Cabin Crafted

Tag: Flowers

  • A Week On the Farm

    A Week On the Farm

    Autumn is definitely here, but the thermometer doesn’t seem to realize it yet. The upcoming week has a few days that are the temperatures we expect in late September. The promised rain has not materialized, it keeps getting pushed off another day, then yet another.

    The garden is done except for a few pepper plants that are prolifically producing Jalapenos, and two Ancho pepper plants with a little fruit on them. The bunnies got in the fence and ate all the fall beans that had gotten half a foot tall and it is too late to plant more.

    This morning, before it got too hot, I ventured through the weeds to pick a basketful of peppers as I was making some Tomatillo/Jalapeno jam and needed a couple peppers. Seeing the pumpkin and gourd vines almost completely dead, I spotted 3 more small pumpkins and harvesting them and the huge bottle gourds.

    That makes a total of 11 pumpkins with three that were eaten by or damaged by the chickens and insects. Some of these were taken to our daughter’s house along with their weekly eggs and found them putting out their Halloween decorations. They do more for Halloween than I do for Christmas and it is so fun to see.

    After our visit and daily walk, we returned to Lowe’s to get a third pre potted fall flower combo. Two had been purchased along with two new pots about 10 days ago and placed on the stoop in front of the house. After we got home, I realize I had two more pots just like the ones we had just purchased, though one has a potted fig in it. Being inspired by daughter’s family’s efforts, it was my turn to decorate.

    About 30 years ago, my Dad made me a decorative wooden wheelbarrow. It generally has potted flowers in it for the spring and summer, but I never got around to it this year. It has been repaired a number of times, and today I moved it to the front porch, using one of the matching pots and the new flowers, part of a bale of hay I already had, and some of the pumpkins and gourds, the front is decorated for fall and Halloween (except the Halloween banner and wreath with the ghost, pumpkins, and turkey ornaments will wait).

    A few more weeks, probably after the first frost, the dead pear tree branches, pumpkin vines, dried asparagus tops and other weeds will be burned in place in the upper part of the garden. The plan is to move the metal boxes to the top edge of the garden and use the center portion next year for a three sister’s garden. Before that is done, the fencing needs to be replaced using rabbit fence and since the hens are getting mostly daily free range time, their run will be reworked too. This is going to be a multi day job involving whatever help I can enlist. It is also going to require the acquisition of a lot of corregated cardboard, a trailer load of mulch, and a roll of the fence wire.

    The garden will be put to bed for the winter and the months of bare trees and chilly days will begin.

  • Challenges

    Though I don’t generally post about my crafting, July is one of the months that my online spindle group, all Jenkins Turkish spindle owners, have a very fun challenge. Each month there is something, such as which style spindle spins the most; spin your favorite color or the Pantone color of the year, etc. In July, to coincide with the Tour de France, we do a Tour de Fleece scavenger hunt. You may choose any Jenkins spindle and the fiber of your choice and each day, the moderator posts an object that you need to find and post a photograph of that item with your spindle which must have more spun fiber on it than the day before. Sometimes the items are easily found in your home such as a mug or a broom. Some require seeking the object from elsewhere, such as a fire hydrant. As the spinners are from all over the world, Netherlands, Israel, South Korea, New Zealand, Australia, Germany, Spain, UK, USA, etc. some of the items become quite interesting such as the fire hydrant.

    The challenge runs every day of the Tour and if you fulfill the requirements for 21 of the 23 days, you are eligible for the prize drawing. Many of the participants donate gift cards, fiber, and the maker of the spindles donates several spindles. Of course there is chatter so in the first 11 days there are already more than 3500 posts in the thread. It is such a fun way to see other countries, other folks spindles, and spinning.

    There have been other challenges. We are in an area that has been in some level of drought for several years. However, the month of July has tried to make up for that in one month. The rain has been relentless, often dumping an inch and a half in less than an hour, other days light rain and mist. The forecase would say it would end in an hour, then two hours, then all day. Today we finally have a clear sunny day that until late this afternoon remained very pleasant, but the heat dome is again decending on us, reaching near 90 today and over 90 for the next few days. By Friday, the rain returns.

    This morning, for the third time in a couple weeks, with the tractor and blade, I regraded the driveway and attempted to cut run off channels to a depression that runs down one side of the driveway and to a culvert that goes under the driveway and down the hill beyond the house. Hopefully, the next few dry, hot days with us driving up and down the drive, we will compact it enough that when the rain resumes, it will not cause ruts and gullies down the length of the drive.

