Ahahahaha, this says it all.
Overdosing On Bread
Ahahahaha, this says it all.
Weaving Wednesday – Round Robin 8
Last night’s weaving adventure was extended twill. The warp was 8/2 unmercerized cotton in a mint green. I chose to weave it with a dark green tencel and was really pleased with the result. I had been looking at these towels and different weavers choices in color and I have to say before I started weaving this I was not a fan. It is a really quick weave though and once I was into it I have to say that it’s one of my favorites so far. I probably say that every week about whatever I wove in class so take that for what it is. This one was a little different in the fact that the entire time I was weaving it I was thinking about different ways to change this up. I’m thinking of doing this with a striped warp and a dark weft, maybe towels but maybe a wool scarf. The possibilities are endless and having something that looks complicated be so easy helps to get those creative juices going.
We are coming to the end of our round robin and I am pretty sad about it. This has been a wonderful experience giving me (and I would say many others) the opportunity to weave out of our comfort zone. The results are beautiful. Only 2 more towels to do and then onto finishing. I had thought that these would make great Christmas presents but I’m not sure I will be ready to part with them by then. Maybe a they will go off for birthdays later.
One of the best aspects for me was photographing them as I went along. I now have the drafts along with the photograph of the finished product and in the long run that is all I really need.
It’s Here
Snow on Sunday. Snowing again today. Nothing has really accumulated but it’s here. It’s been quite cold the past week or so, cold enough to break out the winter coat.
This time of year is the most difficult for me in a lot of ways. The days are so much shorter. The house is cold a lot of the time. I know this is one long, long slog until spring. We are talking 5 months minimum on the hill. Yes, we will have a few of those January thaw days and it will warm up in April so we think we can actually do something outside in the garden but . . . never, ever plant anything before Memorial Day.
So what are the advantages of a long, dark winter? For me it gives me time to work on many different projects. I have a lot of handwork that sits idle whenever the weather is good enough for me to be outdoors. It’s a time for woodfires in both stoves and fireplaces. I love hearth cooking and that is really only fun when it’s really cold out. If I sit and watch a movie on TV that’s okay – I’m not frittering away a day when there is too much else to be done. Did I mention weaving? Weaving, weaving, weaving, nothing more to be said about that.
I love the beauty of the snow on the trees and ground, how bright it is with the moon shining. I love the sound of the snow under your feet on those cold, quiet nights with a million stars visible from the driveway. I love snoeshowing the property lines, it gives me a wider perspective of the land (and I can walk on all those wet, swampy spots that I can’t cross any other time of the year). There is bird song of a whole different kind.
So it’s now time to ease into a slower pace, enjoy family and friends and work on things left since last winter. This is what the dogs live for.
Generations of Service
We have someone in our family that has fought in every war from the Revolution except for Vietnam. Our family tree is full of stories of battles, command of regiments and battalions, unusual jobs. I can imagine the mothers, wives and daughters caring for property and finance when their men went off to war.
Some were volunteers fighting for things they sincerely believed in, others were drafted. They all seemed to travel to foreign places returning home with exotic and exciting stories to tell their children and grandchildren. Those stories were part and parcel of my childhood. Some were just information, others were fantastic tales. We were brought to believe that service to our country was proudly taken on. They were tales of camaraderie and the craziness of youth.
The things that have stuck with me is that they all saw their times of service as one of the greatest things they ever did. WWI, WWII, Korea, The Gulf War, Iraq, Afghanistan – these are the stories I know, the ones that I have heard first hand. The stories they tell are always about the men they were with, working as a team for a common cause. Many times that cause was just staying alive. They tell their stories with a sense of humor and I’ve often thought that it’s a way to keep the fear of those situations in check, or the telling of the stories helps them make sense of them.
This is my father. He was in the Navy from 1951 until 1954 on the USS Northampton as a boilerman. His story was one of travel to foreign lands. The war was going on in Korea but he spent his entire tour in the Atlantic – Spain, Greece, Haiti, Cuba.
Generation after generation has served. My brother is still serving.
Thanks to all servicemen and women for the sacrifices you have made and continue to make and the stories you have and share.
