If we were having coffee ... The end of January

 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! 

I'm thinking I'll listen to "Revived" next. 

It sounds interesting. 

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.  

Living like Larry

Not long ago I said to my husband that it felt like I was trying to "live like Larry," this summer.  For those who aren't familiar with this phrase, it's from Spongebob Squarepants. 

What I meant was that I felt like I was trying to do all the things and have a great summer, but also try to cram it into the few nice summer days we have had so far. 

Once again, the weather in my area is not ideal. It's cooler, very damp and muggy feeling, with the chance of it feeling more gross as the day goes on. 

And now here we are, the end of June. I feel like school just let out. Someone at work mentioned the Fourth of July being next week and I went "What?"  Yes, it's next week. 

So ... what has happened this week? Well, not as much as I would have liked, I'll tell you that. 

Well, I take that back.  Sort of. My husband and I decided to sell off a large portion of our older flock. It looks like we will have a lot of hens starting to lay this fall and there is no way I can care for *all them birds.* There are plenty of young roos that will be going into the freezer this fall, too. 

A lot of our girls went to a summer camp about an hour away.  It was a delight to see all those kids excited to see chickens. The campers all crowded around my son, asking him dozens of questions and then proclaimed he knew *everything* there is to know about chickens after one of the hens started singing an egg song and he knew what was going on. 

Some point soon I'll need to post a full update on the animals.  

I celebrated my birthday this week.  This year's kind of a big deal.  I spent a lot of the day reflecting on how great my life has been, and hoping to have at least 40 more years of great times. 

When I walked into my office, a little goodie basket was waiting for me.  The people at my work are pretty awesome. 

One of my coworkers sent me a gorgeous book and something yummy to drink while I peruse and enjoy the beautiful images. 

Here's a few photos of the inside images. Chickens, one of my favorite things. 

Chickens and sheep together.  Squee!

This was the first photo I saw when I opened the book up.  How can you not smile back at a smiling sheep?

My husband bought me a little something from Hobby Lobby. I told him I didn't need more yarn, but I really liked the two mugs they put out.  He picked one up and threw some yarn in anyways.  It doesn't count if it is dishcloth yarn, right? 

I may go and get the other mug from Hobby Lobby though.  In the meantime, I'll throughly enjoy using this one.  I love it, because it's so accurate. 

A few others gave me money, so I could spoil myself.  I used the money my son gave me to treat myself at Dunk'n Donuts.

I haven't don't much crafting this week. I did get some time on on my vanilla sock.  Then I had to fight with turning the heel.  For some reason I kept getting the stitch count wrong and the heel wasn't shaping up in the middle.  Third time was a charm, after I pulled out my Sock Innovation book, by Cookie A. 

Vanilla socks

Needles: U.S. 1 (2.5 mm)

Date started: Beats me. 

Yarn: Knitpicks Felici

Colorway: "Dark Prism"

I put a progress marker in last Wednesday.  I was really hoping I'd have this sock done by the end of the week.  Maybe this weekend? 

I have the itch to start something different, but I can't decide what I want to do.  Scarf, shawl, ? 

When I was going through and downloading patterns earlier this week I spotted a bunch that I had forgotten about. I also saw lots of gorgeous sweater patterns and all the MMario shawls. 

But ... I'm also thinking I should pull out the spinning wheel and crank out some handspun. Someone posted Tour de Fleece on FaceB*ok the other day, and I sort of felt ashamed that I haven't touched my wheel in ages.  My goal has been to spin enough fiber to make a sweater.  I'm still learning how to spin woolen (I think that's the right one) so my yarn is going to be pretty authentically handspun.  I've read in a lot of places about people spinning sweaters that were too heavy because they spun the yarn worsted. 

On the weaving front, I pulled the two tea towels off the loom!

They haven't been wet set yet, so they still look a little rough.  After the wet set I'll trim the fringe and the woven in ends. One towel is longer than the other.  I'm still figuring out the whole warp length thing.  I made this one longer than what my math told me.  My guess is that I'm pulling up more than I thought for tying the warp knots. Not sure what I'll do with the little shorty. Maybe use it as a table topper. 

In other random life news I've been walking the circuit again. A few days ago I went out and almost died.  Not literally, but it was rough.  The warmest day of the season and I could feel a bit of the humidity creeping in. 

When I was walking I spotted this feather on the side of the road.  I don't recognize what bird it came from.  It's interesting how the feather was poked into the dirt, rather than laying on top. 

I also took some time to stop and enjoy the daisies. 

So cheerful!

Yesterday, on the way to work, I spotted a few wild turkeys crossing the road.  I stopped the car and pulled out my phone so I could (hopefully) take a video.  I saw there were babies and I wanted to get a video of them. 

After my last post one of my friends asked if I was stopping the podcasting.  I said I'm taking a break this summer.  With how crazy the season as already shown it self to be I don't know when I'd find the time to sit and record.  Plus, I'm never alone. This also means I will have to get over my whole nervousness of being in front of a camera again. I felt like I was getting into a pretty good rhythm with it all, too.  Thank you to everyone who gave me feedback on the episodes I've done already. 

School's out ... forever ... (Just for now)

Today was my son's last day of school for the year.  I feel like it took forever to get to this point.  We made it!

We celebrated the end of the year with a trip to the local Dairy Queen.  Then came back home and I let him what his "stories" on the tv. He was a happy boy. 

Guess what? It got warm in my area.  By "warm," I mean temps in the upper 80s. What a swing from last week, with its 40 degree days.

I spent some time out on my cedar swing this afternoon, listening to the wild birds and the ladies talk. 

