Tag: grandchildren

A Weekend of Play, Responsibility, and Loss

The loss was not too significant, given that we still have about 6 weeks until we can plant tender plants outdoors, but as we were leaving for two days, one night, I left the light on my starter flat of tomatoes, tomatillos, and peppers. Most of the tomatoes and the tomatillos had sprouted, only a few of the peppers had shown any sign of sprouting. The light was very close to the clear lid on the sprouts and given the south facing window as well, it must have gotten too hot especially for the ones that had gotten tall enough to reach the lid. I still have a few Jalapeno sprouts, one leggy tomatillo, but the rest are a burned loss. This morning, I clipped the dead sprouts and replanted seeds. This time, I am leaving the lid off and just spritzing the surface a few times each day.

Our away was a trip with the two grandchildren living with us to go to Northern Virginia to pick up our eldest grandson for his week of spring break. We arrived mid afternoon and checked into the hotel just two short blocks from our son’s apartment. The only things positive that I can say about the hotel were its convenience and its price. We were on the front of the building, right across from the office with a busy street out front. The beds had no foundation and were uncomfortably soft and unstable and the wall mounted heating unit, needed because the temperature dropped into the 20’s and the door had no weather stripping (we could see light around all 4 sides) sounded like a wind machine. The thermostat in the unit did not work, so it was either too hot or too cold depending on whether I turned it on or off during the night. The kids slept, fortunately, but Mountaingdad and I did not get 4 hours of sleep between us. The kids were well behaved on the drive up and once we arrived at son’s apartment. All of us went out to dinner together before separating for the night. Son’s research showed us that a bus to the Metro left from in front of our hotel at 8:35 a.m. and he and eldest grandson were going to join us for a walking tour of the monuments on Sunday morning. The car was packed and we were trying to make do with the free breakfast (bagels and grocery store donuts) when son texted that they found a bus a half hour earlier and could we be ready.

The Florida born grandkids thought the Fairfax connector bus and the Metro were great. We got off on the Metro stop that put us nearest the Lincoln Memorial, a city walk of about a dozen blocks. A lot of hand holding and herding were necessary to keep those two safe on Washington DC streets, especially since that grandson wanted to do everything that his almost two year older cousin was doing.

A bit of heavy reading on a man just studied in 2nd grade.

Cousins posing in front of Lincoln.

More monuments, the Korean War memorial, Martin Luther King memorial (also a recently studied topic), a history recitation by the eldest grandson on Jefferson as we looked across the water at that memorial, too far to walk with kids, and a little one who soon gave out, taking turns being carried by an adult, Uncle being the preferred carrier.

With a bit of coaxing and challenges to race, we got her on the ground again as we hit the homestretch, around the Washington monument with a jog up it’s hill to actually get to touch it and on to the Smithsonian Metro station for the train back to Vienna for the trip home last evening. Many miles walked and tired kids.

The second grader was excited to see Washington. Eldest grandson excited to be able to spend spring break on the farm, son and daughter-in-law relieved to be able to work and study this week without trying to find daycare for him and entertain him at night, and us pleased to be able to have 3/5 of our grandchildren in our home at one time with the responsibility to keep them safe and cared for in their parents’ absence.

Daughter and son-in-law are in route with a truck full of their household goods, hopefully taking it slowly and safely to arrive here tomorrow night.

While we were away, our haying farmer neighbor took out several cedar and locust trees that have interfered with mowing and haying and removed about a dozen boulder size rocks that have knocked more than one tooth off of his sickle bar and caused more than one nick in our brush hog blade. His haying and our mowing should be an easier job this year.

March 30, 2015
Baby Calves and Spinning Wheels

Granddaughter is fascinated with all of the spring calves and lambs and is often asking us to drive by one of the many fields with babies. The foals at the Virginia Tech Horse Center haven’t arrived in the fields yet, but we did see a whole field of tiny black lambs a couple of weeks ago. It looked like most of the ewes had twins as there were many more lambs than ewes. Most of the calves are too far away from the car to see except as small lumps lying in the grass, but our neighbor’s herd is next door and our gravel road runs right through her property, so we can often drive up and see them right by the road. This morning, we drove up the road and the herd was right there with all of the babies nearby. There are six calves less than 2 weeks old and a couple more that were born right at the beginning of the year.

We parked along the side of the road and watched as they ate hay, nursed and were bathed by the cows. She doesn’t quite understand why she can’t pet them as they are all smaller than our Mastiff that she adores.