Flashback Friday – Our first renovation project
I thought I would share a few old posts over the next few weeks. It will help give me a little perspective. These posts were migrated from another blog spot so I apologize for how wonky they look in WordPress.
We are about to begin one of the biggest restoration projects to date (and our first in Rowe). By big I’m referring to area. Without measuring we figured this room is about 28′ x 15′ – I think that may be a conservative guess.
The barnboard on the end wall is going to stay – Dad told me it was put up originally because the plaster was falling off the wall. This kind of repair seems to be the way it’s been done in sooo many of the old houses we’ve worked on (or visited).
As you can see the ceiling is coming down in the far corner – it’s been like this for a couple of years but there are other points in the ceiling that are really beginning to sag so we’ve decided to gut the room, insulate and drywall. If it was a true restoration we’d be mixing up the plaster but it seems to be a lost art (and we don’t have the time or knowledge to do it). The window that is closest on the left actually has a deep ledge, almost a window seat. That whole window is being removed and replaced to bring it back flush with the wall. It overhangs the patio with a small roof and the whole structure is rotten and looks like its ready to fall off.
Of course this is the kind of help Bill will have for the week – they look better earlier in the day. God help him is all I have to say.
I’ll post next week on the progress – I will at least have shots of the demo – 200 years of dirt. Everyone will be in respirators, fun is.
We began the living room project in June of 2008. It took us 3 years to finally finish it (these kinds of projects seem to stretch out when you are only working on them on weekends). We had a lot of help along the way from people that know what they are doing. It’s good to have friends like that. Here’s a shot of what it looked like after the floor was finished.
We are thinking about another room restoration and I have to keep reminding myself what a long, tedious thing it is to do. But with every room you learn. You gain skills that make the next job easier. We’ve done 2 bathrooms and many bedrooms, halls, etc. The next project will be a room upstairs, a rather large one. It was once a bedroom but the plan is for it to house my looms, sewing machines, fabric and fiber. It’s been in boxes too long and having it have a place of its own will only free me up to be creative rather than looking for what I might want to do next (or shopping because its too tedious to search). I wonder how many duplicate tools I will find when the unpacking begins?
2013 – Year of the Great Fruit Fly Infestation
Every year we have fruit flies as summer turns into fall. They are a little annoying but if you pick up any food or things that are damp you can usually control the situation. For the past month we have had an infestation like I have never seen before. They were everywhere.
I went through everything, cleaning, washing, sanitizing. We would leave on Sunday night and I would come back on Wednesday, turn up the heat and they would be everywhere. They weren’t confined to one room either. Every room downstairs had fruit flies. The past couple of weeks have been pretty cold so I figured that would do them in – not so. It felt like black fly season in my living room.
I put out an APB to all of my cyber friends and family. Some replied with great advice. I googled how to rid yourself of fruit flies and tried many things suggested. Two weeks in a row I set out bowls of cider vinegar with a couple of drops of detergent. It worked quite well, except for the pesky buggers that would hang out on the rim of the bowl like birds on a birdbath. The bowls were in every room and it seemed like the population grew from week to week.
One morning I was at my wits end with a swarm around my head. I sat down to think about this – what was keeping them going? There had to be a food source of some kind for them to continue to multiply like this. Then it dawned on me – there were potatoes gone bad in a wooden bin in the kitchen. It hadn’t even crossed my mind. I had Bill remove their life source and waited another few days.
I am happy to say when I arrived last night I was pleasantly relieved to see they were gone. Not a one anywhere.
I must admit I took a perverse pleasure in sucking up their dead little carcasses with the vacuum cleaner.
Weaving Wednesday – Round Robin 7
In weaving class last night I decided on a Rosepath Point Twill. This was woven on a Leclerc counterbalance loom (my first experience). It is warped and woven in 8/2 unmercerized cotton.
The draft for this one was interesting because it gave me choices. It was drafted with 5 different weave structures and I had to decide how I wanted my towel to look. I decided to do a 4″ band of one design, a 12 pick band of plain weave and the body in another simpler design (which I modified even further to satisfy my symmetrical OCD). It was warped in a soft pink color and I chose a chocolate brown for the warp.
