Cabin Crafted

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  • Not Aging Gracefully

    All my life I have been independent, self sufficient. My Dad insisted on that, no matter what I decided to do with my life. He taught me to do things that would make most women cringe or at least gave me the confidence to tackle the job without calling for help. I have removed, unclogged, and reset a toilet when Son 2 flushed a plastic toy. I have replaced a garbage disposal when it failed, installed deadbolts, replaced the battery in hubby’s Harley, helped son retrieve a part that fell down in the diesel engine of his truck where he couldn’t reach, run a plumbing snake under the kitchen sink after taking all the traps and pipes apart. Removed mice from traps, caught snakes to relocate, erected fencing, split firewood. Google has been a boon, you can find a video to do just about anything. But, it is getting harder for me to contort my body into cabinets or to lie on the cold concrete floor of the garage for any length of time anymore. My strength isn’t what it was, and after a broken wrist, wrist surgery years later on that wrist, there is no power in that hand any longer. This has caused me no small amount of frustration of late. Trying to take down and rebuild garden and chicken fencing totally overwhelmed me and I quit. I’M NOT A QUITTER. Trying to put the belt on the riding mower nearly brought me to tears, only to find out it was the wrong belt after conceding to help by my neighbor. He fought to get the belt on and it was so tight, the mower would not turn over. He removed the belt and the mower started right up. He and his wife are getting me a new, correct belt today and I will let him install it. With being confined to home doesn’t help my emotional state in dealing with these setbacks. I want to be able to do the things that I did 50 years ago, or even 5, but it is getting harder all the time. I am young for my age, strong for my age, but I am neither young enough nor strong enough to do some of the things I want to do, things I used to do. I hate asking for help. This morning after yesterday’s climbing over the washer and dryer, squatting and lying on the garage floor, yanking the pull cord on the mower, I am sore and yet, did not accomplish anything positive for it.

    On a brighter note, today as I was about to prepare our lunch, along the edge of the woods at the very back of our property I spotted a black animal. Grabbing the binoculars that hang by the French doors, I could see that it was a young black bear, happily feasting on something it found. This isn’t a great picture because it was at least 250-300 yards away and I zoomed, cropped, and zoomed again. The little bear was small, probably a yearling. It has been several years since we have seen a bear up here.

    OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

    After lunch, I drove the riding mower back up to the neighbors’ house and towed the gas mower. When I tried the gas mower at his house, it started right up even though it wouldn’t start at home. I left the riding mower and pulled the mower back to the house. I have mowed around the house, one mower width and mowed the actual front yard. I tackled the weed wacker and after about 25 pulls on the cord and almost giving up, it started and I edged around the house and wall in the back. I still want to get inside the wall and around the garden, but I wore out. I will finish the job later and finish mowing the rest of the yard when I get the riding mower back, so grateful to my neighbors.

  • Self sufficiency to frustration

    My brother, after reading about our dryer issues, did some research on a possible quick fix. I was willing to try it, so the dryer was pulled out, unplugged, and the grime that built up under it vacuumed and wiped away. The vent hose was unhooked to pull it out farther and the access port opened on the side. It got a thorough vacuuming inside, but the reset button in the video wasn’t there. Oh well, it is now clean. The vent hose was cleaned out and reattached, it was plugged back in and I had to use the side of the washing machine and the log wall to monkey climb back out. The rack dried clothing from yesterday, though washed and air dried, still had a lot of dog hair on it. I guess the dryer does more than dry the clothes. I tossed hubby’s undies, tees, and socks in the dryer with a slightly damp kitchen towel to try to soften them up and remove hair, and jostling the dryer around must have done something because the clothes were warm when I opened the door.

