Cabin Crafted

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  • Independence Day

    July 4, 2020 would have been my mother’s 96th birthday. As kids, it was celebrated at a neighborhood pool party and feast. We lived in what is now the suburbs of Virginia Beach, then a county. Our houses were all on several acres, so neighborhood is being used loosely. Four of the houses were a Greek immigrant and his 3 sons and their families. The patriarch of the family had no idea what his birthday was so he celebrated on July 4 and one of his son’s had the pool and a fantastic outdoor kitchen with a spit and they always grilled a lamb with lemon, olive oil, and oregano. Everyone brought dishes and the kids spent the day in the pool, we ate, and celebrated Papu’s and Mom’s birthdays.

    As young adults with kids of our own, there were neighborhood block parties, fireworks at the ocean front or a local park and the traffic jams trying to get home. Blacksburg and Christiansburg, the towns nearest us have fireworks and we usually have our oldest grandson at this time of year and sometimes his Dad too and we go in to see them. Not this year. With the social isolation, we went in at lunch time, for drove through food, took a walk on the old rail grade, masking when we passed anyone or were passed by cyclist, and returned home for the afternoon spent planting more corn, pulling the corn suckers from the ones that were up and transplanting them if they had roots, repairing a leaky garden hose, and watering pots and newly planted seed. I cooked burgers on the grill and had corn on the cob, then drove to a little town nearby to get ice cream only to find hundreds of people in the street looking at various cars, having some sort of street festival and no masks in sight, so we drove to the county seat to a drive through for cones. By the time we arrived back home, the sun was going down and I tackled the overgrown yellow Bearded Iris bed, first cutting back their tops, then digging them all up to divide.

    • An overgrown mass trimmed back.
    • All dug and about to be divided.
    • Bed done.

    Three large clumps set aside for friends, the remainder tossed into an area we don’t mow where they will set roots and bloom. The finished bed will be an overgrown mess again in two years.

    It just wasn’t the same watching the fireworks on TV, but some of the music was nice.

    Memories.

  • We found summer

    Garden and lawn tasks must be done in the early morning or after the sun is low in the sky. It is hot and humid, though neither as hot, nor as humid as summers were when we lived on the coast. Yesterday morning, after I had actually rested well the night before, I mowed the front “lawn” of the house.

    A photo of a photo.

    Since this aerial photo was taken by our Realtor after we bought our farm, we have built the house, gardens, bought a coop and fenced a run, planted an orchard to the east of the house, and many pines, maples, and redbuds between the barn and to the northwest of the house. Our farm is the L shaped series of hayfields containing the buildings and down to a line in the woods to the south. This is 30 acres, for the sports minded reader, about 27 American football fields. I mow about 5 acres (about 4.5 football fields) as our lawn, from south of the barn to below the septic field and from the orchard to 25 feet or so to the west of the house. The area above the barn is too rocky to mow or hay and without animals grazing on it, trees have volunteered in the 15 years we have lived here. The rest of our farm is hayfields. We have woods and cattle fields as neighbors to the west, hayfields to the east, woods to the south. This morning before it got too hot and muggy, I mowed the west and south sides of the house and around the orchard, garden, and chicken pen. It takes about 3 hours total to do the lawn on the riding mower. Another couple of hours to clean up with the line trimmer which I still haven’t done.

    As I mow, I love to see what is seasonally blooming, as soon the hay will come down and so will the wildflowers within.

    • Moth Mullein
    • Chicory
    • The hay is shoulder high when I am sitting on the mower.
    The fig I though had died.

    The 3rd planting of corn is up about 6 inches but still there are sparce spots and the pumpkins failed again. I am still in the window to plant corn in this zone, so I guess I will fill in the empty spaces and our corn will come in not all at once, which I guess is a good thing. I may give up on the pumpkins, I don’t have any more seed.

    During the heat of the day, I spin and make masks, though my sewing corner in the bedroom dormer gets hot with the iron on. I need to look for one of the little portable fans that are stowed away somewhere in the house.

    Stay safe, wear your mask, wash your hands. We want to be able to go out again at some point and see our children and grandchildren. Phone calls and video calls are nice, but just not as good as hugs.

  • Shut in fun

    The one social media that I am enjoying regularly these days is one for fiber artists. A group to which I belong on this site is for the Jenkins spindles that I love. Each year during Tour de France, they participate in Tour de Fleece and as there is no Tour de France this year, we are doing a daily scavenger hunt of objects in your home and showing them in a photograph with one or more of your spindles holding at least 1 gram of fiber spun within the 24 hours prior. It has been so much fun looking for the object, posting it with or without a story that goes with it and then reading the other 100+ folks posts. Items like a handheld kitchen gadget, a jigsaw puzzle, an unfinished fiber project.

