As a child we spent a week every summer in the Virginia mountains having travelled from the coast. It was a big “family” reunion, family being both biological and folks we saw but once a year, every year in the same cottage.
When we had children of our own, there were a few visits to the same location and other visits to Big Meadows on the Skyline Drive in the mountains of Virginia on the opposite side of the Shenandoah Valley.
Before children, I backpacked in the mountains with a Trail Club and then both sons became Scouts and I took up backpacking again, going as one of the troop adults on many weekend trips, a couple bringing us near where we currently live.
As our children became old enough to leave home or stay home alone, hubby and I began taking one weekend a year with my Dad and Stepmom to a B&B somewhere away from both of our homes near the coast, usually to the Piedmont of Virginia, they would plan one year and we would plan the next.
As retirement approached, we began looking for a place to build a retirement home and I wanted to move to the mountains. I was most familiar with the Shenandoah Valley areas, but land was so expensive there. Son 1 had hiked the Appalachian Trail and then rode his bicycle from New Orleans and both times coming though the south western part of Virginia. He suggested we look here for land and we found our farm in the Virginia Mountains, a few short miles from the Appalachian Trail, near the West Virginia line, in the county that was the birth place of my maternal grandfather. We built our home here.
I have learned old homestead skills, canning, spinning, raising chickens, making soaps, some herbal medicine knowledge to make healing salves. Along the way, got involved in the history of the area and began to do some 18th century re-enactment using my spinning and fiber history.
We have a lovely small University town only 15 miles away, trails to walk, ponds and lakes to visit, ever changing flora and fauna. I feel like I’m always on vacation in the mountains now.
Coltsfoot blooming on a trail.Winter resident geese at a local pond. They usually stay until their young fledge.
Yesterday and today were glorious dry, blue sky, spring like days and I was going to rest and recover. The storms attacking the southern states are headed our way and tomorrow it is going to rain and rain and rain. I have been trying since December to get VDOT to come clear our culvert and re dig the ditch above it as the crusher run from the last maintenance has the ditch filled almost to the road grade. I have filed work requests online, talked to them on the telephone, filed another work request and still no action. Yesterday, DH and I went up with the tractor, a garden fork, and a shovel and the two senior citizens managed to get a 5 foot area cleared above the upper end of the culvert, however the pipe itself is about half full of debris and the ditch above is still full of gravel and sand. We don’t want the rain to create gullies in our driveway. I filed a follow up report with VDOT to let them know that we managed to barely open it but it still needs work, but I doubt it will come to any good. When I filed one last July, they came and did the work but left the work order open. When I file again, they just close the new work order, leaving the July one open. When I called, I tried to get her to close the July one and leave the December one open, but she closed December and wrote comments. So that day of rest and recover was shot.
Today we went for a walk on the rail grade, then went and got the remaining bags of mulch and since I didn’t rest yesterday, I went ahead and put down more weed fabric and mulched the back side that I had run out of mulch doing a few days ago. There are 3 bags left to use after the garlic is harvested and that last box is closed in. I dug up most of the comfrey that was on the side of the garden and moved some of it up to the upper corner where last year’s compost had been and some of it to the walled garden I built last summer. That will allow me to mulch up to the top of the box that is unfinished for now.
To make sure the new starts are well protected from possible hail tomorrow and three nights of freezing temperatures, I reinforced the mini greenhouse I had built. After the storms tomorrow and before Friday night’s 27 degrees, I will add an insulation layer of some sort over it as well.
The chicks are now 3 1/2 weeks and 4 1/2 weeks old. Three of them still look like cute little chicks, but most of them are gawky adolescents with long legs and little feathers sticking out all over the place, and they try to fly out of the brooder every time I move the baby gate that is on the top.
It doesn’t take long for them to cease being cute little fuzzy creatures. After the cold weekend, they will be moved to the big feed tank brought into the garage to give them more space. They empty the feeder and the water daily now. In about a week, the big hens will be moved to the other coop and locked in for about a week to get them used to that location and the smaller coop will be thoroughly cleaned and sanitized so it can get dry before the little ones move out there in mid April, where they will be locked in for a week to get used to their new home. Some dustbath holes need to be filled, the run possibly shortened as there are some spots where the smaller birds could get under the fence.
