit, weave, and share social time was cut very short because my first day there, I ended up with an emergency medical situation. Without letting my family know and only limited revelation to the event coordinator, I foolishly slipped away after packing my spinning, clothes, and vending set up and drove 4 hours home, only to be hospitalized that afternoon. Five days in the hospital, 2 surgical procedures, and I’m home, hopefully without a recurrence.

    This has caused stress to the family, caused Son 1 to temporarily leave his job, his family, and drive from his home to ours to be the unpaid Uber driver for hubby and daughter, to be emotional support for all of us, and to be cook when allowed. He has harvested my garden and frozen my tomatoes, taken care of my chooks and been as he always is, a generally good man.

    It has been a tough few weeks. Not much to report on spinning and knitting. No canning for a while, but tomatoes in the freezer for when it can again be done. It is likely the end of the garden for this year, but there is always another year and we will rely more heavily on the Farmer’s Market until their season also ends. The hydroponic units will be started with herbs and salad greens to supplement what we can purchase and as a last resort, imported organic produce purchased from our local Natural Foods store.

    Sometimes life gives you lemons and you have to make lemonade. My lemonade is knowing how much my family is a loving unit and how caring and concerned my friends are. I want those of you who knew and offered healing messages to me and my family, thank you, I love you all.

  • It isn’t fair. . .

    I know, life isn’t fair, but having the hottest part of the summer just when everything is ready to harvest and be canned isn’t fair.

    Since I am heading out for a few days later this week, and leaving hubby home to hold down the fort, I decided that the apples, pears, and gooseberries, should be processed before I leave, so in spite of today’s brutal heat, I heated up the huge canner. Since the ground cherries (gooseberries) would only make a small batch, I was able to cook them in a small flat pan. The large pot filled with pears as I peeled, cored, and sliced them and a thinly sliced orange to make Asian Pear Marmalade. Once they were both in the canner, I began to core and chop the apples and put them in the large pot to cook down. The apples after cooking down and pressing through the food mill, provided 5 1/2 pints of applesauce for the shelves.

    There is now more jam than I will consume in a year, and since each pint of applesauce is two meals and there is still at least one jar left from last year, this will be enough for us. I still have 3 more pounds of of pears on the counter. I’m not sure how I will use them, maybe some pear sauce or pear jelly. Or maybe they will be peeled and frozen to use in a holiday dessert. The rest of the tomatoes can wait as they are frozen, but pizza sauce and crushed tomatoes still need to be done. Maybe it will cool down next week when I am back home and I can heat things up again.

    While the applesauce was in the canner, I finished the test knit for my friend. After this photo was taken, it was soaked in vinegar water to set the dye and is now blocked on the bed downstairs. If it dries before I leave, I will take it to show the designer. I haven’t decided whether to add a pompom or tassle or leave it as it is.

    It is time to get back to spinning, very little was done this past week.

  • Whew it is hot!

    The blue tub of tomatoes were bagged and stuck in the freezer, the tomatillo frozen, the ground cherries husked and put in the jar with the rest of them. There are enough to make a batch of jam now. Maybe tomorrow.

    Two of the gallon bags of frozen tomatoes, mostly the paste variety, were dumped in the cleaned out blue tub and water run over them until I could slip the skins off. They were put in the medium stock pot, crushed and chopped, seasoned, and simmered for hours and just before time to prepare dinner, 7 pints were canned. The remaining bit and a jar of frozen pasta sauce with some kibbles of Italian hot sausage were simmered more to provide the sauce for tonight’s spaghetti.

    I was happy to find a flat of pint jars with new lids on them in the basement, so all 7 sealed properly. After canning season when the lids return to shelves, I will stock up for next year and reserve the reuseables for freezing. I have dozens of jars, plenty of rings and dozens of the reuseable lids. I will use them when the product being canned can be frozen if they don’t seal, but the regular mouth pints don’t freeze well, they tend to crack as the contents freeze. The regular mouth half pints have straight sides like wide mouth pints, so they work in the freezer.

    The hat I am test knitting and ripped out a few nights ago is back where it was, 8 more rows to go before the crown decreases. I will finish it before I leave for the retreat and the designer of the pattern can see it for real, not just photos.

    We need our daily walk, it is going to be hot, but at least the sun will be low and nearly dark when we end.

  • Maybe I should check more often

    This afternoon, with fruit picker in hand, the apples and Asian pears started coming in to the house to make applesauce and pear marmalade.

    There are many times that amount of fruit still on the trees. It got too hot to stay out there, so I quit for today. I will leave some for the wildlife, I tried to pick higher than they can reach, but last year the fruit was there and not ripe and a week later it was gone, not a pear, and only enough apples for a few pints of sauce. I will also pick a box of apples to take to Wilderness Road Regional Museum for pressing and bring home a half gallon or two of fresh cider. I divide it into smaller jars and freeze it to enjoy longer. Maybe I’ll make vinegar out of some.

