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  • Bits and Pieces

    An old song, but the song of this summer. Everything seems to be happening in bits and pieces.

    We are entering August in a couple of days and we still have half of the big south field in standing hay. That has never happened since we moved to this farm. Usually the hay is down, baled, and hauled away by the end of the first week of July. This year they finished part of one field, were threatened with rain so teddered, raked, and baled that part. Then another window opened and they finished the upper fields. Last week, the older farmer (a decade my junior in calendar age, a decade older in physical age) came and worked alone as the younger farmer workers hold day jobs and usually work late afternoons and early evenings when the storms threaten. He started mowing the south field, got maybe half done before he had to quit for the day, then it rained on it. He teddered it two days in a row and with pending rain, he raked and baled 19 more 5 X 4′ round bales alone yesterday afternoon.

    And more rain is due, so the rest of the field won’t get done anytime soon. Fortunately, all the fields they work and have been able to get done are producing higher yield, quality hay, so if they lose the remaining 19-20 bales down there, they may be able to at least sell it for contractor’s work.

    The garden is providing in bits and pieces, too. There has only been one canning session, a batch of Spicy Bread and Butter pickles, though another of them may be in the near future. The cucumbers are loving the heat and rain showers and I bring in a basket every couple of days. Two half gallon jars of quick brine dill pickles have been made and put in the refrigerator this week, two quart jars of fermented dills are working on the counter, and there were at least a dozen finger sized cucumbers last night that will be ready in a couple of days. Two huge ones were missed in my earlier searches through the sticky vines and they were broken in half and tossed to the hens.

    Not yesterday’s basket, but typical, cucumbers, a small handful of jalapenos, a tomato or two, a couple of tomatillos that are about egg sized, and last night, a huge bunch of basil to dry. The tomatoes and tomatillos are popped into gallon bags and tossed into the freezer until there are enough to prep into sauce for canning. The jalapenos quick brined a pint at a time when there are enough to fill a pint. I am making the brine a half gallon at a time and keeping it in the refrigerator to heat up what I need per pint, though I may switch to quart jars soon to save the pints for canning tomatoes and later applesauce. Because it is just two of us at home, quarts are used for dry storage and not for canning except for quick brine jalapenos. Hubby will go through 8 or 9 quart jars a winter.

    Yarn is being spun in bits and pieces this summer too, a tiny spindle full at a time. When the spindle is full, the singles are wound off onto a bobbin, when a second spindle is full, the two are wound together into a ply ball. When the ply ball gets about the size of a baseball, it is plied on the spinning wheel with each ply ball being added to the bobbin as it fills. When the bobbin is full, there is enough yarn to be a decent skein and it is wound off, tied, soaked to full it and set the twist.

    Today or tomorrow, the second tiny spindle that I am getting in a trade for a larger spindle should arrive. Tracking showed it arrived at the local distribution center in the middle of the night. The spinning in bits and pieces has been a conscious choice to center me and to slow down the rate at which I create items that would likely end up in my shop, as craft events are not happening and as people are out of work, nothing is selling. Yesterday, I received back several skeins of yarn that had been for sale on consignment in a friend’s lovely little yarn shop that she has closed, so it too will be added to my shop. If you are a knitting, weaving, or crocheting reader that doesn’t spin, be sure to check out the new listings in the shop, there is a link at the top of the blog. I have added about 8 new yarns this week and will add more soon.

    Each morning as I am heading out to do chores or sitting on a porch to enjoy the cool morning with my breakfast, I find webs. The one in yesterday’s blog was gone by afternoon and back this morning. This one was in the tiny plum tree that though it is about 4 years old can’t get a good start because the deer keep clipping off the new growth. I have put temporary fencing around it and they still manage to get to it.

    My fig that I bought last year in a big pot had a couple of figs on it when I purchased it. It was only about 18″ tall then. Of the figs on it, I got 1. It didn’t appear to have survived the winter, so in the late spring, I mowed over where it was planted and the next time I went over to mow the orchard, I saw new growth. It is a variety that will die back each winter and regrow each spring. It is a much more vigorous plant than I brought home, but alas, no figs. I will give it more protection this winter, perhaps build a mini greenhouse shelter around it with the corrugated plastic panels that are coming off the rotting chicken tractor.

