Cabin Crafted

Tag: writing

  • Olio – May 31, 2026

    Olio: a miscellaneous collection of things

    The month is drawing to a close. It has been a good month, with a trip to see youngest son and family, a month long spinning challenge, a very heavy work day with local grandson making headway on cleaning up parts of the property, walks and wildlife, seeing more production from the pullets, some social time, some living history, and not enough gardening.

    We often see snakes, turtles, or today, a lizard on the paved trail. The morning was cool enough that it was warming on the dark pavement, and yet delightful for a brisk walk.

    We saw our first fawn of the season this week, crossing our gravel road into the woods. Tiny little one that quickly tucked itself between Mom’s back legs as we were approaching.

    Yesterday on my way to an annual spring spin in at a friend’s house, I saw another with it’s Mom in route, then yet another on our gravel road on my way home. The spin in is always enjoyable, the weather was a delight and the potluck ended up mostly salads, many Mediterrean in flavor. A good friend who I see only at this event and at an Arts and Fiber retreat once a year as she and her husband live a state away, gifted me a tiny spindle made by my favorite spindle maker, Ed Jenkins. Most of my spindles are on the smaller size, but this one is really tiny. Seen next to a US quarter for reference. Much to my surprise, it spins for an amazingly long time once a little fiber is added.

    For the spinning challenge, all done on Jenkin’s spindles, I spun 165 g of wool. Other spinning was done during the month on other types of spindles, some at living history groups at the museum, some on my own at home as I work toward enough to finish the other 3/4 of the blanket in progress. So in total, I probably spun about half a pound of wool this month. And I started lessons for one of my friends and fellow living history re-enactors. This month, I won’t participate in the challenge and there are no scheduled groups other than the weekly session with the local spinning group. I will likely meet up with my friend again for another lesson for her.

    The garden is growing, the raised beds are doing well and have been weeded a couple of times, but I never did get the rest of the garden set for corn and pumpkins, nor have I gotten the blueberry bed weeded. We did get almost a week of rain toward the end of the month.

    The pullets, I think are now all laying. The most I have gotten on any one day was today and there were 7 eggs (9 pullets). The Marans that I didn’t think had started, have given me 4 eggs in the past couple days and two of them today, so I know they are both laying. As I don’t know for sure what color the Mystic Onyx breed lays. The web says light brown and there are 3 Buff Orpingtons that also lay light brown. I did get 3 light brown eggs in the mix today, so at least 3 of the 5 light brown layers are providing.

    As they get the hang of production, we sometimes get an oddball one. This one on the left when cracked open, had 3+ yolks. The one on the right is a normal sized pullet egg.

    I have gotten doubles before, especially when they are young and soon after starting to lay again after molt, but three is a record for here.

    After our walk, a few quick stops, we managed to get the yard mowed, partly edged, and the fence around the young oak planted on our pup’s grave reinforced. It is now time to let the day fade, spin a little more, or maybe knit a few rows, and look forward to a new month beginning tomorrow with new adventures.

  • Strong as a bull

    The grandson (19 years old) drove over this morning and for the next 1.75 hours, we worked. I had brought the trailer down from the barn to the garden area and tried to get a headstart before he arrived by starting to back the long screws out of the rotting garden box. That box was 17′ long and 4′ wide. Many of the screws just stripped instead of backing out. To also expedite our destruction, I drove the tractor down from the barn and shifted the broken rubble from the destroyed chicken tractor that has sat under one of the apple trees with several years of grass growing up through it.

    The wooden box was behind the black bed with the tomatoes in it. Once he arrived, he took the sledge hammer to it and broke the long sides off of the short sides and our day began. The short sides were loaded in the trailer, the long one brought over to the house where they could be cut in thirds with the circular saw, then they also were loaded. The trailer was then relocated closer to the rubble pile and we “Tetris” fit about a dozen cedar posts we had cut from young trees on the farm and stripped of branched to make up the base for the chicken tractor when we realized it could be breached and 9 chicks killed. The base was raised off the ground on large rocks, the cedar posts anchored together, a thick layer of soil on top, then the chicken tractor lifted on top and all spaces of potential access filled with large rocks. This worked for a while, then a strong windstorm toppled it and as the chicken tractor was made primarily of reclaimed wood, it was destroyed. The rocks were removed, the cedar posts stacked under the tree, and the plan to try to remove the hardware cloth. The task overwhelmed me each time I decided to tackle it and the grass started growing up through the mesh. It made mowing that area quite difficult and though it got weed whacked occassionally, it was an unsightly mess.