    Before I tackled that job, I tried to put the new belt on the riding mower. There is a nice diagram to show how each pulley interacts with the belt. The belt was removed from the cardboard sleeve and it didn’t want to straighten out. It was twisted in thirds and so stiff. Back in the house to Google how to deal with that and back out to fight with it more, since Google was not helpful. It told me how to put it on, but not how to relax the tight bends from it’s packaging. I got the belt on the deck pulleys, but can’t get it around the engine pulley. I guess I’m going to beg the neighbor’s help and keep my social distance.

    Tried to get the gas mower started to mow around the edges in the meantime, but no go on that either. I’m afraid to even try the weed wacker. I guess I should have taken all three pieces of equipment to the shop last fall, but I didn’t. The dryer will require a call in if it quits heating again. But not until this virus subsides.

    There was a time in my life when these little frustrations drove me to a solution, but somethings just require help.

    Since I can’t mow and it is too windy to garden again, I have spent a lot of quality time with my spindles.

    The weekend is nice, maybe one of the mowers will be working and the wind will die down enough to work in the garden.

  • Making do

    When you can’t go out and they can’t come in, you make do. Beginning a few weeks ago, our clothes dryer was taking longer and longer to dry clothes, then over the weekend when I washed sheets and our quilt, it worked for 2 1/2 hours and still didn’t get it dry. Fortunately, I bought a huge drying rack from the Amish furniture store after we moved here. I thought that someday, I would get a clothes line up, but never did. The quilt was folded in half and draped over the rack to finish drying overnight. Knowing that the heating coil has likely failed, laundry is being done more often and in smaller loads and hung on the rack. Also some time in the past, I purchased another rack that hangs over the clothes dryer.

    Someday, I will get the dryer repaired.

    Along with the dryer failure, I ran out of dish soap. I am a soap maker, so a DIY moment and a bottle of liquid dishsoap was made this morning.

    With the pandemic, and the stay at home orders, the panic buying and the changing suggestions, hand sanitizer and masks are impossible items. I grow aloe and still had a bottle of Isopropyl alcohol, so two small bottles of hand sanitizer were made. First we were told not to wear masks, now the recommendation is to wear one if you have to be out as they now believe that the virus can be spread even by breath. I had some cotton fabric that I had purchased for lining a woven bag and had entirely too much. A quick search online provided patterns for DIY masks.

    Though we aren’t going out, if it becomes necessary, at least we will have a mask. Two layers of the cotton with a layer of a bandana in the middle and we have 3 layer masks.

    Make do when you need to.

  • Preparation and fun

    From early January, we bought double with each food shopping trip. The basement chest freezer that gets utilized as the garden provides and emptied through the winter was not very full this year. By January, the dreaded virus was already in our country and though we had no idea that 3 short months later, we would be on self imposed house arrest to keep our senior bodies healthy. The freezer filled up, but because of the way we were purchasing and loading it, what was in there in what quantity was an enigma. The last trip was loaded in the refrigerator freezer and that is what we have been working on. Today, hubby and I ventured to the basement with a pad of paper and a pen and while I sorted and organized in wire baskets, boxes, and a bag or two, he recorded an inventory. We now know what is in the freezer and about how many meals it will make for us. All of the half gallon jars had been called into use for extra rice, dry beans, and other staples. Flour as well as sugar and salt for canning were already in the large jars. One of the open upper cabinets built by Son 1 when the house was finished, holds quart jars of beans, grains, and other frequently used staples. The other upper cabinets also hold the year’s jams, teas, mugs, and pottery dinner ware. All of the drawers and shelves were vacuumed and wiped this morning and the kitchen cabinets and counter tops scrubbed down. Two utensil crocks were blended into one with the utensils that actually are used and the smaller of the two became the sourdough crock. My sourdough was rejuvenated so bread can be made with it in a few days.

    Now we know where we stand as most states have gone to the stay at home orders to try to beat back the virus. With our inventory and the upcoming garden, we should be good for quite a while. Though our daughter would go to the grocery for us, we don’t want her out any more than she absolutely has to be.

