Daily Life

The new hens seemed to be settling in with the old chooks.     After two weeks in the barn, so they'd know where home was, I let the girls out to free range on a nice day.  I had to think about that though because white hens are much easier to see, so a bit of an easy target for predators.   We'd had snow and it melted, so I was hopeful all would be well.   Unfortunately when I went to tuck them in to the barn in the evening, one of the leghorns was missing!  I looked all over the yard and I couldn't find her.  With sadness, I locked up the barn and decided to keep them inside for the foreseeable future, to keep the other leghorn safe.    Luckily, the next afternoon, the missing hen was fussing close to the barn.  Even more so on the lucky front, she was really hungry and I was able to lure her into the barn with a scoop of food and moving it a short distance at a time to get her into safety.   She's in the barn now, and doing fine after whatever adventure she had.  We've only had a missing hen return after being gone for an evening once before, so it was a happy occasion.  

We had snow squalls in the forecast, with lake effect snow expected to be close to 50 cm.  I figured it was time to put the rest of the garden to bed for the winter.   In the spring I'd purchased 2 bales of straw and left them out all summer to hopefully start rotting.  One way or the other I'd be able to use them for mulch in the fall, but rotting straw already starts the composting process.   I had cleaned out all of one bed and most of the other.   I also planted 46 cloves of hard necked garlic.  It will be interesting to see how many garlic plants actually germinate.  It starts to grow early which always makes me happy.

 I opened the one straw bale and the inside was nicely starting to compost, so I used the straw to put a 6 inch layer of star over both garden beds to let the straw work over the winter.   Also, because every spring, I find a nest in the straw from some unknown animal, I wanted to set up the space in case they needed it this winter too.   Both raised beds are set nicely for the winter.  I left the two kale plants in because they are still growing, will last over the winter and give us fresh greens early in the spring, until they go to seed.

Thankfully, we didn't get 50 cm of snow.  Also, the weather warmed up a bit, and what snow we did have, melted quickly.   I peered out the window one afternoon and the sunset was amazing.   I didn't catch the colours properly because I knew in the time it would take to run outside, I'd miss it, so I took the photo from my window.   The sky was blue, purple, orange and that bottom bit was a glorious pink.    Between the numerous cloudy skies and dusk coming at 4:30ish,  I often miss the rare pretty sunsets just due to timing. 

 I'm totally not impressed with it being dark by 5:35pm!  With the fewer daylight hours, and keeping the chooks inside, the older girls aren't laying eggs right now.  They need about 16 hours of daylight to encourage them to lay.   I could put a light in the barn, but I just deal with fewer eggs rather than do that.   The new leghorns, being young are giving us eggs which is nice.   They are tiny pullet eggs though which makes for some interesting guessing at how many pullet eggs equal a normal sized egg.  Today's eggs were marginally bigger, maybe almost a commercial small size!  Yay for that!

A cold and frosty morning and new chooks!

It wasn't quite 8 am when I had to head out the other day.  This was the view from my driveway.   The sun was just rising and there was frost on the grass and all the fields.    It was very pretty but just a tad cold out side.   I still had my coat in the car from the springtime, as I sometimes just toss on a sweater or hoodie when I'm running about to the shops.  I keep spare mittens, a toque and a jacket in the car just in case there is car trouble during the in between seasons.  This summer though, I just tossed the jacket in the back instead of bringing it inside, so it was where I left it instead of where I needed it that morning, rather than inside so I could wear it!

My hubby has been bragging about how nice his seat and steering wheel warmers on on his new car.  I sent him this photo of my steering wheel warmer.  Interestingly enough, the mitten photo was taken just seconds after this one, having backed out, parked in the driveway and pulled out my phone.  The sunrise had already faded due to the rising sun.   

 Yes, that is frost on the edge of the windshield.  I had to scrape the windows, which wasn't fun.   I may have had mittens and a toque in the car, but I had moved my ice scraper into the garage in the spring and had to run into the garage to try to find it.   I couldn't find it quickly though, so I had to run inside and grab the tiny hand ice scraper that I used to process flax and sometimes nettle (although a dull butter knife works best for nettle).  We went out today and bought me a brand new snow bush/ice scraper tool since the old one has gone walk about!  It will certainly get a lot of use one way or the other this winter.

