Livestock journal: the grass really was greener!

We are due more snow in a couple of days, but we had to get the ducks on pasture. In the last two days, the grass grew three inches!!!  In preparation, we replaced tarps on the Summer Yurts and filled the wading pools with water.  

I love my ducks.  

We hand carried our 13 ducks from the Duck Mansion to the Summer Yurt. Hauled feed and watering cans down while they were bedazzled by GREEN!

They are loving their new digs. 

We will wait for the threat of snow to abate before we haul the chickens down.  

Apricots in bloom.  

Rich, pray the weather doesn't do in our apricots again...we hope to resupply you with jam one of these years!   

Harvest journal: broth that stands on its own, and sustains a body through hard times

Michael and Irene were visiting a friend in Alabama from April Fools to April 14th. This left me to care for the chickens and ducks, and allowed me to be here when Auntie Harriette fell ill on April 2nd, and to hold her hand until she died on April 7th. Although an honor to stay by her side during her journey from life into death, it was pretty exhausting. Fortunately, I had taken out a package of chicken feet from the freezer when Michael and Irene drive off, and had them boiled up the Sunday I got the call that Harriette was in the ER. 

On request, this is as close as I will post to a chicken feet photo. The photo records the snow we received on April 11th, 2017. 

After boiling them with garlic and bay leaves and a carrot and salt, I fished them out of the soup, coated them in olive oil, and put them in a 350° oven to roast. Oh, oh, oh!  Roasted until crispy, they were like my favorite part of a roasted chicken: the wingtips that get all brown and crunchy. They were even good cold. Those boiled then roasted chicken feet sustained me for several days.  

Solid at room temperature! 

And when I ran out of crispy feet, I had this amazing broth. I added vegetables and garlic and ginger or just ate it cold. It melted on the tongue and made my tired body happy.  

Auntie Harriette passed peacefully, knowing she was loved and not alone. At 98, she was ready to go. My chickens were not so old, but I tried to make their passing also as peaceful as possible. It helps to pet them, which relaxes them. Death and dying is part of living. We can only hope to do both well.  

Season journal:I have confidence that spring will come again

Michael and Irene have left me alone to tend our gardens and livestock while they are off doing other good deeds. This has gotten me out and about, absorbing all the awakenings happening at this time of year.   

Like planes over O'Hare... 

All 11 duck hens are laying and 13 of our 17 chicken hens are laying. Two dozen eggs every day...omelets in the morning, soufflés at night and custard for dessert. 

Mr. Frog let me take his picture. Madame Butterfly could not sit for a portrait.  

The frogs will begin to sing soon. In the meantime the Sandhills, geese, teal, blackbirds, pheasant, and wrens make an incredible cacophony around sunset.  

The intrepid garlic graces the garden

Rhubarb vying to out-red the maples

Maple trying to out-red the rhubarb  

A few days of full sun and warmth will have us in bloom in a heartbeat. I'm keeping my eyes peeled for dandelion greens. They make the best first salad of spring. Happy April everyone!

Fiber journal: the happiness of a final product

I had a vision of a garment once my butternut bark yarn came out of the pot.  

My sister makes this looks good! 

Sea and land

We have dubbed this pattern the Loopy Toonic. I took the time to write down the pattern this time. I have to have my sister "proof" it for me before I can make it public. It is a simple project, but has a few tricky bits.  

In progress.  

I had the tiniest bit left over from the pound of butternut bark yarn, which ended up with the vintage button I found in an Orcas  Island thrift store. 

Some of my favorite women in the world: my fiber models, moral and otherwise! 

I can hardly wait to try other dye pots!  

Construction Journal: Venting the Attic Space

22 March 2017

Well OK, it is not really an attic but it is the space above the ceiling and below the roof and the reason that it is supposed to be vented is that ideally the temperature of this space should be the same as the outside air.  That way snow in the winter does not melt on your roof and freeze into ice which will damage the shingles...which is a bad thing.  To accomplish this there are ridge vents at the ridgeline at the top of the roof and soffit vents on the underside of the soffit, the overhang of the roof.

