Still working on my Summer and Winter sampler/experiment. I’m beginning to understand the structure and how to do a draw down so I know how to make a design I want. Even though I have it graphed out it always comes as a bit of a surprise when I actually weave it. I’ll probably weave a couple of feet of this design and then change to different treadling to see how I can switch it up yet keep the basic design intact. It’s so beautiful and amazing to see it emerge as you weave.
We gathered sap for the first time this past Saturday. The day was gloriously warm – over 50 degrees. As you can see by the muddy road spring suddenly sprung.
Bill is pouring the sap gathered from the buckets on the trees into a tank behind the tractor (driving the tractor was my job).
We started gathering just as the sun was going down. I’m not sure how many taps there were where there were buckets. Most of Russel’s sugarbush has pipeline.
This gather was particularly difficult because the trees were tapped before the last snowstorm so the walking was difficult.
Especially since the town had winged back the snow banks. Does this look like fun?!? Although Russell wearing his florescent hunting gloves gave us fodder for ridicule. You always need something to laugh about when you’re doing something this tedious.
The buckets were only about a quarter full on every tree so you didn’t really feel like you were accomplishing a lot.
It was getting darker and I was wondering if we would be doing this in complete darkness before long.
But as we continued to say, many hands make light work. If we thought about how long it would have taken with two people doing it this didn’t seem that bad.
The photo of the tractor doesn’t really tell you how dark it was – there should be complete darkness with the headlights showing.
The tank was probably a quarter full when we finished but Russ and Bill pumped the sap from the other storage tanks on the pipeline into the sugarhouse and it was enough to fill the rig and check for leaks. The first boil is a little more stressful than the rest because you don’t really know what kind of issues will crop up. The equipment is only used for maybe a month once a year, stuff happens.
Sunday was even warmer than Saturday but the sap still isn’t running strong yet. It may be that the snow is really insulating the feet of the trees, so as the snow melts the sap will run more. We’re looking forward to a nice long season this year.
Please excuse the lousy photograph – but if you could smell it all would be forgiven.
I prepared a brine to make corned beef last night and this is what it looked like this morning. This is my first attempt at making it but by all of the accounts that I’ve read it is ridiculously easy to do and gives spectacular results. We shall see. The brine smells so wonderful with its assortment of spices – allspice, peppercorns, red pepper, mace, mustard seed, bay, mace, ginger, cloves, cinnamon and garlic. It’s mixed with a gallon of water, 2 cups of salt, a little pink salt and sugar. I simmered it last night and refrigerated it until this morning.
I have a large brisket of Heath beef that I submerged into the brine this morning. I put a plate on top of it to make sure the meat stayed under the brine and put it back into the refrigerator. I’ll check it every so often until next Wednesday morning when I will take it out and wrap it up in anticipation of St. Patty’s day on Sunday. Looking forward to something that should look like this.
Yummmm.
The recipe can be found here.
It’s snowing again, although I’m not sure how much accumulation we will get.
I have to say that it’s hard to be too disgruntled about snowy weather when your dogs love nothing more than the back yard being a winter wonderland.
Last night I finished weaving my X’s and O’s after fixing a threading issue that was messing up the X’s. With my OCD with perfection it HAD to be done! I moved on to using 3 shuttles to do columns, two with complimentary colors and the cotton tabby. It was a little confusing at first but once I got into a rhythm of what to do with the shuttles that weren’t being thrown it was fine. I had some issues with my selvages but I think it was because I was concentrating on the pattern. Too much was going on at the same time!
Not shown was a mistake I made that turned into the most wonderful tweed like pattern. I only did it for about an inch when we realized I was reading the draft totally wrong. Now I think I want to weave something with that mistake alone.
I finished the class with Atwater Bronson lace. It’s very easy to treadle BUT I beat everything to death so the lace part didn’t actually show very well. I’ll have to work on loosening up. Pam said I won’t be weaving gauze any time soon. Ha!
It’s difficult not to love snow when you have dogs that are crazy about it. Sophie is especially obsessed with it. I don’t know where it came from or how it started but if she sees you with a shovel she’s there. This is what she lives for in the winter.
All she wants you to do is throw shovels full of snow into the air so she can jump into it.
And she doesn’t stop. She will jump and jump every single time.
She’s quite the acrobat.
And more entertaining than anything I can possibly think of indoors.
Of course she really appreciates it when we go indoors and there’s a fire in the fireplace. Unlike Chester, all of the snow sticks to her fur in little snowballs. She waits in front of the fire until she is standing in a puddle of melted snow. Now if she would only learn to stand on a towel.
I did it. I ordered my seeds yesterday. A commitment has been made. Now all that’s left is the layout.