    Over the July 4th weekend, eldest and his two sons cut down a dead pear tree in the orchard and tossed the branches into the upper unused portion of the garden where the burn barrel is located. I need to get out there and burn it as the rain has encouraged the weeds to try to overwhelm the garden. The currently used portion with the raised beds need a good weeding as well.

    I need to hire the local grandson and a couple of his friends to come help me redo the fencing situation around the chicken coop and garden. As much of the garden is unused now, I may wait until the paltry harvest is done and move the raised beds near the asparagus and fence off that area. It may mean moving the healthy blueberries that produced almost no berries this year, giving them a good dose of compost and using them as a wind break outside the fence. There are two old wooden boxes that need to be taken apart and disposed of in the dump. If the help is forthcoming this fall, the area that will be gardened will be covered with cardboard before the boxes are moved and wood chips layed deeply in the paths. The boxes are too close together now so even the line trimmer can’t get between them.

    So, fun challenges, weather challenges, and chores challenges. Such is life. Next week, my challenge will be two days at the museum’s summer camp with about 10 kiddos between 6 and 12 teaching herbal medicine one day and spinning/fiber production/use on the frontier the second day. That should fit the fun challenge category.

  • Wild life mini disasters

    One of the downsides of living on a rural farm is the wildlife seem to become less wild in the daily presence of humans.

    When our children were young and we lived in a coastal surburban area, we would travel to the mountains for a weekend vacation hoping to see deer and an occasional bear. Loved watching the chipmunks scurry under the stone stairs of the cabin. Seeing raccoons, sometimes with a brood in tow peeking over the stone retaining walls along the Parkway.

    Well, they all live here and are much less wary of humans than it seemed they were when we were actively trying to see them. The deer barely look up from eating when we drive down the gravel driveway. The chipmunks dig holes in the deck plants. Food scraps left in the compost pile disappears overnight. And the deer come right up on the patio to eat the sunflower volunteers under the bird feeder, knock over the flower pots on the deck steps looking for something on which to graze. The perenniel sunflowers and daylilies don’t stand a chance. They are planted right up against the house and I haven’t had daylily blooms in years. I don’t think to take before photos of the tipped over pots with potting soil spilled out on the steps. The one this morning is a huge pot up two steps that was sown with wildflower seed and was full of young plants a few inches tall. It has been righted, as much soil and seedlings as could be salvaged scraped up and as of this morning, those pots now have tomato cages with plastic mesh inside to discourage such behavior. The daylily bed has panels of old bent rusty fencing tunneled over the garage side bed to try to get a few blooms this year. It is discouraging to put in the work of planting and caring for beds and pots to have them destroyed within feet of where we live.

    The orchard is their feast, it is across the other side of the vegetable garden seen in the above photo. They are welcome to feasting in the orchard, there is too much fruit for us anyway. The vegetable garden has 4 foot fence with a solar charged electric wire around the top, so the deer stay out of it, but the rabbits flourish. Hopefully with the unused part mowed back, they will be less bold. To get in the garden, they have to go through the chicken tunnel except on the house side. That fence is in very poor shape, so perhaps that side should be refenced with rabbit fencing to block their ingress, however the gate still leaves bunny sized holes around it.

    We love seeing the wildlife that share our farm, but they have 30 acres of grass and woodlands in which to graze. Leave my flowers alone.

  • How does your garden grow

    Yesterday was a perfect day and the last Living History class group of the spring. They were a delightful group of about 50 second graders, well behaved, engaged, and even had some great questions. Summer time is hot to wear all of the frontier woman’s clothing, but I do miss doing the groups during the summer. Fall will bring fourth and sixth graders, and more of the surrounding counties are taking advantage of the offering of history as it applies to their SOL objectives.

    Today the temperature begins an uptick to a few days of mid summer type weather with it reaching near or achieving 90 f before it returns to normal spingtime. It seemed like a good day to take the next step in garden planting for the season. After our usual Saturday morning breakfast out, Farmer’s Market purchases, and walk along the Huckleberry Trail, a pointed hoe and packets of seeds were carried out to the garden. The green beans were planted, the peppers staked, and a box that wasn’t in the vegetable plan this year, planted with mixed sunflowers and tithonia, and the adjacent area with Sweet Annie and Calendula. Since they were newly planted and no rain forcast for a few days, the sprinkler is on it now.

    The blueberries need weeding, some paths week whacked and the three sister’s garden started. I also want some flax seed for the row of the flower box that isn’t planted yet.