    Last year, my only remaining peach tree produced fruit, but every peach was small and had tiny holes that oozed a clear sappy goo, and they rotted before they were ripe enough to pick. This year the peaches were large enough to be good, but again, each peach has the tiny holes and are rotting on the tree. I tried picking a few that seemed intact, but once in the house, they too started oozing and rotting before they ripened. I don’t know what is causing it, I don’t like to spray. Maybe peaches that I don’t purchase at the Farmer’s Market are just not in my future. It is keeping the deer fed and right now smells fermented, so I may see staggering critters on the farm.

    The grape vine that I was sure would not do anything this year after I sharply pruned it and tied it up off the ground is very vigorous and full of fruit that is just beginning to turn from green to Concord blue/purple. There will be grape jelly.

    Now I need to learn how to properly prune it so we get fruit again next year.

    Take care out there everyone.

  • More Olio – July 28, 2020

    Years go by faster as we age, but this year has flown by, locked in and frustrated that simple measures that would have slowed, possibly contained the virus are not being heeded by many. Frustrated that basic simple procedures are being pushed back on as “violations of my rights,” a false claim, when they don’t think twice about heeding the “No shirt, no shoes, no service” messages, or the wearing a seat belt when driving or helmet when riding a motorcycle laws.

    It is so hot and humid that outdoor activities are not inviting. The pick your own berry patches are either not opening or hours are so limited that instead of spreading out the crowds, it concentrates them. The garden is supplying us with good nourishment, but the items that require my attention in the kitchen for more than a few minutes are still maturing, so there has been only one canning session. Cucumbers, other than the first batch, are being fermented or quick brined. A half gallon jar of dill wedges were started in a refrigerator quick brine a few days ago.

    Mornings are still mostly pleasant enough to enjoy my breakfast and coffee on one of the porches. This morning it was the front covered porch where I watched the Hummingbirds and spotted the web in this photo, stretched from the spider plant to the porch post.

    The hens production is up again finally. All three Olive eggers are laying again, so I’m getting blue, green, and pink eggs from them. One of New Hampshire Reds is laying very small rough shelled eggs. We are back to getting 5 or 6 eggs most days instead of 2 which is nice.

    Because we still don’t have a brush hog, there is a section of the yard that has not been mowed all year. It winds through the evergreens that we have planted between the end of the lawn and the barn. When I walk to the mailbox, it is interesting to see the deer paths and deer lays that are in the tall grass.

    I finally finished spinning the Sea Glass green fiber that I was spinning during the Tour de Fleece and the mini challenge the following week. It adds 96 more yards that I can include with the nearly 400 yard skein that I spun with it. Now I’m trying to decide which braid to spin beginning in August for that month’s challenge. One choice is BFL/Silk Redbud color, another is an unknown fiber that feels like Merino called Baltic. I ordered an Elderberry colored braid of Shetland and Silk that will be spun at some point. In the meantime, I’m spinning a Merino/Bamboo blend of yellow, blue, and white called Sky Flower.

    The mobile vet made her visit and drew blood from the pups to check for heartworm and other parasitics and they both are ok, but the big guy is showing signs of his age. We will try some supplements recommended for his joints and his tummy upset. It is hard watching him slow down, he is such a big lovable gentle giant.

    We see many of our friends doing some travels, hopefully safely and socially distancing. Maybe some day we will feel safe enough to do so. Stay safe everyone, wear your masks and lets get through this together.

  • Non-venomous, still not welcome

    My Facebook memory from this morning was the 6 foot black rat snake that I extracted from my chicken coop exactly a year ago to the amazement of my then 14 year old grandson. Then about 5 weeks ago, another about 5 foot one from the coop, and last night just as a thunderstorm was beginning, I went over to lock up the hens who had wisely gone into the coop to find another 6 footer lounging on the outside of the coop, right at waist height. I walked past it in the deepening gloom without seeing it and spotted it when I came back out. Another 5 gallon bucket with lid grabbed, a call into the house for hubby to put on shoes and grab keys.

