Tag Archives: Uncategorized

Putting Up The Hay

We got a delivery of hay today from our lovely hay people, and as soon as I sat back down inside the house to warm up (it’s frigid out there!), I realized that tomorrow’s forecast calls for sleet and rain.  This means that all 14-odd 800 lb. bales of hay HAD to be moved down to the back field, lined up on cinder blocks and covered before dark.

This is normally a job that Paul does, but he doesn’t get home in the evenings until after dark.

So I bundled up and grumbled all the way out to the tractor and got busy.

It took ALL AFTERNOON.

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It’s not so much that it is difficult work, but that it is slow going.  You have to be very careful going down the hill with such a heavy load on the spear, and you have to line up cinder blocks for each and every bale.

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I also discovered that the insulated work gloves I got from Tractor Supply for farm work didn’t hold up to freezing temperatures at all.

Thankfully my hand-knit hat kept my head nice and toasty – let’s hear it for wool!

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I finished up just as it got dark, and I even dropped an extra bale in with the sheep.

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I’ve got a pretty big workload ahead of me for the next few days.  I painted Oona’s room but now I have to get it put back together properly.  I started painting our rockers for the front porch and need to finish those:

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Yes, I know it’s all over the grass.  You see, there’s a difference between how I do things and how Paul does things.  He prefers the “put it off until you have everything you need and can do it properly in one go”, whereas I hail from the school of thought of “why wait if I can half-ass it now?”

Tonight I’ll be sewing up napkins for Thanksgiving out of this lovely fabric I found at fabric.com:

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Tomorrow begins the timeless tradition of baking and obsessive cleaning that will take us through to the holiday.

Let’s hope that sleet passes us by, shall we?


Tagged: Farm, Sewing

November-ing

As we careen toward Thanksgiving I’ve been trying with all my might to enjoy November and its relative calm.  After the Big Meal it will be all Christmas and crazy, but for now it’s still fall, everything pumpkin is still in vogue for the month.  There are still a few patches of color here and there where the rain and wind have not knocked them off the trees, and it’s still not bitter cold.

Although, truth be told, the weather here has been so bizarre I think I’d take the bitter cold just so I’d know how to cope.  Instead we’ve had a day where it flurried like mad for about an hour followed by temperatures in the 70′s a few days later.  You never know if you’ll need the A/C or the heat on.

It’s the ending of fall, and it’s bittersweet.

We will be having Thanksgiving at home this year with Paul’s family, and I am enjoying getting the house organized and cleaned in readiness for it (hey, cleaning is therapeutic for me!).  In the meantime it’s starting to get hard to concentrate on school when there’s so much to be done and to enjoy, but we’re at least not falling behind.

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Oona’s reading a lot of seasonally appropriate books about Thanksgiving (though the pickings are slim on these – as a historian I don’t like the ones that whitewash the history, even-or maybe especially- for little ones).

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Yesterday my November issue of British Country Living came, and I spent a glorious afternoon with a cup of coffee and some gingerbread cookies from Trader Joe’s, pouring over its pages.

That mug, by the way, is one of my absolute favorites.  It was made by my friend Anna Branner with Susan’s logo on it, and you can find more of Anna’s wonderful wares HERE.

To top off all things Novembery, we’ve been enjoying some homemade Pumpkin-Cinnamon Swirl bread.  It’s wonderful toasted with a bit of butter.  I used the recipe for the Cinnamon Swirl bread (made in the Pullman Loaf pan) from King Arthur Flour, but for the filling I added about a third cup of pumpkin puree and took out 1 egg and the water.  It’s got just a touch of pumpkin-y flavor when it’s done and it smells heavenly while it’s baking!

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Tagged: food, Homeschooling, Seasons

This Morning in Pictures

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I can’t get Churchill his breakfast fast enough.

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At this point, the sheep have realized what trickery is afoot.  I used feeding time to pen them into the small paddock to wait for Dr. Grover to come take some blood for routine testing.

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Suspicious Alabama is suspicious.

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Angry Bertie.  She is not a fan of being handled.  Or having blood drawn.  Or the further injustice of getting a dose of wormer.

Aside from the bloodwork (to test for fairly common goat and sheep viruses) the flock has a clean bill of health.  That’s enough for a happy Friday!


Tagged: Farm, Pets

Shepherd Sweater Update

Well that was a pointless interlude – Paul came home, took one look at my computer, rebooted it, and it was good to go.  No data loss, nothing.

Figures.

This is why I never, ever try to fix anything without first asking.

Anyhoo….

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Here’s how my Shepherd Sweater is coming along!

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It looks so cozy and comforting, like a hot bowl of your favorite oatmeal on a cold winter morning.

I am so glad I chose to knit the Shepherd version (besides the fact that being a shepherd made me feel like it was necessary); the cables have been so much fun and not too fiddly at all.  I did go down several needle sizes – to size 5′s – but I am using completely different yarn than the pattern calls for (I am using wool that came off the very backs of the animals I’ve been caring for) and my gauge is still a tad larger than it should be.  I went down a sweater size to accommodate the difference and it seems to be working splendidly!

