When the Weather Starts to Warm

February 4, 2014February 4, 2014 / handmadebyjo / 2 Comments

This winter has been brutally cold so far this year. This past weekend the temperature rose to the mid to upper 30’s and it felt like spring was on its way. It was the kind of weather when staying indoors is not an option and Bill decided it was time to cut trees.

Saturday’s tree is along the ridge going down to the back forty. The trees there have always been too close together and because they are on the east side of the garden and quite tall they shade the southern half of the tilled area until almost noon. There is a tree that we will keep for it’s shade and I will just plan the garden accordingly but this will begin to bring earlier sunshine where it’s needed.

The first thing done when felling trees is to look it over to make sure you have a good idea where it it will fall. This tree only had limbs on one side of it and was leaning over the bank so it was not difficult to discern where it would go. Bill made the first cuts on the side the tree would fall then sawed the other side as you can see in the video.

The next phase is to cut the limbs off of the tree

Once that was finished we use the logging winch on the back of the tractor to bring the log up to the spot where we will chunk it up and split it for firewood later.

Okay, originally I thought that this was a really pricey add on to the tractor but after about a month of tractor ownership you realize if you are going to use the bucket for anything you need weight in the back of the tractor. If you are going to work in wet, muddy areas you probably are going to need to winch yourself out at some point. If you are going to cut down large trees using a winch becomes a safety issue at times. It turns out that what I thought was a pricey toy really is a workhorse and we have never looked back. As you can see from the last video it has made Bill’s life a lot easier.

Bracing

January 22, 2014January 22, 2014 / handmadebyjo / Leave a comment

brac·ing

adjective

adjective: bracing

1. fresh and invigorating.

Yesterday afternoon my sister told me she had gone out for a chilly run, followed by a cold hike. I commented on how much I hated the weather when it was in single digits and the wind was blowing. She told me it was bracing. I laughed out loud when I read the word.

Fast forward to this morning. We didn’t get the predicted 3 to 6 inches of snow but it’s a little after 9 o’clock and the temperature is 5 degrees with the wind blowing what little snow we had. Last time I checked it’s about minus 14. The snow that fell was so fine it was like dust. When you are outdoors and the wind whips it up it feels like you are being blasted with sand, very cold sand. Suffice it to say it is painful to be outdoors today for any time longer than walking to your car parked next to the door.

The real burning question I have is why do your dogs have to spend an inordinately long period of time outdoors when it’s below zero and you have to walk them one by one on a leash? For them it’s bracing, for me it was frostbite.

Snow

January 20, 2014January 20, 2014 / handmadebyjo / 1 Comment

Saturday we had the most amazing snowstorm. I have been whining lately about our January thaw. Mud season is my least favorite time of the year and I felt like we were in it last week. Everything was brown and ugly, not what I want to look at out my windows. Walking was a difficult slog.

This storm started suddenly. It was fairly warm out and the snow came down hard with huge flakes. Bill and I spent most of the day outdoors just enjoying its exquisite beauty. There is nothing the dogs like more than us being outdoors in the snow. Snow makes everything a whole new game.

Shoot and Share

January 17, 2014January 17, 2014 / handmadebyjo / 3 Comments

The light this morning was beautiful when I took the dogs out for their morning constitutional. There was some fog diffusing the sun long enough to keep the frost on the grass and flowers gone by in the garden. I think I look forward to these moments but the reality is I don’t realize what I’ve got until I’m in the midst of it. Once outdoors I knew I needed a camera of some sort so I abandoned the dogs to run in the house. Much to my delight they were where I left them when I returned (they have a habit of “wandering”).

As I walked around the garden I was struck by what a lonely process creativity can be. Sure, I share my images but I do not take them unless I am by myself (or in the company of dogs). I need to concentrate, to really see what it is I’m looking at. If someone had been in the yard with me I never would have noticed how beautiful the light was. It takes solitude for me to see. Interesting.

I read grumblings about people not paying attention to their lives when they have their cameras (of whatever kind) in theirs hands. Speaking for myself I can say that when I have a camera in my hand I pay special attention to everything around me, looking for that one thing that perhaps others would never notice. I capture it for myself but once seen I share. If I didn’t have a camera available to me all the time just think of how much we’d miss!

