Yesterday I woke up to a combo of ice and snow that was sticking to everything.
When I went out to the back 20 it was so pretty. This blog post is going to be photo-heavy.
I took a short video while I was out there. The squirrels were running around and making all kinds of noises. I'm not sure if I was able to record the noises.
I saw this fella outside one of my windows, enjoying a snack. I thought it would make a neat photo.
And then, in the early afternoon, the sun came out and the snow and ice mixture started melting.
When you looked in the other direction, the sky looked completely different.
Something neat happened when the sun hit the trees in the front yard. The sun started melting all the snow and ice in the trees and turned the frost on the tree trunks to steam.
This morning we woke up to more frost.
Brrr!
You ever see something and think "Wow, that's so pretty!" and try to take a photo of it?
That happened to me this morning.
Sun shining bright behind the trees, and there was a mist in the air.
The sun wouldn't let the camera on my phone focus.
I ended up having to move until the sun was behind the trees.
Frost on the leaves.
Speaking of leaves, I gave Feffer some fresh oak leaves this morning and he was happy as can be.
Last night I spent some time in the craft room drawing lines on pieces of fabric. Then I placed them together and stuck them with pins.
A project I'm hoping to have done by the end of January. Would be great if it was completed sooner.
Today was a pretty quiet day, and it went quickly. My hubby was able to leave work early and we went out hunting this afternoon. All I saw was a squirrel.
This evening I knit a bit on my Harvest Cardigan.
I'm also pondering a goal list for 2024. Last year I tried a list and failed miserably. I think I may have been dreaming too big. Minimal is attainable.
In other news, I signed up for a mystery CAL I saw on Instagram.
Already picked up the yarn.
Our area had snow earlier this week. Tuesday, Oct. 31, if memory serves. I was definitely not ready for it.
I got the chicken run winter prepped just in time. I opened the door to see how the birds were doing, because no one was outside.
Yeah, they weren't too happy about the snow either.
I dragged some in on my shoes and they were shooting it dirty looks, like they couldn't decide if they should kill it or eat it.
Little Feffer didn't look very happy either. I tried taking a photo of him and he's even more camera shy than the birds.
That day, on my lunch hour, I went out and dug up the carrots out of the garden.
That was a treat, trying to find the greens in the snow.
And, in hardcore gardener fashion, I sat down in the snow and separated the greens from the carrots so I'd have less of a mess in the house.
The carrots all cleaned up. I've heard about how great carrots taste if they are harvested after a frost. I heard correctly!
The garden is officially done for the year. Come February I'll be starting seeds up again in the house and all the fun garden madness will start again. I learned a lot this garden year and am proud that every single plant in my garden this year I started fro seed. Including the flowers.
Today my husband and I went up to Fleet Farm for their orange Friday.
We each received a blaze orange cap, and ended up not buying what we went there to look at.
It's fun to get the hat, though.
We got back home in time for me to start my work day.
There is supposed to be a warming weather trend this weekend. Likely our last decent weekend before the weather turns *serious*
This type of blog post is for when I have a lot of little things I want to share, or when I feel the need to catch up.
So, grab your coffee/beverage of your choice and join me.
If we were having coffee ... I'd talk about how fast this month has gone. I realized a few weeks ago that I haven't written anything, anywhere, for a while. Oops. Though, to be fair, I haven't spent much time on social media or the internet. Plans. I had so many plans and aspirations. Then time goes by much faster than anticipated and before I know it, a month has gone by.
Things are still a bit busy for me. Not as busy as a few months ago, thankfully. I'm enjoying this little bit of a lull before things pick up again.
If we were having coffee ... I'd give you an update on the chicken flock. We have the roosters separated from the girls. The roosters are finally realizing they are boys and were harassing the girls too much. The hens seem happy they aren't being constantly chased around. The roosters are now busy harassing each other and pulling each others tails. They will be heading off to the freezer sometime next month.
Let me tell you about the roo who has turned into the dominate roo. We call him Mangle because he has something going on with his feet that I didn't spot until after it was too late. Apparently he's grown up on the mean streets of the farm yard and has learned how to take care of himself. The other boys are scared of him. It really is something how he handles himself. I still remember helping him out from a corner he got himself stuck in back when he was a young chick. Now he's ruling the roost. He's pretty tame around people, so that's nice.