    The box with the flower seed in it is deteriorating and will removed at the end of the season, probably replaced with another metal box next spring. The very long one to the left of the peppers, peas, and newly planted beans if rotted so badly that it has become dangerous and local grandson is going to come over and help me cut it up, remove it from the garden and haul it to the dump. Under one of the apple trees is the remnant of a small chicken tractor that blew over about 4 or 5 years ago and he is also going to help finish deconstructing that to haul away so that mowing near the apple trees and chicken coop and pen is easier. Sure is nice having older teens/young adults that are willing to work for tuition money (or to just help grandmom out, but will be paid.)

  • Time to grow

    The tomatoes and peppers have moved out to the deck during the day, watered and brought back in to the floor in front of the south facing doors for the evenings. The herbs started in the Aerogarden, except for the basil were transplanted into a large pot on the back deck a few days ago with a cover ready if needed at night, but it hasn’t been necessary. The future weather forcast for here looks stable with a couple of rainy days, so this evening, the tomatoes were pruned of all of their lower leaves, only the top pair left and planted on their sides next to the A-frame trellis purchased last year. They are deep enough to create strong new roots along the buried stem and if necessary in the next few nights, small enough to cover with medium sized terra cotta pots or gallon jars. The 8 pepper plants, 4 hot, 4 not were planted in another bed and the sides of that bed are high enough that it can be covered with plastic if necessary. All of that was watered in well along with a soaking of the bed with peas, lettuce, and spinach. Tomorrow is to be a rainy day which will help.

    Also the end of last week, 3 large pots were sown with mixed flower seed. Tonight, I rescued my False Indigo from the mountain mint, planted it in a half barrel half buried in a ring in the back of the house that helps us locate the septic cleanout door. Around the half barrel, more mixed flower seed was planted, then all of the deck and back yard pots given a good soak.

    A few Christmases ago, a friend gave me a wax covered Amaryllis bulb that sprouted a gorgeous stalk of vivid red trumpet shaped flowers. When the flowers were spent, the wax was removed and the bulb planted in a pot and it grew leaves. Each summer it goes outdoors, each autumn it comes back in and when the leaves die back, it goes dormant. The following year, the blooms were about a month later, last year another month later, this year it waited until the very end of April to grace us with 4 lovely blooms and leaves already.

    On a recent walk, we found a native Flame Azalea. It wasn’t very large, but the golden blooms are so pretty tucked in the edge of the woods.

    Recently, the hummingbirds have been at the feeder regularly and an Eastern Phoebe keep landing on the back of the porch swing on the covered front porch, then flying off toward the protected breezeway and upon investigation, found this nest.

    Her chicks have hatched as she is now in and out constantly feeding the brood. It is too high for me to peek in and see how many. Once they fledge, the nest will be hosed down and the logs scrubbed off to prevent rot. At least one of the birdhouses in the vegetable garden is hosting Bluebirds. They were most unhappy with me working in the garden this evening, so work was done as quickly as possible to get away and leave them alone. I could peek there to see how many babies, but didn’t.

    The beans probably won’t go in the ground for another week or so and toward the end of May, the popcorn, gourds, and pumpkins, but that end of the garden needs some work first. The asparagus are amazing at how quickly they go from barely breaking the soil until almost too big to eat. I have to admit to having to compost a few as they didn’t get cut until the tops started opening. Fortunately, daughter’s family likes them as does a friend I see every week or two and they have definitely been my green vegetable of choice for a couple of weeks.

    The mountains are now green almost to the top and fully leafed at our elevation about halfway down. It is such a pretty time of the year here.

  • Return to normal

    Spring typical weather returns tonight for a few days of 50’s during the day and upper 30’s/low 40’s at night before the warmer weather returns midweek. By Friday when again, many layers of Colonial style clothes will be donned to greet more school kiddos at the museum, it will be back up in the 80’s. For the next few days, the two hanging plants that were put on the porch will hang in the utility room to prevent the cold burning the leaves.

    Today being Saturday, we supported the local Farmer’s Market, coming home with some pasture raised, grass finished meats; some veggies; and 4 tomato plants that will live in a plastic bin by the back door in the sunshine, on the porch on warmer days, and inside at night, until it is safe to add them to the garden. I still need to get or start some peppers.

    The bearded Iris are glorious right now, at least the purple ones. Two vases cut and brought in the house and dozens more blooms in the garden beds. The Amaryllis that was gifted me in bloom several Christmases ago has bloomed later each year. It is just about to have this year’s blooms open. When it is done blooming and the weather stabilizes, it will move outdoors for the summer.

    And today, finally a Ruby throated Hummingbird visited the feeder that was hung about 10 days ago. It has been dumped and refilled once to keep the sugar syrup fresh. Soon they will be fighting for it as more appear and a second feeder will be hung.