    July 27, 2019; June 22, 2020, July 26, 2020

    When I grabbed the one last night, it wrapped it’s tail around the gate handle that I use to secure the chicken run gate closed and was so strong that it almost pulled it’s head from my grasp. It was stretched out on the trim board above the handle it’s head half way down the length of the coop and it’s tail on the trim piece behind that fiberglass post.

    I don’t kill them, but I don’t want them in my coop, eating eggs, feed, or babies when there are any, so they are put in a lidded 5 gallon bucket and taken away from the farm. The first two were dropped off in the wood about a half mile from home. This one was taken two miles away and dumped. I have to admit, that I never handled a snake before these three except for twice. Once when I took a small, 2 foot Hognose snake into my classroom from the adjoining classroom to show one of my Biology classes, the second time to feel, but not hold a python. Snake skin is dry, cool, and smooth, they are not slimy like some people think. They are well muscled and you can feel the muscle movement when they coil or try to.

    Hubby is not a fan. He would prefer that they stay in the woods well away from us. When we bought a house in Virginia Beach when our children were young, the air handler was in the ceiling above the family room. The first time I went up to change the filter as it was a crawl on your hands and knees to get to it fit, I found several snake skins. Later that summer, a black rat snake crawled out of the hole in the brick where the condenser tube ran and he commented that if the snake was found in the house, he was moving out. Last night, he was taking the picture above and afterward, I lowered the snake in the bucket at my feet with the lid in my right hand. That snake did not want to be in that bucket and before I could get the lid firmly on, it tried to escape, in the direction of hubby who was standing back about 6 feet with the camera. I caught the snake and secured it, but his reaction before I did was priceless. I thought he had learned to fly, he jumped back so fast and so high (he says this is an exageration).

    They have their place, eating rodents, but their place is not in my coop.

    It did rain for a little while last evening and this morning, the farm was shrouded in fog. By the time the chores were done, the fog had lifted except at the tops of the trees and the mountain tops.

    It was very pretty sitting on the porch with my breakfast and coffee watching it shift and having the territorial little Hummingbirds fly around through the covered porch chasing each other off.

    The fog mist had settled on the asparagus ferns in the garden and they glittered like they were covered with thousands of tiny diamonds this morning.

    The row of sunflowers are producing more blooms each day, bronze, lemon yellow, and Hopi dye seed varieties. Non of the wild Kansas sunflower seed that my sister sent produced plants this year.

    It is going to be another hot and humid day, Roanoke, the nearest city has broken their weather history for the most consecutive days above 90 degrees f. It has gotten that hot here a few times in the past months, but mostly hovering in the upper 80’s. We await the mobile vet to check out the big guy and to administer vaccines possibly and do heartworm tests if the pups cooperate. The visit will be socially distanced on the front porch.

    Stay safe, wear your mask. Let’s beat this virus.

  • Olio 7/25/2020

    Olio: a miscellaneous collection of things.

    This morning as I was taking the feeder out to the wild finches, I realized that the 3 days of thunderstorms encouraged these pretty fringed silver mushrooms in the compost put down in the walled garden. There are dozens of them in clusters. I’m sure as soon as the day heats up, they will all wilt back.

    After doing the morning chores, I stood in the dining room to do my 15 minute daily challenge spinning on one of my Jenkins spindles. From there I could watch the House Finches ravage that feeder and the Hummingbirds dancing around their feeder on the opposite side of the house.

    The fiber I was spinning was the last of a braid of fiber from Inglenook, it was a beautiful braid of blue, purple, teal, and some white Merino and Silk. It spun like a dream and was one of the fibers I was spinning during the Tour de Fleece and this week during the 15 minute challenge. It took me about 35 minutes to finish the braid.