    As I was heading out toward the garden after dinner, I spotted these two spring fawns frolicking with each other with two of the hens right by them and no concerns about sharing the yard.

    When I stepped out the side door after they had moved farther across the back, they just stood there and watched me as I pulled out the camera on my phone to get a shot. One doe is in the picture, the other just out of the frame.

    The garden was generously overwhelming when, I went out to pick ripe tomatoes. This 16 liter bucket has a quart of ground cherries in the bottom, and maybe half a dozen tomatillos, the rest is tomatoes and there are more in a few days. The leaves on the plants are totally devoured by bugs, but that just makes it easier to see the tomatoes. I discarded at least 4 or 5 of the large flat slicers as they were too far gone or were sunburned down about half the fruit. The popcorn was ready to harvest and dry, so two armloads were brought in and put in a box. The husks were pulled back and the cobs spread on a wire shelf to dry out. Some of the short vined Hubbard squash were ready too, so 5 of them came in. While I was picking the tomatoes, I stood up and the corn was right behind me and I got stung on the tender underarm near my shoulder. I don’t know what got me, but it still stings.

    And the hens gave me a full dozen eggs today. The fewest I get from these gals is 9 a day, still haven’t gotten 13 which would be all of them providing an egg.

    A few nights ago, I finished the second 16 row chart on the hat, placed it flat to take a picture and spotted a “I can’t live with that” error on the 3rd row of the first chart. Totally disgusted with myself for not spotting it earlier, I went to bed. It ended up being a sleep is optional night, so I got back up after an hour or so, ripped the hat back to the first row after the ribbing and started over. I have reknit the first chart and and about a third of the way through the second chart. Yesterday’s dressing up as an 18th century working woman and spinning at a Heritage Day event, put a crimp in my knitting on the hat or spinning for the monthly challenge with my spindles. I use my wheel at events and a top whorl drop spindle or a Scottish Dealgan, as the Turkish style doesn’t fit the period.

    Tomorrow, I will have to get more large freezer bags to put the tomatoes in the freezer until I’m ready to can them.

    I think I am organized to pack up for the much anticipated fiber retreat later this week. We are all vaccinated, will all wear masks, but it will be so good to see those friends after 2 years.

  • Life Moves On

    The pile of tomatoes on the counter was more than I could mentally and physically deal with the other day, so I bagged them and tossed them in the freezer. There are at least that many out there again that I need to pick, but it was drizzly rain when I went to turn the chickens out this morning, so they are still there. I really like the paste variety I planted this year, the slicer is a nice meaty, low seed variety with decent flavor, but grows flat oval tomatoes with deep stem inset that weigh well over a pound each. I can’t eat one alone at a session and don’t like to refrigerate tomatoes, so I will have to do some research on a different variety for next year’s garden.

    Sometime in the near future, I will haul the bags out of the freezer, slip the peels and make a big pot of pasta sauce for dinner and the remaining amount will be put in wide mouth pint jars and frozen instead of canning them. I reread the instructions on the reuseable lids to see that the band needs to not be too tight when they go in the waterbath and tightened 10 minutes after you remove the jars and still I am experiencing failure to seal, but not at the rate I was having. I now remember why I sold off the first couple dozen of them I tried a few years ago. I guess I will use them for freezing and try to get metal lids for next year. I also can’t/don’t want to put them on jars I am making for others in case I don’t get them back. We have a chest freezer, so filling it will jars and the bamboo fiber boxes I bought, of sauces, beans, soups, and stews isn’t a bad idea.

    Last night, I taught soap making at a “It Takes a Village” session at Wilderness Road Regional Museum. Because I was on the teaching end and it was more instructional than hands on, I have no pictures except the finished product from cutting this morning. The participants took turns stirring the soap mixture until it looked like time would run out before it turned trace to be able to pour it into the mold, so we cheated and used the immersion blender I use at home to finish the stir process that can take up to an hour or more of hand stirring. I had made a batch a month ago, so they could each take home a cured bar of the same recipe.

    Though the cutting box isn’t a necessary part of soap making, I love the ease of being able to uniformly cut 1″ bars with the bench scraper. The rack came in my microwave and never gets used there, so it makes a great curing rack. The wooden box mold is one of two that Son 1 made for me as a gift early on in my soap making. I line it with parchment or freezer paper, the other one I made a liner from a silicone baking mat, so the saponified soap comes out of the box easily. The silicone loaf molds are good too, but I have had the bottom of a batch break out like a cake or bread from a pan that wasn’t properly greased. It may be because it wasn’t as firm as it should have been when unmolded, but the wood boxes with a liner, hold the heat better and unmold nicer. I probably should have waited until this evening to unmold it, but it was firm enough to do. This is a simply Old Fashioned Lye soap with a lemon/mint scent. It can be used for body soap, a stain rub on clothing, or grated and used as laundry soap.