4" soffit vents

Since finishing up the wiring I have begun to insulate the ceiling but have run into a problem.  The 12" ceiling insulation closes off the area that allows air from the soffit vents to circulate into the attic space.  This would mean that all that venting would be for just for show and the attic space would not actually be vented.

This is peering down into the soffit to the vent-before insulation.

and here is a picture of area with 12" of ceiling insulation blocking off any air movement between the soffit and the ridge vent.

What to do?   What to do?  So my solution to the problem was to procure 4" PVC sewer pipe and cut it into 2ft lengths and insert them between the soffit and the space above the ceiling therefore allowing air to circulate and the vents to do their jobs.

4" PVC pipe cut into 2ft lengths

4" PVC pipe in place doing it's job.

I'm not sure what "real" house builders do to solve this issue but this seems to me to aworkable solution that at the same time allows me to insulate to the outside edge of the house and ensuring that I have insulated the place where the wall connects to the roof.  A particularly problematic space as that area in a house in cold country (where the wall connects to the ceiling) can easily get cold and cause water vapor to condense and black mold to form....and that is a bad thing, even disregarding that fact that is is a place where heat leaks out of your house.

Building a house yourself is full of interesting problems like this that you never thought about before....

Fiber journal: I love butternut!

As promised, the results of my tree bark experiment: 

Michael modeling a pound of yarn

Okay, one more as a close up: 

Chrome mordant on left; chrome and cream of tartar on right. Close, but subtly different.  

So now for the rest of the story. I bought a Blue Face Leister fleece last May and finally got around to cleaning it in February while my left arm sprain healed.  

Dirty fleece, straight off the sheep

I washed the fleece in small batches in the kitchen sink, using a cookie rack to lift the fleece in and out of the water to minimize felting. Hot water and Dawn dish soap and multiple washes, and then a vinegar rinse, and then a plain water rinse.  

Clean fleece. Look at those lovely locks! 

I separated my locks and put them through my carding machine.  

Yes, I do have feathers everywhere! 

Once I had the teeth of the carder full, the wool comes off in a batt.  

No cutting the batt off!  Keep those fibers long. 

Batts are bulky, so I predraft mine and roll them into balls. 

Baskets. I love baskets.  

The roving gets single spun with a right twist.  

A Kromski Sonata that breaks down and stores well.  You can see it's case under the table in the background. 

Three spools of singles then get a left twist ply. Changing directions make the strands grab each other and give strength to the yarn. 

A kit built wheel with a larger spindle and my three smaller spindles on a lazy kate.  

I made two skeins, each weighing about 8 oz, and measuring about 175 yards.  

Spinning worsted (keeping all the fibers aligned from cut end to tip) increases luster.  

The twist is set after the final ply by soaking the skein in hot water. The warmth and wet allow the fibers to relax and maintain their twist. 

The skeins went into a mordant bath made by dissolving a teaspoon of potassium chromate in about 2 gallons of water. I added a tablespoon of cream of tartar to one of the two pots. The recipe called for 41/2 gallons to a pound of wool, but I don't have a pot that big. 

Potassium chromate. Our water is naturally soft.  

The yarn went into cold water. It then came to a boil and simmered for an hour. Lids on after that, waiting overnight, letting that mordant penetrate that wool!   

Chrome on top, chrome and cream of tartar on bottom.  

Then came the excitement: putting the wool in the butternut extract (twice sieved through cheesecloth and diluted equal parts with water to make 2 gallons per pot). 

I had my doubts at this point.  

Boiled for half an hour then rinsed until the water ran clear.  

And you've seen the final result!  Yes. This is a lot of work for a pound of yarn. But it is unique, lustrous, wonderful yarn you would be hard pressed to find for sale anywhere. Now to make it into a garment!   

Equipment fail journal: it could have been worse!

About that box elder we were taking down branch by branch... 

Time to get a new rope... 

March. We are due for snow. But the sun shines more every day. This means we will soon have leaves on trees. It is much more difficult to fell trees when the leaves come out. So Michael put me back behind the wheel of the car while he wielded the chain saw. The remaining part of the box elder leaned in the opposite direction than where we wanted it to fall...and it was allllmmmooost coming my way when things came apart. Or at least the rope did. The tree balanced for about 4 seconds (that was a long 4 seconds) before it fell the way it had been wanting to fall all along.  