If we were having coffee ... I'd tell you about the rabbits. We rehomed Loki and Thor. They were sweet rabbits, Thor in particular, but it was getting to be a bit much. After we had 14 baby buns born in one day I decided we had to do something to prevent the pregnancies. I had Feffer and Thor together, and Shadow and Loki together. Shadow was being mean to Loki. (The big bully) When the opportunity to rehome some of them came up, I grabbed it.
Feffer is now by himself, and Shadow and the baby bun are together. Still don't know if the baby bun is a boy or girl. My son is thinking it's a girl. I've been calling her "LB."
If we were having coffee ... I'd share that Furby is still in the house with us. She's learned a new trick. When she's outside and ready to come back into the house, she finds her way to the deck and calls until someone hears her and goes out to get her. Spoiled much? Those grand ideas of integrating her back into the flock -- I don't think it's going to happen.
Yesterday she was running around with a hen and I thought for sure that was going to be it. Nope. Furby went off on her own and then meandered a bit until she heard my voice, and came running.
This photo is from a while ago. She was really feeling it that morning and was bawking up a storm. So I pulled her over by me while I was working.
If we were having coffee ... I'd blather about the weather and the garden. We are in the midst of a drought and high heat. At the beginning of the garden season I was prepared and expecting cold weather and potential frosts. Instead, we got extreme heat and my cool weather crops didn't fare well. The weather keeps switching from extreme heat to cooler temperatures.
I've been doing a great job keeping up with weeds. I get out there almost every day and I take care of them and enjoy the flowers and the butterflies. What I need to do is get out there and take care of some things like I've been wanting to do since early spring, but have either been to lazy or too busy to go out and mess with.
On July 15 I took some video clips of the garden. I want so very much to have videos of the garden throughout the summer. This go-round I decided to chat about the plants. Before I knew it, a couple weeks went by and the videos were still sitting on my phone. Until the other night. I've got the clips together and then it took me a bit to remember how to compress the video and get it to a decent file size so it wouldn't take all day to load to youtube. It's been a learning curve all over again. Please bear with while I figure this all out again.
If we were having coffee ... Crafting. Crafting! I've been doing some crafting.
Tour de Fleece happened. I did some spinning at the beginning and finished up my first two pounds of grey Corriedale fiber.
I have no idea on yardage. I spun four bobbins worth.
I had a ply party one evening.
Then. Nada. I decided to be dedicated to a cross stitch project and get it wrapped up.
I ordered the "Happily Ever After" Stitch-along kit back in 2016, for Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery's 2017 mystery stitch-along. I got overwhelmed by the border and header and put it away almost right away. I pulled it out later and did the first square, got overwhelmed and put it away again until last year. I looked at it and told myself "I'm going to work on it this year." Then didn't touch it until a few months back.
Well ... I'm done! It's so pretty!
I completed it on Saturday, July 24, at 10:35 p.m. Years in the making. I didn't dream that I would take years to finish this sampler.
Then what did I do? I grabbed the cross stitch kit my SIL gave me for my birthday last year. This one is a bit harder for me. The colors are so close that I was struggling a bit. And, you guessed it, I put it down.
I guess I'll be dedicated to this one for a while. I'm breaking it down into sections and focusing on one flower bit at a time. Which is good. Even with the cheaters, the line keepers and whatnot, I'm still goofing up a bit. Fortunately I see the mess-ups right away. And as I was proofing this blog post I realized the project itself is upside down in the photo. See, so easy to get mixed up on this one. I've got a feeling there are going to be a lot of unintentional customizations on this one. I'm worried about running out of floss, since it's a kit and it feels like I don't have a lot of leeway.
Sock knitting happened. When my son was playing chauffeur to my Miss Daisy, he kept commenting that I needed, *needed* to bring knitting with me.
I knit socks. I found the sock yarn at a shop over in Ashland. I looked at the colorway and thought "Oh, those are nice summer-y colors."
Really? Wool socks in summer?
Well, yes. In my area they are sometimes necessary.
Project: Vanilla socks
Started: June 2021 (I think) Finished: July 2021 (I think) Needle size: U.S. 1, 2.5mm Yarn: Patons Kroy Socks yarn (Cherry Pop Stripes)
This is most of the excitement that has been happening on the homestead. There are some days where I still feel like I'm struggling to catch up on the to-do list. What I need to do is take some time off of work and make myself tackle some of those things on my mental to-do list.