    The veggie starts are doing better than I have ever had them do, except for the spinach. It must have been old seed. I will get a few plants between what came up in the garden and the house starts.

    The house has been getting cleaned much more often than usual. Walks up the dead end road whenever I can get out between rain showers helps keep me busy, along with knitting, spinning, reading, and bird watching.

    I have been watching this little guy turn from his winter brown to spring gold. He has almost finished his molt. I love watching the little flocks of them in their roller coaster flight across the fields.

    Be safe everyone. We are trying.

  • Rain and chill

    The porch thermometer showed 47 f (8.33 c) when I got up this morning. In the damp, it felt colder. It is down to 40 f (4.44 c) by late afternoon. It was 85 f (29.44) on Sunday, quite a difference. And it rained all day long. As I was putting the finishing touches on dinner, there were snowflakes mixed in with the rain. It isn’t supposed to freeze tonight so I am not bringing in any plants.

    When I was a kid, on cold, usually snowy days, Mom would make vegetable beef soup. I remember lots of cans being opened, but it was comfort food on a cold day. This morning called for hot soup tonight. As I have become the master of extending a small amount of meat to multiple meals, I pulled about a half pound of stew beef from the freezer, thawed and seared it in hot oil, threw in a handful of chopped onion, celery that I had chopped and frozen, some fresh parsley that I had frozen, a pint of homemade broth, water, and a boullion cube and set it to simmer around noon. At the same time, I mixed up the dough for another artisan loaf, this one full of rosemary and left it to rise. As the afternoon when on, checks on the simmering stock and beef and how the bread was rising were made. Mid afternoon, a couple handfuls of Pequino beans (a small red heritage bean) were tossed in to cook and finally chopped potatoes, carrots, some frozen corn, peas, and green beans added and allowed to simmer for another hour. During that hour, the pizza stone was preheated as the oven heated to 550 f and the bread folded a few times and allowed a second rise and bake. The aromas in the house were delightful.

    A hearty, belly warming meal with half a loaf of bread and 2 quarts of soup left for lunches in the coming days. It looks like we are going to go through slightly more than two loaves a week plus some buns while we stay at home. I hope the flour holds out.

    The day between food prep was spent spinning on three of the Turkish spindles. A different fiber on each.

    When I went to the fiber retreat in late February, I got two skeins of lovely yarn from the hostess. It is a blend of her goats’ mohair and wool. Last night I started a curved asymmetrical shawl and though I went up a needle size from the recommended, it still feels like too dense a fabric for my taste. I am debating continuing or ripping it out and finding a different pattern for the yarn.

    It is very soft, so I may just keep going. Tomorrow is a repeat of today as far as weather, then it starts another warm up and a few dry days so maybe more of the garden will get prepped for planting in a month of so.

    Daughter brought over the belt for the broken riding mower and some chicken and household supplies she had picked up for us. We stood across the garage and talked for a little while and it was so hard not to go give her a huge hug. She is working from home and her kids are at home due to closed schools, but their Dad is still going on site to work and comes to see the kids, so being around them is not possible for now. Tomorrow, I will put on gloves, sanitize what needs to come inside, put the chicken feed in lidded buckets and go through the strip and wash routine again so that neither of us get sick. Nothing she brought is perishable.

  • Chickens make great compost

    Yesterday morning, we had two neighbors visit and help with the grass mowing since the belt for the riding mower still hasn’t come in.

    Meet Jumper Jr. and her sister “Bad” Penny. They belong to the neighbor to the west and find our spring grass greener than their own every year. The neighbor is a female farmer and she spends too much of her time in the spring trying to outsmart these two with new strands of barbed wire, new posts, new fencing, but Jumper Jr. like her Mom would, will go over the fence. When she makes a hole, she sometimes bring along other visitors.

    After preparing and eating lunch, I donned sunscreen, a wide brimmed hat securely tied down, and a long sleeved shirt, gathered some weeding tools and headed out to the garden. It was very, very windy, I think it tried to rip my head off a few times when it grabbed at the hat.

