Fiber journal: rainy days and tired evenings

Western winds brought us over an inch and a half of rain in the past day or so, making any outside activity unduly muddy. A perfect time to clean house and work on fiber projects!  The clean spaces will be dirty again, but the fiber only becomes more beautiful.  

Scoured fleece

Michael and I purchased a number of raw fleeces last summer and scoured (aka washed) them before our move to Wisconsin.   He bought me a carding machine, well used!

Carding machine. 

This is a great job for after dinner movie watching time. It keeps my fingers limber and the residual lanolin moisturizes wonderfully.  

Raw and opened locks.  

This is what the same fiber looks like once it's been through the carder  

Batt lengthened and wound into ball.  

This will eventually be spun into yarn, then knit into a vest. I'll post updates as the project progresses! 

Harvest journal: reaching out to the larger garden

The hay field having been recently mown, we spent today on the edge of the woods, where a trio of elms have been displaying their naked splendor.  

Now only two stand tall, if dead. 

Michael wields the chain saw and I carry the rounds to the trailer. That tractor isn't just for show!  We purchased a wood-burning stove last September, as the portion of the house we live in had no heat. It also has single-pane windows. We learned the cabin had no sheathing when we installed the stove, which detoured our fast window replacement plan. We put double layers of plastic over the windows to keep Jack Frost from moving in with us.  

One tree worth of wood.  

The stove heats our space, as well as the rest of the house. We cut Irene's propane consumption by about 2/3rds...and she keeps her thermostat turned down!

We built a wood shed this past April. It fit the wood we cut, but did not burn last fall. We need another wood shed or two. Better to burn seasoned wood--which I figure means it's sat for a couple of seasons before you burn it.  

I tend to be the wood stacker and Michael the wood cutter.  

If we harvest dead, but standing, trees from our "larger garden" (the woods surrounding our fields), use it efficiently, and promote new tree growth, I figure we are at least breaking even on the carbon front. 

Construction journal: the 16 D challenge

One of the challenges of re-creating our house into a livable structure is bringing it up to code. Having the house on stable supports was one of the motives of putting in a basement. The block is almost done.  

Michael did get the old joist supports off from under the house and we received the LVL beams yesterday. However, we needed to make 4 beams into two by nailing them every 6 inches, 5 nails in a row, both sides. The beams are 28 feet long.  

That's 1120 nails Michael and I hammered today (and yes, Michael did more than I...but I am getting a little faster).   We hope the house jackers come and get these in place before Irene returns from Michigan on Wednesday, since we appropriated her garage as the only flat space available. Eee!

Garden journal: golden onions of the sun

Happy August 1st!  We have all the onions out of the ground, washed, set in the sun for several days, braided and hung. Just in the nick of time!  If they remain in the ground too long they begin to liquefy. Out of the 600 onion sets we planted, we harvested about 175 # of onions. About 160 of those are hanging in the tractor shed. 

The few onions (if you consider 2 lbs to be "a few") that weren't fit to braid went toward making an onion quiche.

And yes, those are our VERY FIRST ripe tomatoes winking at you in the background.  Update on the basement project coming soon! 

Culinary journal: supper on a stick

Late July and the living is humid. The challenge comes in making something other than PB&J for dinner in order to avoid heating the house a degree hotter. The solution?  Grilling. Yes, burgers are part of the mix, but some days you just need to expand the repertoire. So here goes:

Cucumbers and salad from the garden. Onions too. Red bells from the store (growing season not long enough here without a greenhouse...the stuff of dreams right now). Venison marinated in soy sauce (light and black), brown sugar, sesame oil, and Grey Poupon mustard.  

Chicken marinated in olive oil, herbs de provenance, rosemary (fresh), and garlic salt, red onions and bells, potato salad (first potatoes from the garden) and more salad.  

Anybody have suggestions for other suppers on a stick?  Please share.  

Larder journal: squirreling away stores

Late summer in Wisconsin and the land begins to ripen. Basil blooms and must be cut and dried.  

The garlic basked in the sun sufficiently to allow it to be bundled and hung.  

Tomorrow we work under the house, attaching a sill plate to the joist supports that will be set down on the west side masonry wall. We will remove the joist supports from the east wall of the original house, which will be replaced by an LVL beam. We will saw off the bolt ends of the middle joist support so that an LVL beam can be sistered onto that support. Hope to have things in shape so the masons can finish the basement walls this coming week. High summer is in high gear!

Learning curves and fast balls

Yikes. The block layers arrived at 6 am. They are muscly fellows who handle 60 lb blocks and hods of cement in an amazingly precise manner.  Tomorrow they should complete the basement, which means we had to take off the rest of the posts the house jackers failed to remove. 

While they were hard at work, so were we. Got another wall up to separate the tractor shed from the chicken/duck winter coop.  

Also began to harvest onions. They need to bask in the sun before I can braid them.  

Took a break to have a fabulous dinner of grilled chicken livers, onions and red bells, followed by CAKE!  Yep, we celebrated my getting a year older.  

And yes, there were cards and presents. Alpaca fleece!  Natural dye materials!  Songs! Wine!  Who could ask for more?  