    • A favorite piece of art on your wall.
    • A non fiber equipment wood item
    • A spherical object

    Every day is a new item and more fun. I spin much more than a gram of fiber a day on my spindles. Today a new acquisition arrived in the mail. It is the tiny Olive wood spindle with the rusty colored fiber in the lower edge of the bowl.

    This has been a fun activity, the first week just ending. At the end of the 17 days, we will have earned entries into drawings for prizes from 6 Jenkins spindles, fiber, project bags, patterns. The number of successful days determines the number of entries.

    Some of my time is being used to make masks. Eldest son’s family were needing some and he is bearded with a long face, so patterns are being altered.

    Other time is being spent in the early mornings in the garden, though there is little to harvest right now. The second plantings are beginning to sprout. The hay still stands tall, though the mowers are getting this direction, the fields near us are being done now. Grass mowing has to be done in the early mornings or near dusk.

    The Day Lilies are gorgeous.

  • Garden Bonus

    Since I put so much effort into making the garden as maintenance free as I could this year, my intention is to try not to have idle beds. This morning after animal chores, I harvested what I thought was the end of the peas, about a pint that I intended for dinner tonight.

    After lunch, I decided that since they were no longer producing that the vines should be pulled, chopped, and used to create a new compost pile. The old pile was spread and a new garden box placed where it had been. The best spot was in the corner of the garden nearest the chicken run where I took down the inner fence and a wide spot exists. It is a convenient place since the soiled straw from the coop can be put over the fence easily in that corner. As the vines were reduced to a smaller more compact pile, I added a layer of spoiled straw from the coop, and a shovel full of compost to boost it along and repeated the layers until the new pile was created. The empty beds were supplemented with a good layer of the compost from the other side of the chicken run and replanted. The bed nearest the fence was planted with 4 more rows of bush green beans, and two rows of a non cold hardy Chinese Cabbage. The second bed is an experiment. It was planted with Ancho pepper seeded directly into the ground. Hopefully, they will germinate and provide a variety of hot peppers that I didn’t plant from starts this year. The other part of that bed is going to be basil, dill, and parsley to dry and save for winter. So my plan so far to not have idle beds is working.

    As the vines were pulled, I realized that there were many hidden peas left, placed in a basket, and they were shelled to another quart of peas to be blanched and frozen for winter. I have a friend from the northern part of the UK and she says finding food after the harvest is called scrumping. If so, this was successful scrumping.

  • Putting By

    This is an archaic term that I use each year as the garden, orchard, and in years past, the Farmers Market begin to provide fresh food in quantity that is greater than daily use demands. It is a time when foods are prepared by blanching and freezing, or canning to put away for the times of the year where the only fresh foods are imported. The peas were the first produce in enough quantity to put some away as I shelled, blanched, and froze a gallon of fresh peas. That isn’t enough to get us through the winter, but it will be about 16 meals for the two of us.

    About a week ago, I used the last pint of last summer’s herbed tomato sauce that was a base for pasta sauce. The freezer had two 2 gallon bags of whole frozen tomatoes, so today, they were peeled, chopped, and cooked down with about a quart or so of chopped and sauteed peppers, onions, carrots, mushrooms, garlic, and large handfuls of herbs. I am not ready to pull down the pressure canner that lives in the kitchen from late summer through fall, and the sauce had too many additives to be safe to water bath can, so 13 pints were packed in wide mouth glass jars and will be frozen once they cool down to refrigerator temperature. Another pint was served with angel hair pasta and a salad for our dinner. We have a chest freezer and the refrigerator freezer, so most of the vegetables are frozen, but sauces and salsas are usually canned. With that many jars of pasta sauce prepared, the tomatoes that come from the garden this summer will be canned as plain tomato sauce, crushed tomatoes, pizza sauce, and salsa. Tomato sauce and crushed tomatoes can be amended to make pasta sauce as needed and with some of the diced frozen jalapenos can be used to make chili tomatoes.

    Soon the green beans will begin and as I don’t like mushy canned green beans, they will be blanched and frozen. As the pea plants are pulled, a second planting of bush beans will be planted.

    Cucumbers are pickled, potatoes, onions, and garlic will be stored in the part of the basement that is not climate controlled. The tomatillos are used to make sauces and tomatillo jalapeno jam and if they are prolific, they can be frozen. I am enjoying a handful of cultivated berries every few days, but there may not be any berry jams if I can’t get to the wild berry patches around the fields.