We didn't want any new chooks this year.   Honestly, we have 5 older girls and they still lay enough eggs to keep us well stocked and allow a few for co-workers.  Not as many as we used to have, but more than enough for us.   However,  I was chatting at the feed store and we were discussing how they had a chook delivery just a couple of days earlier and a few people hadn't replied to their phone messages, for their chooks, but still wanted them.  They were able to arrange a delivery of ready to lay hens the next day and not only the red sex link layers, but they had a few leg horns available.  I ordered 2 leg horns.  They lay white eggs.   When I do Pysanky (Ukranian Easter Eggs), I have to spend a lot of time and aggravation looking for large white eggs, without date stamps on them.  One year I ended up finding duck eggs.   They were mixed colours, blue, green and white, but they were telling me that their spring duck eggs come from young ducks and that's why they were still small.   Hopefully these girls will thrive and I'll have my own decent white eggs for this spring.   They're already laying little tiny pullet eggs which look so small against the giant brown eggs.

 The daffodil leaves started pushing their way through the dirt almost as soon as the ground had thawed.   We had little bunches of leaves for ages.  Then the weather gave us a sneak preview of summer.  It was t-shirt weather, or at least I could run out to the barn without a jacket.  Then poof, we had beautiful yellow daffodil blooms.  The mild weather pushed the flowers out in literally hours.  In the morning they were buds and in the afternoon, there were blooms!

We also had lots of little blue flowers littering the lawn and flower beds, but a snow fall and some below freezing temps laid waste to their beauty.   The daffodils however, endure.  Despite the cooler temperatures and the cold nights, they still shine.

I've been trying to teach myself to follow a crochet pattern.   I've made a few blankets, and dabbled over the years, but following  a pattern has always been a bit of an issue.  While trying a pattern for a 1 hour hat, I realized that it's not the pattern I have issues with, but how not to add an extra stitch at the beginning of a row, or the end of a row.   I've watched a bunch of videos which were informative and now I'm pretty sure I understand the process.   The problem?  I can't seem to get the stitch count correct unless I count ever row.  This is irritating to me because I like to do other things while I fiddle with handwork, and having to count every row means I have to totally focus on the work at hand.

This is my 3 day hat, not my 1 hour hat.  It's some miscellaneous grey yarn I found skeined in my stash.  I've no idea what it was or when it was spun.   Cheap commercial fake fur pom pom on top because that seems to be the fashion.  I was pleasantly surprised when I realized that there were 2 in the box and I'd just misread the contents.

I let my girls out on those warm days.  They were so happy.   I kept them in yesterday because it was cold, rainy and miserable.   Tomorrow is supposed to be sunny.  Even if it's cool, they'll enjoy being outside.  

In other news, Kevin has decided to start sleeping at my feet.   This is a bit disconcerting because he doesn't really do "people" very well.  It makes me wonder what he's planning.

I'm off on a new quest to learn about circular sock machines.   I've been sort of interested for years, but never really had the time to figure them out.   But there is a bit of arthritis happening in my hands, so maybe now is the time.  I don't want to give up my woolly winter socks!

Stories of socks, benches and raccoons.

I wasn't going to make a new pair of socks until the autumn.  However, I was offered a trip  to the yarn store and came home with 3 new skeins of sock yarn.  This skein was a bit of a whimsy purchase.  I wanted something self striping.  The other two skeins were more abstract.  I'd not seen the pattern that this yarn made, but it was a nice yarn, so I wasn't sure what to expect.   I'm not a huge fan of this fake fair isle type stripes, however the yarn is so nice to knit with that I'm enjoying knitting them immensely.   I also decided to try to match the repeats, so I noted the start point and checked carefully for the repeat start so I could match the second sock to the first.  We'll see how that works out soon enough.

This bench left here when we moved into this house.   It had worn yellow painted legs, the screws were so rusty they were getting loose, and the wood on top was starting to rot.  It was really handy but the ugliest thing ever.   Last year it fell apart completely, but we couldn't get the wood to repair it.  This year, we found the right wood sizes.  DH painted the legs with black rust covering paint.  He even stained the ends and water sealed the whole thing.  It looks amazing now and should last for another 20 or so years.  

Raccoons -   

The other day we had a raccoon in the barn.  Well for several nights he'd been opening the door latch and getting in.  The chooks are pretty safe now, if they're inside since the entire pen is either solid wood or 1/2 in hardware cloth from ceiling to floor.   We put two jointed hinged latches on the door and locked them with snap carabiners.  No more anything without proper thumbs and the ability to slide the lock off the latch is getting into the barn now!  When I went to lock up the chooks the other night, one chook was inside and the rest refused to go into the barn.   The raccoon was in the pen, helping himself to the eggs.  It took two of us, but we couldn't get him out of the barn, and instead he just hid.  As soon as he did, the chooks raced inside for the night.   Not knowing where the predator was, we manually moved the girls into the greenhouse for the night, so they'd be safe.   The next day, we double checked the barn and secured the window better, just in case.   The chooks are staying in the pen for a bit.  They hate it, but with the raccoon out and about, I feel better about their safety. 