I may even knit this again in another color.

It’s that good.


Tagged: Knitting

And Then My Computer Crashed

I had planned a knitting-filled blogpost with picture updates of my Shepherd Sweater, and then my computer crashed.   This post is brought to you via my iPad, which, trust me, is terrible to blog from.

I am a little worried because it looks like my backup drive may not have been doing its job since mid-Octobwhen and I’ve uploaded nearly 1,000 pictures since then.

But, I probably can’t complain too much.  After all, since I’ve been using a Mac I have only had this problem once, and I switched over from PC a few years ago.

About my sweater : I’m about 10″ in, and still going strong.  The cables have been a lot of fun and it’s keeping my interest.  I even managed to knit a bit while getting caught up on The Walking Dead. 

We are still working on getting everything winter-ready as well.  The flock is in their smaller paddock for the winter, the ducks are in a new little house, the porch railings have been painted.  Everyone is getting wormed this week – the flock, the chickens, ducks and goose, even the dogs.  The vet is coming Friday to check everyone out one last time before he retires from farm animal medicine.

It’s a busy time, so the fact that I have managed so much knitting is nothing short of a miracle.  I may even try to get around to dyeing some sock yarn tomorrow!

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Tagged: Farm, Knitting

Happy Halloween!!!!!

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Pigs and Pumpkins

Because even pigs like fall – themed treats!

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Tagged: Farm, Seasons

Happy Temperatures

It’s been downright chilly here for October in Virginia.  We had a frost last night and are expecting another tonight!

The fireplace is in use full time now, the handknits are out, the apple cider is being consumed hot.  There’s a lovely nip in the air, which is heavily scented with woodsmoke lately.

The flock is in weather nirvana!

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Georgia

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Georgia and Nanny McPhee

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Alabama thinks I have food, so he is willing to let me take his picture.

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Willoughby and Bennett, making a rare appearance (they are pretty wary of people).

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Thomas.

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Caramel

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I’m going to curl up by the fire with some spicy gingerale and work on my Shepherd Sweater now.  Stay cozy!


Tagged: Farm, Pets

Apple Cider Doughnuts

You all know how much I love King Arthur Flour, right?  They have some of the best recipes on their site, and the best ingredients with which to make them (no I am not getting paid to say that!).

So it’s no surprise that I am on their website frequently.   While browsing last week I came across a recipe for Apple Cider Doughnuts.

Well, of course I had to try them!  And though generally I am a food purist and would prefer my doughnuts as nature intended them – fried – I was willing to try them out baked.  After all, less fat, right?

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These two ingredients are this recipes secret weapons of flavor.  Boiled Cider and applesauce (I used my own, made with the ninety billion pounds of apples we picked).

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The batter worked up very quickly, and gets plopped into the doughnut pan (it was like $10 at Bed Bath & Beyond).

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After baking, I slid them all out of the pan and then they had a bath in cinnamon and sugar.

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The sugar mixture sticks best if they’re put it in directly from the oven.

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I made about 18 doughnuts in all.  Though it was hard to keep an accurate count because they kept getting eaten!

In all, the only real disappointment wasn’t taste – related.  I adore the smell of cider donuts wafting on the breeze at the orchard while they’re being fried.  Sadly, my house did not smell that way while baking these.  But the flavor was right and even though they’re not *quite* as delectable as fried doughnuts, they are a super, serious, amazingly close second.

We’ll be making these again.


Tagged: food, Seasons

Halloween Socks!

Finally!

After casting these on a year ago, putting them down to finish other projects and waiting for substitute yarn to arrive, I finished them!

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The sock on the left was finished last October.  The one on the right……….

The pattern is Little Pumpkins, which was a joy to work.  The yarn is Socks That Rock, mostly in colorway “Rocky Horror”.  Mostly.  Until I’d gotten halfway through the foot on the right sock and realized all that cabling meant I wasn’t going to have enough yarn to finish.  After I died a little inside I checked the website to find that that colorway was on hiatus.  BUT there was another colorway, “Go Beavs” that was pretty similar.  Since it was only going to be the toe, really, I figured it would have to do, so I ordered it.

And proceeded to wait nearly a month for it to arrive.

They dye their yarn to order – which is lovely – except that I’ve seen Lauria and Susan and Tanya dye hundreds and hundreds of hanks of yarn and get them shipped out in less than 2 weeks.  And with the clock ticking down towards Halloween I was becoming annoyed that my Halloween socks would yet again not be ready in time.

Then, miracle of miracles, it finally arrived yesterday, and was almost an exact match for color!

I did have some pooling in the foot at the end, but you know what?  They’re done.  And honestly, you can see the pumpkin design much better in the areas where the color is pooled rather than striped.

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And did I mention they are DONE???

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Now I can focus all of my knitterly attention on my Shepherd sweater.

In other seasonal news, the persimmon tree is fruiting!!!

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Isn’t fall grand?


Tagged: Knitting, Seasons