    We will enjoy fresh corn until we can’t stand another ear then it will become frozen cut corn and corn relish. The apples become applesauce, the Asian pears become pear sauce and Pear Marmalade. Hot peppers are canned and made into vinegars and hot sauces and bell peppers chopped and frozen to use in cooking during the winter. I am hopeful that a fall garden will produce carrots, spinach, kale, lettuce, and maybe fall peas. A couple of pumpkins vines produce many more pumpkins than are needed for pies and stuffed pumpkin, but the smaller Seminoles make good winter treats for the hens.

    The summer season is busy and often heats up the kitchen, but the results are enjoyed through out the winter.

    I am wondering if I can build an A frame that can be covered with heavy plastic to give the fall garden a few extra weeks of growing season. I think there is some left over PVC pipe in the barn that I could use if I get the correct fittings.

    When not in the garden or putting by, I am spinning and knitting. The shawl that I finished and showed blocked a couple of days ago is here.

    And it perfectly matches my felt hat I got last winter.

    My fiber and two of my spindles ready to the Jenkins Team Tour de Fleece that begins tomorrow. I should finish the last little bit of Shetland tonight on the wheel. Once it is washed, I will measure out the yarn for my sweater and hope that I have enough or can figure another yarn to add to make it enough.

  • The Garden Starts Paying Back . . .

    from all of the hard work that went into getting it ready this year with fence moving, cardboard placing, hay spreading, digging of mint, planting and then replanting. This morning as I do every dry morning, I took my pointed hoe over when I gave the hens their morning treat and let them into the run. Half an hour of hoeing and pulling and the garden stays neat. I am very pleased with the results of the efforts.

    Bush Green Beans blooming with Tomatillos in the back, also blooming and starting to fruit.
    Potatoes with purple flowers the bees love.
    Four of the 6 tomatoes, reaching up the 7 foot poles.
    One of the many Comfrey for fertilizer and salve making.

    After the garden maintenance, most of the peas were harvested. The plants are no longer blooming, most of the pods filled. There are still 2 or 3 meals of peas left to mature further, but two baskets picked.

    It took a couple of hours to shell the gallon of peas, blanched, iced, and packed in pint jars for the freezer. I still have a package of seed, so I may try to plant fall peas this year to add to the vegetables for the winter freezer.

    The corn is sprouting and the pumpkins have primary leaves. It took three tries, but if we get corn it will be terrific.

    The big orange one in the last picture is the cultivar from my late Daddy’s garden. He loved the orange Daylilies and Zinneas.

    I do love my gardens, both vegetable and flowers. They keep me busy from early spring to late fall with planting, maintenance, and harvesting, and provide many meals during the off season. I have never done much with fall gardening, but I am going to try to do a better job this year, putting in some cool season crops, mostly greens, and see if I can extend our harvest up to or even after the first frost.

    A neighbor saw the big bear this morning up near our mailbox and the outdoor dogs in the area have been barking all morning, so it is either still near or at least it’s scent is. I didn’t see it this time.

  • Busy, mostly away, socially distanced day

    When my hearing aid began to bother me last week, I did all the at home troubleshooting that I could. I called the hearing clinic on Thursday as that was a day that the audiologist was in that office before COVID. The assistant suggesting that I bring it in to have it checked out on Monday, the next time the audiologist was in that office. My audiologist is furloughed and the owner/chief audiologist is rotating in the offices. I took it in Monday morning and didn’t hear anything back only to learn that the hours there are short on Monday. Yesterday I got a call back that the Doctor couldn’t “hear” anything wrong with it and I should come in to see if it was wax in my ears, so an appointment was made for today at a different location (actually closer to home). We went in to town earlier than the 2:30 appointment, did drive through lunch and took a 2.3 mile very brisk walk on the old rail grade trail. A few times, we had to mask due to the volume of people in the area, but it was a good walk. Masked and over to the audiologist’s office, my ears are fine, my hearing aid needs a new amplifier and they didn’t have one in stock. I have it back until the part comes in and they will get it repaired.

    The last week or so, I have been knitting the last of the yarn spun from fiber from the estate of a friend. The yarn was all spun on spindles.

    The pattern is Close to You, and is now blocked and drying.

    The morning started with a tiny bird flying into the garage and right into the lift door window. Poor little thing knocked itself silly, but I set it in a planter and it flew away later.

    Still no corn, tomorrow is day 7 and hopefully, I will see it emerge soon.

