Cabin Crafted

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  • The Fog Cleared, the Garden Mostly Survived

    The fog finally cleared yesterday and after the run to the natural foods store for supplies, a garden venture was braved. There is evidence we received a light frost, about a week to 10 days before average, the tops of the Tomatillos are burned and the edges of the western most Thai pepper show some damage, but for the most part, I think we have a little more time. Peppers were picked as well as Tomatillos. The stink bugs seem to love the Tomatillos and many are damaged when I pick them, some so damaged they never fully develop. If the damage is light, I just cut it out before blanching them. If it is heavy, the fruit goes to the hens and as I toss them from 2/3 across the garden some miss. They will be next year’s volunteers. I probably won’t have to plant or buy Tomatillo plants next year. The three dill plants that didn’t come up forever were tucked under and between the Ground Cherries and the bush beans and they survived last night. Not wanting to risk losing them, they were cut and are drying in three small vented brown bags.

    The mail brought next year’s seed garlic. The garlic I ordered and some I purchased from a vendor at the Farmer’s Market a few weeks ago will be planted in early November and covered with straw to become next year’s garlic crop.

    It also brought the spindle I purchased at the Yarn Tools shop update early this week. This one appealed to me because it is Honduran Rosewood and one of my favorite excursions from our 40th Anniversary cruise was in the Honduras, where we rode horses on the beach and into the ocean around a small island and ate soft tacos in a beachside hut before returning to the ship.

    Though the spindle on the left and the new one in the center are both Jenkin’s Finches, the weights are significantly different. The Rosewood one is more than 5 grams heavier and only less than half a gram lighter than it’s much larger cousin, the Aegean on the right. I was unfortunate or fortunate on how you look at it with the lottery. My name wasn’t drawn, so another spindle purchase this week didn’t happen. The fortunate is that I didn’t really need another, nor did it warrant spending the money.

    The lack of a Farmer’s Market run and the cooler day inspired me to return to bread baking. It took a break during the hot weather and I would just buy a loaf of sour dough bread at the Farmer’s Market. Since I had pizza on the menu for the night and had to let the flours come to room temperature anyway, I mixed up a batch of yeast raised herb and onion bread and one of plain sandwich bread along with the pizza dough. It looks great and smells wonderful, but I was too full from pizza when it came out of the oven to even think about trying it.

    We haven’t seen any Hummingbirds in over a week. They usually stick around until mid October, but not this year. The feeders were brought in and washed. Once thoroughly dry they will be stored away until mid to late April next spring.

    All in all, it was a delightful, busy fall day. The hunters apparently were successful in the fog from their text as they left late in the morning. No hunting is allowed on Sundays unless it is on your own land and we neither hunt nor eat game meat, so the deer are safe today.

    Last evening after the hunters were gone.

  • Don’t trust the forecast

    All week we were being threatened with potential frost last night and I had plans to cover parts of the garden. Yesterday, the forecast changed and it looked like the night time temperatures were going to stay above 40, so I didn’t cover anything except the fig is wrapped around the sides with doubled heavy mil plastic. When I got up this morning, the outdoor thermometer indicated it went down to 37 f and the weather app says there was frost warning until 9 a.m. It is so foggy outside that when I went over to feed and release the chickens, I couldn’t even see the garden. It is still densely foggy. If the sun comes out later, I will check for damage, possibly having to harvest the remaining peppers to oven dry. If the tomatillos took a hit, I will pick whatever has any size, and roast them to make a roasted salsa, or toss them in a pot with spices for another few jars of simmer sauce. I should have followed through on my original plan to cover it. Oh well, if it is the end of the season, so be it. I’m sure the peas will be fine and maybe we will still get a small fall harvest of them.

    Today begins bow hunting season for deer. The two young men who sought permission to use our low field are down there in the thick fog. I can’t imagine they could see anything. It was thick enough that a deer could forage under their stand and they wouldn’t see it. Now, after 10 a.m., it is just beginning to thin enough to even see that field from the house.

    I guess this wasn’t the ideal first day of hunting weather. Having them on the property with bows requires that I have to take the pups out individually on leashes.

    I received notification that the spindle I got in the Yarn Tools shop update earlier in the week will be delivered today, and I sit here waiting for the random drawing from their shop to see if I earned the right to purchase one of the ones I picked from the lottery. They are on the west coast, so the posting won’t occur until noon or after here in the east.