Another Time and Place

January 16, 2014January 16, 2014 / handmadebyjo / 2 Comments

Do you ever want to run away to another time and place? That’s where I am right now and this is where I want to be. July, early morning, shore of Bear Island as the sun comes up. Warm, quiet, surrounded by water, birds singing and nothing else. Mmmmmm.

Little Thief

January 13, 2014January 13, 2014 / handmadebyjo / 2 Comments

The finches love this seed sock filled with a combination of nyjer seed and sunflower chips. They flock to it in droves.

It was hung on an S hook on a line going across the patio in full view of the kitchen window. I would drink my coffee with camera waiting. Well, last week we had snow, then rain and ice. What was on the roof came down and the feeders on the line were bounced off when the snow came to the ground. Yeah, yeah, not the best plan for hanging feeders but hey, live and learn. I arrived to all the still hanging feeders empty and went out to gather them in to clean and refill. The sock was nowhere to be found – gone. The S hook was laying on the ground. There were telltale tracks though and I thought it was the little red squirrel that I had seen the previous week.

I filled the feeders and brought out the fruit and nut mix for the top of the pine stump. The jays really love it there and it keeps them from bugging the other birds on the feeders. Once they were all filled and hung back up the birds returned. All the time I’m out by the feeders you can hear them singing, just waiting for me to get far enough away to feel safe. The chickadees don’t wait long.

Back indoors I made the usual cup of coffee and sat by the window. Guess what I saw?

Yup, and so innocent looking too. I don’t usually see gray squirrels here. I know they are around but they aren’t the huge, pesky hoard I have in Enfield.

So now I know who the culprit is and I’ve ordered another sock that I will attach to the line in a different way. I will also put it up as high as I can.

Garden Dreaming

January 10, 2014January 10, 2014 / handmadebyjo / 11 Comments

This is the time of year when the grand garden dreams begin. It has been bitter cold out and I’m sad to say the only outdoor adventures I have had in the past month is taking the dogs out twice a day. The snowshoes are waiting in the shed for another good snowstorm.

Like every project I have I start with truly unrealistic plans and then pare them down as the time grows shorter. The list of seeds is pretty long this year with the hope that the spring weather will be decent and my plants will get a better start. I plan to start everything at home rather than buying starts anywhere, including my onions. In years past I just bought onion sets but last year I was unable to get Walla Wallas and was disappointed, this year I won’t leave it to chance.

There has been so much in the news lately about GMOs that I’ve decided this is the only way to go for me. I can’t source anything anymore, you just have no idea where anything comes from and can’t trust what you’re told for the most part. I never thought I would have to work so hard at knowing where my food came from.

I am fortunate to have grown up in a family that always had a large vegetable garden. We canned, froze or otherwise put by most of the food we ate. We always grew our own beef, had chickens for a spell and raised a couple of pigs one time. Having my food source close to me is nothing new but now there seems to be more of an urgency to it. I thought it was just me being a little paranoid but having talked to a couple of medical professionals who are seeing more cancers in much younger people I’m thinking I’m not being over cautious. When someone tells me they know of a 26 year old with breast cancer my first thought is their diet. We have had decades now where our protein sources are laced with hormones and antibiotics all in the name of increasing production. The same goes for our GMO crops. Corn is in everything – every thing. Even if you are trying to do right by your family if you are not reading labels (and reading into them) you simply don’t know what you are getting anymore.

So the grand plan is to plant a large variety in quantities that will get me through to the next harvest. Things that will keep in a root cellar, are good canned or dehydrated. In reading over the long seed list it would seem that my experiment for this growing season will be Dinosaur Kale and a savoyed cabbage. Spinach will be in the mix as well. I’ve grown it before but haven’t in a few years so it made the list. The garlic and asparagus are in the ground both of them are experiments in themselves albeit really long term ones.

This weekend I will spend some time sitting by the wood stove, drinking coffee, plotting out my garden space and ticking off the seed list to see what stays and what goes. I will also do a viability test on some of the seed I have just to see what I really need. I’ll try to sprout some of my popcorn as well because that was one experiment that worked particularly well.