My favorite gardens have been potagers. They are functional and beautiful. They are interesting enough so I want to weed them and keep them clean (alright, sorta weeded and clean). One of the real reasons I love potagers so much is the look on Russell’s face when he sees it. He’s a straight row kind of guy and he always looks at my garden with scepticism. It makes me laugh. My garden has rows, just not all rows. I like things to have a certain whimsy about them yet be functional at the same time. I always plant things for the birds, bees and butterflies. I like color. Consequently I plant things that other people don’t. I love Scarlet Runner Beans. They are beautiful to grow. Hummingbirds and butterflies love them. I love picking the beans at the end of the season and marveling at their bright purple and pink spots. I can’t say that I like eating them so I plant them with another pole bean that I will eat and put up.
Each year I look through my past garden plans to see where the potatoes or tomatoes were planted in the past few years so I can rotate them around. The potatoes are always planted in rows because of the ease in hilling but I plant the tomatoes in all different configurations. This year I may plant blocks or circles of separate varieties instead of in rows. I also will be planting fewer varieties, but maybe more yellows. My new seed for the year will be Tom Thumb popcorn. I always try something totally different. Corn isn’t a do or die for me so when I plant it I do it totally out of curiosity. I figure it’ll probably turn into fodder for raccoons but you don’t know until you try.
Things to remember this year is to add a lot of compost before I till. Stake the tomatoes early (so they don’t get away from me). Get more caution tape for fencing – yes, works better than anything I’ve found although it isn’t all that pretty. Sharpen the weeding tools.
Best of all I will be cleaning off the Adirondack chairs in preparation for relaxing and enjoying the view.
When I got up this morning this is what I saw looking out of an upstairs bedroom window. Pictures sometimes don’t do justice to the reality. It was stunningly beautiful out (and quite warm as well).
I took another photo from the living room window – the snow bank is what is up over the windows. I didn’t think we were going to see that this year, I was wrong. It will be months before I can go out the patio door.
It was so nice out that I decided to put on the snowshoes and walk down to the back forty before I left to go back to Enfield. I swear Chester intentionally photo bombs every picture I take. He’s like that, it’s all about him.
This is the second time this winter I’ve seen this. I always count those days as special because the beauty is extraordinary. These are also the days that are so peaceful and quiet. Nothing but bird song. The songs are changing now. It’s beginning to sound like spring even with all of this snow the birds are coming back.
Looking back at the outbuildings the snow makes everything look so clean, fresh.
We all enjoyed our little trek out back, breathing the fresh air and listening to the birds. I got into my car and by the time I’d reached Route 2 in Charlemont the world had changed. It looked more like spring there, with much less snow. By the time I got to Enfield it was a whole different world. Nothing but mud and puddles. This time of year it amazes me the difference in two places that are really not that far away from each other. This is when I remember that the growing season in Enfield starts 3 weeks earlier than it does in Rowe. As much as I like spring I have to say I’ll take a snowy morning like this morning’s any day.
Today, while everyone had a miserable rainy day, we had another day of snow. I had come up to be here when they changed the internet from satellite to DSL. I went to bed after 11:30 last night and was seeing the moon peaking through clouds. This morning there was about 6 inches on the ground at 7 a.m. Verizon showed up about 9 and did a cursory drive through then called about a half hour later to say everything was all set. I spent the next 4 hours trying to get it all to work. It is now so I will stop complaining.
The snow is very heavy and wet. Jay came to plow and had a difficult time moving it much of anywhere. I shoveled a little and played with the dogs. Chester was excited about the snow but now so much about how wet he got while he was in it. The wind is really picking up now and it’s still coming down.
I have a nice fire going in the fireplace and think I may pour myself a glass of wine. Then I will do a little rug hooking or read a good book. There’s a lot to be said for a snow day.
My new year’s resolution for 2012 was to fold 1,000 cranes. I once met a kid, a little girl about 10 that had folded 1,000 cranes. She was amazing, my kind of girl. She loved crafting of every kind and totally got it. Her brain worked like mine. I only spent a couple of weekends with her because her father worked at the same facility I did at the time. I wanted to take her home and transfer all of the crafting knowledge I had and watch her run with it. Didn’t happen. Oh, well.
Back to the cranes. I figured if a 10 year old had folded 1,000 cranes I could do it and it was really a cheap little project. By February of 2012 I had folded over 600 cranes. The project was derailed when my father had a stroke and I spent a few months getting him (and me) settled into a different life. Last week I found a box with these cranes in it and the remaining paper. I took it to the table and started to fold. It’s amazing that after months away from paper folding my hands remembered exactly what to do. I find doing this to be very meditative. It is calming and I can think about things as my hands are doing their work. I think that really is the point of folding cranes, the meditation, even though the idea is to bring good luck to the house that has them.
So I decided to move my 2012 resolution to the bucket list. This way there is pressure to finish them but not within a certain amount of time (well, there is a finite amount of time). The thing is I can see myself folding another thousand once these are done.
Fort Pelham Farm 