    We chose not to go to the Farmer’s Market in the cold fog this morning. Later today or tomorrow, I will venture to the Eats, the natural foods store for a little produce, local cheese and local(ish) tortillas (they are made in Virginia a couple of hours from here).

    After a few restless, sleepless nights recently and feelings of stress over the daily onslaught of bad news, I concluded that I had slipped back into a habit of too much caffeine. My single morning mug of coffee had risen to two or three. Each day I was making a pot of tea that I drank iced though out the day. This required me to take drastic measures and enduring a caffeine withdrawal headache for a couple of days, but I am limiting myself to 1 mug of coffee and not making a pot of tea that is so easy to just pour and drink. If I want tea, I must brew a single cup and enjoy it hot. For other hydration and thirst, I am drinking our well water, which I find tastes good. With dinner, I add a splash of pomegranate juice to the water. I have slept better the past few nights and feel less stressed.

    Another 11 grams of the braid I am spinning was spun yesterday and a few grams of Jacob on my “car” spindle, though not in the car. I really like the way this part of the braid matches the spindle’s colors. I am spinning it in the gradient, and will ply it that way, but don’t know what it will become. I also spun nearly a bobbin full of a much heavier yarn to be plied with another singles hopefully to be Aran or heavier weight to knit historic style hats.

    The fog is finally lifting, I think I will go check on the night’s damage to the garden.

    Stay safe out there.

  • Fiber Intervention

    I don’t need to buy fiber for years. In the past two weeks, I bought Shetland from a friend who is thinning her fiber out, it is about a pound and a half, traded some fiber for some Moorit Shetland, bought the Shenandoah braid and the two 4 ounce bumps of Coopworth from vendor friends at the Shenandoah Virtual Festival. I still had a 4 ounce braid I had bought a couple months ago from Corgi Hill Farms that I was going to spin this fall. Then there are bags of Jacob that I washed from two raw fleeces that I use when I can do living history, and random bags that need labels, each with a few to 4 ounces. My storage cubes don’t hold it all.

    Some sorting, re bagging, and labelling later, it is mostly contained. Some of those books have been shelf weights for too many years and need to be donated to Friends of the Library or the YMCA Thrift shop. That would give me one more bin for storage as the remaining books could go on another shelf or on top.

    Spinning on the spindles will continue with the pretty fibers, making thin yarns that may someday sell or my arthritis will permit knitting lacy knits. Much of the Shetland, Jacob, Coopworth, and a mystery soft brown fiber will be spun thicker, probably on the wheel with the idea of making Monmouth or Freedom caps and proper fingerless gloves to sell at Living History events. I’m leaning toward only doing historical knits for vending in the future. If some of my finer lacey knits ever sell, I may return to making more of them from the colorful yarns.

    Yesterday, I finished the first color band of my Shenandoah braid, about 18 grams spun. Today I will begin on the browns that match the spindle.

    With the first of October and a concession to a changing season, the fall decorations were brought out for display. There are two rotating fall table cloths that are used instead of the daily woven placemats, followed by two Christmas ones.

    The house was damp mopped to try to reduce the dog hair load, they are shedding like it was summer time, and all the wood furniture was given a good clean and wax with a beeswax based polish. It is so futile because within minutes, there is hair everywhere again.

    Tonight, I will have to cover the ground cherries, peppers, and tomatillos to protect them in case we receive frost. The peas that are finally blooming should be okay and the beans are only setting seed at this point, so they will likely be left uncovered. I have had beans survive light frost in the past with just some leaf edge burn. As the weather chills down, each trip into the house requires brushing off the stink bugs that are gathering trying to find entrance. They are heavy this year and if the winter is mild as currently predicted, they will be worse next year. I wish they had a natural predator here.

  • Month Ends, Challenge Begins

    The last quarterly spindle challenge begins tomorrow. I couldn’t sit idle from several days ago when I submitted my end of month total, so I used a top whorl spindle to continue spinning the mixed Jacob roving and spun another 33.55 grams for the month that won’t count, but I had plenty official spun.

    The scale says 35.55, but the ball has a 2 gram felted ball in the middle around which it is wound.