    The young rooster, so far, hasn’t been too vocal and his fate is still undecided. If the pullets reach a free ranging state, his presence will be helpful, but as long as they are restricted to the pen and tunnels, he is a nuisance.

    Spring brings the Tom turkeys puffing up, fanning their tails to attract the females. They call back and forth across the fields. It always amuses me that Thanksgiving turkeys are depicted in the fall like the spring Toms.

    Another month or so, we will start seeing fawns with their Mom’s. So far, the does haven’t sent last year’s fawns off alone. By fall, they will rejoin Mom with her new young. Though not a hard rule, usually, first time Mom’s have only one, and older does will have two or occassionally even three, though that is rare.

    Spring with the flowers, returning migrating birds, young animals, greening trees is always an anticipated time of the year.

  • Still here

    The garden is cleaned up, the peas, lettuce, and spinach planted and awaiting more stable weather without fear of frost to plant beans, tomatoes, peppers, popcorn, and gourds. The asparagus are providing more than I can eat now, so some freshness from the garden. Both of my Asian pears are failing, both with large areas of dead branches. They produced nicely for a few years, then basically stopped production, and now seem to be dying. It is too early to tell it the freeze that happened a few days after the plum bloomed will prevent fruit. The peaches and apples waited to bloom until later, and the blueberries have lots of blooms.

    This week is summer type weather with three nights of near freezing later this weekend into early next week. One day it is shorts, tees, and sandals, then a few days later, jeans, long sleeve shirts, socks, and sweaters.

    It is only mid April and the lawn has had to be mowed twice already. Not my favorite job, but if it doesn’t get done, even the riding mower struggles to cut it down.

    The young chickens are now about 16 weeks old and a few weeks ago, I noted that one of the Buff Orpingtons was larger than the rest and already developing a vivid red comb. This morning, my suspicions that she was a he was confirmed with crowing. Now I have to decide if I want to keep a rooster with the remaining 9 pullets or find a new place for him to live.

    One of the all black Mystics is pure evil, not toward me, but very aggressive and dominant toward some of the other pullets. They will have to settle their own “pecking order,” without my intervention. We are about 6 or 7 weeks from starting to see eggs.

    One of my fellow re-enactors is a published author of historical novels, Carol Amorosi. She has a 3 book Celtic series, and a 5 book series that begins with the surveying of the Mason Dixon line and the most recent, I just finished reading, brings it up to the brink of the American Revolution. If you are a lover of historical fiction, her books can be found on Amazon in paperback or e-book formats.

    And it is school visit time at the museum, several Friday’s in a row with varying age groups and group sizes. This week are 6th graders, about 100 of them. They will be broken into 8 groups and rotated through 8 stations to visit and learn about life on the frontier about 250 years ago. This week, the slip, petticoat, short gown, long socks, and cap will be quite warm to wear with the 80+ degree heat.

    With these sessions, I generally spin on a Dealghan spindle or a wooden drop spindle as they would be more historically correct, and demonstrate the Lucet for making braided cords. These skills would be ones that young people would have been taught to help contribute to the family’s cord and yarn needs for tying bags, carrying tools, and for weaving the homespun that was a necessity away from the larger town ports after the Wool Act.

    We continue taking a daily walk, sometimes about 2 1/4 miles, other times we extend it to more than 3. As it gets hot, we often shift our walk time to late evening to avoid being in the hot sun during peak hours, and start making sure we have a bottle of water to stay hydrated.

    Stay well my friends.

  • Marching On

    The Facebook memories show snow around this time of March, which confirms how crazy the springtime weather can be. Monday morning is was 60 degrees when I got up, but raining. As the day wore on, the temperature fell. By the time I was prepping dinner, the rain had sleet in it and quickly turned to snow.

    Hubby’s comment was that the ground was too warm for it to stick. By Tuesday morning, we had about 1.5″ on the ground and cold temperatures. Two nights in the upper teens and all the local forsythia look sad now. The plum blossoms are brown, with the hope that maybe some of them were fertilized before the freeze. The bonus side is that all of the invasive Callary pears along the roadside also browned. Unfortunately, that won’t result in their loss. As the week progressed, the temperature began to rise again with Sunday expected to be in the low 80’s before another front and drop to normal 50’s and 60’s.

    We walked a couple miles outdoors today and until it rains, will continue for at least the next 10 days.

    The living history groups at the Museum begin this week. The first set is a team of classes from a local middle school, sixth graders. Their lessons have included the information that the nation is celebrating 250 years of independence this year and as the loom house where I am stationed is circa 1760, it will be easy to incorporate the resistence, effects of the taxation, and history of fiber use during the period.