Well, let's hope it's not another month before I update again. 😁 (One of the very few times I'll use an emoji on here)
This type of blog post is for when I have a lot of little things I want to share, or when I feel the need to catch up.
So, grab your coffee/beverage of your choice and join me. I'm currently drinking a hot chocolate with cinnamon.
If we were having coffee ... I'd marvel at how fast January has moved. I've been in my head a lot this past month. I thought after the holidays were over I'd be able to take a break, catch a breath. No. I feel busy, busy, busy. I'm not exactly sure what it is making me feel this way.
Anywho, I blinked at here we are, at the end of the month.
The month has been fairly mild, weather-wise, and I really appreciate that. Just a handful of very cold days. I started writing this post on Friday evening, Jan. 29, I'm not sure when I'm going to finish it. So, as of this paragraph I think I can safely say we are supposed to get snow this weekend. There hasn't been much snow this year, compared to last year. Oh my gosh, I don't even want to think about last year. It was daily snow movings and plowings. So. Much. Snow. Ugh.
If we were having coffee ... I'd mention our wood splitting project. We have knocked the pile down pretty good. I believe my husband said we have 30-some logs left. We aren't going as quickly as we did at the beginning. In fact, we still need to think of a place to put the last bit. It's not easy to scope out a spot now that snow is on the ground.
Here I am in front of the wood stacks. I'm in awe of how much wood we've moved in the time since we got the load.
I don't have any current photos of what is left to cut and split. Saturday my husband cut up 17 logs, or so, and we have about that many left needing to be cut.
If we were having coffee ... I'd talk reading, or the mostly lack thereof. I'm sort of mad at myself. I said "Self, you are going to start up with books again." Very little reading has happened in the last year. And even less listening to audiobooks. Last week I picked out an audio book for my hubby and I (I think. I'm not actually sure who picked it out.) Defiance by C.J. Redwine
Dystopian book about a girl who's super brave, tough, can take care of herself, yadda, yadda. More to it than that, of course. The main character, Rachel, really bugs me with her "I'm so smart and clever and capable." Yet she gets herself in to bad situations. It's a type that just bugs me to bits. Not very clever, but thinks they are super smart.
I'm at the tail end of the audiobook. It finally got to where her behavior didn't bother me. Then I discovered the library doesn't have the rest of the trilogy in audiobooks. I hate when that happens!
If we were having coffee ... I'd talk crafting. Another thing that has not had much attention. My head is just not in the game, lately. It wasn't until the end of the month that I started feeling the urge to do anything.
At the end of last year I participated in the "Cozy Things" quilt along hosted by Pat Sloan. I have the quilt top done and sandwiched. Thursday I started cross hatching it. I don't know what took me so long to get going on it. I'm not ready to share a photo of it yet.
I've been slowly working on my Halloween cross stitch.
I was so happy when I finished the house. Then I printed out the next part of the clue and was surprised that I wasn't done with the house. I forgot there was a first floor. I'm slowly chipping away at this project.
I have a sock on the needles. I started it so I'd have something to work on in the car. I haven't been going to many places, much less be a passenger.
I'm currently working on the heel. The leg is a 1 x 1 ribbing.
I did dust off my rigid heddle loom, and made myself some towels out of peaches and cream dishcloth cotton.
This one was a mix of colorways. I think they look fun!
I made of the green ones two different sizes, by mistake. I'm still learning tricks to measure the fabric as I go along.
If we were having coffee ... I'd share that I've been daydreaming about springtime, gardening and seed starting. I've been hitting the homestead and gardening youtube videos pretty hard. For as many videos I watched last year, I'm still learning things. With so many people getting into gardening this past year, I think that's driving the Youtube content to expand a little bit. I've organized my seeds, saw what I had from last year, and I already purchased the seeds I want for this year. I've also put my first order in to Baker Creek for Ghost and and Carolina Reaper pepper seeds. I'm super stoked to give those a try. I'm debating on when I should seed start for them. Maybe try one seed each and see what happens.
I've got a calendar printed out and all my seed starting dates noted. As soon as I wrap up the quilt, I think I'll say farewell to the sewing machine for a bit and set up one of my seed starting stations. Last year I started out sharing the whole seed starting journey and I went off the tracks. Unexpected life things happening. I'm thinking about giving it a try again. I realized I enjoy looking back at the photos and videos for the plants from last year.