    We filled the trailer to the top with rotting wood, hardware cloth, and the metal top panels, lashed it down tight and drove it to the “convenience center,” where the dumpsters and dump trailers are placed for us to take our garbage, trash, and recyclables. We managed to get it done before the temperature got unbearable. It eventually reached 89 f today.

    The teen was well paid, fed lunch, and sent home. Daughter texted later and said I had worn the teen out. Wore his grandmom out as well.

    We waited until after dinner, when the thermometer dropped to 85 to go take our walk. Tommorrow is a repeat as far as the weather, but no heavy work is planned. The area where the box was removed and to the left of it still needs cleaning up to plant the three sisters mounds, hoping to get popcorn, some dried beans, gourds and pie pumpkins out of that otherwide unused part of the garden. And the area where the rubble was removed needs to be raked to make sure we didn’t leave any boards with staples, nails, or screws that might puncture a foot or mower tire. It will cool back down in a few days and those tasks can be tackled.

  • Home Routine

    Last weekend we travelled across the state to visit our younger son, his wife, and the grandkiddos. We got to see their little homestead and their business location that we hadn’t seen since they relocated to the larger spaces.

    We also had the opportunity to see their second oldest daughter perform with the Virginia Children’s Choir in a Saturday afternoon concert.

    The trip was fun, though the traffic in the region we lived in until 20 years ago is crazy.

    After sharing breakfast with them at their home, we headed back to the mountains in time to visit with and go out to dinner with daughter and her family for Mother’s Day for the two of us. I came home with flowers from those two families and a very generous donation in my honor to the New River Conservancy Organization from eldest son’s family.

    We got home tired, but happy.

    It rained yesterday morning, and we realized that the grass was going to become impossible to mow if we didn’t get it done, but it didn’t dry off enough yesterday to make that happen. After today’s walk and errands, working together, we got the lawn and orchard cut back to a managable level, but ran out of weed trimmer line, so that didn’t get finished. Tomorrow is cooler and rainy again, but we can at least stop and purchase the line so that part of the job can be completed once it dries out again.

    May’s Jenkins spindle challenge is a fun competition to see which style spindles (divided into two randon groups) can spin the most in a month. I finished up some fiber I had been working on with my newest spindle and some fiber I want to use to knit the second quadrant of a queen sized blanket with my smallest spindle, and now finishing that fiber with my lightest spindle.

    Today’s mail brought some black Shetland wool that will be the borders of the remaining three quadrants of the blanket. Black Shetland was used on the first quadrant.

    The pots seeded with mixed flowers are sprouted and growing nicely, the peas, spinach, and lettuce in the garden also. The tomatoes and peppers that were transplanted just before we left seem to be thriving as well. Spring is definitely here even with with 50’s daytime temps off and on and upper 40’s nighttime temps. Over the weekend, three of the pullets layed their first egg. I think one more may have layed a wind egg (an egg with no shell) as there was a yolky sticky spot in a nesting box. Soon we will have daily egg supply again, and enough to take to daughter’s house each week.

    There is only one more grade level group coming to the museum. This Friday, we will again host 2nd graders, then schools in this region will adjourn on May 29 for the summer. I will miss that opportunity during the summer.

    Have a safe week.

  • An Educator

    This is teacher appeciation week. Thank a teacher for the impact they had on you or your child. For 43 years, I was an educator, retiring when I could begin to collect Social Security. For a few years after retirement, the only teaching I did was helping a local summer camp, teaching some spinning, weaving, and salve making. Then a friend who had been volunteering at a local museum couldn’t fulfill a day they needed a spinner and I connected with a volunteer activity that allowed me to demonstrate in a Colonial historical context, fiber arts. The program director at that museum moved to a different location, a little farther from our farm, but still under an hour to get there and I followed her, volunteering at events, and as she developed a program and relationship with the area school districts, as a teaching volunteer.