Knowing that the run will be a muddy mess tomorrow, after I locked up the hens, I tossed down a new layer of old hay so I don’t fall on my keister when I go over to let them out in the morning.
Somehow in my efforts to feed all the critters, lay mulch, and clean me up afterwards, I managed to cut my left index finger (I’m left handed) and my right second finger so now both hands are sore. All the garden effort and the skin injuries have certainly cut into my spinning and knitting time so far this month. I have managed to spin enough of the Dorset Horn to knit two squares for my Breed Blanket Project, and just enough to count for the other challenge has been spun. Maybe with the rainy days ahead and with nothing else that can be done in the garden until planting time, I can finally rest and recover and maybe get some more spinning and knitting done.
This is the first square for March, now there are two.
I just finished reading “The Salt Path” by Raynor Winn, a memoir of a year in her life with her husband after double devastating events. It certainly caused me to stop and be thankful for what I have and my health, even if I come in sore, bruised, and battered from my farm and garden work. It is well written and well worth the time to read.
I would like to read her second book, but it isn’t available at our library.
We went out and bought a dozen more bags of mulch. I wrestled some stubborn grass clumps that had come up over and through the weed fabric, laid more where needed, put down the last of the cardboard in the narrow paths, and started spreading the mulch. I had hardly begun when a light cold drizzle began. It wasn’t supposed to start raining until tonight. I worked on through until I had the gate side, the narrow paths, the south end, and the blueberry bed mulched and realized that there were only two more bags, not enough to do the chicken run side and the rain was getting more persistent, so I quit.
These are before and after pictures of the entire garden before this week’s work.
This was last year after I tried to reinforce the thin cedar boxes, dug out the mint bed where the white bag is laying and put down hay as mulch. Seeing the tomatoes planted in the upper right box and the comfrey up beside it, it was later in the season.
Here it is after the week’s work, taken from the opposite end. The plastic over the young greens is about where the mint bed was dug out for perspective. The large box to the left of the barrels is where there is no box in the upper photo’s top right. I tried to grow corn there last year unsuccessfully. The boxes are sturdier, the mulch is shredded wood mulch over cardboard or weed fabric. The two remaining bags of mulch awaiting some sunshine or at least no rain to finish the last bit on the right side. You can see two of the old boxes that didn’t crumble when I pulled them up, leaning against the fence. They along with 4 more you can’t see in the upper right corner are going to be taken apart and the boards used to create a two bin compost pile up in that corner and that area will be mulched only with hay. It has been a lot of work, but I am hopeful that it will reduce work in the long run and will produce better harvest in some areas that did not grow well.
. . . well nearly. We only had light sprinkles yesterday and no rain in forecast today or tomorrow in spite of the earlier prediction. Hey we live in Virginia, if you don’t like the weather, stand there for 30 minutes and it will change. After the usual Saturday morning breakfast run and trip to the Farmer’s Market, where I purchased with my already harvested greens, 8 healthy Mini Head Lettuce plants. Yesterday afternoon, we bought two more Blueberry bushes, so after we arrived home, the garden clothes were pulled out, the bushes planted at the ends of the two rows of the other 6, the lettuce starts planted in one of the new boxes. and the tools brought out to finish the heavy work that was remaining. The box away from the garlic was dug in and built, filled nicely with the soil from the two boxes it replaced and some of the compost beside it. I didn’t want to leave the box that incorporates part of the garlic bed and below it undone. The cedar boxes are not truly 4 feet, so I dug outside of it and built 3/4 of the box around it. When the garlic is harvested, the 4th side will be added and the soil from that box added to the new larger, deeper one.
This is the box I cheated on. The new 8 foot sides end about halfway up the sides of the cedar box. I may add one more board on the near end and fill that box deeper. The other one built today is on the opposite side of the 4 x 4 box and the asparagus bed that still has fence on three sides of it.
From up the hill, you can see all the new boxes and all the old cedar boards that need to be removed. Two of the old cedar beds are stacked in the left corner, that is the compost area. Peas, onions, garlic, asparagus, and lettuce starts are in. The flat of spinach, kale, and mesclun mix are growing nicely and after the early week freezing rain that is expected, they will go in the garden as well. I will protect the new head lettuce plants with a translucent plastic box for early week’s freezing rain.
