Construction journal: I’m still working on that drywall

For those not keeping track, I last posted about drywall on January 25. Pictures posted confirm that the last of the drywall was almost up and I had commenced taping. I’m not taping anymore, but I’m still mudding. Six. Months. Later.

The only good thing about sanding drywall is it means I’m almost done.

If you look closely, you can see where I’ve sanded (the edges look blurry) and where I need to sand (crisp looking edges).

These seams only have tape applied. If left this way, it would look terrible and the tape eventually would just fall off. These are areas I still need to mud. The space in which we are living has wallboard that was never taped, or if taped, never mudded. I’m not complaining, as it will make renovating that area easier.

This is a first layer of mud. The bumps are from where the paper on the wallboard lumped up. Michael used many screws hanging the wallboard and didn’t use a screw set, which is supposed to minimize this problem.

This seam has a second layer of mud. Still can see lumps, but they are less noticeable.

I keep adding wider layers of mud to hide the dips of tapered joints and lumps of butt joints (and the really big jags where a butt joint meets a tapered joint) until it looks pretty smooth. Then I shine a shop light on it, and it looks terrible again.

This is when I sand. If the light doesn’t cast shadows, my work is done (except for clean up).

Sometimes there are shadows from bubbles, nicks, or uneven places. I don’t want to live with these shadows. I mark these places with a pencil and go back over them with mud mixed with food coloring. I can see the area, sand only there, and THEN my job is done…as long as nothing gouges or nicks the mud before we paint and stabilize it. Living in the same space in which you doing construction makes for interesting problems.

I would feel more badly about not having the mudding done, but for realizing how many other things we’ve been doing in the past 6 months. This particular part of our construction project doesn’t have a true deadline. I’d like to get it to the painting stage so I can move on to making cabinets, helping Michael cut a hole in the wall to join the addition to the original house, and then help him get the flooring in. At that point Irene can get a door on her bathroom! We are hoping to have her bathroom finished before she turns 99.

Happy to be sharing projects with this guy, father of my children, Boopa to the Grand Girl (who just turned 3!), and gardener extraordinaire.

Season journal: getting from May to mid-June

Our days grow ever longer, with sun up around 5 and sun down by 9:30. Soon the curve will start the downhill slide. In the meantime all creation strives to grow and reproduce.

The Eastern Phoebes have fledged and new eggs occupy this space.

Wildflowers everywhere! Even on my picnic table.

Morels and lilacs bloom at the same time. Our lilacs were hurt by the frost/warming roller coaster we had this year. So were the morels. We unwittingly lucked into some.

It’s worth having Creeping Charlie if we can host a Tri-colored Bumblebee. I’m thinking of adding some (Charlie, not Bee) to my next batch of pasta.

Wild strawberries: one of the Grand Girls favorites. Mine too.

The flags have come and gone. Day lilies will bloom next.

The Great Blue Herons still fly past our house all day long. I can hear them chattering on their nests in the tall pines when I take Zeke for a walk by the river.

This Giant Stonefly graced us with her beauty.

Luckily, no Wood Frogs nearby. They eat insects bigger than they are.

We don’t often get to see Luna Moths. They like deciduous forests, one of which grows on our hillside.

Turtles of all types seek places to lay eggs this time of year. Michael saved this Western Painted Turtle from being stuck in with a drying pond. It is the first year in five we’ve had to water gardens.

Wild Four-O’Clocks put me in mind of my granddad.

Peonies. Summer would be incomplete without them.

There have been riots in The Cities. COVID-19 is still a concern. I work in a system (currently part time) that often is more criminal than it is just. Eggs fall out of nests. Turtles get run down by cars. Bees and bugs contend with pesticides. Yet life is still sweet in mid-June, compelling in its insistence.

The joy of small creatures is our saving grace.

Fishing journal: first fish of the season

The fishing opener comes early in May. We were busy getting our gardens in, finishing the last on May 30th. The next day we went fishing.

Every time we use the Suburban I can feel my Papi smiling. It was his baby.

The breeze kept us cool without blowing us around too much.

My job is to find the fish. Michael is my trolling motor.

I found the fish. This is a bluegill sunfish.

35 fish gave us a huge meal of fresh fish and 7 packages of fish in the freezer. Michael removes heads, fins, scales and guts. I filet. We make a good team.

We hope to be able to take these girls fishing this year!