    Generally, I am in a 1769 log, 10 by 10 foot cabin that houses a great wheel and a barn loom.

    We have classes from second grade, fourth grade, and sixth grade that visit the museum at different times of the year. In my usual role, I am teaching about fiber production, processing, and clothing on the frontier. The village was chartered in 1810, so still very early in our country’s history, and through a period where trade was virtually stopped due to the Revolutionary War, and limited after the war due to the distance from the coastal trade ports.

    Today, a very rainy day, we had about 60 second graders visiting. And a different hat as one of our volunteers was unavailable, I was in the old separate kitchen talking about household life and how different it was then compared to what the kids experience today. The limitation of types of food, as most of what we eat now is imported or hybridized versions of what a local in western Virginia would have had available as well as the difficulty of storage, cooking on a fireplace, the soap making, candle making, fiber growth and processing, and how it was mostly a cashless society with bartering the most common form of trade.

    I may be a very senior citizen, but teaching is still in my blood and I love the volunteer opportunity that is there for me. I hope to be able to continue doing this for many more years.

  • Olio

    A miscellaneous collection of things.

    Most of my blog/journal postings fit that description anyway, but that title hasn’t been used in a while.

    Two of the pullets were getting braver and leaving the coop. Unfortunately, the other 8 aren’t following and peer pressure hits and the two go back inside. A couple days ago, now that we have a series of spring days, they were forced out, with some scratch and some water in the pen so they get accustomed to being outdoors. This resulted in having to catch all 10 and walk them back up the ramp to the popdoor at dusk. Yesterday, only one appeared and never left the ramp. Today was coop cleaning day as they had made quite a mess of it in the few weeks they have been in it and my efforts with the snow shovel chased them all out into the pen. The coop is clean, they have a container full of food and another of water, however, as dusk approaches, not a single one has gone back into the coop. When it gets a bit darker, if they still haven’t figured it out on their own, another catch and up the ramp session will occur.

    And with the warmer dryer days ahead, planning on getting the tunnel around the garden secured so they can expand their territory if they ever start coming out on their own.

    If it was up to me, the television would rarely be turned on. Hubby knows that and generally only turns it on late in the evening or after I have gone to bed. However, there is a series in it’s second season that does interest me. The series is “Doc.” As we don’t watch series shows for the most part, a characteristic of this show bothers me and I don’t know if it is typical of series in general or if this is an anomaly. The show is an hour. The content is probably only 15-20 minutes of that hour and the remaining 40-45 minutes is commercials, often repeated. This is not an exageration. For every 4-5 minutes of content, there are 8-10 minutes of ads. It has become so irritating that I may stop watching it entirely. It is bad enough with movies, even in theaters now, you get the commercials seen on TV at the beginning. At least they don’t interrupt the flow of the movie in a theater with inserted ads. When you pay an arm and a leg to have TV in your home through satellite or cable (we live in the mountains and antennas are basically useless), it is annoying to have that much of the show time not actually the show.

    The itch to start seeds for the garden is strong. The average last frost date here is around Mother’s Day, so 6 weeks prior wouldn’t be until near April 1, a long 3 weeks away. The seed is ready, the LED lighted starting boxes clean, but the date is too early. In the past, I have succumbed to the temptation then struggled to keep the seedlings from getting too leggy or outgrowing the starting pots. This often results in then purchasing starter plants at the nursery closer to planting time. Maybe the urge can be tamped down by preparing beds and repairing fences. And peas can probably be started in the ground now.

    Earlier this week, I got my new hearing aids. Because my right ear canal is not straight, or even close to straight, the audiologist suggested trying a custom mold so the aid stays in place. In numerous tries, she could only insert it correctly twice and I have yet to be able to accomplish it. Another appointment has been scheduled for Monday to discuss this with her and other options. If I am going to constantly have to be adjusting it, the dome like I had before and on my left aid may be the only option. At least that doesn’t make my ear canal sore while trying to insert it.