Which got me thinking about when I tried video podcasting and then almost right away Covid hit and I no longer had quiet time at home. I can't remember what brought it up a while ago, but my son said something about my videos and I said I don't have anywhere to do it, and he said "You can close the door to your craft room." Yes, I suppose I could. ... I'm still thinking about it. It took a lot for me to record that first video a few years ago. Speaking of podcast videos. Well, flosstube, my friend Leann started a flosstube and she's fun to listen to. She gets so much done on her projects.
Okay, I realize I just blended to subjects together.
If we were having coffee ... I'd let you know that all the animals are doing just fine. Especially Miss Furby.
She spends her days close to me, and she is so spoiled that when I'm not watching television, I leave it on for her, so she doesn't feel alone. I feel bad that I still haven't told Furby's story, like I did Porkie's but I want her to have her own entry. Did I mention Furby lays an egg almost every day? She does!
The ladiess are starting to really crank out the eggs, which is great! We are starting to fill up the incubator so we can have chicks in about a month.
Thor and Loki, and Shadow and Feffer are all doing well, too. They are enjoying this mild weather. A little too much, maybe? Ha ha ha!
Speaking of Porkie, I have some news that may bum some people out. Some one took one of my Facebook posts about Porkie and sent it to the DNR. I got a talking to and was informed about what can and can't be done. I'm hurt and upset that someone would do that, specially if it was someone on my Facebook friend list. Most likely it was someone in the "What do you see from your window" group. I keep reading the rules on feeding wildlife and know what I can and can't do. Suffice to say, I won't post about Porkie on my social media anymore, unless it's like general update, like "he's still alive." It's a bummer because so many people enjoyed seeing his updates. Many people have contacted me and said seeing Porkie updates was a bright spot in the pandemic. I wrote a post to the group, to let his fans know why there would be no more updates and as of 1 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 30, it hasn't been approved. My guess is the post will sit in limbo because someone taking groups posts outside of the group is probably against he spirit of the group and people would be more reluctant to share. I know I feel like my trust has been violated and I'll be even more wary about what I share on Facebook in general.
The law is hard, but it is the law. I will respect it.
It's been so long since I consistently wrote and updated the blog. I need to work it back into my routine.
So ... what's been going on this week? It's been a fairly quiet one, except for one thing.
Monday was publishing day. It was long. Just how it worked out.
On Wednesday my son said "Loki has to come in, she's gonna have babies."
"What?! No way!" I said.
Either that day or Thursday he brought her in and she lived in my kitchen.
At some point last night, before 10:30 p.m., Loki had two baby buns.
One is on the smaller side, aka runty. It was very cool to the touch this morning. I held it for a bit before setting the whole tote next to the wood stove. Now the baby feels warmer and both of them are still moving around. Fingers crossed for little runty.
Loki sits next to them, all mysterious and sphynx-like. She's adorable. If only she was as sweet as she looks. She's got a bit of brattiness to her.
Furby doesn't know what to make of her new roommate.
"Who is Furby?" you might be thinking. She's my blind house hen. I'll tell you more about her later. She been the little princess of the house, but now she's no longer an only child. She's a very spoiled bird.
I gave Loki a short break away from the babies and out of the tote. I forget how beautiful she is when her winter coat comes in.
Here's a quick video from last night. Furby was admiring the Christmas lights. Then she noticed I was recording her.
What else happened this week ... nothing, really. I did a scant bit of crafting. I haven't been doing too much this week. Mostly just keeping quiet. I think the whole family is sort of settling down a bit before Christmas. There's been a lot of go-go-go, even though we might not think that's the case. I think everyone I know needs a breather and a break.
This weekend we are supposed to have snow. Currently, there is not much snow on the ground. A few weeks ago I heard the local weather forecaster said we have received two feet of snow this year. It definitely does not feel like it. We have had really mild temps for this time of year. It feels like spring
Or maybe not ... I just heard some scratching at my back door. I opened it up and a few of my hens were scratching at something just outside my door.
Then just a few moments after I took the video, I heard a ruckus outside. The roos were sounding off an alarm. I don't believe I've moved that fast in a while. I ran out the door with no shoes on, and asking "What's going on?" I don't think that helped. The roosters thought I was alarm calling with them.
I have no idea what happened, but they were riled up for quite a while.