    After spinning it, we decided to go in to the outdoor Farmer’s Market which we have not visited since the pandemic caused all the lock downs. They have it set up with moveable fences to control how many people can enter at a time, directional signage in chalk on the walkways, no touch payment, and if you plan ahead and know exactly what you want, you can order ahead. I was hoping for some sausage, cultured butter, cheese, and veggies I don’t grow. When we got there, the line wrapped around two side on the outer sidewalk and people though masked were standing close enough to put their hand on the shoulder of the person in front of them in line. Many kids running around in the grass in the middle not masked though there is a mandate to wear a mask within the fenced area. I was unwilling to stand in the line, so we left and went to take a walk on the old rail grade. After our walk, we drove back over toward the market and the crowd had thinned down to no line and fewer people within the fence. It was good to see the vendors I have missed. The vendor with the butter and cheese wasn’t there and the only vegetables not sold out that I don’t grow were a couple of cabbages. There was squash, but that isn’t a favorite here, and salad mix which I had just gotten from the same vendor’s supply at the local Natural Foods Store a few days before. I did talk to those vendors and got on their preorder list/info with the suggestion to come during the first hour when they more strictly limit the number of people for the seniors and when supply of items is greater. I will start doing that. I miss that weekly trip.

    The hay in the lower field still stands. We are still parking three tractors and four pieces of equipment besides our own tractor. Last evening, after dinner, we went to the village market to get ice cream and saw the farmer that does the hay. He relies on two younger men to help him and last weekend they decided to move all the hay already mowed instead of finishing the mowing, then there was a forecast of 50% chance of rain so they didn’t mow and it didn’t rain. This weekend, one of the younger men is away, but Randy said he might come mow after his shift at the stockyard today. We will see.

    I ended up with 342 yards of 21 WPI lace weight yarn weighing in at 69.6 grams (2.45 ounces). I guess it will go in the shop after it is soaked and dried. Lovely soft Merino and Silk.

  • More Variety

    Each day that goes by brings change to the garden. The potatoes are dug, the first planting of bush beans is spent and the plants pulled and put in the compost pile. It will be another couple of weeks before the second planting begins to produce beans. There is a little corn on the larger stalks. There are dozens of developing Tomatillos that will be made into simmer sauce and Tomatillo Jalapeno jam. The sunflowers are blooming.

    The first few were the bronze colors, but now there is a tall lemon yellow one. I plant a variety mix of seed.

    The grapes are plentiful and are beginning to turn purple. Soon some grape jelly will be made.

    And this year they are up and off the ground.

    The daily harvest looks different than a week ago, today there was the first red tomato and even though it was a plum tomato, it went in our dinner salad. I had gone out to pick a cucumber for the salad and came in with many, a few larger ones and a quart jar of of small ones that I put in to ferment to whole dills.

    There are now three jars fermenting, one of sauerkraut, one of dill slices, and one of whole small dills. There are two already fermented of dilly beans in the refrigerator. The Jalapenos are getting of a size to start the pickled peppers that hubby loves with most dinners and some sandwiches. Two pints were done this afternoon as well.

    Today has been dry and the evening ended with a beautiful pink sky.

    Stay safe. Wear your mask. See you on the other side of this pandemic.

  • Almost free food

    The savings from planting a garden is significant, especially if you prefer organic or using organic methods even if not certified, and if you prefer local so you know it is fresh and hasn’t been shipped across the country or from another country. There are some things you can’t grow in your climate, I understand that. I can’t grow avocados and bananas for example, but we like them both. My garden isn’t large enough to provide all of the potatoes, onions, greens, beans, and peas we eat in one year, but large enough to enjoy fresh and put some by through freezing, canning, or fermenting.

