Cabin Crafted

Tag: holiday

  • And So It Begins – 11/22/2019

    Another front is barreling through our area. After a miserably dry summer, we are at least getting some rain. It rained hard over night, the wind was quite gusty when we went out late morning. Today is colder than yesterday with the high reached around noon and a downward fall to around freezing with more rain tomorrow and even colder temperatures.

    Between rain, the car has been packed with totes of soap, salve, yarn, knits, laundry stain bars, beard oil, Men’s grooming boxes, Guest Bath boxes, display racks and two mannequins. Tomorrow the rain isn’t supposed to begin until after I am unloaded and hopefully with help toted upstairs to the room I have been assigned at the Catawba Farmers Holiday Market. I hope the rain doesn’t prevent folks from coming out to shop. I am inside, a few vendors are under the picnic shelter. It might be cold and damp for them. I don’t know if the Catawba Community Center is heated, so I will layer in wool and be prepared to peel layers if necessary. This event provides each vendor an 8 foot table and a chair, so I don’t need to load my tables and since it is indoors, I don’t need my tent. I have one more pair of mittens on the needles that I hope to have ready for tomorrow, but if not, I will have them for other Holiday markets. I was making them for me, but decided they are too pink for my tastes, so I will spin something else for mine or dig through my yarn to find a skein I like.

    Next weekend there is no event, but then I have 3 weekends in a row (if stock holds) at the Blacksburg Farmer’s Market Holiday event and 2 of those weekends in costume spinning and vending in the late afternoon/evening hours at Wilderness Road Regional Museum Noel Nights and Christmas Bazaar. They will require tables, chair, and the Farmer’s Market one, my tent and weights. The car is quite full then.

    This morning, I awoke to the memory that 56 years ago, as I sat in class in High School awaiting the arrival of a friend who had moved away and was coming to visit for my 16th birthday party, an announcement was made that our President had been shot and later died. That is probably the most significant first historical memory of my life. The friend did arrive, the party did not happen, and the country watched the news in shock and mourned. Yesterday, I celebrated my 72nd birthday and am thankful to my family and friends who remembered me with well wishes and to my hubby, who treated me to a new wool hoodie, some chocolates, and a dinner out at a local restaurant that we had not tried before.

    The Thanksgiving shopping got done in the rain today. A few gifts were purchased last night. One warm cozy gift was finished yesterday. I look forward to having some of our children and their families join us next week and wish the entire family could be together for a holiday again.

  • Merry Christmas to all

    The pies were made, from our homegrown pumpkins, cranberries cooked with a bit of honey to sweeten them, cooked mustard made for the ham. Mountaingdad asks for it each year, a simple recipe really.
    Mustard
    1/3 c sugar
    1/4 c dry powdered mustard
    2 beaten eggs
    1/4 c vinegar ( I use raw cider vinegar)
    1/4 c butter
    Mix sugar and mustard in a small saucepan. Stir in beaten eggs and vinegar and mix well. Turn heat to low and add butter. Cook stirring  until mustard thickens. Store in the refrigerator. It will keep for a couple of weeks.

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    The roll dough mixed and stored in the refrigerator until this morning. Rolls to bake, turkey to roast, potatoes to mash. A late afternoon feast will be enjoyed.
    Another tradition with our kids and carried on to grands is the reading by Mountaingdad of Clement C. Moore’s poem, “The Night Before Christmas,” which will be read over the phone or by Skype to the Florida family while we join in from the living room. Stockings will be hung and eager grandson put to bed.
    Wishing my readers the most wonderful of holidays however you celebrate. Enjoy your family and friends.

  • Happy Chaos

    Our household is in turmoil, but happy, giddy turmoil.  About a dozen years ago, our very young adult daughter left Virginia and moved to Florida.  The why is unimportant now as are all of the ensuing dozen years.  For a few years now, she and her family have longed to move back to Virginia, this time away from the coast and to the mountains near us.  Much has had to be done to allow this to happen and much still must be done for all of them all to be here, but daughter, two grandskiddos and the dog will be here before school starts up again after Christmas.  SIL will stay in their house and his jobs until they get a firm offer on the house and then he will transfer his job here as well.  For now, daughter and grandkiddos will live with us, and though we have the extra bedrooms in the house, we have been using most of both closets for storage.