All in all I was pleased with the end result. We are coming to the end of this weaving adventure. Fabric is coming off of the looms now as people finish it up. As a sewer this takes on a different feel. I looked at the 8 yards of towelling that was taken off a loom yesterday, folded and looking like a bolt of beautiful fabric and couldn’t help but think I may have to weave something to make into clothing at some point. It is just too beautiful to use just for a dish towel.
Helping Hands
It must look as though all we do is cut, split and stack wood by the numerous posts about it here. This time of year that does seem to be the case. I have to tell you though that this is one chore that I kind of like doing. It is the one thing we do as a little community for the most part. This weekend we went to sister Sue’s to move some of a huge locust tree that came down at the end of the summer. The tree guys cut it up in place and hauled away the sticks and branches (the worst part of the job). They cut the wood to length but it needed to be moved and split. The morning began with the tractor ride to her house, Bill followed with the splitter. A friend arrived shortly after we did and then Sue’s daughter and her husband.
The tree was at the back side of her house so Bill, Rob and Chuck all loaded the bucket of the tractor and the bed of a pick up with multiple loads and brought it to the door of the barn where we had set up the splitter. Sue has a door in the floor of the barn and we split and tossed it through the door into the lower level. This is really an excellent set up. It keeps the wood out of the weather and is attached to the house so in those howling snow storms she just has to walk down the stairs to get her wood. Not ideal going up and down the stairs but much better than keeping it under a tarp in a field somewhere.
Sue and I split the smaller pieces but a lot of it was huge. The splitter can be used horizontally or vertically. The vertical position allows you the ability to split any size diameter wood (you just have to be able to move it around). One large chunk was split into 30 plus pieces – Sue counted. Moving and splitting went on for four hours or so – 3 tanks of gas is how we measure. The wall of wood was a little intimidating initially, they were bringing it up faster than we were ever going to split it. Bill figures they will get 5 cord or more from that one tree.
This kind of work is fun, especially when you have a group of people working towards that common goal. It’s nice to work with people that have experience, a lot can be done without a lot of instruction. Time can be spent working and laughing. And if you’re with my sister you can bet you will be taking stock of what kinds of mosses are growing on any given piece of wood – I did see her set a piece or two aside for closer inspection later.
Marriage Isn’t For You
Great post, words to realize and live by.
Having been married only a year and a half, I’ve recently come to the conclusion that marriage isn’t for me.
Now before you start making assumptions, keep reading.
I met my wife in high school when we were 15 years old. We were friends for ten years until…until we decided no longer wanted to be just friends. 🙂 I strongly recommend that best friends fall in love. Good times will be had by all.
Nevertheless, falling in love with my best friend did not prevent me from having certain fears and anxieties about getting married. The nearer Kim and I approached the decision to marry, the more I was filled with a paralyzing fear. Was I ready? Was I making the right choice? Was Kim the right person to marry? Would she make me happy?
Then, one fateful night, I shared these thoughts and concerns with my dad.
Perhaps each…
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Waste Not, Want Not
I’ve been buying or roasting a chicken a week for the past 3 weeks. What started out as an easy meal actually turned into 3 plus meals, each meal probably costing about $1.00 per person or less.
The first meal is roast chicken with sides, I usually eat squash, carrots or green beans with it. Maybe a mashed potato as well. The second meal might be black beans and rice with chicken added. The third meal this week was a lunch of chicken salad. The fourth iteration is my favorite- I make and can stock. All of these meals are for two, not a family of 5 but the reality is if you know how to cook you can stretch your food dollar quite a ways.
At this point in time I throw very little food away and chicken stock has the potential to be any number of wonderful meals. My Saturday morning routine of late has been to throw the bird carcass in a pot with an onion, a couple of carrots and a few stalks of celery. I cover it with 3 to 4 quarts of water, add some salt, pepper and thyme (or poultry seasoning) and let is simmer for a few hours. I strain the broth through a colander and can it in my pressure canner – 35 minutes at 10 lbs. It amounts to 5 or 6 pint jars when all is said and done.
Have a friend or relative with a cold or flu? Pull out a jar and make a little soup – a delicious soup.
With the weather getting downright frigid what could be more comforting?
Fort Pelham Farm 