Garden journal: keep planting!

We are garden rich this year. Eight. Count them: eight! gardens.

These three hold the record for longetivity: a lettuce garden, an herb garden and the asparagus garden. Michael says the railroad ties went in before the original cabin was completed. There used to be four gardens, but one came out when Clyde and Irene added the first addition in 2007.

The “big garden” went in soon after the cabin was completed. Michael thinks maybe 1998. We had to fence the area so the deer didn’t eat everything down to the ground. We hauled untold loads of compost. Then we moved to Maine in 2006 and the garden reverted to sod. We reclaimed it when we moved in with Irene after Clyde died.

We’ve had an on and off relationship with garden #5. We hauled loads of compost and improved the soil when we planted the currants ages ago. In wet years it becomes a quagmire and then returns to sod. It’s been a garden and then sod again several times since we moved here in 2014. Currently it’s our popcorn garden.

The tomato/pepper/eggplant garden grew out of an experiment. Last year we cleared this area of our first straw compost pile (it went into the big garden), so we stuck some winter squash seeds in the area to see what they would do. They grew wonderfully; we cooked the last squash a week ago. We widened the area, evicting the Creeping Charlie and quack grass, erected the fence to keep chickens from bathing here, and hope our nightshades prosper.

We cleared the last of the composted straw from Garden #7 yesterday. Michael installed temporary fencing to keep the chickens from scratching up the area and I planted winter squash (and sunflowers) today. We will remove the fencing when the squash are large enough to beat the chickens into submission.

This winter we will start to pile used straw atop garden #6 and last winter’s straw pile will mulch next year’s gardens…replacing Garden #6. Two winters worth of composting seems to be about right for repurposing straw. Why so much straw? Winter bedding for the birds.

Garden #8 is the “flag garden.” It’s the only flower garden we have. Some day I will have a dye garden as an excuse to grow flowers by the bucketloads. At the moment, I can barely keep this low-maintenance batch of blooms watered and weeded.

Today would have been my dad’s 89th birthday, an anniversary he shared with my friend Katherine, who turned 60 and is a Master Gardener. My father loved watering and weeding the flowers at his house. Katherine has been known to wear a headlamp and garden well into the night to get bulbs in before the first snow. Posting about our gardens during these troubled and troubling times is a fine way to celebrate their birthdays.

Harvest journal: unsustainable farming

Michael and I spent the past two days harvesting 12 of our broilers. They are about 6 weeks old now and rendered about 5.5 pounds of various chicken parts, which means 66 pounds of meat and bone went into the freezer.

These two chickens are the same age. The one on the left is a broiler; the other a barred rock. This was two weeks ago.

I’ve been trying to figure out our cost to raise these birds. It’s not easy as we haven’t separated feed for our various chicks and ducklings. Even though we have (had) 16 broilers, and 80 other baby birds, the broilers probably eat a third of the feed we buy. In round numbers, I think it cost us $2 to buy the chick and $2 to feed it. So far, about $0.75/lb to raise. We also have increased electricity bills to keep them warm, the building to house them, not to mention our labor to turn them into meat. Unprocessed chicken would be a strangely frantic meal.

Michael and I spent a total of 16 collective hours to move them from coop to freezer. It is the amount of time we spend, without the economies of scale, that makes our farm commercially unsustainable. Over time, and without more mechanical inputs or young recruits, our farm will become physically unsustainable as well.

Broilers have the best feet for making broth.

It will take our other chicks closer to 14 weeks to grow to about 3 pounds. We are trying barred rocks to compare flavor. The other chicks are mutts, mostly Giant White and Light Brahma crosses. Broilers grow quickly, are one of the most efficient animals at turning feed into meat, and are what you buy when you get chicken at the grocery. They are bland (Julia Child complained that American chicken tastes like cardboard) and soft. We may have waited too long to harvest our non-broilers in the past, as they require slow cooking. Or the tastiness factor may be inherent in birds that get more exercise. We will see what 14 weeks does for the size/tenderness balance.

In between harvest, we are enjoying watching our trees bloom. We should have a good plum harvest this year.

The Northwest Greening is taking the year off, but the crab blossoms like clockwork.

Clyde and Irene made a sign to hang at the entry of the driveway that says “NORESTHERE.” There will always be work to be done on a farm. What we find in that work is, perhaps, not restful, but nourishing on so many levels.