    I have added some lucets (a Viking braiding tool) that was used to make cordage, a few hand made spindles, and a pile of woven items to let the kids handle and try.

    There will be samples of flax, hemp, wool locks with and without lanolin for them to handle, and lessons on what it would have been like as an 11-12 year old as far as household responsibilities compared to the life they live now 250 years later.

    Of course, I will be asked more than once if the Colonial outfit is what I really wear everyday and whether I live in the 266 year old cabin. Though they may have been taught the facts, the reality of what life might have been like is very difficult for them to process.

    The springtime and sessions with the 2nd, 4th, and 6th graders are always a pleasure for this retired educator.

    A new spindle was added to my collection this week. This is one I can use spinning with the class groups as it is a plain wooden drop spindle

  • Virginia Springtime

    We again have had a series of near early summer type weather, but hang on, it is Virginia in the springtime. Yesterday 78 and warm at night. Today 81 and 39 at night. Thursday 43 and 28 at night. Then we have several days of typical spring weather followed by a couple days of deep freeze with nights in the teens. If you don’t like the weather, stick around for 24 hours, it will flip flop.

    The Forsythia is beginning to bloom, if it freezes, we will lose the pretty yellow blooms but no harm done. The plum is in full white bloom and a freeze will mean no plums this early summer. I may take a sheet out to cover it Thursday and next week when it is again cold and hope to salvage some fruit.

    The pullets have finally figured out the outdoors and going back in by themselves at night. I only had one night of catching all ten and one night of catching one. Yesterday, the cover of the tunnel was refastened. The end needs some work, but it should only take me an hour or so to finish the work and another few minutes to secure some areas that don’t quite reach the soil line, then they will be given access to more space.

    On our daily walk, we saw two woodchucks, aka ground hogs, aka whistle pigs that have burrows on the edge of the trail. Both were out sunning, of course darting back into the burrow as we approached.

    It is the season where a few flowers from the yard can be brought in to adorn the table. Now there are daffodils and forsythia. The bearded iris and daylilies are showing and the autumn joy is showing green. It needs to warm up a bit more before the wildflower, zinnea, marigold, and bachelor button seed can be sown.

  • News from the Blog

    If you are a subscriber that gets the blog in your email, it will direct to here. If you have gotten it from Facebook or Ravelry, you now should use Fstafford165.wordpress.com and it is secure. Subscribing will sent it to your email each time I post.

    The blog looks a bit different as I have updated to a newer format, but it is still the same blog.

    It is that time of the year when I dress up and present to local elementary and middle schoolers what it was like to have to make everything you needed to live on the frontier and to trade and barter with neighbors, provide your extras to the community store for the wagons moving farther west into what is now Kentucky and Ohio. The cabin was originally built in 1769 on Peak Creek and moved to the Wilderness Road in Newbern in 1830. When it was moved, a loft was added, you can see the stairs in the background. The footprint of the cabins in the “planned” community were 10′ X 10′ some with a loft. A fireplace for heat and cooking. The barn loom behind me, similar to the one that was in this cabin for an enslaved woman who was the village weaver. The walking wheel also behind me is one I made functional at the museum and demonstrate it and the drop spindle for making yarn to be used for the fabric needs. Last Wednesday when this photo was taken, it was dreary and chilly, about 47f and the 100 kiddos moving between the 8 stations every 15 minutes had to hustle and pack in tight for some of the stations. They huddled in every porch and building that had space to eat their lunch. I thought I was going to freeze and it took several hours once home to thaw out.

    That sent me on a quest to make or find a historically accurate cape because this week’s groups begin on another chilly but dry day. My quest turned up a navy blue wool reenactment cape with hood used, on ebay, for a very good price and quick shipping. It arrived today and I won’t be cold again when the weather does not cooperate.

    The cold night last week was hard on the new flower starts I put out, I guess a day too early. Today we bought marigolds and petunias as well as some flower seed that mostly will go in a ground bed once I get it cleaned up from winter and the hardier starts were put in the spots in the pots on the deck that were hit the hardest by the 25f night. Also some zinnia and nasturtium seed were interspersed with the small plants, so hopefully the pots will fill in with color as the spring moves on. There are no near freezing nights for the next 10 days and I will cover the pots with row cover if we get threatened.

    The vegetable, herb, and flower seed under the grow lights haven’t sprouted yet, but they aren’t due to go in the ground for at least a month, maybe 6 weeks.

    I hope you enjoy the new format.