Ouch.  

We had moved Irene's car as a precaution. It was good that we took off those initial branches, as the only real damage was to the metal roofing. No broken timbers!   

We unbent the roofing, Michael hammered in the roofing nails that had been jolted out of place and our wood pile is now larger.  When next it rains we will see if we develop leaks anywhere. We will have to do some better planning before we take down the other trees that are trying to eat our garage!  Thank goodness this box elder only took a nibble. 

Harvest journal meets weather journal: keeping the lions at bay

The warm weather of February got Michael out and about, when he noticed that the box elder next to the small garage had developed a bad split.  

The split, which was only a couple of feet long at the beginning of February extended all the way down the trunk by the end of February.  

March is notoriously windy, and we both figured that if we didn't take quick action, we would soon find that nature had taken the tree down for us...and the garage (and Irene's car) as well. The problem was how to fell the fell fellow without squishing the garage or ourselves. So Michael consulted Brother Johnny, who is quite savvy about taking down trees and not the surrounding buildings. He suggested a pulley. So Michael hopped on the computer and ordered us a likely looking piece of hardware.  

One end of the rope was tied to a branch and the other to the hitch of our car. The pulley is attached to a tree headed away from the garage, but still accessible to the driveway. 

Michael climbed a ladder and wielded the chain saw and I peered at him through my rear-view to figure out when I had to put the car in gear.  

First one branch, then another.  

We managed to miss the garage and didn't kill Michael either.  

Box elder tends to have colored heartwood. This one is red, but can be blue or yellow.  

We will burn the wood year after next. We still have the remaining limb to take down, but relieved the pressure on the trunk that was creating the split. I wasn't much help in hauling branches and stacking wood, as I had sprained my left wrist on the last day of January. (I'm much better now.). 

Sap ran freely from the cuts. It was slightly sweet and nutty tasting.  Box elder is related to maples, having winged seed pods. 

We have had high winds the past few days (as in tornado warning weather) and what is left of the tree still stands. Success.  

Deconstruction journal: removing barriers little by little.

I have been cursing the kitchen every time I cook for the past two and a half years.  

Michael repairing a leak about 8 months ago.  

Notice the hood over the stove. It is hard to see, but it was located about 5" above the back of the stove. It was a perfect height for Irene when she cooked, and gave her more shelf space, which is at a premium in her tiny kitchen. She rarely needed any more than a single burner and only used small pots and pans.  Aging eyes and dim light meant that cleaning wasn't a problem.   However, we took over the cooking when we moved in two and a half years ago and we have different cooking habits. I finally gathered up the courage to ask Irene if we could take the hood down. She gave us the green light. 

The hood removed.  

The hoodless stove with temporary lighting.  

I cleaned this small area for two days straight. I engineered a way to hang a light and another small shelf and Michael (who could reach places I could not) finished installation. I rummaged around in the garage and found some vinyl for a backsplash, which Michael got cleaned up. Between the two of us, we put the kitchen back together so Irene had a place to make her breakfast in the morning.  

Still a small space, but it feels so much bigger!  and cleaner!

I have been able to use all my burners at the same time!  I've been able too take lids on and off without burning myself!  I may even get to use my butternut elixir before it goes bad!   

Irene gave her seal of approval to the new set up. We all like the lighting. This is a quick fix while we finish the addition. Irene will move into the addition, which will then allow us to move our bedroom into the space Irene is in now...which will allow us to put the kitchen where our bedroom is now!   

Harvest journal meets fiber journal: the butternut

Michael has been extracting the garage from the woods. In the process we get firewood. One of the trees trying to eat the outbuildings was a butternut. Butternut, the tree, produces a nut akin to a walnut, only richer, and, like a walnut, also can be used as a source of natural dye. Or at least that is what a book my mother gifted me says.  

The book wasn't clear on whether one uses the bark or inner bark, so I am running an experiment and have two dye batches in the making.  

Making use of warm weather to peel bark.  

I have found it important to strip bark soon after wood is cut. Otherwise, it doesn't want to come off. There are two levels to bark: the brown stuff you see and then a soft(er) layer underneath. 