Sharing at a distance is what we can do for now.

Season journal: flowers, gardens and greens

Our babies are blooming!

So much happens so quickly in springtime. The broilers, after only 5 weeks, are ready for harvest. We just finished hatching out the ducklings and have 34 happy little creatures. They will soon graduate to outdoor foraging.

Stinging nettle is up and flourishing.

Delicious, if also dangerous. It earns its “stinging” name!

Cooking destroys the sting. And yes, we still eat home grown onions with nearly every meal. Here they are paired with venison liver. Some day we may make our own cottage cheese…but not this day.

Speaking of onions, they have grown tall enough for me to mulch them with composted straw. Those are the garlic looking exuberant there in the upper right hand corner.

The remains of a fish. We bury dead things in the used straw piles. The chicken and duck manure helps compost the straw. More concentrated forms of nitrogen make it break down even faster. Any remaining bones add calcium, slowly.

Weeding is more pleasant with company. This is where we had our first used straw pile. Last year we grew squash here. This year may see tomatoes on this spot. It went from hard clay to lovely garden soil. Who knew raising birds would be so good for the gardens?

The asparagus appreciate the nutrients and protection from quack grass the straw mulch provides.

Quack grass roots create a dense mat and can burrow down 8”. I use a mattock, as these roots laugh at my attempts with a shovel.

Michael and I took a break from gardening to walk the woods. It’s my first time to spot Dutchman’s Breeches. So many wildflowers bloom after frost but before the trees leaf out. You have to time it right to see them.

Marsh Marigolds line low lying areas and lend brightness to dark hollows.

The trillium. Oh, the trillium!

Trout lilies carpet entire hillsides.

Violets were Baba’s favorite.

But she would have loved her great-great-grand girl more.

Foraging journal: dandelion time

Michael and I spent part of this sunny afternoon picking dandelion flowers. I have mad respect for anyone who earns a living by stoop labor.

Three gallons of flower blossoms. They smell so sweet, like springtime in a bucket. We now have them steeping in boiling water, the first step in making wine.

Michael finished processing the last of the dandelion greens we gathered several days ago. We had less than a week between when the greens showed and when they started to blossom.

Soaking in water to rinse off dirt and keep them fresh. They last several days after picking if you keep them wet and cool.

We sliced them off below ground when gathering them. Digging the entire root would have left too many potholes in our yard! You can see where the root meets the stems. That is where we trim.

If you trim too much, the leaves fall apart and you lose the crown. Here, the brown of the root is gone but the crown remains.

Trimmed crowns sizzling in butter. Olive oil works well too. They leave a wonderful fresh taste in the mouth, like artichoke hearts.

The leaves can be eaten as a salad or cooked and used any way you would spinach.

Dandelion pizza!

Dandelion imposters exist; most are edible. My mother wondered why she couldn’t find crowns on hers.

On close inspection the prickles show: prickly lettuce it is! Edible. May be more astringent than dandelions. And no crowns!

Pink anenomies. Not edible, but they just began blooming.

White anenomies out as well.

Farmers are beginning to plant. This is a no till field.

The local lore says you plant corn when the oak leaves are the size of a squirrel’s ear. Michael is still clearing a garden area for our popcorn.

Slow and steady gets rid of quack grass.

Speaking of quacks, our ducklings started hatching last week. We have 25 as of today with more on the way. We don’t keep our different breeds separate, so we have mutt ducks.

I finished weeding the asparagus garden today. We planted asparagus 20 years ago. Every spring and summer we weeded it, as Clyde and Irene didn’t. Then we left the area for 8 years and we came back to sod. I cured the problem without having to start over by piling on mulch. The grass sends its roots into the mulch, where I can pull them up in long streamers. The asparagus remains in the dirt, mostly undisturbed. We shall feast on asparagus now that dandelion season is over.

Season journal: wild flowers

Three days ago I spied the first bloodroot blooms. They are thick in the ditches now.

A surprise to see flowers without their greens.

Two days ago the pussytoes popped up.

Pussytoes carpet lawns with their tiny soft white blooms.

All the trees burst forth in flowers yesterday.

Both leaves and turtles made their appearance today. Spring tumbles over itself, rushing to profit from the first week without below freezing temperatures.

This curious beetle caught my attention. My references tell me it is a carrion beetle. Given the number of road sacrifices that come with springtime, it’s surprising I haven’t seen one before.