We bought a roll of weed mat as cardboard is not available and tomorrow, if I can bend after today’s efforts, I will finish putting it down and getting mulch on it. All that will be left to do is plant when the time is right, keep the weeds down in the beds themselves, all relatively easy tasks compared to what has been done. As I dug earthworms, they were added to the new beds that are bagged soil on cardboard to get them started in those beds. It has been a strenuous week that has seriously cut into spinning and knitting time, but the garden looks good, has boxes I can sit on the edges of, and is ready for the seeds and plants that will fill our freezer and larder shelves with goodness to enjoy. Since all the tomato plants that have been started are determinate plants, I may just stake them this year and build the A frame trellis next year. If I ever get the energy to move more wood, I may box the asparagus bed and build a new long box around the blueberries, though I think weed mat and mulch is all that is necessary there.
The peach tree, maple trees, and other fruit trees are beginning to bud out. I hope we don’t have a fruit killing freeze.
Today, according to the CDC, it is safe for me to be out in the world again, still with some precautions. Safe to give my fully vaccinated daughter a hug, safe to go in a store, still masked. We took off to Lowes and replaced the dishwasher that failed during the pandemic and arranged to have it delivered and installed in about a week. It will be nice to have that appliance again. Between the extra handwashing, dishwashing, and garden, my hands are a dry mess.
From Lowes we went by Daughter’s house, as she is working from home and her kiddos are getting virtual classes this year, and I got my hug and a conversation without a mask on. What a simple pleasure.
Another load of raised bed soil was purchased and because I didn’t want to rearrange the pile of heavy wood again, the 4 x 4 box that I failed to bring wood down for, was replaced with a commercial metal one. It is assembled, filled, the remaining bagged soil added to some of the other beds as amendment or fill soil to be topped off with more of the soil from the excavation of the upper 1/3 of the garden to dig in the two 4 x 8 beds when I can comfortably bend and tote, probably next week after the several days of rain showers pass. This evening, the onions and peas will be planted. I am considering adding a couple more blueberry bushes to the area where they planted because the box they are in has deteriorated and really isn’t needed as long as I keep the area mulched, so I can expand outward. That requires a trip to the nursery to see what they have. Lowes had some, but I prefer the ones from the nursery if they are in. The heavy joist board that I cut yesterday and left in the yard because I was just too tired to move them again were moved into the garden beside where they will be built. The rest of the scraps cleaned up and the tractor put away for now.
I’m pleased with the progress that has been made this week. I need more cardboard so I can finish mulching the bottom 2/3 of the garden. While I was working I did remove the straw mulch from the asparagus bed and got it weeded too. The photos, just don’t show how much slope this garden has. Once the remaining two boxes are dug in and built and the rest of the mulch laid, there will be a clean up of barrel staves and bands and rotting cedar boards from the old boxes. The new box looks so out of place with the rebuilt ones, but it is metal and won’t rot or rust.
Though we still have frost days ahead, I think the deep freeze days are past, so the fig was unwrapped. We will wait and see if it produces new leaves showing it survived the winter.
The rain showers in the forecast will provide me with a few days of rest from heavy garden work. Only one more day of it is ahead. I am pleased with the sprouts that are showing, more goodies to be planted in the gardens in the coming weeks and healthy food from our garden in the near future.
The little chicks are growing fast and going through their food and water quickly. The first batch are now more than 3 weeks old and getting feathers, trying out their wings. The 2 week old ones looks so much smaller as the older ones legs are stretching out like teenagers, no longer the cute few day old chicks.
It has been a productive day with some seed planting to be done after dinner, then a couple days rest before I finish the garden set up for the year.
After a sleep is optional night, I got up fairly early and decided to continue on the garden quest. As I lay in bed not sleeping last night, I decided to combine more of the boxes on the uphill end of the garden. They were rotting away, so this morning, I built a 4 x 4′ box in front of the asparagus but moved it downhill about a foot. I leveled the path below it and used that height as the grade for the box so lots of shoveling, but it did put some good composted soil in the 14′ bed I built yesterday, less will have to be purchased. The new box was set in place and filled with soil some from the paths beside it. The remaining 4 boxes up there are on either end of the asparagus bed and beside the one I built. They are going to become 4 x 8 foot boxes and will require a lot of digging in, but there is so much good soil there and where the compost pile was until the chickens spread it last fall, that there should be less needed for purchase. By the time I finished the box building and soil shoveling, it was time to fix lunch. Then I drove the tractor back up to the barn and hauled a 16′ double joist, two 8′ double joists, two 12′ 2 x 10s, and miscellaneous boards to use as ends for the boxes. The 16′ joist was cut in half, others trimmed to matching size or squaring off ends, and another long box was built, replacing a 4 x 8′ and a 4 x 4′ rotting cedar boxes.