    Yesterday, in delighted anticipation, I tackled a major clean out and reorganization, finding items that we moved here 8 years ago and didn’t even remember having.  Large shopping bags were lined up in the hall and items I never use went into a bag for donation.  Party items that are rarely used were relocated by reorganizing the hutch, jelly cupboard, and kitchen cabinets to find places for it all.  One of the closets held the boxes of Christmas decorations.  When we moved in, they were stored in the basement, but when the basement finishing began, they moved to that closet and have stayed there.  The under-the-stairs closet in the basement was cleaned up and space made to store those boxes back down there, empty now of their decorations, but full after the holidays.  Dresser drawers that held seasonal linens were emptied, some of them stashed in another big plastic bin in the basement closet, others such as table cloths and napkins folded and stored in part of the hutch.  A shelf is going to be added to one of my base cabinets in the kitchen to allow for more organization.

    Bags and boxes were donated yesterday and more will likely follow.  Closets and drawers are being made available.  Holiday decorations that were being neglected are being displayed.  Excitement is in the air.

    We hope for a quick successful sale of their home so SIL can come up too, for a job opportunity that has evaded daughter in Florida will come up, that we will get to know those grandkiddos better than twice a year visits have allowed and we are grateful that all three of our children will be back in one state.

    Yesterday and today have been perfect weather for working in the house.  The sky is like a dark curtain hanging over us, raining off and on for days now.  The creeks are roaring.

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    The chicken pen, having a slight downward slope from the gate has been treacherous to enter to let them out and close them up.  Though it is gray this morning, I uncovered one of the huge round bales of hay and threw down a layer from the gate to the pop door of the coop and a fresh layer in the coop.  This is always new entertainment for the chickens as they scratch through it looking for treats and spreading it farther and farther away from the gate, but at least I will be able to enter the pen without fear of falling.

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    Two days ago, we came home to find this…

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    half of the wood that Son#1 and I stacked in the snow at Thanksgiving had toppled.  I don’t know if something tried to climb it or if as he suggested, the ground thawed in the rain just enough to cause it to shift.  It has been much to wet to want to go out and re-stack it.  If we get a dry day, I may begin on it . . . or wait for him to come back at Christmas to help me.

    For now, I must get back to household preparation to keep my excitement under control.  I booked a flight after Christmas to go down and help her drive back with the kids, the dog and a trailer of kids clothes, toys, sports gear and hopefully bicycles.  The rest of their goods will be moved upon sale of the house.

  • We May Be In For It

    … This winter that is. It is still November and we experienced the coldest night this season with an even colder one due tonight.

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    This was 2 hours ago. The wind howled all night, yesterday’s rain turned to snow flurries during the night and everything was frosted this morning. It is bright and sunny, but there is no warmth in it. I failed to bring the chooks waterer in last night and it was frozen solid, fortunately there is a spare since there are currently no culls or meat chicks.
    It is supposed to warm back to normal by early next week, so Son#1 may not have to wear everything he brings plus Mountaingdad’s barn coat to hunt next week. He is hoping to put a deer in the freezer to supplement the chickens for their winter meat. Their three student budget is tight so meat is a luxury for them. I don’t eat venison and Mountaingdad isn’t a big fan either, but we have the freezer space.
    I’m hoping for tolerable weather on Saturday as we will drive two counties over to pick up our freshly killed and cleaned, pasture raised turkey for Thanksgiving. As I was making the menu and grocery list, I was pleased at how few items we must purchase between our garden’s produce from summer, last week’s Farmers’ market and our local turkey. Olives don’t grow here and I don’t have a cow for cream, nor do we have a cranberry bog, but the rest will be local, homegrown, and homemade.
    Lovin’life on our mountain farm, even if it is frigid.