A Year in Review

December 31, 2013December 31, 2013 / handmadebyjo / 1 Comment

January was spent trying to finish my thousand cranes – a resolution I make every year and never quite finish. I figure a couple more years and they will be done. I do recommend this to any and everyone. It’s simple to do and is one of the most meditative things I have ever done.

The weather was wintry and exquisitely beautiful. Each and every storm left behind a landscape that screamed to be walked through on snowshoes and photographed. The quiet that goes along with weather is restorative and I always look forward to a snowstorms aftermath.

St. Patrick’s Day will be one of the most important days of the calendar year to me now, not because I’m Irish but because it was the day I talked to Scott for the first time. Given up for adoption in 1972 I had come to regard this moment as something that may never happen. I had left information on a website and through a convoluted chain of events was contacted through an intermediary. The rest of this year has been spent with each of us getting to know our new family members, a blessing in so, so many ways.

Sugaring this year was amazing although the snow was rather deep in the beginning. A lot of work gathering those buckets without the aid of snowshoes. It makes up for it when we boil and smell that hot maple goodness wafting through the sugar house.

Spring came in its normal time this year, no hot spells or odd cold snaps and the pear tree was happy.

I made my first overshot throw in wool and discovered a passion for weaving that far and away exceeds any other handwork I have ever done. My grandfather had wanted me to weave I think, I have a faint recollection of receiving a small, plastic kids loom when I was very young but without someone to teach me. This has been a special journey with a connection to just about every member of my family.

Every morning the weather cooperates this is what I look at as I drink my first cup of coffee. There is nothing like walking out the door in your pajamas and sitting in an Adirondack chair overlooking your land. Day to day the view is different, each having its own beauty. I feel very, very blessed to have this be such a big part of my life. It’s grounding.

The end of summer brings with it the fairs. I took full advantage this year. Heath Fair is one of my favorites with something for everyone. I also had some validation with winning a blue ribbon for my weaving.

Wood, wood, wood, we cut and split a lot of wood. It’s best when it’s like this – family all gathered to make it all go quicker and easier. It’s also more fun. Everyone pitched in and Chester thought is was awesome.

Chester started swimming this summer. He is a very hot dog when the weather is warm but loves playing fetch more than anything. This was the perfect solution. He was a bit of a panic swimmer the first day but after that he looked forward to coming to this spot each and every day we were in Rowe, sometimes twice a day. He is an amazing animal.

My garden had its issues this year but my popcorn, the experiment of the year was a complete success. There is no better feeling than finding out there is something new you can grow that’s beautiful and functional.

I went to Belfast, Maine to Fiber College this year and spent quality time with old and new friends and ate lobster every day. It was a fiber weekend for some but for me it was more about photography. I need to be alone to do my best work and I came away with images that were everything I wanted them to be. It was also a time to reminisce about childhood, we spent many summers up this way while I was growing up and I hadn’t been here in a good 30 years.

This autumn the foliage was more beautiful than I had seen it in years. So many of my friends shared exquisite images of scenes right out their front doors that were breathtaking. Photography slows me down and forces me to look at the details. The photograph above of the red tree was taken almost at dark. I drove by it in the center of town, said wow to myself and kept driving. By the time I got to the bottom of the hill I turned around to capture this. In my head I initially said “Oh, just take it tomorrow” but a few hundred feet down the road I realized that it wouldn’t be there. Those are the best photographs, the ones that catch that fleeting moment.

This fall I saw some of the most amazing sunsets ever. Enfield never looked so good under these vibrant skies. This particular evening it seemed that everyone I knew posted a photograph from a different place. It was like the sky made everyone stop whatever they were doing to watch. It’s comforting to know that the people I love were all looking at the sky at almost the same time and then sending what they saw to others.

Thanksgiving weekend was about family, our immediate family. What is usually a crowd was just Bill, me and the two girls, our nuclear family. It was the first time in so many years that it was just us and it was wonderful. It’s probably the most difficult thing to experience – the loss of your children to adulthood. The best time of our lives was raising our girls and they have both turned into amazing, remarkable women. It was good to have the opportunity to have them all to ourselves. For a treat Bill built an amazing bonfire to share with them and a couple of their cousins.