We dug up dandelions finally and Michael made a fine pilaf with their centers. They remind me of artichoke hearts. Leaves will make a salad tomorrow. They are best before they blossom out, when they turn bitter. We will gather the flowers for dandelion wine.

We are eagerly awaiting our next chance to see this wee wild one.

Garden journal: potatoes in, chicks growing

Michael says we are not so much farmers as we are really serious gardeners. Our birds are as much a part of our gardening ethic as our apple trees or the potato patch.

Look at those feathers! Ox (the big guy with sun in his eyes) is about 2 weeks older than the big yellow feller in the background. The two little ones in front of Yeller Feller are the same age as that yellow giant. The size difference is due to breeding. The Yeller Feller is a broiler, and will grow to be about 5 pounds in 5 weeks. The others will grow to be about 3.5 pounds in 14 weeks. Broilers give more meat, but the slower growers are tastier.

We have a bunch (about 40) duck eggs in the incubator. They should begin hatching in about 10 days. In order to have space for the new ducklings, we moved the current flock down onto pasture.

We moved them into their huts right before bedtime so they hopefully would remember their summer routines the next day. And….they all trooped right into their huts on their own last night. Yay! Ducks are smart. Notice how green their grass is. Wherever we keep ducks seems to have the lushest grass. They like grass; the grass likes them.

Michael finished turning over the garden (except for the sodded-in part next to the fence…more on that another day), leveled it and tilled it. Then he planted 44 potatoes.

We will either have too many potatoes or we will have too few, depending on the vagaries of temperature and rainfall. We hope to control pests by letting our birds into the garden for short bursts. We have to take care because the ducks will devour certain crops, like cabbage, given the opportunity.

We find that we seem to have enough onions if we plant 800 sets. Most years the yellow onions save the best. This past year the red and white saved better. We eat onions, in one form or another, almost every day. We hope to get the onions in this week.

As I was walking past our vegetable and bird gardens, this vulture sprang up from the road and circled overhead. Both a deer and a raccoon met their ends the night before. It’s all a circle of life (although I refrained from including the carcasses) and a warning that we need to set out the raccoon traps.

The trees keep trying to bud out, but so far have resisted the urge. Something about below-freezing temps at night have kept their flowers inside their calixes.

My favorite springtime flower is my youngest daughter, who turned 30 this year. We celebrated, if distantly, on our new deck. Thanks go out once again to my eldest brother and his wife for coming out last summer and helping take the deck from concept to party central! (And yes, that is some of our rhubarb wine on that table.)

Season journal: the rites of spring

Signs of spring come slowly but surely to Western Wisconsin. The Sandhill Cranes arrived about 2 weeks ago, creaking their love songs in recently harvested corn fields. The Great Blue Herons make the trek from river to feeding grounds. Our house sits under their flight path.

The first flowers of spring: chickweed from the garden.

The garlic pokes out of its straw comforter. The rhubarb rumbles it’s way toward the light.

We finished our dog walk just as today’s flurries commenced.

Michael has almost 3/4 of the garden turned over. My contribution is the pittance behind the shovel on the left. He’s been racing wet weather to get the weeds out and all ready for spring planting. We save the dandelions as our first harvest. Welcome to the season of fresh salads and cooked greens!

The bag Michael is carrying is for picking trash out of the ditches. We have added trash picking to our rites of spring. Our local township provides garbage bags and will pick them up from the roadside. I walk the road with the bag and Michael scrambles into steep places with the small bag, emptying it into my big one. The ditches are clear of snow (mostly), but the poison ivy has yet to awaken, so the time to “ditch dive” is now. My neighbor has joined in our efforts to keep our neck of the woods free of the detritus of modern life. Once the ditches awaken, we will restrict our efforts to non-toxic portions of the road. As for fear of contamination of the trash, most of it is pre-pandemic. All has been exposed to hard UV. The items that may retain viral content, such as cardboard, will melt with time. We let it lie.

We added 26 chicks from the feed store to the 30 we hatched so far. Michael always dreamed of being a chick magnate.

Ox (he is exhibiting rooster behavior) and his cohort are feathering nicely. Michael partitioned the coop and made a cozy place for the babies. The hens emit a low rattling sound, as close to a purr as a hen can get, since sharing quarters with the peepers.