  • The one that didn’t get away

    Last year about this time, grandson 1 came to spend part of the summer with us. He enjoys doing so because he gets to use the riding mower and drive the tractor, but he also has to help me with farm chores. He helped move some fencing, work in the garden, and just about anything I ask him to do. He cooks some as well and gets lessons and new recipes to add to his book of Grandmom’s Spells and Magic that he got for Christmas a couple of years ago, a loose leafed recipe book with cards that can be filled out and filed, all in my handwriting that my kids and he call a font that should be on the computer. He and I were about to start work on some project last summer when I looked in the egg door of the coop and a 6 foot long Black Rat Snake that I had seen outside of the coop about a week earlier was in one of the nesting boxes. It had gotten eggs the first time and had come back for more. I wasn’t going to have that happen, so without telling him why, I sent him to our tool area to get my leather garden gloves and an empty 5 gallon bucket with lid. When he returned with them, I had him open the egg door from the other end from the snake while I reached in and grabbed it behind it’s head and snatched it from the coop. His eyes got huge and his response was, “Grandmom, what kind of magic was that.” We put the snake in the bucket, put the lid on and he held it from falling over while I drove a bit more than a half a mile away to the woods and turned it loose.

    Well, because of COVID, he can’t visit this summer and I miss his help. This afternoon, I got the part of dinner that was going in the oven prepared and put in the oven and grabbed a basket to go gather peas and whatever eggs were under Miss Broody and when I opened the egg door, I spotted movement in an empty nesting box. I hurried back over to the house, grabbed the same gloves, a 5 gallon bucket with lid, and called up to hubby to grab his keys and his phone. He questioned why and I gave him a quick explanation as I dashed back to the coop, opened and hooked the egg door up and snatched this one out of the coop just as he arrived to snap a couple of pictures.

    Not as long as last year’s, this one was only about 5 feet and where the one last year was lethargic, this one was a writhing mess, trying to wrap around my arm. Once calmed down and picture taken, it was plopped in the bucket, lidded and back to the same spot the last one was taken. Last year, I had to dump the snake out of the bucket and it didn’t even move away very fast. As soon as I got the lid off today, it went over the rim and off into the woods. While there, I spotted these cool black mushrooms.

    I love mushrooms, but I would never gather them for food. Back home, the peas were picked and shelled in time to plunge them into boiling water for 3 minutes to enjoy with our dinner. The plants aren’t blooming anymore, but there are still many peas to pick, enjoy, and freeze.

    I would never kill a snake that wasn’t directly threatening me, the dogs, or a family member, but they don’t get to be in my coop and eat the eggs.

    Be safe. I wear a mask for your safely, please wear one for mine.

  • Today’s Walk

    After early heavy rain this morning, the day turned beautiful. It is muggy because of all the rain, but blue sky, so after making a homemade pizza, I took a walk. Without raincoat and boots. My usual route is a fair amount of elevation change, up our long driveway, down our gravel road, over our creek, then uphill to the top of the hill for which our road is named. From there, I leave the road for a farm road through the woods. Until the grass gets about knee deep, I cross the neighbor’s field to a lower farm road and then back to the gravel road and home. The field has gotten too tall and with the tick load this year, I have quit doing that part and when I get to the end of the woods road, I turn around and retrace my steps.

    I love the lightplay on the hill as I walk the woods road.

    My favorite part of the walk.

    The rain didn’t knock down all of the Rhododendron blooms.

    Lots of fungi from the rain, this one was pretty.

    If you have ever seen the movie “Dirty Dancing,” the lodge where it was filmed is just over the crest of that mountain, about 4 miles and 2000 feet higher beyond us.

    It was nice to get out in the air, in the woods, and get some exercise.

    My nine hens aren’t producing eggs in the quantity that they did last year. One has been broody for at least 6 weeks. Usually after the 22 days needed to hatch eggs, they give up, but not this one. I have isolated her away from the nesting boxes, dipped her repeatedly in cool water, and nothing will break her. I guess this fall it will be time to start with new flock. I think I will go back to the big bodied, gentle Buff Orpingtons. Last night when I went out to gather the eggs and lock them up for the night, I found an apparent misfire.

    When I cracked it this morning, it was just white, no yolk.

    Yesterday I wound off the yarn I had plied from the Peacock colored gradient braid. The greens were an additional 212+ yards for a total of 506+ yards of light fingering weight yarn to become the yoke of a new sweater for me.

    The next week will be more like a typical summer with hotter temperatures, more humidity and some thunderstorms.

    Stay safe. Wear your mask for my safety, I wear mine for yours.

  • Permanent Hay

    My memory pictures all show the hay either down and baled by now or at least in the processes. It is tall, wet, probably full of ticks, so I won’t venture into it. I can’t get to my berry patches to check on them. It should be about time for the Wineberries. The forecast doesn’t look good for them to come any time soon to mow and bale. We have 40 to 90% chance of thunderstorms every day as far as the weather app will take me. Yesterday the rain held off until late afternoon.