    I will probably go ahead and ply the Jacob on the wheel and leave it on the bobbin until I finish with the almost 3 ounces left of the fiber. I was unsure what I wanted to concentrate on in October until I went to the virtual Shenandoah Fiber Festival and Wild Hare Fiber Studio, one of the vendors I would have sought did a Shenandoah gradient dyed fiber for the weekend. I ordered it, I had to get something significant from it, I also ordered from my friend at Hearts of the Meadow Farms. The Shenandoah was shipped Monday and arrived today and it is the perfect decision for the month.

    The colors toward the center of the braid match the figured Big leaf Maple spindle so well they just go together. The fiber from my friend is white and a white and burgundy which will be nice colors for the cold of December. Yesterday I logged on to Facebook, just in time to see that Yarn Tools website, the ones that make the Jenkins Turkish spindles were having a shop update of spindles in the size I prefer. I’m not usually lucky enough to catch the updates, but I was and purchased a Honduran Rosewood Finch, it is heavier than the Olive Finch I own. Then later in the day, the group update showed they would be having a lottery for the right to buy 1 of 18 spindles. In the lottery, you can select 2 to enter and I put my name in there too for two small spindles. I’m not generally lucky there, but who knows.

    Today we went back to the museum to pick up my knits, yarn, and soaps that didn’t sell. I was pleased to see that I did sell some items and the museum purchased more of my salves as they seem to sell there. In talking to my friend that organizes all of their events, we discussed that two of the hats are really too large. I am toying with whether to run elastic thread through the ribbing or just frog and reknit them. One has a zigzag pattern of colorwork and I may cut it below the zigzag, pick up the stitches, decrease about 10 or 15 stitches and knit the ribbing in reverse to make it better fit a “normal” head but maintain a slightly slouchy top. I have to decide if I am that brave. The other just needs to be frogged and reknit with fewer stitches and/or a smaller needle. That is the only hat in my stock that I actually followed a pattern on.

    Hats don’t usually sell in my Etsy shop, maybe I need a wig model to show them off better.

  • Waste Not, Want Not

    Last evening before it got dark, I ventured into the garden with a single basket. It proved to be too small. There were a few red tomatoes, a few turning red, and 7 pounds of green tomatoes on dead vines. There are still two determinate type slicers growing with a few fruits on them. The Thai and Serano peppers had a couple hands full of red ripe peppers and the Jalapenos had a hand full of pickling size, and fortunately I had on a jacket with big pockets to hold them. The basil got cut again, maybe for the last time. And about a dozen Tomatillos ready to harvest.

    The basil was stripped to dry but the rest was just left on the table until this morning while I tried to figure out what to do with 7 pounds of green tomatoes. All of the recipes I saw online were for salsa you broiled the tomatoes, onions, and garlic then food process mixed them for a refrigerator salsa. There were too many tomatoes for that. One of my favorite canning cookbooks to the rescue.

    First, I pickled the jalapenos, blanched and froze the Tomatillos and ripe tomatoes. Put the ripening ones in the window to finish ripening. Strung the red Thai peppers to start the third string of them drying.

    Though her recipes are generally for a few half pints, I have successfully doubled or tripled them for pints. The recipe for a canned Green Tomato Salsa called for 2 pounds to make 3 half pint jars, I tripled it and realized very quickly that it was going to make way more than 4+ pints, so 6 pint jars went into the canner to heat up and as I was filling them with a very thick and chunky salsa, added a 7th. The recipe called for a half poblano pepper. I don’t grow them, they don’t have any “kick.” I had harvested Serano and Thai peppers that had no immediate use, there weren’t enough Seranos and no red Jalapenos to make Sriracha style fermented sauce, so I just chopped them up with the Thai’s and added them to the 6 pounds of chopped green tomatoes, onion, garlic, and spices. The suggestion was to remove it from the heat when it was thick enough and taste it to adjust the salt and hot peppers if needed. Well, I think I will name it “It might make you cry” Salsa, it made me cry. Son 1 likes it hot, hubby likes it hot. Between them, I’m sure all 7 pints will disappear in short order, but I won’t be eating any of it.

    The last pound of green tomatoes were layered in a box with a ripe apple in hopes that they will ripen and can be added to the bag in the freezer to use later in the winter and a recipe calls for whole or diced tomatoes.