    Toward the end of winter, maybe early spring, I bought a 5 pound bag of basic organic white potatoes from the grocer. Organic produce is usually not sprayed to suppress sprouting or over ripening, and this particular sack of potatoes began sprouting almost in the car on the way home. We don’t eat a lot of potatoes, so the bag was tucked under the sink where it would be out of the light and each time I took a couple of from the sack, I had to untangle the sprouts and pare the sprouted eyes from the potatoes. I finally gave up when there were 4 or 5 left in the bag, and as soon as the soil was warm enough this spring, I cut those potatoes so that each section had two sprouting eyes and set them on a tray to dry for a day, then planted them in a 4 by 8 foot bed in the garden. I didn’t expect much, they weren’t seed potatoes, just grocery store ones. Every piece I planted came up and the bed was a thick mass of greenery and pretty purple flowers, then the heat came, their season ending and they died back. I had read you should leave them in the ground for a week or so after they die back, but for the past three days we have had some intense thunder storms and a fair amount of rain. I didn’t want them to grow and then rot in the ground, so in a light sprinkle yesterday afternoon, I took the same blue plastic compost bucket over and dug potatoes with a garden fork and my hands. Those 4 or 5 potatoes left to sprout in the sack, produced about 12-14 pounds of potatoes. I don’t know what a good return on potatoes is, but these are basically free food, potatoes that were beyond my use for cooking, providing many weeks of food for our shelves.

    I never have to buy pickles. One package of cucumber seed for a couple of dollars will provide plants for 3 or 4 seasons, giving us fresh cucumbers and plenty to make into the Spicy Bread and Butter, Dill quarters, and fermented dill slices.

    Generally the 6 to 9 tomato plants I plant will provide tomato sauce for pasta, chili, or other cooked tomato needs, as well as pizza sauce to last the year or nearly so.

    Hubby loves a pickled jalapeno with most dinner meals and on some sandwiches, and the plants provide enough for me to can a year’s worth. I never buy hot sauce, instead, hot peppers are ground and fermented to make enough for my cooking and condiments and usually enough to share a bottle or two with Son 1 and his family.

    The garlic I grow will usually last the year or close to it. Onions will last for months before I have to start buying them. Peas and beans are eaten fresh and extras frozen for when the fresh foods aren’t available. So the $25-30 I spend on seed and plants provide many meals throughout the year.

    The hens still aren’t producing like they did last year, but the three Oliver eggers all started laying again. I have gotten a pink egg and a blue egg this week along with a couple green eggs.

    One very dirty hand from digging potatoes.

    I hope that by planting a fall garden this year, that we will save even more with carrots, spinach, fall peas, and whatever other short season plants I can put in and protect from fall insects and first frosts.

  • Sort of success

    Last night as it thundered, lightninged, and rained buckets full, I brought in the plastic pail I gather weeds in for the chickens and spread a huge garbage bag on the dining table to process the garlic for braiding. I watched two different videos on how to braid garlic and both were different, so I just did my own thing. The garlic was spread out, the dried roots trimmed and the dirty loose outer skin removed. They were sorted enough to see the sizes and braiding began. What a mess I made, but dry and easy to clean up after I was done. Every year I have planted garlic, I have planted hard neck varieties and they can’t be braided, but I ordered late last year and could only get soft neck varieties which can be braided.

    It isn’t the prettiest braid, but what fun. While braiding, one of the stems had what looked like little round cloves breaking though it so I did some research. They are call bulbils and can be planted to produce small cloves that are then planted the following year, a two year process to produce bulbs of garlic.

    There were only half a dozen, but I will plant them, well marked in the fall and again next fall to see how they turn out.

    This morning, I dumped the compost waste from last night and tackled the onions, again filling the compost tub with tops and roots.

    As you can see, the potato onion are small. Good for kebobs, or pot roast, or when I only need a bit of onion. After the bin was dumped in the compost pile again, the onions were loaded into it and relocated to the huge shelf and grid unit that Son 1 built several summers ago in the basement area that is not climate controlled, my “root cellar” in a sense.

    The bottom two shelves are boards and store jars as they are emptied then filled jars as canning commences in the summer. The pressure canner belongs to Son 1 and DIL and needs some replacement parts. The top three shelves are hardware cloth with great ventilation for storage of onions, garlic, potatoes, and pumpkins. The onions were spread out at one end of the lowest wire shelf to continue curing and for use in cooking. Though I will replant a few of the smaller ones this fall, just because they are fun to watch develop, I will reserve most of my onion space for early spring onion starts.