    We had two packages to mail and a pick up from Tractor Supply of critter feeds and stopped by Southern States to check their seed stock. They rarely have more than a couple of people at a time in there during weekdays. I found two packages of hybrid sweet corn with a 78 day maturation window, which should give us a harvest well before the first frost. It seems odd to think of first frost when we haven’t even hit the summer highs and the garden isn’t producing anything but peas yet, but as a gardener, I have to think ahead. I am doing a germination test on the other corn before I send the seed company a letter. Two packets of seed won’t break the bank, but it is still about $8. Because it wasn’t raining when we got home, I pushed the wheel barrow with my spade , hoe, and rake over to the garden area. The spade and wheel barrow were wheeled around to the area where I changed the configuration of the chicken run and I dug two earthworm filled barrows of the richest black composted soil and dumped them on the freshly weeded and lightly disturbed patch where the corn should have sprouted weeks ago but didn’t. I was careful to avoid the sunflowers that did come up along the edge and left the two stalks of Silver Queen that did sprout and raked in the compost and replanted corn for the third time. The new seed. While I was at it, I replanted the two hills of Seminole pumpkins that also either didn’t come up or got eaten. Now to wait 7 to 14 days to see if the block of corn takes this time. The block is 11-12 feet by 4+ feet, 6 rows 27 inches apart, so if it will come up, it is the ideal arrangement to actually get some corn from the patch. It may be too late to plant the climbing beans because the corn has to be a foot or so tall before you plant the beans. I think as far as three sisters, it won’t be this year, but if we get corn and a few pumpkins, I will be happy. I had hardly gotten back in the house when the daily deluge began, so at least it got a good watering in.

    The only area still unplanted is the old mint bed. It still lacks a box or border and as it is in an area of the garden where there is a significant slope, it needs something to hold the soil. The mint is continuing to pop up in and around that area and I continue to fight with it. I want to terrace that spot, but don’t want to purchase blocks. Huck’s coop, the failed A framed chicken tractor that we finally set on a cedar raft set on rocks for chick raising, has deteriorated beyond repair unless we removed each bottom board one at a time and replaced it, a job beyond my skills alone. And a wind storm a year or so ago ripped the hinged half of the top off. I am thinking about going out with the cordless drill/driver and taking the metal roof and plastic side panels off, carefully removing the hardware cloth to save for another project. I will salvage any of the good wood, burn the rotted wood, and use the larger rocks as my retaining wall for the terraced area. The smaller rocks that we put around the inside edge to hold in the layer of soil over the cedar post raft will have to be loaded in the tractor and hauled to a rock pile if the hay ever gets mowed so I can get to one.

    After dinner prep as it continued to thunderstorm, I returned to my spindles to finish the Peacock braid of Falklands wool that I have spent the first half of June spinning. I had done the purples and blues with the teals and greens what I was currently working on. I did finish spinning it, took my final check in and scale picture for the Spin Along side.

    Between the 4 ounce braid, the gray sample yarn, some Jacob for my rare breed credit, and the last of the wine colored wool for my shawl, I ended up with 166.17 grams (5.861 ounces). It was wound into a ply ball and plied on my wheel last night, but I haven’t measured it out to see how much yardage it is. The Peacock yarn is going to be the yoke of a sweater with the gray Shetland below and on the sleeves. A sweater entirely spun by me, almost entirely on Turkish spindles. The purples and blues are almost 300 yards. The July Spin Along side can be done the way the first half of the year, with 4 check ins and a final scale picture showing at least 25 grams spun, or we can participate in a Tour de Fleece that usually occurs when Tour de France happens. Since it isn’t happening this year, we are going to do the Tour de Fleece as a scavenger hunt beginning a week from tomorrow, the day the race should begin if it could. Each day an item will be posted, you try to find the item in and around your home and take a picture of it with your spindle on which you have spun at least 1 gram of fiber. One gram of fiber is not much, the neater green cop/turtle in the above picture is about 25 grams, so the amount that is normally needed for a whole month. It should be fun and at the end, the finishers, who found at least 20 of the items and spun daily will be entered for prizes that various spinners have contributed, including the generous donation of several spindles by the Jenkins. All of the wool spun during the competition has to be done on Jenkins spindles, this is the Jenkins group after all. My two spindles are empty and I purchased a 3 ounces of Bam Huey (a bamboo, merino blend) to use for the challenge.

    These are my two favorite spindles.

    Be safe out there. Please wear your mask for my protection, I wear mine for yours.