  Then today, while I was weeding the garden, I saw this critter coming toward me.  It was shortly after lunch time and he didn't seem at all afraid of me.  He's fairly young and luckily he waddled slowly enough that I could get into the house.  I watched him wander all over our deck before he headed off to where ever he was going.   I'm totally not impressed with a daylight loving raccoon hanging around our house.  Those poor chooks may spend most of the summer inside.  I really dislike raccoons.  I just wish they weren't cute.
 

Pretty colours and chooks

 It has been a very odd few weeks.   Weatherwise, we've had nothing but variable weather.  From the ridiculously mild, to cold and blustery, with rain, snow and winds inbetween.   What we've had little of is sunshine.   Day after day of grey weather.   Just so difficult to get motivated when it's getting dark at 4:30 pm and isn't light until after 7 am.   Then the wind storms, wifi outages and power failures just topped it off.   On the plus side, I did finally force myself to figure out how to use my phone to make a hot spot for my computer.  It wasn't difficult.  I just hadn't really been in a situation where I needed to do it.

In between, I did some fibre blending.  I made up a bunch of packets of rolags from some bits and pieces of fibre that needed to be used up.   These are merino, corriedale, silk, with a bit of angelina or sparkle, which is a local shops nylon, sparkly stuff, similar to firestar. I didn't use a lot of sparkly stuff, just a tad to make it interesting.

Then I blended up some rolags for a new hooked rug.  I didn't want to go out and buy wool yardage for this rug.  It's not an original design and is a guild challenge project.   The photo to the right shows the start of the rug yarn project.   I had to do a bit of concentrating for the first few yards to make sure that I had the grist suitable.   I need a bulky yarn for this project.  It's better if it's a bit uneven in grist (sigh, not my favourite) and has a nice mix of colours.   It spun up quickly because I used a long draw and forced myself to not pay a lot of attention while spinning   It worked though, I got the results I was looking for.

first skeins of rug hooking yarn

I swapped a couple of bags of the first rolags, for a similar amount of roving from a friend.   One bag was a super dark blue shetland/blue faced leicester crossbred fibre and the other was undyed shetland/bfl, and alpaca.    I wasn't too thrilled with the shetland/bfl cross.   From what I could tell, it didn't result in a better fibre.   BFL is long, and quite soft.   This was more shetland-like, in that had a medium crimp, wasn't quite as long, nor as soft.   However, I blended the two fibres together, hand-carded it into rolags and spun it up into a 2 ply worsted.   It's nice enough, mainly I think because it's 25% alpaca.    It's about to become mittens.  No photo right now because it's too dark for a decent photo right now.

Because of the rather scary rise in Covid numbers, my whole family opted to have a stay at home Christmas again.    In the end, I was okay with that, although I missed my kids, I'd just gotten my booster shot, and spent half of Christmas day sleeping!    I did manage to sand all these pieces of a rigid heddle loom though.

 Today, hubby set up a work station in the mud room and I taped up the rigid heddles and stained it all.   Tomorrow, I can put the first coat of finish on it.   Luckily, I still have enough tung oil on hand to put two coats on, which will hopefully be enough.  I can't get more, because I just found out that it was discontinued.  It's the finish I used for my spinning wheels.  I haven't needed to buy any in a while, which is a good thing since it was discontinued in 2010!  

Loom details - 32 in Ashford rigid heddle loom.  It's light weight - 10 lbs,  Available rigid heddle reeds from 5 dpi, 7.5 dpi, 10 dpi, 12.5 dpi, 15 dpi.   It can use 2 reeds at a time, too.  The 7.5 comes with it.  I added the 10 because it would fit in the box and no extra shipping.   At some point I'd like to add another 10, a 12.5 and 15.

I realized that lots of people use rigid heddle looms as a starting point to jump into weaving.  However, I figured that as more than a couple of people have asked me about them, I should learn how to use them.  Also, on days when arthritis means it hurts to weave on the floor loom, table looms work just fine.  They are fast to dress and weave off too, so good for demos!   32in gives a lot of leeway for project possiblities.

There were still some not snowy parts on the lawn, so I let the chooks out that day.   They are pretty wimpy and don't like to wander out of the barn when it snows.   The wild birds had picked through the food in the feeders and scattered a lot on the ground, so the girls headed out to clean it up.   I had leftovers for them too that day.   Later in the afternoon, I heard some insistent knocking at the back door.   This is what I saw!   They either wanted in or wanted me to go out, prolly with treats for them.  There were a couple of the chooks, pecking away at the door.  The rest were just in cahoots!