    For years, we have had an indoor/outdoor thermometer system. They last 4 or 5 years before they give out and quit working. Our last one quit about two weeks ago. It is funny how you learn to rely on something. I can check the weather forecast, but the station that reports for us in located somewhere in the county in an area that seems to be more extreme temperature changes than we have. I have checked to see that it was reporting as much as 10 degrees colder than our unit said when it worked. The outdoor part of ours in on the inside of a post of our north facing covered front porch. Tractor Supply carries a variety of thermometers from ones you hang on the porch and either try to read through the window or brave the elements to go out and look at it, to the indoor/outdoor ones with all sorts of reporting. I got us a medium range one that shows temperature, time, indoor temperature and humidity, barometric pressure, high/low temperature history, and supposedly, a prediction (we will see on that feature).

    It is hanging near the front door, so we can see how many layers we need to put on before going out. The high/low feature won’t kick in accurately until it has been up 24 hours. It is a pleasant 72 today, the high for the week. We had a quick rain shower but have a couple days of soaking rain due tomorrow and Wednesday. While picking up the thermometer, we also picked up a roll of heavy mil plastic sheeting that will cover the fig and if necessary some garden plants if a frost is predicted this week.

    I need to go find space on the pantry shelves for the salsa.

    Stay safe all.

  • Tools and preparation

    As I finished the fiber from August and September, it empties my tools in preparation for the October challenge. The three Jenkins spindles were emptied, the Bosworth which I can’t use for the challenge was called into play to ply who small turtles of CVM, making 45 yards of 2 ply yarn that will be used as trim. The Jacob that I finished prior to recording my total was joined with a second turtle spun since the reporting and the two were wound into a ply ball and set aside to be added to before it is plied for use.

    The tools in and by this wooden bowl are the ones I use each day, making yarn the slow, meditative way. Sometimes I use purchased prepared roving, sometimes I comb fleece that I washed and once in a while, I just spin from locks.

    The second skein of shiny Shetland/Bombyx was washed and dried. It turned out to be exactly the same yardage and weight as the first skein. I couldn’t do that intentionally if I tried.

    It ended up 933+ yards of lace weight yarn and is now in my shop for sale. It is gorgeous, but I don’t knit with lace weight yarn, though that seems to be what I spin on the spindles.

    Since there are still a few days until I can begin official spinning for the challenge, I will spin on the Bosworth top whorl spindle and just add to the ply ball. The gray ball in the bowl is the Jacob. There will be enough finished yarn when it is all spun, to make a simple watch cap and fingerless mitts.

    And while we talk tools, I attacked the tall thick grass on the riding mower, mowing with the deck set at the highest setting and doing half wide passes. It looks better, but still somewhat rough. We have a couple days of potential rain, then I will go after it again, set at the usual setting and doing full width passes and see if it can be neatened up before cold weather sets in. Some of the areas need to be brush hogged as they are just too tall and too deep for the riding mower.

    We are threatened with widespread frost on Wednesday night. I need to find a solution to protect my fig, ground cherries, tomatillos, and peppers. We should have almost another month before we have to worry about frost. As for the tomatoes, I am going out to pick anything left on the plants. Red ones will go in the freezer, ripening ones set in a window to ripen, and green ones may become green salsa or if slicers, I might enjoy a few more fried green tomatoes. The plants will be pulled and added to the shred/burn pile. The last three sunflower stalks have browned and they also need to be pulled down. Newspaper will be saved to finish the aisles that never were finished in the spring and some sort of mulch applied to hold it in place to hopefully prevent as much growth there as I had this summer. Most of my weeding time was spent on three paths.

    We have given permission to a young man who grew up in the area to bow hunt on our lower field when the season begins next Saturday. He and a buddy put a game camera down in the woods and it lasted two days before a big bear swiped it off the tree. The camera got a photo before and during the swipe. We saw the bear early in the summer, but haven’t seen it since, but it must traverse our woods without us seeing it. In exchange for the permission, he and his brother came over today and re-secured a gutter on the back of the house that had sagged enough that water was pouring over the outer edge in heavy rain. He said they would return and fine tune it if today’s repair was not enough. In the theme of today’s blog, they used my long extension ladder and cordless drill to facilitate the repair.

    Stay safe out there.