In the past week, I have gotten back on my spinning wheel. I had some roving that I had purchased at the Fiber retreat in February that is for my daughter. As I had ordered a jumbo flyer for my spinning wheel and wanted to wait for it to ply the two very full bobbins of Dorset lamb that I was spinning at the retreat, I began on her roving. The roving that I purchased was called Mystery Sheep. A flock of sheep had been abandoned in a nearby town and had been rescued by a kindly citizen. Two of the ladies at the retreat have a shop selling roving from their own sheep and also selling from the rescued flock. Twenty percent of the sale of that roving goes back to helping provide feed and vet care for the rescued flock. It felt good to buy some fiber that was going to help out. It was only 2 ounces of fiber and spun up into only about 116 yards of yarn, but enough for my daughter to make herself a slouchy hat, which is a project she wants to start as soon as her house is packed up and moved.

The fiber was soft Easter egg blue and green and made a nice yarn.

Now on my wheel is a very soft Merino just in time for the Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington D.C. It is a nice cherry red and is spinning to about worsted weight. It is 4 ounces of fiber and should made a nice skein that will soon appear on my Etsy shop.

On the knitting front, I am slowly completing the yoke on my newest sweater, but it has taken me weeks to do the 7 inches that I have accomplished, just too many other things going on in our lives right now.

March 24, 2015
Another Sunny Growing Day

before the next rain and drop back to normal temperatures. After Grandson was dispatched via school bus and breakfast was prepared, eaten and cleaned up for Granddaughter, we set out on errands.

One errand was to locate some inexpensive pots to plant the salvaged raspberry canes in for Son #2. It was sticker shock to see how much clay pots cost these days, even the cheap plastic ones were much more than I had hoped, but 5 were purchased as they are after all for Son #2.

Raspberries, neatly pruned and potted and awaiting transport to him in April.

The next errand was to get a new chess set. Decades ago, I gave Mountaingdad a carved Olivewood chess set. The pieces have always been close in stain, but the years have faded them to an almost imperceptible shade difference making playing with the set difficult even in good light. About a decade ago, while in El Paso for a family funeral, we travelled by bus over to the markets in Juarez when it was still safe to do so and came home with a huge set of the Aztecs vs the Conquistadors which safely made it back to Virginia on the plane, but it too is difficult to distinguish the pieces. We have a leather suitcase set that had backgammon, checkers and chess, but the grands have lost two pieces from that set, making it also unusable. Mountaingdad enjoys playing with the grandsons, working with them on strategy and confidence, so off to Target we went and came home with a folding wooden box that has the board on the outside and pieces for chess and checkers that are white and dark brown. The grandson living here will be delighted tonight.

While there, we found a tiny clay flower pot with a grow pellet and a packet of sunflower seeds in it. Grandson is growing a seed at school, so granddaughter gets to grow one at home. Little miss with her newly planted dwarf sunflower. Now to keep her out of it as it grows. She insisted for a few minutes that she was going to stand there and wait for it to sprout, a reminder that 3 year olds don’t have the concept of time yet. Each time we leave the house, she comments that her Mom will be home when we get back, though her Mom won’t be back for 8 more days and we have repeated that over and over, even showing her on the calendar.

The planting efforts outside resulted in some weeding and the chooks got a green treat of their favorite snack, fresh chickweed.

If I could control where they grazed, I would direct them to the front shrub bed that is quickly being engulfed by chickweed. In between other tasks, another 2 five gallon buckets of whole grain chicken feed were mixed, so they have a good diet to hold them until we can let them free range again and just supplement their feed.

I need to make a batch of hand scrubbing soap for the household. With gardening chores and weeding beginning, the dirt stained fingers and nails will soon be in need of good scrubbing each day.

March 23, 2015
Weekend with the Grands

This is our first solo weekend with the grandkids that are living with us now. During the week, one of them is in school so we still outnumber the other one. Our Saturday morning tradition, even most winter Saturday’s is to go into the town and have breakfast at one of the local restaurants then walk over to the Farmers’ Market to support the farmer’s that brave the cold with their meats, breads, and cold storage vegetables. As we are only two weeks from the full season return of the market, there are still only a few stalls, but more today than in the past weeks, including a new addition to the market with heritage pork. Turns out we know that farmer, so we supported her with a purchase of the thickest pork chops I have ever seen. I hope I don’t overcook them. They are thawing for a meal in a couple of days.

We took the back way home and let the kids see all of the brand new calves in the fields around our farm. This brought us back to speculating about how many we could raise, how much it would cost us to have our field hayed when we kept the hay instead of giving it to the farmer for his work and whether we could make a small profit by raising a small herd for our own meat and to sell maybe 4 or 5 head each year.