We have more chickens than we can eat and plan to plant extra potatoes, root vegetables and cabbages. The pandemic may end with the warm weather or it may not. Either way we will have enough to share with anyone who may be in need once harvest starts. Here’s to the hope for the future that comes with springtime.

Livestock journal: chick update

It has been eight days since chicks started hatching. So far we have 18 chicks and more on the way.

Still wet, fresh out of the shell.

Chicks start pipping (getting a hole pecked in the shell) and then work work work to break all the way out. They come out wet, floppy and uncoordinated. In hours they fluff up and start exploring, looking for company. They are flock centric and need company more than even food and water once hatched. Their yolk remnants keeps them hydrated and fed for a while after hatching.

This is Ox at Day 7. Look at those wing feathers!

We moved a batch of the chicks out to the outside coop as their inside bucket was getting cramped. That, and with those awesome wing feathers, they would begin to be able to hop out of the inside bucket soon.

Zeke and Dusty know there is competition downstairs and are very jealous.

We had snow yesterday but not enough cold to refreeze the ground. Garden prep here we come! This also means we can move the ducks onto pasture soon.

We opened up the duck yard to Zeke’s yard so the ducks could mow the tall grass. They’ve done an excellent job and have such a good time in new territory.

Before we move the ducks to their summer digs two things need to happen. We need above-freezing temps overnight so we can water our livestock with hoses. We also need to gather sufficient duck eggs to hatch our next generation of ducks. We will start gathering duck eggs once we have room in the incubator, which will be in a couple of days.

In addition to the eggs we are hatching from our own flock, we have also ordered chicks from the feed store. In this era of insecurity we figure we may need to feed more than ourselves. If everything returns to normal, we can still feed more than ourselves!

Our favorite little chick.

Season journal: springtime in the era of corona virus

As infection numbers and deaths mount across this country, life continues mostly unchanged for us in the Big Woods.

Our first chick hatched today. She is cute. She is cuddly. I shall call her onyx. Or maybe just “ox,” as she has some lungs on her. She wants company!!! No social distancing for this one.

Normally I would be off to see my mom this time of year. I will delay the visit in order not to become a vector for the dread disease. It is a small change compared to the complications so many others face.

In need of some excitement, we decided it was time to fell the dying cottonwood. Michael ran the chainsaw. I ran the Suburban.

Timber! It didn’t hit the house or the power lines. It did land on a trailer, but with the part that was dead rather than deadly.

Michael gave his new chainsaw a workout as we needed to clear the driveway so Irene would not feel trapped. Nine days ago she still felt safe enough to be out and about.

Cleared!

We celebrated with a beer and a burger at the Wolf Creek bar. Two days later the governor closed all restaurants.

March 14th wasn’t the last time we went out, but it was the last time we did so recreationally.

We enjoy the view but miss having our daughter and her boyfriend over for Sunday dinners.

Not that we lack for things to do.

We work from home every single day. What I am learning is that we are not as socially distant as I always imagined. Farming requires a certain focus on the future. You hatch chicks and plant seeds, knowing the fruit of your labor will ripen later on. We exchange bread with neighbors, mail seeds to gardening buddies, send home made soap to heal cracked skin. Springtime is here, come corona virus or high water.

Fiber journal: hats, I love hats

This past November I started thinking about Christmas presents. I haven’t had time or space to spin any of my own yarn, so I tried to design a hat that would block wind. Most knit caps fail this test. My “fake beard,” made from a blend of alpaca and silk, passes…but as previously stated, I wasn’t going to both spin and knit in a timely manner. So I dove into the stash and came up with sock yarn.

I received this skein as a present to make socks. Turns out it is too delicate for the abuse of sock wear, so it got relegated to the stash. The speckles are alpaca fleece.

The fleece pieces were hooked over the yarn on the reverse side. The hat started to look like a caterpillar after a while.

It turned out to fit an adult head, while I intended it for a toddler. This is the danger of making things without a pattern. Note to self: making patterns isn’t easy!

The hat doubles as a wig…for a good time. It is very warm and does keep the wind off of ears, but the fleece tends to wander out to wave hello if one isn’t careful to tuck it in.

Another wig hat! The one on the left was my second effort…which was infant, not toddler sized. Oops.

As my idea of pairing fleece with hats was less than ideal (Michael begs to differ, as he loves his wig hat), I reverted to following someone else’s patterns. I had more hat people, more yarn inappropriate for socks, and more need for evening relaxation.