    As I evolve with my garden space and learn from my successes and failure, I learn to enjoy it more each year. This is the first year that I have tried the single leader on indeterminate tomatoes and love how they are up and not all over the ground. I realized after a couple of years that the asparagus bed was not well placed as it shades the beds on either side of it in the morning and in the afternoon as the sun moves across the sky. There isn’t much I can do about that without digging the bed out and starting over which would mean a couple of years without asparagus, so I need to use those beds for crops that mature early. This year it was peas in the spring, but bush beans are in that bed now that the ferns are tall. Tomatoes are on the west side, so they are getting afternoon sun, but I bought all indeterminate varieties and three of them ended up bush varieties and one of them is now sandwiched between a tall tomato and the asparagus so not getting much sun. Each year I grow something new and sometimes repeat, sometimes not. This year I tried soft neck garlic and will return to hard neck, already ordered; potato onions and will return to traditional onions; Chinese Cabbage, but will start them indoors; and ground cherries. Since they were just planted, we will have to wait and see.

    If the heat wave ever breaks, I need to build the garden box and rebuild the one that had onions and garlic in it. The beds that will be fall garden need to be enriched and the ones that will be idle through the winter need a ground cover or at least a good thick layer of spoiled hay or straw. But again today, it is too hot! Last evenings thunderstorms cooled things off over night, but the heat and humidity are back.

    Stay safe everyone. Please wear your mask. Today I went in our little local store to get a newspaper. Newly posted on the door is the sign that says “You must wear a mask to enter.” I asked the unmasked clerk if they were going to enforce it and she smirked and as well as we can. The owner and most of the customers in there were unmasked. So frustrating.

  • Canning has commenced

    and putting by continues. The garlic is ready to braid. I can braid hair, surely I can figure out how to braid garlic. The onions are nearly ready to relocate to the cooler, drier basement out of the hot humid garage. The potato tops are nearly all brown. I dug one plant to have new potatoes with fresh green beans, cucumbers and vinaigrette, and sauteed Chinese cabbage and onion with last night pork loin roast. I will give the potatoes about a week more to toughen the skins, then dig them and put on the wire shelves in the basement as well. The cucumbers are producing prolifically. We have been enjoying the first of them in salads and with onions in vinaigrette, but there were finally enough to make the first batch of pickles today. Son 1’s family, especially DIL and grandson 1 really like a recipe that I modified several years ago. Food in Jars by Melissa McClellan has a Bread and Butter pickle recipe in it. I substituted about 1/2 c of sliced Jalapenos for some of the sweet red pepper that it called for and it make a sweet and spicy pickle. I had red, yellow, and orange peppers sliced in the freezer and a pint bag of sliced jalapenos, a huge yellow sweet onion and all the spices I needed. The veggies were cut, tossed with the pickling salt, covered and put in the refrigerator this morning early.

    My giant pottery bread bowl was called into service. After dinner tonight, the water bath canner was hauled down off the high shelf, filled with pint jars and water and set on the stove to heat up. The veggies were rinsed, the brine made, the veggies cooked in the brine until hot and packed in the jars. I had put an extra 12 ounce jar in the canner because the recipe says it makes 5 pints. I have had it make more and less, so I want to be prepared. It made 5 3/4 pints this time.

    I need to put a note in the recipe that it take almost twice the amount of brine that she calls for and every year I end up in the middle of loading the jars, making more brine. The jars are cooling on the counter. At lunch today, I opened one of the last jars from last year’s batch. They are put out at family meals, I use them in tuna salad, but otherwise I am stingy with the ones I keep for me. Most of them will go to Son 1’s family. The next big batch of cucumbers will be made into dill spears, or whole dills if I can catch enough small ones at the same time.