 

The mosquitos have made themselves known to us.  They are such miserable little things. It's fun to see the chicks running after them and snatching them out of the air. 

Today was a good mail day for me.  Earlier this week I placed an order for a boat shuttle.  I contacted Paradise Fibers and said I was new to weaving and would like to get a boat shuttle, but I didn't know what to get, could they give me a recommendation. The gal suggested a Leclerc boat shuttle. 

What a difference using a boat shuttle makes. I'm getting close to the end of my project. 

Episode 09 - Farewell to January

Welcome back! Thanks for visiting with me today. Grab your favorite drink and come sit a spell. 

It's been a few weeks.  Time seems to go by so fast right now.  

Works In Progress

Vanilla socks on 9-inch needle

Needles: U.S. 1 (2.5 mm)

Date started: Beats me. 

Yarn: Knitpicks Felici

Colorway: "Eclipse"

Crochet topped dishtowels

Started/Completed: January 2019

Hook size: G, 4 mm

Yarns used: Leftover Red Heart and Carons Simply Soft acrylics. 

In Stitches

Pat Sloan's Solstice MQAL from a few years back. I did my own thing with this idea/pattern/squares.  Made enough 12 inch squares to make a throw-sized quilt. 

Cross stitch

Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery MSAL from 2016.  The "Happily Ever After" sampler. 

Weaving

I've started two more tea towels. Not much progress since I've started. I have 15.5 inches on the first one. Using the same Peaches and Cream cotton I used in the first set I made. 

Books

Was listening to "The Cottage in the Woods," by Katherine Coville. I'm waiting for it to become available again.

Started listening to "The Dragon in the Sea," by Frank Herbert.

Next in the queue will be "Artemis Fowl" by Eoin Colfer. I forgot they made a movie!  I hope they don't wreck the story. Here's the trailer. 

I'm currently reading "The Big Kitty," by Claire Donally. It's a new-to-me-series. 

Coop news

One of the baby roos is crowing.  He's got a deep baritone crow. 

From the hutch

We have two new rabbits. Loki and Thor.  The dark female is Loki.  Thor is the tawn-colored male.  Both are very sweet. 

Nature notes

Sick of the winter and cold. I chat about the birds who are visiting the feeders. Deer know hunting season is over. 

Homestead news

More venison sausage. 

Barefoot in the Kitchen

Not a lot going on.  The day I recorded I made a batch of Pain au Chocolate and a copy-cat version of Pizza Hut deep dish pizza.  Both were delicious. 

I forgot about my Pampered Chef stoneware.  I'm making an effort to use it. 

Coffee talk

This is a sample of what I chattered about.

Watching plenty of tv while we wait out the cold snap. 

Rediscovered an old movie. 

I chat about what I've done on vacation.

My son's birthday. 

Sorry for being MIA

I'm sorry for being MIA and not saying a peep about it. Once Thanksgiving happened, life went crazy.  As it tends to do this time of year.

I know I'm not the only one who has life and routine go totally off the rail at the start of the holiday season.

And the time went so swiftly! It is sort of hard to believe it's the new year and 2019.

Wow.  It's 2019. *sigh*

This last week I've been on vacation with family and we've been running here and there, trying to take advantage of the nice December weather.

My boys have discovered ice fishing. I sit in the truck and knit and watch videos on my phone.  Until the weather got *really* cold.  Then I stayed home.

What to say ... so  many things going on.

We had a lovely Christmas with family on the Sunday before Christmas.  Christmas Day we had a meal at home, with just the three of us. My main Christmas gift was a Kromski-32 inch rigid heddle loom.  Can you believe it?  Never in my dreams did I think I'd ever want to weave.  Something clicked in November and I decided I wanted to do this thing. 

My husband found the loom for me on Ebay, for a really great price.  Felt like it took forever to finally arrive.  I've already made one project on it and I have a second project on it.

Here's Shadow, helping show off my first project. I'm amazed at how quick it goes. Naturally I did something wrong, and warped it backwards. ... Among other things.  But I took some time and fixed it.  It could be a small scarf, but I'm using it as a table runner.

 

Here's the warp of the next project.  I'm trying to take my time and do a good job.  I'm learning a whole new skill set, and a whole new vocabulary. 

My husband's main gift was an ice house for fishing, along with all the new toys, tools he needs to ice fish.  My husband and son have been spending a lot of time out on the lakes and they've pulled in some really big fish.  I don't have any pics on my phone, otherwise I'd share.

Oh, wait.  I do have one. ...

Anywho, tomorrow it is back to the grind.  I feel ready, so I know I've had a long enough break. You know how it is. I don't take enough time off and I get into burnout mode. Thankfully this year's Christmas break was a bit on the long side, so it was good. 

You'll have to excuse me, I'm writing a bit stream of conscious right now.  Knitting has been happening.  I did complete a few projects.  But I'm going to save that stuff for a different day/post.  I'm hoping to record another video within the next week, or so.  It's been well over a month and I think I could fore more than an hour easily with just the crafting stuff. 

I noticed today on Facebook that a lot of people were sharing their goals and resolutions for the next year.  I haven't done any of that stuff.  Mostly I'm just looking to get back into some sort of routine. I've realized that I'm a creature of habit and routine.  Anything that knocks my routine off kilter, and the whole ship goes down. 

Quilting!  I've been cranking along on some quilt squares for a quilt I promised to make my son ... two summers ago. I've got four squares left. I want to get that all together before it's time to start hatching out chicks. I'm not sure if I want to tie the quilt, hand quilt it, or try my hand at some sort of machine quilting.