    Today is hubby’s birthday, so he gets to guide the day culminating with a dinner of his choice, either prepared by me or out if the weather permits patio dining somewhere. He recently lost his summer version of the Greek fisherman’s hat he wears, so in addition to a new leather belt from the local Street Fair in Blacksburg a couple weeks ago, his hat was replaced. We joked about options to prevent losing it. He had “lost” the other one earlier this summer, but we remembered where it was likely left and it’s return happened. This loss is a mystery, unless he wore it in the restaurant where we had lunch after our long bike ride down the Virginia Creeper Trail and it is too far away to go back and retrieve it. Maybe this one needs his name and phone number put in it.

    Tomorrow, I will dress in my Revolutionary War garb and set up as a spinner and vendor at the Montgomery Museum Heritage Day event in Christiansburg. Ever since I began vending at events and craft fairs, I have struggled with a method to haul the most stuff in the least trips. I have crated and carried, bought a RubberMaid flat cart that promptly had a wheel failure the second time I used it inspite of the advertised weight load. I don’t think it was the weight, but rather the terrain, plus my load wouldn’t stay on the flat unsided surface. Daughter owns a folding wagon that she loaned me to try. With is larger wheels, deep sides, I have managed to test load everything needed but part of my ladder rack that I think could be strapped on top and my spinning wheel.

    Next week when I go to my fiber retreat, I don’t need the table or the chair, so it should hold everything for vending and spinning. I probably will only take spindles, as that is what I have used mostly for spinning the past year and a half, and knitting to it.

    A friend from that group is getting into pattern designs as Mountain Legacy Designs. I am test knitting one of her patterns at the moment and since I can no longer force myself to spin worsted weight yarn needed for the pattern, I purchased a skein from another friend, Sunrise Valley Farm . They can be found on Etsy in the link or at the Blacksburg Farmer’s Market. The test knit is progressing nicely, though I am taking my time on it.

    I hope that Gail from the farm who is also a member of the retreat group can attend with me next year as a participant and maybe a vendor. It would be nice to travel together and room together at the retreat.

    The test knitting has slowed my spinning this week, but earlier in the week, I posted 84.34 g of spun singles, and 41.70 g of plied yarn for the prior 7 days.

  • I’m glad it is cool and wet

    It stayed fairly mild today, and we are finally getting rain. It rained all morning, so I started early, peeling tomatoes and getting a pot of crushed tomatoes cooking, the giant canner pot set up and filled with water and jars. That pot takes forever to boil. All of the tomatoes that were in the freezer were added to a large pot. The huge canner didn’t get to a boil before we needed lunch, a walk that got rained out, and a few supplies from the natural food store in town. When we got home, the pot was started again and by the time I had the tomatoes ready to can, it boiled. Eight pints of tomatoes were sealed in jars, loaded and canned. While they were canning, 2 pounds of the tomatillos were started with a handful of chopped jalapenos from the freezer and 7 half pints of Tomatillo, Jalapeno, Lime jam were prepped and canned. The last pound and a half of tomatillos with onion, garlic, herbs, hot peppers, and salt were simmered into 3 half pints of spicy simmer sauce and canned.

    We saw a break in the rain and took advantage to get our walk in before it was time to prep dinner. The pond that is close to home is so low, we really need the rain. We got lightly rained on, but not too wet and has continued to rain off and on all afternoon and evening. Just before it got too dark, I caught a break in the rain and took the 16 liter tote out to the garden. I guess tomorrow will be a repeat of today.

    The tomatoes are almost all paste tomatoes so I will make pasta sauce, a small batch of garlic dill pickles with the cucumbers, the tomatillos will be chopped and frozen. The ground cherries are prolific, but tiny and I still need another cup or so to make a batch of jam. If you even brush the plants, the ripe tiny fruits in their Chinese lantern husk drop to the ground.

    I will probably grow them again, but I need to make sure they are where they can spread out and a garden fabric around them to be able to easily gather them. The tomatillos are full of fruits getting larger and they are spreading over the cucumbers and ground cherries. I only need to plant two next year and make sure they have a cage and room to grow. There are so many more tomatoes, a few still green, most turning red, so there will be several more canning sessions for them. The peppers are finally beginning to produce some fruits, though it looks like at least a third of the ones planted were eaten before they established or are still only a few inches tall. I need a better way to trellis tomatoes and I say that every year but haven’t solved the situation. They are sprawling all over the straw, but are within a couple of weeks of being done.