Sharp knives help! 

Inner bark stains on contact with the air.  

I took my pots of bark, covered them with water, and let them set overnight. Then I boiled the bark for two hours. Our entire house smelled like a floral, nutty version of maple syrup and Irene's persistent cough ceased for the afternoon. (We try to keep a humidifier going, but have a hard time keeping the air moist enough for her).  I'd try this again just to breath in that soft, sweet steam!  

We strained the liquid away from the bark and tossed the bark back into the woods. Michael hiked the pots of bark water (dye?!?) down into the basement to keep them cool until I have sufficient wool to start dyeing. 

The inner bark only is on the top.  

I'm cleaning a fleece (Blue Faced Leister) I purchased last spring and hope to have sufficient wool to experiment with soon. Mordants (chemicals that help dye stay fast to fiber) have come in the mail. Now to organize a space to do the dyeing!  Stay posted! 

Blessings journal: after 30 years we may be getting the hang of this

Highs in the 50s has the tree buds swelling and wild birds singing. We took advantage of the continued sun and warmth to give Michael his quarterly haircut. 

Michael, handsome if frowzy 

Michael, tidied and trimmed

I think he has been to an actual barber maybe once in the past 30 years...when he had an interview and I was in trial. Otherwise he insists that I really do much better than a barber. Humph. I think he just likes me. 

Which is good, since I think he's pretty swell too. 

A friend asked what we were going to do to celebrate our anniversary.  I told her that Michael is an anti-romantic, and so we weren't doing anything "special."  She initially thought that was unfortunate, until I explained that romantics make a big deal out of occasions, whereas anti-romantics make sure that every day is a reaffirmation of love. He gets me coffee every morning, we read the news together, discuss it, and exchange thoughts and kisses as we work throughout the day until it's night and I'm handing him his towel as he steps out of the shower.  We plan gardens and excursions and building projects and maintenance tactics...not always together physically but close in purpose and intent.  We hope to keep getting better at this marriage thing. 

Birthday Jounal: Celebrating those boys with beards

Lincoln has nothing over Michael when it comes to facial hair.  

My favorite nose nest: by every evening it has trapped the freshness of frozen air mixed with subtle undertones of wood smoke.  

I remember when Michael couldn't grow a beard...which was when he wasn't a white wizard. There are advantages to age!   

Every candle represents a decade...and keeps the fire marshal happy.  

Michael was born in the Year of the Rooster on the Chinese zodiac calendar. 

Arthur, the black runner hen, is Michael's favorite duck.  

We like our roosters, but we love our ducks. They are messy, noisy, cautious, clannish, joyful creatures. 

The trees are growing thicker, the birds are beginning to sing, spring is around the corner and I can think of no better occasion than Michael's (and Honest Abe's) birthday(s) to celebrate. 

Birthday journal: helping Auntie Harriette celebrate 98 years

January...not much happening.  February, however, begins with Auntie Harriette's birthday.  A great excuse to celebrate!  This year, she couldn't decide whether she wanted a chocolate or vanilla cake, and so asked for a little of both.   

Harriette, looking pleased after having doused her candles.

There were fewer people this year, perhaps because we need better contact information for friends from her church and the myriad cousins that live near and far.  Or it could be that more cousins have retired and were in sunnier climes.  Regardless, Harriette had a good time. 

And she got her choice of cake!  (She didn't say no to the pie, either....)

Soap journal: fat, lye, and saponification

I am a delicate flower, who needs careful tending. Good thing I found Michael, the Renaissance Boy (or junior chemist). My skin and commercial scents haven't gotten along for ages, so Michael learned how to make soap about 20 years ago. 

Day 2

Soap is fundamentally fat or oil mixed with a base. The type of base will affect the character of the soap. Lye (sodium hydroxide) mixed with water ( add bases to water as you oughta---otherwise it explodes!) will make harder soap. Potassium hydroxide (the stuff you get from wood ash) will make a soft soap. There is a hot process and cold process. Michael prefers cold process. 

The process keeps working for a couple of weeks.  

The saponification process yields glycerin. In commercial processes, they separate the glycerin and use it in moisturizers and other products. Home made soap retains the glycerin and helps keep my skin from getting dry. 