    While the pickles were processing, I shredded a cabbage and salted it. The salt is massaged in until the liquid begins to weep out. It will sit for an hour and then be packed tightly into a sterile quart jar and set up to ferment for sauerkraut. The dilly beans from a few days ago are perfect and I have already enjoyed a few of them.

    The versatile big bowl in service for the second time today. The refrigerator style pickles and ferments were made in greater quantity when there was a second old refrigerator in the basement, but it gave up two years ago, so the ferments are more limited now. If the second or third planting of bush beans are as prolific as the first planting was, I will made some canned dilly beans that will keep on the shelves.

    Between rain storms this afternoon, I planted a third planting of bush green beans. I had used all of my seed, but Southern Exposure Seed company where I get most of my seed still have the one I plant in stock, so I ordered a packet when I ordered my fall vegetable seed and they came yesterday. The first planting of beans are spent, the plants will be pulled soon and the cucumbers can run in that direction too. Their leaf cover will help hold down weed growth in that end of the bed. I thought the cucumbers were semi bush variety, but they have vines 6 or 8 feet long already. Last year the only thing planted in the same bed were sunflowers so I guess they just climbed them. The fence I placed for them is way too short.

    Soon there will be tomatoes and pepper to process and in about a month, the fall veggies planted. I thought the Chinese Cabbage second planting was a failure, but they must just be very slow to germinate as it appears that there may be a dozen or so plants coming up. They will be thinned out to give them space. The one I cooked is more like Napa cabbage than head cabbage, the leaves are bright green.

    That is the one I picked yesterday on the left of the picture. I don’t know how well they will keep. I don’t think they will freeze well, but maybe there will be some Kimchee in the future, or Napa style sauerkraut.

    It is nice to be adding to the larder instead of just using from it. It was exciting to do an entire meal except for the protein from the garden last night. When I planted the beans today, I also planted a short season ground cherry. I have never planted them before and want to try to make some jam from them if they are successful. I hope we get a decent thunderstorm, the earlier one rained only about 15 minutes and it didn’t even wet the soil in the garden. I may have to set up the sprinkler.

    In my post day before yesterday, I showed the results of the Tour de Fleece spinning. Today I took the ply balls and plied them on the wheel. The lighter teal ended up 334.5 yards, less than 2.5 ounces, 16 WPI (light fingering weight) yarn. The darker shiny blue is still on the bobbin as it didn’t fill the bobbin and I have more to spin which I will add before measuring it off.

    There is still about an ounce and a half of that fiber, but no more would fit on the bobbin. I don’t know if I will put it in the shop or knit something for the shop. The fiber is from Three Waters Farm and is Merino, Superwash Merino, and Silk, so very soft and drapey.

    Time to return to making sauerkraut.

    Stay safe. Wear your mask, it isn’t a political statement, it is a health and safety issue.

  • Tour de Fleece

    Many fiber groups participate in Tour de Fleece. It is a fun activity that coincides with the Tour de France, in normal years. Generally you do something to challenge yourself on challenge day, “rest” on rest days, etc. I have never participated in this before, but I belong to a group on a social media site that is for Jenkins Turkish Spindles which have been my sanity during the stay at home order and following self isolation as things are opening back up and virus cases increasing. Spindle spinning is relaxing to me and I have plenty of fiber to play with, but spindle spinning slows down the process and makes the fiber last longer.

    The group for the past 23 days has had a “Scavenger Hunt” and the found item is photographed with your spindle(s) with 1 or more gram of newly spun fiber on it. The items have to be from your “home” and that includes your property. Some of the items have been quite easy such as a fresh fruit or vegetable, more difficult such as your favorite piece or pottery or basket, your favorite piece of wall art, etc. Those items aren’t as difficult to fiber artists as you might think because of mugs, yarn bowls, baskets to store knitting or spinning. A few days required two items, such as something to climb and a helmet.

    Surrounded by hills and mountains, I chose my grandfather’s old wooden ladder and helmets from activities neither of us can do any longer, but still have the helmets.