Once back home, some chicken chores to add straw to the coop and hay to the extremely muddy run were done while the kids play outside in the sunshine. I want to let the chickens free range, but we just planted some seed in the garden and it is only fenced with two strands of electric which doesn’t even slow the chooks down. I don’t need them digging up my freshly dug, weeded, and seeded beds, or the newly transplanted raspberries, so they will have to remain penned until daughter returns. We will then expand the garden and string plastic poultry fence around the vegetables and let the girls wander again. Or perhaps we can just make poultry netting tunnels over the beds and let the chickens keep the weeds and bugs at bay between the beds. The egg production is up, having gotten 18 eggs in the past two days from the dozen hens. I am hoping that one of the girls gets to feeling broody soon, and I will let her sit a clutch of about 8 eggs to hatch. This will be our first year allowing this and hoping that we will be able to cull some of the older hens and the cockrells that hatch for the freezer instead of raising purchased meat chicks. If this doesn’t happen, I will buy meat chicks later in the summer and raise them until the fall for the freezer. Freedom Rangers or Rainbow Rangers only take about 11 weeks to freezer size and that is what we raised last year and found them to be an excellent table bird.

The seeds we started indoors are beginning to sprout. The flat is on a heat mat in a south facing doorway with a grow lamp. The Roma and Purple Cherokee tomatoes, and the Tomatillos are showing. So far the 6 kinds of hot peppers are still buried, but we hope to see them sprout soon too. Four of the varieties of peppers there are only a couple of plants and they are experimental for us heritage varieties. The others are of many pots of Jalapenos and several Habenos for salsa and chili tomatoes to be canned this summer.

Tomorrow is supposed to be another beautiful day, so perhaps we will take the kids for a walk on the Huckleberry Trail or a hike in the woods if it has dried enough.

Next Saturday we will all drive to Northern Virginia and pick up the eldest grandson for a week too. We will have a house full of younguns to keep us young or run us ragged.

March 21, 2015
Late Christmas Surprise

Last night around midnight, I was sleeping and Mountaingdad was watching television and there was a light rapping on our door. Of course the house alarm, two big dogs went berserk. The rapping was Son#2, our youngest and his family surprising us with a weekend visit. We had seen them a couple of weeks ago at their home and thought they were coming in January to visit once daughter and her family had moved up from Florida. Since Son#1 and his family had left on Christmas Day, I had stripped and washed the bed linens, but not remade the beds yet, so a quick bed making was done, a bit of visiting then everyone drifted off to bedrooms.

Since our usual Saturday routine is to go to the town, have breakfast and then on to the Farmers’ Market for whatever offerings are available, we all went in together. Being a small town with a large state university, with the students all home for the holidays many of the local businesses take a week off and our first breakfast choice was closed. We did finally get some food, bought our week’s meat ration and a bit for the freezer and came home to more visiting. The children are ages 8 and 3. They both want us to play with them as they don’t see us often. We enjoy this time but wear out much faster than the kids.

After being intimidated by the big dog at first this morning, the 3 year old has decided that he makes a good pillow and is the gentle giant that he is.

The other pup, our German Shepherd has hidden upstairs most of the day, totally overwhelmed by the activity. She better get used to it as the Florida grands moving here next week are the same ages.

Their visit will be short, they will be leaving in the morning as Son#2 is an advanced life support paramedic and has one of his monthly volunteer shifts to serve tomorrow night, followed by a day of paid work on Monday, so he needs to get home and hopefully get a nap before his shift.

A nice surprise.

December 27, 2014
A quick peek

Last night I finished grand daughter #2’s sweater for Christmas, that leaves her brother’s sweater on the needles. It was saved for last because it is going to require more fiddling to get the size right. He is tall enough for a larger size, but so thin, he requires a smaller size. Daughter is sending me length measurements and I am using a smaller size to go around his thin frame. If his takes only slightly longer to make, I should have them all done and the mittens too by deadline. Granddaughter#2’s sweater was given a wash this morning and is now blocking on the dryer top.

The pattern is Cottage Creations Wallaby, the yarn Universal Yarn’s superwash worsted. This is the 5th or 6th time I have made this pattern for a grand, they love it and the areas that I found frustrating the first couple of times are a cake walk now.
Big brother, is also getting a Wallaby in a darker shade of blue.
Now I’m off on a round trip to Northern Virginia to pick up Son#1 and family for Thanksgiving. I hope the bad weather holds off until we are safely back here and tucked under warm quilts for the night. Tomorrow I bake pies and more rolls, I wasn’t happy with the first batch. The bread was perfect, the rolls not so much.

November 25, 2014