Inside and Outside

 I made sourdough bread.  It turned out perfectly.   It had a crunchy crust and a soft, open crumb.   I had tried a new to me formula for making bread.  I passed the info on to my daughter who makes bread too and she sent me a photo of another perfect loaf of bread.  It's good to know that the recipe will work for more than just me.

 This is the brown cotton ready to process.   I found a green cotton skein that I hadn't finished up, so I popped it into the pot at the same time.    When I did my Master Spinner, we had to wind the skein onto a specially prepared PVC pipe that had holes drilled in it.   I did this for all my class samples, but it was a pain.   Now I just toss the skein in a pot.  I've not noticed a ton of difference.   You are also supposed to add a bit of baking soda or something to make the water a bit alkaline.  Although it is supposed to help the processed colour last, I've not noticed a lot of difference, so I don't always use it.   After photo coming as soon as the skeins are dry.

 The chooks have been locked up since early last fall when we had the raccoon issues. They've been itching to go outside as the light has increased, with much noise, clucking and admonishment every time I go into the barn.   Since I'm pretty certain Mr. Raccoon has moved on, and since the hubby is out boiling sap again this weekend, I let the girls out.  Oh, they were happy and content chooks.

I pruned the gooseberry bush.  I started a bit last year but wasn't certain what I was doing.  It was so overgrown that I was a bit worried.  I am not sure it had ever been pruned and it's probably 30 or 40 years old.  There are a lot of videos out there.  Most I saw were from the UK and many had plants which seemed to grow from a central stalk, which didn't apply to my shrub. I couldn't fathom trying to work that out with this overgrown gooseberry.

  Finally I found some instructions on how to prune my type of gooseberry.   I did worry a bit about taking off too much of the old growth, but the more I cut, the more young growth I found.   This is after 2, yes 2 wheelbarrow loads of clippings.    I could take a bit more, but I think I will leave it like this for this year and see what happens.   I've been suggesting that we need to dig it up and replace it for a few years now, but we've never gotten around to it.  This is my maybe we can salvage it attempt.   The fruit is small and a lot of work to clean, but I like gooseberry jam.  Gooseberry jam isn't something you can just buy in a shop around here. But if pruning will help increase the size of the berries, then Yay!

Garden update, and New Chooks!

My two new girls are Leghorns - white chooks that lay white eggs.  They just started laying a couple of days ago and right now they are laying the tiniest little pullet eggs I've ever seen.  Their eggs will get larger as they mature.

When you move a grown hen to a new location, you need to keep them locked in the coop for about a week so they learn that this is their new home.   After that, you can let them out and ostensibly, they will come home each night and lay their eggs in the nesting boxes.

For days after I'd opened the coop door to the outside, they didn't venture outside anymore than to peek out the door and run back inside.  Finally though, they came outside.  They don't go all over the place yet, but stick close to the barn.   They haven't yet melded as a flock with the other chooks, so they keep to themselves.

One of the grey girls who lays the green eggs has decided to lay them outside.   I hear her egg call when she lays, but I've not yet found her nest.  That is where the ostensibly part comes in.  Sometimes a chook or 3 get it in their minds to lay outside.  Then it's like an egg hunt to find their hidden nests.

This is a photo taken though the screen door.  There were three little cardinals who had just fledged and were practicing their flying.  They went from the tomato cage to the deck railing, to the top of the gazebo and back.   The cats spent many hours watching them excitedly.   This was the best photo I could get of them.  They were very timid and if I was outside, they would squawk and chitter and fly away before I could get a photo.  After about 3 or 4 days of this practice flying, off they went to do whatever young Cardinals do this time of year.

I finished planting the potatoes.   I put in about 22 lbs of Yukon Gold seed potatoes.  For the second time, when chatting with people about our gardens, I've had a person ask me why?  The first was an old gal who was disdainful about her friends garden and her efforts to plant potatoes and who kept saying horrible things about why would anyone even bother.   After several attempts at explaining, I ignored her dribble until someone walked by and interrupted her diatribe with "oh, growing potatoes is such fun".   I wish I'd thought of that one.

  This time it was a bizarre question as to why I would plant so many?  I mean, what does it matter how many I plant?  I have the space and we like eating fresh potatoes for as long as possible.  Does it really matter that I planted more than a couple?   Sheesh - it does get odd when I end up spiraling into weird conversations like that.  Really, I'm interested in what you plant and if you have an enormous garden, that's way cool and if you have a single planter box, then that is pretty awesome too.   That we have a common interest is a nice starting point for a conversation and I don't want to pass judgement on what or how much you're growing.  I just like it that you are growing stuff.