    Three of the rebuilt boxes had not been weeded when the boxes were set, so my project was to get the weeds out from inside the boxes and from the paths between boxes. Also it was time to remove the hay from the asparagus bed and in doing so, I broke off the very first spear, white from being covered and about 3 inches long. Not to waste fresh food, it was wiped clean and eaten right in the garden. I didn’t see any more new spears, but the hay is off and they will start emerging now. They are such a delight each spring.

    The boxes were cleared, the weeds piled in a tub to dump in the chicken run for them to dig through, eat the leaves, and make more compost. Because of the slope of their run, I try to keep a layer of spoiled hay on the ground, also when I clean the coop, the dirty straw or pine chips go in the run, and all kitchen scraps go to the chickens. They dig through all of that matter, adding chicken fertilizer to it and kicking a good amount of thoroughly broken down material through the fence at the down hill end of the run. This was raked and shoveled into the garden cart and wheeled around the garden. Each of the three boxes weeded today received an entire cart full of rich compost and a few fat earthworms that had taken up residence in it.

    Those boxes will be easy to keep weeded now until time to plant beans, cucumbers, and the tomato and pepper starts. There is still a 4 X 8 foot bed that hasn’t been weeded and a new 4 X 4 foot box that needs a load of compost. The corn bed needs to be weeded and the hills dug, but it is still 4 or 5 weeks before it can be planted. See the mint on the center right. I think I am going to sacrifice a dark tarp and hold it down with heavy rocks on the edges, just leave it in place for a year. The sun will kill the mint off. While adding a bit of compost to the raspberry barrels, I spotted a Preying Mantis nest, YAY! It is inside the garden and will hatch in late April or May. Helping keep the pests at bay.

    Today and tomorrow are rainy, so no garden work for a couple of days. Today’s high is 40 degrees (f) colder than it was three days ago. Ah, spring fickleness.

    Yesterday before gardening, I finished the second skinny scarf for daughter’s wardrobe accent. I love knitting and weaving for family rather than taking the time and effort to spin yarn, knit or weave and then put it in my shop for less than it is worth in time and skill. These two days will be for spinning and knitting.

    Oh, and that gorgeous handstitched (not machine stitched) quilt, I won on a $.50 ticket to a raffle about 15 years ago. It is a treasure.

  • The Garden

    When granddaughter N lived here for a couple of years, she liked helping me in my garden (so did her big brother). When both of them were working, I had to make sure everyone was spread safely apart because garden tools were sometimes dangerously wielded as they hacked at weeds. They moved to a nearby town into a beautiful home with a yard, not a flat city yard, her neighborhood is noted for steep driveways and heavily sloped yards. Late last spring, N said she wanted a garden and her Mom didn’t know where to begin. One Saturday, I joined them in the morning and we set out to get a couple of raised bed boxes, lots of cardboard, garden box bagged soil, seedlings, and seeds. I had taken some low plastic erosion fence and step in poles. We dug away sod to level, laid the cardboard, assembled the boxes, filled them, and mulched around them. Put up the “fence” and planted her boxes. The boxes are close to the neighbor’s fence and they have a little garden on their side of the fence. This was a good and a bad thing, it meant fewer weeds along the fence line, but it is a 4 generation Asian family and grandmom whose garden it was, doesn’t speak English. She took it upon herself to water N’s garden every time she watered her own and N’s garden was saturated, which didn’t help. One day when I was staying with the kids, I tried to let grandmom know that we didn’t need her help watering. I don’t know if I succeeded.

