Cabin Crafted

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  • The calendar flipped and so did the weather

    All day yesterday in preparation to turn from November into December, the temperature that wasn’t that high in the first place, fell. From mid 40’s to 28. Yesterday morning and the night before, we got about 2″ of rain. Overnight, a dusting of snow and there are still flurries.

    It isn’t the earliest snow we have ever had here, but with it are gale force gusts of wind driving the wind chill to bone penetrating cold. When I opened the coop pop door, they just looked at me like I was crazy if I thought they were going to step their dainty claws into that white stuff and wind. Their water is frozen, that I have to remedy even if they stay indoors all day. It is only going up a couple of degrees today and even colder tonight.

    As November ends, so ends another month of Jenkins spindle challenge.

    The month ended with a bit more than 130 g of spun fiber, some spindle plied. The purple skein on the left if BFL wool that came with my birthday spindle, plied with BFL/silk blend with more of it on the spindle. The white/burgundy is Alpaca blended with dyed Coopworth. Last night I finished spinning it on the wheel as I didn’t like the way it handled on the spindles and ended up with 268 yards of fingering weight yarn that went into my shop for sale.

    December will begin finishing the gray Jacob seen in the bowl above and here, along with more of the Redbud colored BFL/Silk.

    Last month’s spinning was slowed by knitting as I finished the sweater for one grand daughter, the Intarsia knit Christmas stocking for the newest grand son, and a pair of fingerless mitts from spindle spun yarn for my shop.

    All have been wet or steam blocked and ready to go.

    Somewhere during the month, I also finished this skein on the wheel as it frustrated me on the spindles. And it joined the Alpaca/Coopworth in my shop.

    Yesterday a jar of Daikon radish kimchee was started, two batches of soap made to saponify overnight. Today I will wash out the pots and spatulas now that the caustic mix is soap and make one more batch of the soap I use as shampoo and body soap for my use this next year.

    I decorated the outside on the porch Sunday afternoon, I guess I should start on the inside too. I also need to get some gifts wrapped that will have to go in the mail soon.

    I guess I should get busy.

  • Family

    My father was one of two surviving children, his brother a couple of years his junior. Their baby sister died as a very young infant or toddler. My mother was an only child, adopted by a couple who were older and had been unable to bear a child of their own. Her biological parents were both deceased and family members who took in her siblings didn’t feel they could handle a newborn infant.

    I don’t know if my aunt had siblings or not, I did know her mother when I was young, but don’t recall ever meeting siblings.

    Between the brothers and their wives, there were 7 children. I am the oldest of them and the oldest surviving member of this biological unit. My sister was the next born, then a female first cousin, my brother, then a male first cousin, followed later by two more female first cousins. There is a span of 14 years between me and my youngest first cousin.

    My uncle’s work took him away from Virginia for most of my life so I didn’t have frequent contact with the cousins, but we did all gather each year in the Virginia mountains for a week.

    This photograph has my father and stepmom, who my father married after my mother passed away taken at a family gathering in the mountains to celebrate my Dad’s birthday. I am unsure of the year. I am sitting on the wall on the right in the black teeshirt, the youngest first cousin is in the red shirt over my Dad’s shoulder left center. In the center of the front row in the brown shirt is my younger brother’s youngest child, his daughter and her Mom beside her. I will not try to identify the others in this photo as you see, many generations.

    My mother passed away when I was 40 years old, in early December. That Christmas was difficult for our family, but new traditions formed as Dad moved on in his life, remarried and added two step siblings to the clan. Five years ago, my Dad passed away less than a week before Christmas. My youngest first cousin had gathered me and driven me across the state to visit him in the hospital during his last few days. He remained alert and cognizant of the situation, said his goodbyes to each of us and she and I drove back across the state a few days later, as she had to return to work, I was going to return alone the next day but he died that night. Another hard Christmas.

    Early this month, I received a call from my brother one morning, he was in tears, his little girl had died early that morning, not of Covid, but a tragic loss. She was born with a genetic disorder that she coped with her entire life, was told she probably couldn’t have children, but she did, a son who turned 4 only a couple days before she passed away. She had a tough few months healthwise, but seemed to be doing better. She, her husband, and son lived in Canada. The borders are closed. All I could do is send my love in a note.

    Two weeks ago, I was notified that the youngest first cousin had been hospitalized. Again, not from Covid, but she had an underlying condition for which she took medications and her system started shutting down. Two nights ago, she passed away, leaving her husband, her two sons over her shoulders in the photo, their wives and a just turned 2 year old grandson. Her husband and at least one of her sons were with her. Her sons and their families live across the country.