Our soap aging box. It's the same box (lined with plastic) the original oil/fat/lye mixture spends its first day or two while hardening. The trick is slicing it before it gets too hard.  

Good clean fun.  

Season journal: honoring the old in celebrating the new

Small altar altered

New Year's Day is a good time for reflection. A friend asked what the strangest thing in my house was. This is a difficult question to answer when one has gopher tails and deer ears in the freezer. Next year I will have to take my new tails in for the bounty, rather than just think about it. The deer ears are required in case a DNR agent comes by to confirm that the venison in those same freezers match the ears with their recorded tags. I suppose the 2014 ears can be tossed...if I can unearth them. This reminds me: I need to clean all the freezers while the cold weather holds. 

Paper bags full of feathers might qualify. But probably not, once put together with the nearby card stock.  

My vision of holiday greetings  

Most of the odd items found in my household relate to ongoing projects: shells and driftwood for making jewelry; roots and minerals for dying wool; sacks of fleece; soap  making chemicals, branches from fruit trees waiting to be made into buttons...pity the person who has to sort through any of this without the vision that led to its initial retention. 

Occasionally, the detritus gathered never had an ulterior purpose.  

Sculpture made by wood ants

Which brings me back to the first photo:  the items in my house that tend to disturb those who take time to notice them are the bones. Life in the country brings you closer, on a daily basis, to both life and death. One is necessary to the other and both deserve to be remembered and honored.  

Physical objects help us to remember, as well as to honor. 

Detail of a tapestry included in the Marin Luther Exhibit currently at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.  

We become absorbed in thinking that cataclysmic current events will change things forever as if this a bad thing. Remembering Martin Luther's act of pinning his 95 theses to that church door 500 years ago...and what vast changes accompanied this act, gives both context and comfort.  Yes, a lot of destruction. Yes, more growth. Yes, a lot of pain and also beauty.

In honor and remembrance of all that came before, as well as in celebration of all that will follow, I share with you the smallest icons: bare bones. 

Fiber journal: warm and fuzzy for the thunderstorms we are having today--Christmas 2016

Oh, the weather outside is frightful... 

It is now 4 hours later and still thundering and lightning and freezing 

Luckily, we are all safe where we need to be. And with warm feet! 

Great whites and orcas! 

We don't get out much and so coming up with gift ideas is sometimes difficult. I had seen the shark slippers posted on FB, and so looked up the pattern. The pattern called for Red Heart synthetic yarn. My grandmother used to make slippers out of Red Heart. Your feet get stinky. Wool is so much better because its antibacterial properties keep your feet AND nose happy!  Finding sufficient yardage in vaguely the correct weight was challenging. I had to change the stitch count to accommodate the different yarn weights. Then I could only find enough gray wool for three pairs...which is why one set became orcas.   

I gave them bigger teeth than the pattern called for. The pattern teeth were fine for the orcas.  

Someday I will think of these things earlier. This year, I began on December 7th. Each pair took me approximately 16 hours to make...and that is without potty breaks.  Michael took over all other household chores (except tamale making) while I stitched away.    I also did some reading while stitching...until I ran out of transcripts. 

Michael has been baking...again.  

Dinner was a success. Our 10 pound broiler fed 11 people...and there are leftovers. Aunt Harriette graced us with her presence once again. We are looking forward to celebrating her 98th birthday in February. In the meantime, warm wishes to all.  

Livestock Journal- The Augean Stables

The past week was the first week of real winter with overnight temperatures down to -24°F and daytime highs only in the low single digits and windchill temps to -45°F.  During the coldest of those days neither duck nor chicken came outside, not even once.  Would you?  But now that we are past the Winter Solstice and are headed into spring and Real Winter has for the moment disappeared with highs of 40°F above zero it was important to clean out the Duck Manger because ducks are messy, dirty, play in water, poop anywhere creatures....two days of inside all the time ducks leaves the Manger a solid frozen ducky mat.  When it is this cold I just add 3 or 4 inches of straw over the top every other day so that my ducks don't freeze to the floor....So with the coming of Spring yesterday I threw open the doors and windows and shooshed all the ducks into the sunshine.....