    We have 5 more days of spring like weather before we return to seasonable March weather. At least there is no snow in the two week forecast, that is a win in my book.

  • It’s Gone

    For the past several years, our youngest son and his family have kept their RV parked on our farm. It leaves occasionally for them to use as a mobile hotel and was often used for them to stay in when visiting us. The last couple of times they were here, they stayed in the house due to some repair issues on the RV. I would start up the generator every few weeks, keep mouse traps baited and cleared, but otherwise just mowed around it. They now have a mini homestead and have moved it home. It is odd driving down the driveway and not seeing it, or doing a double take out the front window when noticing it isn’t there. In addition to the RV leaving, a pile of roof and vent repair items that have been in our garage left with it.

    Weekend before last was the only fiber festival that the Jenkins, makers of my favorite spindles attend. A distant friend that attends each year has offered and proxy shopped for me several times as the festival is in Oregon and I am in Virginia, so attending in person hasn’t happened. This new plum spindle will soon join the spinning fun.

    The Jenkins spindle group to which I belong on social media holds a fun scavenger hunt each year during Tour de France, called Tour de Fleece. Many groups hold versions of Tour de Fleece, many with challenges on who or what team can spin the most, but our version is more laid back and more fun. Each day, we are given an object to find and photograph with our spindle in progress on a spin. Each day the spindle needs to have more spun or plyed fiber on it than the day before. I have several small Jenkins Turkish spindles that will be used during this period. There are prizes donated by members of the group if you find enough of the items and post your photo within the 24 hour window. This year, I am doing it just for the fun of it and have asked not to be included in the prize drawing if I find enough items and follow through with the daily posting.

    During DH’s broken clavicle healing, my trigger finger surgery healing, and our cruise, I didn’t post much in the group. It is fun to be back involved with them.

    Most of my evenings have been spent knitting on a shawl with a skein of handspun. Last night, I began the Old Shale Lace border using a different skein of handspun alternating with the other skein as there isn’t enough of it to finish without adding the skein of similar colors. One 4 row repeat of the border has been done and the next begun. We will have to see how many repeats I do before I either tire of it or it begins to distort the triangular shape of the shawl. It is difficult to tell with it scrunched up on the needle.

    After days and days of heavy rain that damaged our driveway, filled the ditch above our culvert (again), and damaged the state road that had recently been graded, it is dry. The garden will need to be watered if we don’t get a thunderstorm soon. Yesterday was a mild day in the upper 70’s, today it is nearly 90. That is usually a recipe for a thunderstorm, at least I’m hoping so.

    My current read is a new release called “Reckoning Hour” by Peter O’Mahoney and as I read it, I feel like I have read it before, though it was just released in April. A bit of research and I think it is very reminiscent (almost too much so) of a Grisham book.

  • Animal Behavior

    We have lived here for about 18 years now, and for 15 of them we had either barn cats or large dogs. All are gone now. Early on, because we have 30 acres of fields and woods, we allowed some hunting on the property, but after an incident when one of the young hunters, invited a friend we did not know and the friend then showed up alone with his 5 year old son, we cancelled hunting privileges for non family and no one in the family has hunted here for years. With no domestic animals in or near the house and no hunters on the land, the wild animal behaviors have changed.

    We used to park the cars in the driveway and every spring, we had to cover the side mirrors to keep the male cardinal, that calls the side yard his habitat, from constant attacks against the “intruder.” The cars now get parked in the garage.

    The male bird aggression is interesting. This morning a tiny sparrow repeatedly bashed his breast and head against the French doors of the dining room. I tried turning on the inside light, putting a dining room chair against the glass, and finally hung a paper owl from the back of the chair to keep it from a concussion or broken neck.