    As I said, I didn’t see my cousins except for a week each summer, but this cousin lived half an hour from us and we did develop a closer relationship after we moved to the mountains in retirement. Dinners out occasionally, kayaking on the river together. Her birthday and our anniversary share a date, her grandson and I share the same birthday.

    I’m not writing this looking for sympathy, just to encourage all of you to look at your families and cherish them, hold your relationships close to you. You never know when that connection may be permanently severed. Heal your differences if you have them. Times are tough enough with the social isolation not to have some connection with your families.

  • Saturday Again

    The weeks speed by. We look forward to whatever routines we can hang on to. Saturday mornings used to be breakfast at one of two local diners followed by the Farmer’s Market. It didn’t matter what time we arrived at the market as long as you weren’t too late in the morning, you could still get what you wanted and there was no restriction on how many people could gather to shop, listen to music, buy prepared food and just sit and eat with others on the lawn or one of the benches. Then along came COVID and for a time, even the market had to shut down. When it reopened, it was with safety measures in place, such as a modular fencing that had been used only for special events held once a month in the summer where alcohol could be purchased with food and music provided. The fence now controls the entry into the market, manned by volunteers that keep count of how many have entered and how many have exited. Then orange dots were painted at 6 foot intervals on the sidewalk outside the fence to help remind people to social distance while waiting. At the request of some of us seniors, the first hour was designated for pre orders and the over 55 crowd, but that seemed to put a lot of responsibility on the young volunteers to “police” the line and was ignored by some people.

    This week, there were two lines 6 feet apart, one for the pre orders and over 55 crowd and one of others. Being there just a few minutes before they opened, so queued outside the fence until opening time, the Market manager walked the line and asked if you didn’t appear to fit the age requirement if you had pre orders and several folks were moved to the other line. It felt safe. I was in the first group of 25 to enter, was able to quickly pick up our weekly goods and return to the car. Being the Saturday after Thanksgiving, several vendors were not there, and the students for the most part have left the area as theyare on campus semester ended last Saturday and they will have a week vacation, a week of online class, and virtual exams, followed by winter break, so they are out of the town until at least mid to late January unless school continues virtually for the spring semester. As people realize the early hour is for the older folks, I expect that our market experience will be less stressful for me now.

    After the market, we now do drive through breakfast in the car, sit in the parking lot and eat, not what we used to do, but still somewhat carrying out a routine.

    Yesterday, I placed my curbside order at Eats Natural Food store. The form you use suggests ordering by scoops, cups, or a similar measure as ordering by weight is difficult to envision. Four cups of oatmeal weighs much less than 4 cups of beans or rice for example. I needed oatmeal, so I asked for 4 cups (a quart) and was amused when I opened my bags at home to find this instead of a plastic bag.

    A “quart” of dry oatmeal. At least the container can be returned, sanitized and used again, much preferred to a plastic bag.

    This suddenly seems silly and irrelevant as I just found out my youngest first cousin who fell ill 2 weeks ago, passed away last night, leaving a husband, two sons, their wives and a young grandson. This is on top of having lost a young niece earlier this month that left a husband and 4 year old son. May their families find peace.

  • Post Thanksgiving, Heading into Christmas

    We always had a rule that no Christmas decorating could be done until after Thanksgiving, then daughter got old enough to complain that we had to wait until after her birthday on the 29th. It became a family tradition to which I still comply. Even when she was younger, she wouldn’t complain if I put up the door wreath between Thanksgiving and her birthday, but nothing else.

    She is a grown woman with children of her own and her own house, but still, I wait. I still usually put up the door wreath and pull out my Santa lap quilt in the interim, but nothing else. I am struggling to make the holidays as normal as they can possibly be, and will haul out the Santas, Christmas linens, and in a couple of weeks, the lights and ornaments for a locally cut tree. First, the house needs a deep cleaning. Living on a dirt/gravel road and driveway and having two large shedding dogs in the house, keeping the hair and dust down is a full time job and though I vacuum the exposed areas daily, the deeper mopping under furniture and thorough dusting doesn’t get done as often as it should. Each year that I pull the Santas out, I dream of the Library box shelves with the glass fronts that would help keep the books cleaner and the decorations I take out more dust free. Or maybe the revolving shelves like in mysteries, so the shelves just need to be revolved to the decorated side at Christmas and the book side the rest of the year.

    All gifts are purchased or made and ready to be wrapped and packaged. One box to be mailed to Son 2’s family which will include the Grandmom made hand knit stocking for the youngest grandson, born about two weeks after last Christmas. Another box to be delivered in a second socially distanced meeting with Son 1 in early December. The gifts for daughter and her kids, as she lives nearby, will be delivered to their door on Christmas, an opportunity for us to not spend the day sitting in our house alone because the kids can’t visit this year. We will give them their gifts outdoors and come home.