I made the gold colored hats first, ran out of those colors, so made the next hat with gold stripes. I think I like the striped version best.

My son in law found a new way to model his hat.

The Grand Girl fell in love with her hat. She wears it everywhere.

Rumors that I had a need to make hats spread, and I received a request for a hat to be worn in Alabama, a place not known for cold weather.

I made this beret with the leftovers from my prior hat efforts.

My Alabama recipient was thrilled with her hat, but complained that her daughter was equally thrilled, which meant that blood might be spilled. I didn’t wish to be the source of familial strife, so….

This one went out in the mail today. The original pattern didn’t have any bobbles on the top, but I couldn’t resist adding some extra little flourish.

I have a pair of socks I need to finish now that I have hats out of my system…at least for the time being. I long to be spinning my own yarn again. I hope to have space…soonish.

Happiness journal: 35 years with the same sweetheart

Last Monday Michael and I celebrated 33 years of marriage and 35 years of being in love by taking a walk around our realm.

We invited Zeke along for the walkie.

The technical reason for the survey: to identify dead and/or downed trees to add to our wood pile for next year. The downed ones are easy to spot anytime, but the standing dead are trickier to pick out once the snow melts.

The squirrels, chipmunks and raccoons love the dead and hollow, leaving obvious clues as to harvest ready zombie trees.

We marked trees with yellow hazard tape for later, but mostly enjoyed the trek. The deer have been bedding in the woods below the fields, close to food but open enough to spot/smell predators in good time. The coyotes sing to us morning, noon and night.

We used the deer highways to wend through the prickly ash.

One sign of spring: the deer are beginning to shed their winter coats.

Another reason the deer were bedding down here: they have a watering hole.

We didn’t see many birds or beasts on our walk, but they are there nevertheless.

Turkeys leave prints almost as large as mine.

We will need to guard our baby chicks and ducklings from these raccoons later this spring.

We close our coops every night to discourage livestock loss to this bobcat.

We keep getting older which allows us to continue building this life together. We hope for another 30 years of joint ventures, but are mindful of celebrating each day as it comes. Our partnership helps us not only be happy together, it builds outwards and lets us spread the joy.

Construction journal: the ups and downs of drywall

January seems to be our favorite time to drywall. Two years ago we were finishing the new bathroom. This year we are finishing the rest of the new walls in the addition. We have been dragging our feet a bit due to having to solve some thorny problems.

Notice the wall switches and then look above the switches and see the narrow space between the wall studs where those switches are located. The lack of space precluded hammering in new construction boxes. This meant that Michael had to cut the holes for the boxes, pull the switch wires through, wire the switches and install after construction boxes. The tricky part was keeping the multiple wires sorted out.

This is the door leading to the deck. The discoloration is due to water seepage. The door leaked until we put the flashing below the threshold, protecting the sill plate from backsplash. Drywall needs to stay dry! So does flooring. No new leaks…yay!

This is more recent water seepage. Michael noticed the wet floor after the corner had been done. Yikes! Where was the water coming from?!?

We put rubber stick on flashing under this corner when we installed the siding, as there was a slight gap between the new wall and the old house. The flexible flashing extended only down to the plate as it wouldn’t stick to the cement. Two days ago we slipped a piece of aluminum flashing under the metal siding and extended it well below the plate. You can see that the valley on the roof drains and splashes in this corner. So far it appears the additional flashing has cured the problem.

The inside corner where the new construction meets the old house has presented other challenges. The corner molding came off when the roof rafters went up. This left a quarter inch differential between the remaining siding and the corner that needed patching. Luckily we had some quarter inch plywood scraps from when I made Irene’s cabinet drawers. The wall wasn’t plumb either. We patched and made the wall solid and plumb! We will address the old construction walls after we have cut new doorways and have taken out old doorways and windows.

I spent today patching around outlets. The outlet covers won’t hide the holes. Michael leaves these piddly projects for me.

This panoramic is taken from the doorway leading to the old house. I have to shuffle large items around in this space to tape the ceiling.

Michael completed the west wall today. You can see that he made me at least one challenge by putting up the drywall vertically, and then filled in at the top horizontally, making for a really long tapered joint morphing into a butt joint. Professional drywall artists put the tapered joints horizontally and stagger the butt joints so that they are less noticeable. I’ll keep you posted on my efforts to smooth over these rough patches.