Garden journal: garlic harvest comes when the bergamot begins to bloom

Michael built raised-bed gardens many years ago.  As Irene and Clyde aged, the gardens grew more portulaca than tomatoes. One of the first projects we undertook when we arrived last August was to reclaim these gardens so that we would have a place to plant the garlic strains my sister Mariluz from Washington and Friend Dave from Maine Had fostered for us in our garden-poor days.  Garlic should be planted in the fall. It ripens mid-summer...which is NOW!  

We planted German Red, Rocambole, River Giant, Siberian White, and French  Germinador.

We rub the dirt off as we harvest as the dirt sticks if allowed to dry in place.  If the garlic sits in the ground too long, the protective "paper" deteriorates, impacting storage quality.  Contact with water also affects the "paper."

Just as blueberries ripen when the butterfly weed first shows, harvest garlic when the bergamot blooms.

Walking Journal: Green

Sunday morning out with Zealot.

This is our neighborhood. Beyond the tree line the land drops into the St Croix River valley.  I’ve been remembering how this walk looked in October and January. Beautiful in all seasons. 

Lazy days of Summer

We’ve been stymied by storms. They seem to visit every other day, leaving us steamy hot in between. No basement yet. The tractor shed progresses slowly. It now has a wall, canoe rest, window, and drainage for what will become the winter coop. Hope to begin on coop walls and roof tomorrow.

When weather defeats us, we go fishing!

CULINARY JOURNAL: Golden Apricots of the Sun

In addition to cherries and currants and apples and wild plums, Michael planted apricot trees. They are Manchurian Apricots, which are cold hardy, but semi-wild and so variable in output. They also tend to ripen all at once, fall on the ground, and immediately rot. Michael has been checking on them daily. Today he announced the apricots were ripe. 

CONSTRUCTION JOURNAL: Our Castle Comes with a Moat

We are watching the storm that will fill the moat approach on weather radar. It gains in intensity as it draws nearer. Who says life in the country is boring?

NATURE JOURNAL: This is What I Call it When We Fail to Catch Fish

On the St. Croix River. Nevers Dam, a boat landing and historic lumber site, lives about a mile away from us. We need to learn to fish the river, but this was much too windy a day to leave us much fishing leisure. So we had to enjoy the beauty instead.  Aw heck. 

CONSTRUCTION JOURNAL: Look Ma, No Hands!

The basement guys have been doing amazing things with large equipment.  

 We will be sleeping in this house tonight. No jumping on the bed for us! Most of the posts were still intact. Only  the ones on the outside edges were rotting…which are the ones left. Hope the guys who will jack up the house get here before it rains again!  

 This is the blue tarp Michael and I put over the insulation in the floor 18 years ago. Still looks pretty good. We are working on what we can while our access to outside electricity is limited. More photos later. 

CONSTRUCTION JOURNAL: Let the Games Begin!

We have been preparing the front yard to become an addition since early April. Today it went from looking like this: 

to looking like this:

 Exhilarating in a fingernail biting kinda way. Michael and I have a lot of learning ahead of us, and a lot of physical labor. 

The addition hopefully will provide a number of benefits. 

• Irene will have an in-law apartment that is closer to ground level, eliminating as many stairs and narrow doorways from her life as possible. 
• We will have storage space indoors so that we can bring our belongings in from the pole barn. 
• We will empty the pole barn so we can use it as work space. 
• We will have room to have visitors!  
• We can have family over for holiday dinners and seat them all in one room. 
• I’ll have room for spinning wheels, looms, and related equipment. 

This may take us several years to complete, but it is exciting finally to begin. 

GARDEN JOURNAL: Currents, Red and Black

The currants remind me that July’s gem is ruby.  

Black currants probably should be called spineless gooseberries, but then who would try them? 

 We picked both in the sun and heat of yesterday, saving jelly making for the cool of our rainy today.  Red currants have pits and so must be made into jelly. Black currants have tiny seeds and make a velvety jam. Basic ratio is one to one, juice or fruit to sugar. Both have natural pectin and jell wonderfully. Ah, we are jelly rich!

GARDEN JOURNAL: The Great 'Scape

Beginning of July and the garlic begins to ripen. The soft neck varieties put out “scapes” or seed heads when they are thinking of becoming adults.  

 They can be sautéed or grilled or chopped fine and added to anything, and add a subdued garlic flavor. The scapes should be removed so the plant energy goes into making bulbs. Another month and I will be braiding garlic full time. One of the best times of year!  I’m hoping we have a basement constructed by then. Wish us luck and dry weather. 

CULINARY JOURNAL: Red

The cherry trees announced High Summer in resounding chorus. We answered the call: 

 Michael plants trees wherever we go. The reward is coming back to mature trees. Nankin cherries are more like bushes, with small, tart fruit: 

 One tree gave us enough fruit for 14 jars of jam.  July red to chase away January blues! 

Why An Dot? Why A No Duck?

Because the ducks can’t fly yet!  This is one of the skitterish Wyandottes. Wouldn’t be cuddled, but liked the view from my hat. 

LIVESTOCK JOURNAL meets GARDEN JOURNAL: Ducks Playing Piranha

What we do with lettuce overstock for fun.