Christmas has come and gone, although the remnants are still in the house. A few decorations will return to their boxes in a week or so and life will begin its new cycle. There aren’t any resolutions this year for me other than to absorb the gifts around me. The time seems to go by so fast each year it leaves me breathless. I will spend the winter months planning the garden, weaving and cooking for the people I love. I will follow in the rhythm of the seasons and work the way I do for each year. It may seem a little dull but planning my life around what’s growing or the weather is the most comfortable way for me to live at this moment in time, you just roll with it. I take every moment spent with the people I love and savor it like a fine wine. Those times of love and laughter are what sustains me through any other trials that come along. The simplicity of it is all I need.

A Finch Obsession

December 28, 2013December 28, 2013 / handmadebyjo / 1 Comment

Okay, this has become a bit of an obsession. Honestly, who can blame me? Look at how beautiful the light is shining through their wings.

I have been adding to the feeder array to attract more birds – I was thinking different types of birds but the early morning visitors are the finches. The woodpecker was on the feeder very early this morning and the jays come and go. When the finches come it’s a crowd. They all tussle for a spot on any one of the four feeders that are out there now.

Photographing them like this allows me to watch their interactions frozen in time. It’s as close as I can get to examining them without looking at a dead bird. It also is great seeing them stopped in flight.

Of course we now have a new visitor. He’s just scavenging around the base of the feeders so far. I’ll throw him some seed on the stump today and hope that’s where he continues to eat.

Winter is Here

December 16, 2013December 16, 2013 / handmadebyjo / 1 Comment

From Saturday into Sunday we had about 12 inches of snow in Rowe. It was very cold, getting into the single digits overnight so the snow was light and fine. When we arrived on Friday night we cranked up the wood stove to get the chill out and banked it for an overnight burn. Saturday we went and picked up a few supplies figuring we would be snowed in and then went to Russell and Carmen’s to pick up maple syrup for Christmas presents. When we arrived we found out the beef had come back from Athol. Since it was all mixed together and Russell was out showing off the nine-point buck he had shot the night before we knew we would have to come back a little later.

When we returned to the house we worked on a couple of indoor projects waiting to go back and pick up the beef. Bill turned up the heat in the ell remembering that the antifreeze wasn’t good for the temperatures that we were having outdoors and with the stove going we still needed to have warm water running through the system. I had to add to the bird feeders outside, make sure everything was full. The birds know when bad weather is coming so they came in droves to eat. Later in the afternoon we went back over and picked up around 150 pounds of beef, packaged and frozen. We checked out the bucks head on its way to taxidermy and talked about where he had taken it and the other 3 that were still out there. It was beginning to snow as we went back to the house but before we left Bill told Russell he was concerned about pipes freezing with the stove running and not having cranked the heat up overnight. Russ told us he had a two really large BTU heaters if we ran into trouble.

Well, we ran into trouble.

About 5:00 or so, when the snow was really coming down we realized that the heat wasn’t circulating through the ell zone and that we were going to have to do something or we would be dealing with burst pipes. It was 9 degrees out. We called Russell again and he drove over and unloaded his heating rig (this was big time – ductwork, heater, exhaust piping, thermostat, yeah). They ran the heat duct into a back shop and set the thermostat at 70, we kept the heat as hot as we could with the stove and found a couple of fans to circulate it all around the zone. Russell had dinner waiting for him at home so he gave Bill a little instruction and left. Bill and I discussed the worst case scenario and the fact that I would have to stay to keep the fire going so the water pipes wouldn’t freeze and deal with having the situation remedied by someone else. By 10:00 the hot water was flowing and we were breathing a sigh of relief.

With all of the holiday celebrations all around us we sometimes forget that these are the kinds of things that are the best gifts. Having friends that we do so much with and can count on in a near disaster. Bill and I returned the equipment to Russell’s shop yesterday while they were at a holiday party. On the ride over and back we talked about how important our friendships are in this rural area. Life is different here. People drop what they are doing to help out their neighbors and friends. There seems to be more of an attitude about all being in this life together and many hands make light work. I felt blessed to have them in my life this past weekend.

The icing on the cake was being able to thank Russell on the phone last night for helping us and his comment was “That’s what we do.”

Indeed.

I still think I need to make him an apple pie.

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