    In mid December, I have an opportunity to again set up a craft display and honor sale at Wilderness Road Regional Museum. Since the spinning challenge that I do each month with the Jenkins spindles encourages projects made with the yarn spun, I spent the last couple of days knitting a pair of plain, no pattern, hand spun, hand knit fingerless mitts to take to the sale. A few hats, mitts and mittens, a couple woven and lined bags, and a few smaller simpler shawls or scarves will also go along with a basket of handspun yarn skeins. The event is by reservation for two afternoons/early evenings and will hopefully reduce my inventory a bit before I have to report it to the county for tax purposes early in next year.

    For now, I am going to grab mop and dust cloth and get ready to set up for the next holiday as soon as it is “legal.”

    Take care. Hopefully next year will be closer to normal, even if the normal is a new normal. I want to hug my kids and grandkids, not see them at distances of a dozen feet.

  • Happy Thanksgiving

    Determined to make this as normal as possible in these abnormal times, two of my kids and I began early with a group text on our prep of our meals for our individual families. Instead of one big meal for a gang, it is 3 big meals served in three separate homes. The first text of the morning was from daughter with “Vote of confidence from my kids this morning: ‘Uncle Todd always makes the turkey. Do you even know how mom?’” This got us going exchanging how and what we were doing. Son 1 and I spatchcock our turkey, he varied our usual and nearly butterflied his with the cleaver trying it to flatten it and added a step with coarse salt and chopped herbs rubbed in the inside yesterday to “brine” over night. Daughter stating she didn’t have the tools to spatchcock so she was making a traditional bird. Son 1 stating he used clean tin snips and a cleaver. I am used to doing an 18-22 pasture raised bird for the gang, so an under 12 pounder had me baffled as to time. I managed to cut the backbone out with poultry shears, but had to pop the breastbone with my cleaver to flatten mine. Son 1 responded with 3, maybe 4 minutes cooking time when I asked, LOL. I put a large sweet potato in the oven when the turkey went in and when I was ready to peel, slice, and season it for the casserole it wasn’t done, so I popped it in the microware, pushed potato and came upstairs. Then I started smelling smoke, the microwave didn’t shut off and the yam was totally cremated and smoke filling the house. Fortunately it is 65 degrees outside so all doors were opened, yam dumped in cold water and a new yam cooked in the microwave with me watching like hawk.

    In spite of not having them all here, texting back and forth has been fun, lots of encouragement, laughs, photos, fun. I prepared a traditional Thanksgiving, made the pies from pumpkins I grew, homemade rolls, peas and potatoes from our garden, sweet potatoes from the Farmers Market, fresh cranberries, pickles I made. Olives were purchased, but they don’t grow here. We are stuffed, will be eating turkey until Christmas, have quarts of fresh turkey broth. Everything made in smaller quantities, but made with love.

    Happy Thanksgiving from us to you. Maybe next year we can be with our families again.

  • Take a Walk, Take a Hike

    Hubby and I try to take a walk or couple mile hike each day. Daughter has been taking her kiddos on a hike once a week when weather permits and though today is chilly and thickly overcast, we had discussed going on a hike to Bear Cliffs. We met up after lunch at Mountain Lake Resort, the four of us masked and I brought 4 blaze orange vests, one for daughter, one for me, and one each for the two kiddos. Her kids are 9 and almost 14 and they were great hikers with some biology lessons on lichens, some trail safety reminders, blaze reading exercises, and a good time.

    Last Thanksgiving I did the same hike with Son 1, his wife, and grandson 1. Then masks weren’t a necessary accessory.

    This year, masks were required, which meant that glasses couldn’t easily be worn with hat and mask. This resulted in me being the only casualty when I slipped on on a rock and face planted on the trail. I ended up with a bit of a lump on my forehead, but otherwise unhurt, we continued on.

    Lots of care taken due to fog and slippery rocks, but a great hike. They were kind the the senior and gave me necessary breathing breaks as we were gaining elevation, but they seemed willing to take a water and breathing break too. This may have to become an annual tradition.

  • Zen

    “Zen emphasizes rigorous self-restraint, meditation-practice, insight into the nature of mind.” Meditation of any sort can help reduce stress.

    My Zen time is spinning with my spindles. It is total focus on the single process, it quiets my mind, slows my breathing. That wasn’t always the case, like with any new endeavor, there is a lot of tension involved as you learn the skills, but with time, you relax and it becomes enjoyable. I have been spinning now for over a decade, starting with spindles, moving on to wheels, and for the past 8 months or so, returning to spindles.