I ran out of steam before I could build the next 4 x 8′ one on the upper end of the garden. It will require a lot of digging to level it and bring it down even with the smaller one I built this morning. The other 4 x 8′ one can’t be built until the garlic is harvested, but the wood is cut and will be stacked beside where it will be placed. Everything I did today is replacements. There is still a 4 x 4 that needs to be replaced, but I didn’t haul enough wood down to tackle it.
Several more bags of mulch were applied between the new boxes from yesterday and this morning. The garden is looking good.
Tomorrow will be 2 weeks since I got my second vaccine, so we are going to go dishwasher shopping. Maybe afterward, I will tackle the 4 x 8′ box that can be built now and Friday morning, before the rain showers begin, I will plant peas and onion in some of the newly finished beds.
I have lots of rotting cedar boards. The more sound ones will be used to build a compost bin in the corner of the garden near the hen coop. The rest will go in the burn barrel and burned when the spring burn ban is lifted.
For now, I’m going to just sit with me feet up for a while and redo my garden plan now it isn’t based on the old box sizes.
The boxes that needed to be built have been. A second long hard day complete. The 14 x 4′ box that had to be dug in to the slope was dug in. Lots of soil shoveled from one end to get it low enough and cardboard put down at that part and the frame screwed to the corner posts. I used a level and though it isn’t totally level, it is far better than some of the other boxes, then the soil had to be shoveled back on the cardboard to work the other end. Eventually, I would like to move more of the wood down from the barn and reinforce or rebuild the cedar boxes that are rotting away. The row above the long box will need to be terraced in as well. Those boxes all sit at a bit of an angle. Since we don’t get our last frost until Mother’s Day, I will attempt to get that row repaired at least before they are to be planted. A single 14′ long 4′ wide bed would encompass the 3 four foot square boxes and they can be terraced in to make the center aisle mostly level.
We purchased more soil and more mulch today and stopped at the pet supply store to pick up cardboard, but they had already discarded theirs today. We stopped at the convenience center and was told they can no longer allow cardboard to be taken because of COVID. There was enough to do the bed and part of the wide center aisle. The soil that was shifted and the bagged soil didn’t even begin to fill the new long box. Some mulch was put down where the paths were covered. The box that was built yesterday got the extra tier on the ends, it is the deepest bed and will be great for potatoes this year, but needs another 8 to 10 cubic feet of soil. We will continue to bring home a few bags at a time so the beds are ready to plant when the weather allows. I hope that between last year’s efforts and this spring’s efforts, that the garden will be easier to care for in future years with no more heavy moving of wood, soil, and only enough mulch to keep a good layer to hold down the weeds. The one addition I want to make is an A trellis to use to train the tomatoes. Son 1 did that last year and was pleased with how it worked. One that fits an 8 foot box can be moved to different large beds as crops are rotated would be ideal.
This morning, as I was trying to loosen the tight sore muscles from yesterday and getting my toast and coffee, 9 deer wandered slowly across the back yard and upper field. You can see that the trees are still bare.
Some of the seed planted on the weekend have sprouted. I have a row of Mesclun mix and one of Kale. One of the herb are beginning to show too.
The tomato seed arrived today and they were put in the new hydroponic seed starter. Soon there will be flats moved in and out of the house to give them sun and light wind to strengthen them into healthy sprouts to be transplanted in the garden at the right time.
I still need to finish laying mulch and try to rebuild the two rows of boxes near the top of the garden. Since more cardboard wasn’t available, I will try to use the remnants of a roll of weed mat or layers of newsprint to finish the wide aisle, but the heavy work is done for now so my body can recover some before more wood is moved. I have decided not to move the compost pile and will leave it on the wider side instead of building another box that isn’t even on the garden plan. The area is not really large enough for another planting box and the narrow corner where I was going to move it won’t be easily accessible when the comfrey grows up this summer. Perhaps a few more medicinal herb can go in that space.