    The fall bed needs to be smoothed from digging the potatoes, supplemented with some compost and blood meal and planted. It is going to be a mini greenhouse that will hopefully provide for a while even after the first few lighter frosts that hopefully are still 10 weeks away.

    The spring is so tiring from preparing the garden, by now there are too many weeds, but the produce it provides is welcome and a lot of work to preserve, but we enjoy it all winter long.

  • From one type of busy to another

    The heat finally broke today! I don’t think it got to 80 or just barely. We even took a walk. The past few weeks we have had Grandson 1 in residence, beginning with a basketball camp for a weekend, followed by having him here to visit and help out a bit. During his stay, we took a rail to trails 17+ mile bike ride on the Virginia Creeper Trail and took his almost 10 year old female cousin too. Another day we went to a very dry Falls of Dismal for a swim, there were still a couple pools deep enough for him to squat and immerse. Friday night, his Dad arrived for the weekend and toted down 3 kayaks on the top of his little car. Those kayaks were ours when we lived in Virginia Beach and often went kayaking, then they moved to the mountains with us and visited Claytor Lake and the New River a few times. Later those kayaks which weren’t getting much use here were driven to Son 1’s house as he could access the Shenandoah River and have gotten much use. Yesterday, those three kayaks, daughter’s two tandem sit on top kayaks and 7 of us ranging in age from 9 to 78 years old launched on the New River and floated a 5 mile section with a class 1 rapids. It was hot even on the water unless the breeze blew, but it was a great time. I enjoyed being back in the yellow boat with the yellow paddle I used to use.

    The kayaks were loaded back up in the late afternoon for the trip back north today.

    Before we left yesterday, Grandson helped me finish picking the peaches from our tree. We brought in a plastic tub full, most in decent shape to put in the fruit bowl, sent more than a dozen home with them, but the rest were very ripe, bruised, or had some damage. After they left, I began processing peaches. Excited that we finally got real fruit from the peach tree.

    Three different peach jams were in the plan. I got the Peach Sriracha jam done and a second batch peeled and cut and realized it was time to prepare dinner for Daughter and her two kiddos who came over this evening, so that batch was doused in a bit of lemon juice and stashed in the refrigerator. After they left, the second batch became Ginger Peach jam and while it was processing, the last batch was peeled and cut and a batch of chunky peach jam was cooked and processed. The jars are all sitting on a towel on the kitchen counter until tomorrow and all the sticky peach juice has been wiped up. All three batches are low sugar jams and each tasted wonderful from the warm samples.

    We will never eat that much, so I’m sure some of them will find their way to other homes. If the forecast holds true, we have several more milder days and a bit more rain that we finally got this evening, so I will tackle the two bags of tomatoes in the freezer and the bag of tomatillos and see what they become. The tomatillos will likely become Tomatillo/Jalapeno Jam and Tomatillo simmer sauce. The tomatoes may just be canned as plain tomatoes that can be later turned into pasta or pizza sauce or added to chili. I’m sure there are more tomatoes, tomatillos, and ground cherries ready for me to pick as I haven’t harvested in a few days.

    Very soon it will be time to harvest the apples and Asian pears, before the wild critters get them all. Though canning has gotten a late start this year, it will be nice to fill up the shelves for winter.

  • Another dry summer day

    None of the predicted rain has found our farm in weeks and weeks. The grass is brown and crispy to walk on. Last weekend the temperature was mild for summer, but the heat is back. Today was HOT. We packed up the grand and headed for a location less than an hour from here that has a natural swimming hole at the base of a falls area. Depending on which sign you passed, it was either Dismal Falls, or the Falls of Dismal. The falls were so dry they was very little water going over. This is the image we were expecting.

    This is what we saw.

    I waded to upper thigh deep, Grandson 1 went all in. There were two pools deep enough for him to dunk all the way under by squatting down, but it was a nice walk in and back out, though the GPS took us well past where we should have been.

    This morning before it got hot, I did a garden harvest, bringing in Cape Gooseberry (Ground Cherries), Tomatillos, Tomatoes, and a few cucumbers. After our trip, I decided to make a batch of Ground Cherry Jam. The recipe called for 3 cups of fruit, I had only harvested 2, so back out into the heat, I harvested another cup. I expected 3 cups of fruit, a cup of sugar, and the lemon juice to make at least two cups of jam. It only made 1 1/2 cups.

    After dinner tonight, since the pot was still on the stove and still hot, I pulled out the tomatillos from the freezer, added enough to today’s harvest to make a pound and made 3 cups of Tomatillo/Jalapeno/Lime jam.

    I hope the reusable lids sealed better this time.