    When spinning with my spindles, whether in my chair, the car, waiting for an appointment, or out in nature, I feel my shoulders relax, the tension drain from my neck, my breathing focused. It gives my mind a non stressful activity on which to focus, a form of meditation. It ceases to be production and instead, is a serene, peaceful activity. I am still making yarn, but at a much slower pace.

    As I am approaching the end of the month, as a spindle is filled and emptied, it isn’t necessarily getting refilled. The Fig Aegean, my largest spindle is resting right now, my newest Ambrosia Wren is filling, the smallest Honduran Rosewood Finch is almost full and will soon sit idle for a few days. The notched shaft bottom whorl in the left of the bowl is my Living History spindle and doesn’t generally spin at home. They rest in a wooden trencher, also from living history, or sometimes a basket or pottery dish depending on my mood. And it all sits on a small hand woven “towel.” The weaving process is still in the tension filling realm as I haven’t gotten good enough at it for it to be relaxing, maybe someday.

    In a few weeks, some of my yarn, knits, weaves, body care items will go to Wilderness Road Regional Museum to an Honor System craft display during their Noel Nights weekend. If you are interested, you can reserve a spot for a tour, goodies, and shopping on their website. Twenty percent of my proceeds from that event will be donated to the museum for their operation and educational programming.

  • Another year gone by

    Seventy Three years ago today, I was born not far from where we now live in retirement. I didn’t grow up here, and visited only once until we bought our farm acreage here in the mountains. My maternal grandfather was born a few miles from our farm and grew up in this county. There is a community that bears his family name. He grew up to become a physician and opened and worked in a hospital a little farther west in West Virginia, where my mother was raised.

    I woke this morning to a beautiful fall day that will warm to almost springtime temperatures later and my dear hubby is doing all he can to make this a great day in spite of the isolation from family. As it was getting light outside and doggie and chicken chores were being done, I saw our little deer herd that has been staying near the house as they moved into the thicket to hunker down in safety from the hunters. I will be glad when hunting season is over.

    Knowing that I love the Jenkin’s Turkish spindles, he reached out to them and purchased me a gorgeous Ambrosia Maple spindle as a gift. The Jenkins make beautiful spinning equipment and every spindle comes wrapped in fiber from various vendors, many near them. This is my birthday gift from him, a very loving offering.

    As Saturday mornings are Farmer’s Market mornings, he got up early and we were at the market as it opened to pick up our pre-ordered goodies. He sits in the car safely as I masked and dash through gathering the vegetables, meats, breads, cheese and butter to add more to the freezer and for the week’s sustenance.

    Every year since our first year together in 1977, we have purchased an ornament for our Christmas tree. In years that we had a new child, there would be a baby’s first ornament to add as well. Early years, they were usually a dated Hallmark ornament, but in recent years, we have purchased ones on a vacation or at a craft show. This year with no craft shows, but with the Holiday Markets, I did a quick stop at her stand, and added another one from my potter friend, Bethany, at Dashing Dog Studio.

    After it warms a bit more, we will go to my favorite hiking spot and take a walk in the woods together, and later this evening, a curbside pick up of dinner from a restaurant we like, though this year’s birthday dinner will be eaten in the car.

    I am fortunate to enter this year still in good health and good physical condition. I hope to see many more, still healthy and young at heart.

  • Olio 11/20/2020

    Olio: a miscellaneous collection of things (thoughts)

    Every night this week has been a frost night, two nights into the 20’s f (-2-3 c). Though I was hoping for fresh peas for Thanksgiving, the wind was blowing so hard those days that putting down plastic would have been impossible alone. A few years ago I had some very flexible 12 foot long fiberglass poles that could be used to form a tunnel to cover with grow fabric or plastic, but they splintered over time and only one remains. I couldn’t make a tunnel with just one. If a tunnel had been made over the peas that could be opened for ventilation during the day and sealed up at night, perhaps they would have survived until this weekend when we are back in the upper 60’s f daytimes and only in the 40’s at night. Maybe next year the fall garden will be covered with a tunnel to protect it longer.

    The chickens have had the run of the garden and they are doing a great job of breaking down the compost pile and weeding the beds.

    The area to the left of the boxes will be returned to beds in the spring and the compost moved back to the shadier area. I wish the hens would do the same scratching and weeding in the paths between the beds, and move down to the “mint” bed and the long box below it, but they seem to like this corner. As online ordered and virtual craft show ordered gifts are arriving, I am saving cardboard again for springtime maintenance and more bed building efforts.