  • In the dark

    It rained and rained and rained, all day yesterday. We had just finished eating an early dinner when the power went out, no good reason we could see. Yes it was wet out, but we never did have wind. The predicted repair time was 12:30 a.m. today, so I dumped the ice from the icemaker into a huge bag and a cooler, turned off the icemaker, so we didn’t end up with water dripping through the basement ceiling.

    By battery lantern, I spun on my spindles for a few hours to try to finish the fiber that I have been working on since the beginning of August. The last 20 some grams were spun last night before I turned in with the lantern and my book.

    The morning brought thick fog, but the rain had stopped. We made a quick run to the Farmers’ Market for my preordered goodies but again, two of the vendors I shop weren’t ready, one was before I left, but the other was still setting up. I was hoping for some carrots, but came home without.

    We drove back home, unloaded the goodies into the refrigerator and freezer, loaded the trailer on the Xterra and returned to town to pick up the mowers. They are home, but the grass is too wet to mow with it as tall as it is. When I start, I will have to raise the deck as high as it will go and mow half width passes and repeat at a lower deck height in a couple of days.

    The fiber I spun last night was plied this afternoon and again is a very fine lace weight yarn.

    That full bobbin gave me 475.5 yards before it is washed. Once it is washed and dry, I will remeasure both skeins to see how much yardage I actually got. It should be in the neighborhood of 900 plus yards.

    This afternoon I attempted to attend the virtual Shenandoah Fiber Festival. It just isn’t the same. I sought out the three vendors I would have sought in person and ordered a “Shenandoah” colorway Falklands from Wild Hare, a vendor I have purchased before. The colorway was dyed for the event and I ordered some Coopworth/Alpaca blend and two color Coopworth from Hearts of the Meadow Farm, a friend who vends there. Trying to browse was frustrating.

    As the weather chills, again I am noticing my right hand, the side from the broken wrist years ago gets colder than the left and the cold is causing more arthritis pain in that arm especially when I knit. This is going to be an issue as I have a Christmas stocking to knit for the newest grandson and a sweater for a grand daughter. It is good that I have all of October, November, and half of December to get them done.

  • Lost events

    This weekend marks another lost event and another event at which I will be represented by some of my crafts, but not my person. For several years, we have gone north to the northern end of the Shenandoah Valley, spent the weekend at a hotel with lots of social time with Son 1 and his family. Together, we all go to the Shenandoah Fiber Festival, visit a couple of vendor friend, see all the wooly and furry critters, and always leave with goodies. Yarn to knit first birthday sweater’s for a granddaughter that turns 4 this year, a spindle one year, fiber always.

    That yarn became the sweater below for granddaughter.

    Last year I was in the area to help Son 1’s family move into their house and we didn’t go to the festival as there were too many other things on the agenda that weekend.

    This year it is virtual. There is no festival to attend. I have trouble buying fiber or yarn without seeing and feeling it, I don’t need any more spindles or wheels. I will miss the trip, but understand the safety of not holding it during the pandemic.

    The second event is at the Museum where I do living history. They are having a fall festival with reservation only tours of 6 per half hour and 6 allowed to wander the outbuildings and grounds per half hour, but I am still not comfortable staying in a closed area other than my home for any length of time and wearing a mask in costume wouldn’t work, so my crafts are there on an honor system sale, but I’m not. I am hopeful that everyone will be honest and if anything takes a walk without payment, that it is really needed and will be loved.

    We daily check the department of health’s website and see that the number of cases in our rural county have jumped more than 10 fold in about a month. For a very long time, there were only 7 or 8 cases here, then the students came back to the Universities in the area, the public school kids returned to a modified face to face school week, and we now have 88 cases and more reported each day (about 15 of them are public school students and/or staff). That doesn’t sound like a lot, but this is a small rural county with a handful of small towns and villages and no cities. This is also a mask resistant county, so we only go out when necessary and generally go to the next county to a larger town with more mask compliance, where we can get curbside delivery of groceries.

    Today our adventure is to go get our curbside grocery delivery in pouring rain from Beta. I watched the pups this morning go quickly into the rain in belly deep grass to do what pups do first thing in the morning. Last evening, I called and the mowers are ready, but they have to be closed today (not that I want to load mowers in the rain), so we will go over in the morning before they close at noon. The weekend is predicted to be drier, so maybe set on the highest setting, I can reduce the height of the yard growth. We keep putting off going to get the brush hog because we will either have to pay for delivery or I will have to drive the tractor down the mountain road, about a mile down the highway edge, then return trip after we attach it to the tractor. I really should do that and have them change the oil and transmission fluid while they have it, that is a job I haven’t learned to do and have no interest in getting on the ground under the tractor to learn.