Two days in the dirt and my hands are so rough that spinning finer fiber is almost impossible. I will have to slather on lots of cocoa butter for a few days. That that is even wearing gloves most of the time.
Today we purchased some 2 cu ft bags of organic raised bed soil and a few of mulch. All that I felt the car could safely handle. After I unloaded them inside the garden gate and changed into gardening gear, I grabbed the tractor key and headed for the barn. The old deck joists are 16′ long and double thickness, so they weigh as much as I do (a very slight exageration). I dragged, pushed, pulled, and tugged one on to the tractor bucket that was strategically parked right at the end of the pile. First I had to remove all the wood that had been added after they were wrestled in to the pile. Once it was on, I could get to some 14′ ones that are single thickness and loaded 1 of them and a 4 X 4. I didn’t raise the bucket high enough and lost the load in the driveway about halfway down. With a lot of maneuvering, I managed to get them back on the bucket and made it to the yard between the house and garden. The doubled joist was marked in half and with the circular saw set at max, I was able to get it cut in half with two cuts. Each half is still heavy, but I could move them. The first box was built, though I need to add another tier on the ends. It was build just below the box I moved yesterday, set on cardboard and filled with most of the soil we just bought. After the potatoes are planted there, I will add more soil as they grow and by the end of the summer, the box will be nearly full.
The other box is going to be 14′ long by 4′ wide, built beside the one I moved. I started weeding the area as I dug a trench for the side that is uphill and the chickens were loving the fresh greens being tossed into their run.
They stayed close to where I was working. I got cardboard down on the uphill edged and fastened one corner to hold the board in place as I continue to weed and level that bed tomorrow. I will add the other end and the other side board then.
I think I have enough cardboard to finish under that box, but not enough to do the path that is to the left of those two boxes and I certainly don’t have enough mulch so another trip will be made just for more mulch later this week before the rain showers begin on Friday. The two reclaimed wood boxes are so much sturdier than the deteriorating cedar ones I bought a few years ago from the local big box hardware store. If I can man handle a few more of the 16′ double joists back down to the garden and figure out how to get them in the garden alone, I may replace the rows of 4 x 4 and 4 x 8 cedar boxes with more home made long beds. If I had power at the barn, I would cut them in half there and move 8′ lengths. The boxes to the right of this one are falling apart, as is the one I moved yesterday, though I added some screws to it today to try to give it another year of use. I think because I am terracing the long bed into the slope, there will be enough soil to mostly fill it, though it is going to mean shoveling piles on top of the cardboard then laying more cardboard and raking it smooth. It may take a few sacks of the purchased soil to give it enough depth.
It didn’t get finished today, dinner had to be prepared and cleaned up, but tomorrow is supposed to be another beautiful day, so I hope I can get that box finished if not totally filled.
One of the double 16′ joists is on the top of the pile, so maybe I will fight with it tomorrow or the next day. Where are the strong teenage grandsons when you need them.
In spite of it still be sunny, chilly, and windy, the outdoor part of the summer garden was begun. All of the existing boxes that aren’t planted with garlic, asparagus, or blueberries were weeded and amended. One box was shifted to the left and this week, I will rearrange the stored wood in the barn to pull out a few of the long joists left from tearing down the old deck and they will be cut and built into a long box that will hold this year’s tomatoes, and will rotate with corn and potatoes in other years as they are the crops that require the biggest beds. Another double box will be built and a narrow long box will be build. I will have to purchase more Black Kow to help fill and amend them and may need another run by the pet supply store where they willingly give me the large cardboard boxes that come in. I have enough in the garage to put down for the longest box and maybe one more. The narrow box will go where the old compost pile was and that soil is good, it just needs to be regathered from where the chickens spread it out in the fall.
To the left of those two boxes is where the longest bed one goes, the other right where my shadow is.
The box on the cardboard is the one I shifted to give me space for the long box. The narrow one goes to the right of the two rows at the top of the photo. I realized that I am going to have to restring the hot wire before I turn the charger on, it is sagging enough to touch the metal fence in spots. I dug out some of the more stubborn weeds in the paths, but most of what is there will die off once new cardboard and mulch is laid over them.