I am a very slow taper. I get through about one hod of mud before I’m tired. Part of my slowness comes from having to inspect all the screws to ensure they are below surface level. This means moving and climbing my ladder along an entire seam before mudding it, which also explains why I get so tired for so little visible progress. It will get done, and it will look better than the part of the house created by “professionals.” It just takes time, patience, and a lot of work!

Weather journal: sparkle

The snow started early this year. We have had regular snow, some periods of below zero temperatures, and some balmy days. Yesterday we had one of our more spectacular storms.

Walking in the weather. All the more fun shared with Zeke and his love of sealing through drifts.

This meant Michael and I spent the majority of our day shoveling.

Clearing the dooryard is the most tedious part of the job.

Nice action shot!

600 feet of driveway cleared. Yayayayay!

This was pre-storm. You can see the snow coming in. You can also see that the corn is still standing. The deer and pheasants are making good use of what corn there is. I fear the farmer who rents our land is on hard financial times. Late springs and early winters make for a short growing season.

Irene would love to escape the snow as it represents just another barrier for her. Michael and I are both sore all over, but we wanted to make sure Irene will be able to make her weekly trek to Sunday morning breakfast tomorrow. She leaves by 6 am. I think she has only missed going to Sunday breakfast once since we’ve been here.

The squirrels were up early for breakfast too.

It is lovely to shovel the driveway by hand. It allows you to be warm while enjoying the shooshing rhythm of scootching snow around. Having the time and resources to enjoy the weather rather than to battle it is luxurious indeed. Sparkle!

Happiness journal: holidays come and gone

I come from a strong Catholic background. Michael comes from a strong secular humanist background. We are both appalled by the consumerism that drives much of December (and so many other seasons). Early in our marriage we came to an agreement on winter celebrations.

Advent is a means of marking time before Christmas. We start lighting a candle 4 Sundays before Christmas and add one lighted candle every Sunday. We join hands before dinner and sing “O Come O Come Emanuel.” It helps lighten an otherwise dark time of year.

Yes, those are beer bottles I’m using as candle sticks. I find it easier to move them about, as our dining room table also is project-central in our household.

We cannot cut a tree before December 6, which is St. Nicholas Day. Since our favorite tree cutting helper usually doesn’t arrive before December 20th or so, our tree goes up late in the season. We still mark December 6th with small gifts of food and clothing.

Having a child to help decorate is worth the wait.

The Grand Girl and her dad were cookie cutting machines!

We make two types of cookies: gingerbread (Michael prefers them un frosted) and biscochitos (a Mexican anise seed cookie topped with cinnamon sugar).

Michael added pies and bread to the bakery bounty.

Christmas is a birthday party, so we also made a cheesecake.

We managed to squeeze 11 into the dining room. Someday I hope to build a modular table that will seat 12 comfortably, but can be broken down for everyday use. Oh wait, we’ll always be using the dining room table for projects. Just talked myself out of modular!

The Grand Girl is taking over Auntie Sister’s job of distributing presents.

The Grand Girl and I made my Christmas cards on the Third Day of Christmas. Another wonderful Catholic tradition is celebrating the full 12 days, and then having the Feast of the 3 Kings as the close of the season.

We got to take walks in the snow.

We fed the hens treats.

We celebrated New Years with noisemakers.

Followed by reading our favorite stories before bed.

Our house feels empty without children filling it to the brim. Michael and I took a few days to clean and then we put away the tree on January 6th. Now we are back in construction mode. It is good to work on making a space for that table I want to build.

Harvest journal: the fruits of our labor

Christmas is coming and the cider’s coming due, please raise a glass for the New Year too.

Not bubbly, but very drinkable.

The rhubarb wine is still a bit cloudy. Needs more time.

We still have one carboy of cider to bottle. We decided to bottle one of our two carboys due to some type of intrusion that was forming a film on top. It convinced us that we really do need the proper stopper for the carboy. A friend lent us the carboy but it came without a handle or stopper. We tried using plastic wrap. Not a successful substitute.

Bottling rhubarb wine. From the bit we sampled, it has a high alcohol content. Because Michael didn’t get a specific gravity reading when he added the yeast, we couldn’t measure the end product’s alcohol reading.