    About the time her beans sprouted, something dug up most of one box and something feasted on young pepper and tomato plants, so it wasn’t a great success, but she did end up harvesting a few tomatoes and peppers before the season was out. This didn’t deter her or dampen her desire to garden at all. About a week ago, I got a request to help plan this year’s garden. She is now 8 years old and quite a good reader, so this week I have contributed to her lessons with emails that she has to read aloud to her Mom and then write me back with questions and what she wants to plant. She decided she wanted to expand her garden to a third box and plant some early spring veggies this year. She and her Mom stripped the sod uphill from the first two boxes, built a new box, filled it, and mulched around it yesterday. Then she sent me her wish list.

    I had already sent a list to daughter with instructions on a better, more secure fence arrangement and she ordered the supplies to be delivered today. Last night, I designed N’s 3 garden boxes to accommodate her plant wishes and put planting dates by each type of plant. I suggested to daughter that she buy seedlings on as many of the plants as she could, though not the cheapest option, it will guarantee better success and enough quick germinating plants were included that planting those seeds will allow N to have the full experience. I love that she wants her own garden. I hate that I can’t be with her to do it this year, but it has been fun helping her plan. It is contact I miss so much with this social isolation. Daughter has been terrific about sending pictures nearly every day of lessons and projects and it helps.

    I wish my garden area was that neat. My celery experiment is growing nicely. I had two celery hearts that were getting soft, so I chopped the celery and froze it for cooking and stuck the ends in a shallow dish of water in a sunny window for about a week or 10 days. When the centers were showing signs of growth, I stuck the two in a clay pot of potting soil and put them in the sun. It will be interesting to see the end result.

    The Asian Pear trees are in full bloom and there is no indication of frost in the next 10 days so I am hopeful for fruit. The apples are beginning to leaf out, though I have seen no blooms there.

    Today is another sunny day, though cooler than the past two near record breaking days, but yesterday and today, the wind is howling. If I can secure my long hair so it doesn’t whip my face too bad, I will do some weeding in my garden today and maybe try to move some compost into the newly rebuilt boxes.

  • A few days ago, I posted about the feeding station for the birds. This morning when I entered the kitchen and looked out, it wasn’t there. Upon closer examination, the pole was pulled over, the feeders emptied and some minor damage. It doesn’t look like the doings of a bear, but probably a raccoon climbed the pole and was too heavy toppling it. All the sunflower seed and the new suet cake were gone, the suet cage bent and the lid ripped off. The pole was stood back up and anchored with rocks as the fork like prongs that stabilize it in the soil are bent, the feeders cleaned up, repaired, and refilled. I guess one of my new evening duties is going to be to go out and gather the feeders and bring them in to the garage for the night from now on.

    Yesterday afternoon, I did go out to work on the fencing and realized that it is too much for me to do by myself, so instead, I finished rebuilding the garden boxes. Several years ago, I purchased cedar raised bed boxes from Home Depot. The box assembly as a grooved post and the boards fit in the grooves. That assembly did not hold up well. I have been taking them apart, and using outdoor deck screws, fastening the boards to the outside of the post, making the boxes slightly smaller but sturdier. One box needs leveling before I can finish filling them with compost to planting. If I ever succeed in getting rid of the mint that I foolishly planted in one several years ago, there will be a blank spot in the garden as I removed that box to make mint removal easier. The box failed to contain the mints and mint is in the aisles and beginning to appear in adjacent boxes. Lesson learned.

    The area to the right of the lowest box and barrels will be a corn patch. I rarely plant corn unless it is popcorn in a three sisters garden, but decided to try some sweet corn this year.

    The peas are coming up nicely, I am happy to see. Still no sign of spinach and the flat started in the house several days ago is also not germinating, it might be a poor batch of seed.

    With the warmth comes the Carpenter bees. I had left the traps up overwinter and dumped the contents early this week. They are already filling up. We don’t usually see them until mid May. This is indeed a weird year for the climate.

    As the day cooled and the sun was low, I took my walk down our rural road. Nothing new to see, the calves were not where I could see them from the road, but I did find a branch with many shelf fungi on it.