Since we only have my old CRV now, and nothing to pull the trailer, the bags of compost and mulch will have to be brought in in smaller loads, enough to wear me out each day.
Last summer, I set two 5 gallon buckets full of comfrey filled with water that makes the best, stinkiest fertilizer along the fence. I used a bit of it on the fall peas that froze before they produced and the lid blew off that bucket so it filled again with rain and snow. It was used to fertilize the transplanted raspberries and the blueberry bushes while I was out there. The other bucket will be diluted and used as I plant the tomatoes and peppers later in the spring.
I finally received a notice that the tomato seed shipped, so they will be started this week. It is nice to be outdoors again and know that the garden didn’t get ahead of me with weeds before I could get it ready. Onions and peas will go in this week, probably late in the week when it is supposed to warm up and be followed by showers next weekend.
I tried to move the half barrel that I thought was still semi sound and the bottom fell out of it too, so I have loose staves and barrel rings to clean up. Maybe the staves can be pounded in the edges of the asparagus bed as it lacks a box. Soon it will be time to pull the mulch back from that bed and start looking for the first fresh green vegetable of the season.
We took a short noon time drive and you can see the hints of buds coloring the tops of the trees, not green yet, but the pinks and reds of the bud covers that swell first. This winter of isolation is going to end.
Late this week, when it has been two weeks since my second COVID vaccine, we are going out to replace the dishwasher that failed a couple months ago. I still don’t feel “safe” in the big box stores, but safer than I did 6 weeks ago.
Still too chilly to want to work in the garden, though the sun is out, if the wind would die down some, I would go start clearing beds and laying cardboard to begin the new beds. Next week is supposed to be warmer. More vendors are back at the Farmer’s Market, and it is starting to look like a real market again, though there was a fool who planted a chair on the sidewalk just outside the market entry gate with a megaphone, yelling an anti-abortion spiel (I think). Between his accent, the market noise, and the wind, I wasn’t sure what his message was, just that he was annoying. The market manager called the police and when I left, they were talking to him, or trying to as he continued to stand on his chair and shout into his megaphone. We left before there was any resolution. I believe in free speech, but I don’t want to have to try to talk to vendors or hear them when we are masked, over some fool shouting through a megaphone.
The local nursery opened for the season, yesterday, and though I don’t want to plant shrubs or pansies, we did go by to get me a planting flat. Once home with the week’s goodies from the market and the new flat, I moved two chairs that aren’t used at the dining table except when we need more than 4, set up a small table I use for craft shows, and started the flat with mesclun mix, spinach, kale, and several herbs. The flat is on the heat mat with the old grow light over it. That light is two small fluorescent bulbs and is fine for starting greens and herbs, but not so good for the tomatoes, thus the new LED hydroponic unit. The kitchen and dining area look like the green house we don’t have, with every available surface growing herbs or starting vegetables for the spring and summer gardens. I ordered some Thai basil and Cilantro seed yesterday, I probably could have gotten them locally as both the nursery and the natural foods store sell the seed I buy from the Virginia supplier.
On a fibery note, early in the week, I caught an update on my favorite spindle maker’s shop and purchased a spindle much larger and heavier than my others to use for plying. Most Turkish spindles have down turned arms. This one has upturned arms and every one made had a Road Runner etched into one arm. These spindles are named Road Runners. It arrived yesterday and I played with it some last night, trying to get used to the size and weight. Since the fiber that came with it, they always send a few grams of some fiber with their spindles, is organic Pohlworth. Since Pohlworth is one of the breeds I selected for my Breed Blanket Project and since what I had on hand is also white, I seem to have started three different breeds for the month. I’m about 1/3 done with the minimum of the one with silk in it, I will get enough of that done to count for the challenge and focus my attention on the three breeds for the blanket for most of my spinning.
I now have 6 Jenkins Turkish spindles in different sizes to serve all fibers and purposes. My poor wheels are totally neglected this year. But they look pretty sitting there.
Well, the chicks that are a week and a half old are getting wing feathers and beginning to try to test them out. I guess I should get on the project of making a lid for the box before they learn they can gain altitude by jumping on top of the water or feeder.
Cabin Crafted 