    I have always been one to accumulate gifts early, to try to be done with shopping by Thanksgiving so that I am not dealing with the rush and hustle bustle, to spend the first week of December decorating the house for Christmas and preparing to have our family here for Christmas dinner or even a few days visit. Though the shopping part is done, the decorating this year is something I’m not looking forward to doing, it will just be us. I’m sure that at least some of my vast Santa collection will come out, we will go get a small tree and decorate it. It will be sad enough to be alone, but worse if we don’t at least try.

    This month has been difficult in other aspects. We lost a young member of our family, a young Mom, not to COVID, but a heartbreaking loss, especially for her husband, child, parents, siblings and their families. Another family member is quite ill, again not COVID, but struggling to survive and heal. A friend has had a recurrent illness and is facing a third tough round of treatment. The news of these losses and illnesses of those dear to me have wrecked havoc with my emotions. I blog as a release, but have had to turn to some journaling as some of my thoughts and feelings I just can’t share out to the world.

    Every day that it isn’t raining, we don our walking shoes and head out for an hour or so. There are many places to walk, some paved and more traffic than we prefer, the walk in the National Forest around the pond and it’s various trails, and my favorite is to go a couple thousand feet higher elevation to the Mountain Lake Conservancy property and walk one of several trails there, usually meeting only one or two people on the entire walk. We take our masks on these walks and wear them when there are other people around and we can’t distance ourselves 10 or 12 feet away.

    This little herd of 6 deer seem to know that near the house is a safe place to be during hunting season, they are seen many times a day somewhere around the house, grazing on grass that is turning brown from the colder weather.

    We have had to remove all permission to hunt on our property except for immediate family due to some problems, not serious in nature, but troubling. It is difficult to try to maintain good neighborly relationships, especially since we didn’t grow up here and though my grandfather was born and raised just a few miles from our property and I was born here, we are outsiders.

    As a blogger, I like to know that I am being read and perhaps enjoyed. At the bottom of the post there are buttons to share, like, and space to comment. I would love your feedback there. My presence on Facebook has mostly been to share my blog and I may take another social media break so it won’t be posted there. Until next time, stay safe.

  • Ready to Hunker Down

    We spend each summer supplying the freezer with goods from the Farmer’s Market and from the garden, as well as canning jams, salsas, sauces, and tomatoes from food we grow. In the fall, I add more beans, rice, flour, and other dry goods to the grocery list each week and fill half gallon and gallon jars to have on hand for the winter. With the limit on cleaning supplies and some personal hygiene items, they usually get added to the grocery list each week until some is stockpiled, though not obsessively. We have been using curbside delivery from the grocer since last spring and at times find it a life saver and other times a total frustration. When you build your order online, you have the option to allow substitutions and if a product is out of stock, you receive a notice asking if X can be substituted for Y. At that point, you have the option of accepting or declining the substitution. We have two Kroger grocers within a few miles of each other and though we generally go to the nearer one, I have gone in the larger other one when a product was unavailable and been able to get it there. This week I decided to just do the curbside from the larger store and 3 of the items on my list were not available. Now, you can’t tell me that they had no ketchup of any brand on the shelf, I understand not having the one I listed, but no substitution was offered. The same with hubby’s sodas, if they don’t have Pepsi, they usually have Coke or vice versa, but again no substitution was offered. That has never happened at the smaller store, even if I decline the offer. This week proved to be one of the frustrating weeks, it means I am either going to have to go in one of the stores and get it myself or try to order from the other store.

    To add to the frustration, I created my order for Eat’s Natural Foods and the computer ate it. They have two formats you can use, so I switched to the other format and submitted it last night. This morning, I got an email that the form was blank and asked to resubmit it. I had enough trouble remembering it the first time, so I asked them to fill the bulk items I needed as you aren’t allowed to do it yourself during the pandemic, but that I would just come in and get the other items I could remember. I got more cheese than the original order, but forgot two other items. Oh well.

    The pantry shelves are vacuumed, wiped down, reorganized so that I can find items when ready to prepare the meals. The freezer was de-iced over the weekend, the goods sorted, inventoried, and arranged so that I can find what I need.

    The putting by is done for another year. We are ready to hunker down from Covid or snow if we get any this winter. Last night’s hard freeze did in the peas without ever getting a harvest. I guess when I plant the fall garden I need to allow more time and count on an early frost. There are spring peas in the freezer, we will just enjoy them. Other veggies that can be obtained at the Farmer’s Market will continue to supplement the freezer. I am thinking about trying to grow some window sill lettuce and spinach too.