    We have always had deer foraging and crossing the property, but now they rest in the shade of the row of pine trees on the edge of the mowed lawn just to the west of the house and barely flinch when we go outside to water plants, fill hummingbird feeders, or go over to the chicken pen and coop. The hay is still high and unmowed and it is fawning season where the does drop their young. There is a new mom doe (probably a first time as she only has one fawn) that feels safe enough that she had her tiny little one near the house. As their behavior is to hide the fawn and move off from it, coming back to nurse a few times a day, and then moving the fawn to a new location, we have seen her bring the little one in to the mowed yard where it is easier to walk, then take it back into the tall grass to hide. We can tell approximately where the fawn is hidden by where she goes to graze.

    I won’t look for the fawn, there is no reason to disturb them, but we look out the south windows to see if we see where the doe is grazing. She is a brown hump in the tall grass when grazing and will look up if she hears a noise. The area she is using is about 2 football fields in size. After the fawn is about 3 weeks old and starting to eat more solid food, it will begin to follow the doe around and the two of them will like form a small herd with other does with fawns or other does that she is related to.

    The other wildlife whose behaviors have changed in the absence of cats and dogs are the rabbits and chipmunks that come right up to the house, the chipmunks even up on the deck. And we have a groundhog that seems to prefer the mowed lawn to graze but lives near or under a cedar tree right on the edge of the hayfield. I haven’t caught it out to take a photo lately, it has been rainy for the past 4 days.

    Last weekend, our eldest, his wife, and their son came to our local grandson’s high school graduation. His son is city born and city raised and he spent the entire weekend looking for o’possums and groundhogs to no avail. We did see rabbits and deer to show him and warned him about nighttime wandering to look for them due to skunks and coyotes. I haven’t heard the coyotes this spring yet.

    Life in a rural area is ever changing. The hen turkeys should be hatching poults soon and we will see them. The toms are in male groups now and if they are in the fields, we can’t see them due to the height and thickness of the hay. Within the next month, weather permitting, the hay will be mowed and baled, hauled off to other farms and the animals will be visible in the mowed fields again. I love the rural mountain life.

  • Busy Week/Changing Seasons

    There was a lot of living history this week. On Wednesday, we had about 80 fourth graders and 7 rotations with the museum history, slavery in Appalachia, a bit of William Tell fun with suction cup arrows and a plexiglass shield to protect the”victim,” women’s duties on the frontier, blacksmithing, fiber production at home on the frontier, and frontier Militia that includes the presenter firing a flintlock rifle for the students. After we were done, the curator showed them a covered wagon and how it would have been loaded to travel the Wilderness road to the western parts of Virginia (now Kentucky and Ohio).

    Thursday we had over 100 sixth graders with some changes in rotations to match the available volunteers. These groups are fun to do and also have some of the frustrations that teachers deal with daily. Some the the youth are very engaged and have great questions. Some would rather be anywhere else and poke and prod their neighbors, or engage in flirting with another student.

    The door to the loom house is low, about 5’5″ and most kiddos that age walk in without a thought, but there are a few as tall or taller than me at 5’7+” that have to duck to enter. The space inside is tight to put 15 sixth graders, but we make it work.

    Wednesday night threatened cold so the flowers planted in the deck pots were covered for the night, there are no more nights much below 50 f for the next 10 days.

    The first Hummingbird was spotted this morning. The single feeder that is currently out will empty quickly and soon additional feeders will be added.

    The vegetable, sunflower, and herb seed have sprouted under the grow lights. They will begin to get acclimated to the outdoors in a day or two.

    The Amaryllis bud opened with only 2 flowers but is 22″ tall.

    After the museum yesterday it was time to mow the lawn for the first time. The riding mower original battery was so dead there wasn’t even a hint of light from the headlights, much less turning over the engine. I edged around the house and pulled out the gas push mower and it wouldn’t start either. Our once a year pushing the heavy riding mower up on to the trailer and trip two towns over to drop it off wit the repair guy was done. Once it is repaired, the grass will be so tall it will be difficult to mow, but that is all I can do for now.

    We are looking forward to warm days and mild nights. Tomorrow, grandson will come help me get the rest of the garden ready to plant soon.