    Yesterday was the final day and if you have ever followed Tour de France, you know that the daily leader and final winner wear a yellow shirt. I had no trouble with the first 22 days other than deciding on some days which basket or piece of pottery, which live plant, book, item that began with a certain letter to use. The final one was tough. We both look ill or like we are about to be if we wear yellow. The object has to be in your home, so borrowing or buying one is not an option. There were no yellow shirts to be found, anywhere in the house, including the clothing stash that Son 1 and DIL keep in the basement bedroom dresser. It wouldn’t have been the end of the world to not have it, but prize entries were based on the number of items found and when. You had to find one each day but two with two grace days to get three entries and if you got all 23, you got an extra entry. I was not to be out done by this. I have an extensive spice collection as I love to cook, so there was a bottle of ground turmeric. A pot of boiling turmeric and water and one of hubby’s undershirts simmered for 15 minutes then treated with a good dose of salted vinegar and I had a yellow shirt.

    Photographed with the 126 g of fiber spun in the 23 days. That shirt will have to be washed separately or everything we own will be yellow and it will become a painting shirt, but I ended up with my yellow shirt.

    What a fun way to take your mind off of being at home. It was fun reading through as many of the more than 8000 posts as I could and seeing objects from other folks homes in the US and other countries, reading about events in others lives, meeting new friends. The group moderator must have been super woman to keep up with what started as 106 participants and ended up with 99 chatty folks, tracking our finds and ending and starting each day. The last find has to be posted by 11 a.m. EDT today, then she has to finish the tally and do the prize drawings. I donated 3 of the prizes so items will be mailed off to the winners when announced.

    To “extend” our fun, she as introduced a spin 15 minutes a day for a week. Many of the same folks have signed up for this too, so we can continue being in each other’s lives for a while longer.

  • The New Garden

    A hot, sweaty week of work has greatly improved the view from the back deck. After laying cardboard until it ran out, then weed blocking mat and forking rotting, molding hay over the top, we made three separate trips to the Garden Center and came back with 44 one cubic foot bags of Black Kow composted manure. It was spread over the hay, deep enough to plant in some places, a thin cover layer in others. The upper edge, nearest where the patio is being constructed from thick flat stones from our land was under the old deck and had tons of rock on it, so it is very compacted with still buried stone. Until the patio is completed, that part of the garden will be too thin to plant.

    The Hummingbird feed was shifted and three of the half barrels that have annual and perennial plants in bloom were arranged around the pole. The Hummingbirds fly back there, but I haven’t seen any of them feeding from it yet. The Finches finally accepted the new hopper feeder, so I am seeing birds around the garden now.

    Some plants have been transplanted to the deeper areas of the new garden, the potted perennial herbs moved to what I hope will be their permanent location, some Calendula plants and the volunteer Comfrey plants in their new location, a few Dutch and Bearded Iris nearer the shallow part as they have shallow roots. The sprinkler is running every day to help the new plants establish root systems and not just wilt and die.

    There was a large stone up under a cedar tree on the edge of the driveway that looked like a good potential patio stone. It was flat on both side and thick. The tractor was able to pull it out from under the tree, but it was too heavy for me to flip into the bucket, so I shoved it down the driveway hill with the tractor until I could wedge it against the hill at the bottom near the house and used gravity to ease it into the bucket. The tractor bucket gently set it in the patio area where it is going to take “Charles Atlas” to move it again. It may become a fixed point that is built up around it.

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    It is almost large enough for the grill to sit on, but I really want it up against the wall that is 14″ away from it’s current location. I may enlist the help of the two younger hay men to shift it over for me.

    There are many more nice large, flat stones that Son 1 unearthed when he dug the trench for the yard hydrant line that have been hauled to the edges of some of the rock piles, but until the stickweed dies back this fall, I am unwilling to try to get them. It might be wiser to wait until the temperatures cool some before doing any more heavy work like that. I am still shifting some stone to even out the top of the garden wall. The lower spots are more visible now that there is soil in there.

    Here is the result of the week of hot, heavy work.

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    I am pleased.

    Stay safe. Wear a mask, it isn’t a political statement, it is a health and safely issue.