    Once dark has fallen, I retire to my easy chair and knit or spin. My current project is a lacy skinny scarf out of hand spun wool and silk for my daughter. It was in my lap along with my needle case and I realized that they nicely coordinated.

    I am determined to get at least one run of fence between the chicken pen and the garden stable today so that I can let the hens clean up that side of the garden area. The forecast is for it to get into the 80’s today in March.

  • Another beautiful spring day on the farm.

    The first thing I do each morning, is look out the windows of our bedroom and see if we have clouds, fog, or rain. Next I check the weather app to see how warm it will be to determine how many layers need to be donned. This morning is was bright and sunny and the weather app said mid 70’s before the day is done. The porch thermometer read 51 so the short sleeved wool tee was topped with my wool hoodie until it warmed some. Once coffee was made and dogs fed, I stepped out to let the chickens out and give them some scratch. It was almost too warm for the hoodie already and the walk over to the coop reminded me that the grape vine needed to be trellised before it leafed out.

    Before attacking the grape vine, I carried a dozen eggs up to my neighbor’s porch for him to enjoy. That half mile walk revealed that with the sun and no wind, the hoodie was too much clothing. It was exchanged for a cotton sun shirt to protect my arms from the vines and the sun and donned a large brimmed straw sun hat, grabbed my car keys and the post pounder. Because of all the rain lately, the T posts that weren’t being used but were still pounded in where an old fence had been were wiggled free and repositioned in line with the grape vine about 7 or 8 feet out from the trunk. I knew that there was a good amount of high tensile wire at the very back of the hay field, it was found by the brush hog the first time we mowed that field and it got tangled in the blade, so I drove the car down, yanked it from the brush and loaded it back to the house. This was my first experience with high tensile wire except to get it out of the brush hog. I had no idea how tough it is to work with, but with two pair of large pliers and a wire cutter, I managed to run two strands between the poles. That was a tough job and they aren’t as tight as I wanted, but the best I could do with the equipment I had.

    The grape vine was seriously pruned. There may be no grapes this year, but next year when it does produce again, the grapes will be strung out along the wire for good air flow and ease of harvest, not in the tall grass and tangle of vines like last year. The best canes were stretched out along the two strands and anchored with tomato plant clips until they wind themselves on the wire.

    The vine trimmings will be soaked for an hour and made into a grape vine wreath, you can never have too many of them.

    The smiling panseys and the coral bells are loving the warm sunshine on the back deck steps.

    With the ground still soft, I think the afternoon will be spend moving fence posts for the garden and chicken run. It will get me out of the noise of the exhaust vents and smell of the self cleaning oven. Windows are open and fans are blowing. It needed to be done before I made bread again and it is a nice day.

  • What is that bright orb?

    Oh my, the sun actually came out. I had forgotten what it was like.

    This morning I sliced the loaf of bread that was made last night and it is delicious.

    The hens are overwhelming me with eggs. I didn’t realize really how many eggs the produced in a week until I was trying to use them all myself. Not being able to go out and share them is eye opening. One of the gals seems to be having egg laying issues. Her eggs have been oddly elongated with a distinct “waist” and off center yolk. This started when she resumed laying from winter.

    Her egg is upper left.

    With the sun, I decided to try to get the lawn mowed before it rains again. I got a couple of smaller areas mowed and the riding mower broke the belt that drives the blades in the deck. Power Zone has ordered me a new belt, daughter will pick it up when it comes in and then the fun begins.

    Today’s walk took me back out our rural road and up the hill above our house.

    Blue sky finally.
    You lookin’ at me? Leave me alone and let me eat. Go on now.
    Blacksburg is right through that gap, can’t you see it?
    Six spring calves hanging together while Mom’s are off somewhere.

    It was a beautiful day even if the mower broke. Our daily outing was to take the overflowing garbage and recycling bins down to the “convenience center” and home for a thorough hand washing.

    Staying busy in this trying time and making the best of my time and resources. Stay safe everyone and wash your hands.