Shooshed ducks

and went about with wheelbarrow and hay fork and snow shovel (you gotta get to the compost heap somehow) and in about 3 hours managed to get the floor in the Manger back down to mostly dirt

Dirt! 

and leaving the door and window open finally got the interior defrosted (8 days of frozen duckbreath had frost on the walls an inch thick)

The cold week of weather cut egg production in half for both the ducks and the chickens making everyotherday ducks and chickens out of them.

Winter compost heap

Poolside

When the weather is not brutal cold the ducks spend most of their time in the sunshine by the pool.   They are good creatures these ducks.  We likes them.

Season journal: happy solstice!

Four days ago we were graced with 6" of snow. As my daughter and her husband were coming to make tamales, Michael and I hustled out and started shoveling the driveway.  

That's Michael way down at the other end.  

We got it mostly cleared after a couple of hours of steady shoveling. What we lack in capitalization we make up with muscle. It keeps us healthy!  Good thing we got the snow moved, as the next day (Sunday) brought sub-zero weather.  I think it got down to -23°.

Today, the shortest day of the year, saw a high of 42°.  

Warm, but still snowy. 

The leghorns froze their combs a bit, but otherwise it looks like the birds survived without serious injury.

In celebration of the warm weather, Michael shooshed the ducks out of their Mansion and cleaned house. But that is a post for another day. Today, I just enjoyed having sunshine and balmy weather to go out and walk around in.  

Livestock journal: extreme cold weather

We have been treated to a Siberian Express for the last week or so, which means we have been lucky to have highs is the single digits. We are toasty enough with our ability to heat with wood (very important as the electricity went out recently), but caring for our birds has become challenging.  We are happy we have both a chicken coop and a Duck Mansion.  

The cheerful chicken coop.  

Keeping the birds out of the wind allows their feathers to keep them warm. Even with 14° below overnight, they maintained coop temperature at about 20° above. Strength in numbers!

Poofy chickens

The ducks get to looking pretty bedraggled when they don't have access to open water. We usually have a tub outside for them, but the hard cold can freeze their feet and maim them.  

Cuddling in a corner  

The Duck Mansion maintains its heat about as well as the coop, which means our birds won't freeze, but their water buckets do. In normal cold weather, Michael breaks the skin of ice in the mornings and fills the buckets with warm water. In really cold weather, this doesn't work as well due to the fact that the water nipples freeze and don't thaw well. To cure this, Michael made extra water buckets.  

After drilling holes, the nipples are glued in place with Shoe Goop, or its moral equivalence, which can take the flexibility of the plastic, is water tight, and isn't poisonous to the birds.  

This way, we bring in one set of buckets to thaw overnight and start ice-free in the mornings. More hot water in the afternoon keeps the birds with access to unfrozen water during waking hours.  

We have noticed a decrease in egg production during the very cold weather, but it may also be linked to the fact that we are down to about 8 hours of natural light...and less on cloudy days.   

Abi and Ani eggs.  

Michael does the majority of bird care in the winter, although I do run half of the morning bucket brigade.  It keeps the floors from getting too covered in snow,  

I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. It took 20 years of living in northern climes before having the ground turn white didn't come as a shock. Cold weather requires planning and preparation, for ourselves as well as our livestock.  Here's to keeping warm and drinking water! 

Weather journal: winter has arrived!

The weather predictors had forecast an early, cold, and snowy winter. We had a dusting for opening day of deer season, but then it warmed up again. We got rain rather than snow.  

A green and gray December 1st  

We awoke this morning to 3" on the ground and a possibility of more.  

This represents about 4 cords of wood  

We have been behind in cutting wood due to construction duties, and so bought a cord of wood yesterday. Got it moved and stacked. Just under the wire...whew!   

Our ducks come out to play whether the weather is sunny or not. The chickens prefer to cuddle in their coops.  

Abi and Ani sharing their nest

We haul water to the birds, with me on the inside and Michael on the outside, by way of a bucket brigade. We gather eggs throughout the day to avoid having them freeze. Egg yolks gel when they freeze and do not liquify again upon defrosting. You can freeze eggs, but you have to scramble them first. Things I never thought I'd need to know!