Someone recently asked why there is no good homemade wine. Part of the problem is due to inexperience. Another part is correct equipment. A third factor is space with good temperature and humidity controls. And then there is the aging and storage factor. Even so, our foray into fermentation seems worthwhile.

Michael isn’t into presentation, so reusing bottles it is. We will see if they seal well enough. All equipment and bottles are sanitized beforehand.

The cider also wasn’t measured when the yeast went in. Even so, we can tell that it has a relatively low alcohol content. The difference comes from the amount of sugar the yeast had to work with. We added no sugar to the apple juice, which was tart, meaning it didn’t have a high natural sugar content. Not much sugar means not much alcohol. It still makes a nice, tart, cider. Michael added about 10 pounds of sugar to five pounds of rhubarb. It is not only very alcoholic but is rather raw. It will get better as it ages, which allows sugars and acids to balance. Michael added tannin to the rhubarb, which will soften over time. It has a wonderfully definite rhubarb flavor.
I can tell that I need to engineer a means of storing odd-sized bottles so we begin to solve at least one of the homemade wine challenges. Then we can keep track of bottling dates, sipping our way into enlightenment as to the time (and other factors) needed to achieve that elusive goal of good homemade wine.

Harvest journal: the deer are tiny this year

The deer harvest is down by about 40% around here. Part of it is the standing corn.

Food and cover all in one! The deer love it. Squirrels, jays, turkeys and crows are pleased as well.

The other factor is the lateness of the season. The rut was mostly done, which means the deer weren’t moving around as much. We usually are done the first weekend of the 10 day hunt. This year we hunted all 10 days, and then the additional 4 days of the “holiday hunt.” There will be an additional six days right after Christmas. I don’t know that we can spare the time to devote to sitting in the cold for hours on end. Our freezer isn’t exactly empty, given our earlier duck and chicken harvest.

The final product from one deer.

The deer have been very tiny as well. We harvested three deer off our land. We have almost 60 pounds of venison in the freezer. Last year we harvested two deer and had almost 90 pounds of venison. There are plenty of deer around, but last year was a hard year. The snow was deep and lasted well into springtime. The late spring meant a later planting time, reducing forage during birthing time. We have had early and plentiful snow this fall. None of our deer were very fat. Even though the corn is still standing, the cobs are short and few and far between. It is a lean year for both the deer and the farmers around here.

Life and death journal: reflections on my brother John

My younger brother died of a massive heart attack on November 11, 2019. He was 55. He left two beautiful daughters before they graduated from college. He never got to hold a grandchild. He never got to visit my farm (a trip planned for this coming June).
Perhaps he lived faster than I did. He was about two years younger than me but started talking before I did. Where I was always painfully shy, he was outgoing and knew everyone in the neighborhood. His exuberance could be overwhelming at times, but also uplifting.

We both love watching birds.

As we come from a large family and live far apart, we don’t often get together. John managed to gather most of us in one place this November.

My brothers, mom and younger sister got together to move him out of his house, a project his daughters didn’t need to deal with on their own…during midterms no less. Sifting through his possessions was a great way to touch his life and process his death.

Aunt Harriette lived to be 98 and prepared well for death. She gave away almost all her possessions well before she died. John prepared not at all. It took almost five days to clear out his house, having his girls take what they wanted, donating what we could, and letting neighbors sift through what was left. I look around my own home and hope that if I die suddenly, those who clean up after me simply have a very large bonfire. Or maybe spread all my unused fleeces and the piles of books in the gardens, where they can gently melt into the soil.
That is, unless someone wants to spin those fleeces or read those books. Please eat the elderberry jelly. It’s wicked good.
I did get some router bits from John, as no one else wanted them and they have no great resale value. I will think of my brother when I am using them to make furniture or cabinets. I can already feel him getting antsy, fearing I will make mistakes he could have prevented, given he would always do impeccable research before starting any project. I’m more of a “learn as you go” kind of girl. He had better equipment than me. I have used my tools more than him. We both love making things with our hands.

He always lived where it was warm. We were both born in a desert. I’m convinced that living where it snows is good for the body and soul. I couldn’t convince him to try it. Now it’s too late.

I share many of the same traits as my brother, but also am a very different person. I wish I could have conferred on him some of the beauty and peace I and Michael work hard to achieve on our farm. I will spread some of his ashes when I plant tomatoes in the springtime. In that way, he will become part of this land and will nourish us with his life and his death.