    Until the deluge slows to a trickle, the chooks will stay in their coop with food and water. I will have to toss down hay in the run when I can get out there just to keep from sliding down the hill and to help keep them from taking mud baths. Chickens are stupid. I am toying with the idea of repairing the chicken tractor, removing it from the collapsed log raft and setting it on 4 blocks so the chickens can use it as a safe shelter when free ranging. It would give them a place to go if a dog or hawk threaten. There is no floor in it as the log raft was the floor, so they could get up into the perches or dust bathe under it.

    The trees are beginning to color, we are seeing the yellowing of some and reds of some of the “trash” trees. I’m not ready for the woods to be bare yet.

  • Spin, knit, cook, read, walk, and vote

    The bulk of my time with the garden in Autumn decline is to spin on my spindles.

    Knit on a project I can’t share yet, as it is a gift.

    Cook at home. When you want Lasagna and it makes way too much for two, get creative. If Stouffers can do it, so can I.

    One for the oven, three for the freezer to be enjoyed on other nights. Made with local cheese, my pasta sauce.

    Re-reading for about the 10th time my favorite book that recenters me each time I read it and reinforces my belief in buy local, eat local, grow it yourself if you can.

    Take walks at the pond, there is always something new to see. The wildfowl have been absent for the summer, but there was a pair of ducks, an 18″ long garter snake, the usual plethora of turtles, and lovely light play in the woods.

    One of these causes seasonal allergies, one does not, do you know which?

    We had decided to vote absentee ballot this year due to the pandemic, but today when they came, we drove them straight to the county seat unopened and voted early in person.

    No crowd, no line, two masked workers behind a shield wall, so safe and no chance that our ballot would be dismissed for whatever reason. Then we got home to find an article from Forbes on how the Trump Campaign is actively considering how to bypass the results if he doesn’t win. What happened to free and fair elections in this country? What will happen to this country?

  • Another Glorious Day

    It is clear and crisp, cool enough for a light wool in the mornings and evenings, and a light long sleeved shirt when working outdoors during the day. This is my favorite time of the year, after it cools off, but before it gets cold.

    The Asian Pear Marmalade was made yesterday afternoon. It took forever to cook to jam consistency, but it is thick and a beautiful golden color. The 3 pounds of pears and an orange, filled 4 half pints plus a quarter pint jar with just enough left over to enjoy warm on a biscuit remaining from Friday night’s dinner.

    Last week, I began a ferment of some of the small Eggplants that I had gotten at the Farmer’s Market. It has been sitting on the back of the counter all week with the ferment weight and ferment lid, all covered with a small towel. I hadn’t even peeked at it all week and decided to check it this morning. What a gorgeous color it turned and the ferment is so good. I have to thank a local friend for introducing me to fermented eggplant many years ago, and a distant online friend for reminding me of it now that I ferment so many good foods. I bought zesty salad mix and radishes at the Farmer’s market yesterday and a block of goat milk Feta cheese last week. I think a salad with those items and some of the eggplant and a tomato if I can find a ripe one will be a nice addition to dinner tonight.

    As soon as the morning sun and wind dry the garden leaves, I will pick beans and any other produce ready to come in for the freezer. Soon, the remaining beans will be left to mature and dry to save for planting next year. I have planted this variety for a couple of years and they perform very well here. Last year I didn’t save the seed and had to purchase seed, but bean seed is so easy to save. When the peas start producing, I will harvest to enjoy and also let them mature and dry for saving. Some packages of seed I use have so many seed in them that the package will last two or three years, and some seed is so tiny and difficult to save, I just purchase when I need more. I suspect I will have volunteer tomatillo all over the place next year and have in the past, dug them and relocated them where I wanted them to grow.

    Since my newest spindle arrived during the week, I have been spinning mostly on it to get used to it’s size and weight and because when it spins, the wood grain of the figured Bigleaf Maple makes the most interesting concentric circles, very mesmerizing. This is the second turtle of fiber on it. It would hold a lot, but I am trying to keep the colors of the braid consistent enough that the plied yarn will be similar to the first half of the braid that I finished last month.