Happy Thanksgiving

 

Thanksgiving is fast approaching. The weather had tricked me into thinking we had more time.

The news is frightening, the world is spiraling out of control and there is talk of WW3.

Thankfully the poets have found the words that I am unable to find as my thoughts are all a jumble.

So this Thanksgiving besides my wonderful family, I am thankful...

For each new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food,
For love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

And I wish for all of you to find the peace of the wild things....

The Peace of Wild Things ~ Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Apples R Us

"Take the fruit I give you," says the bending tree.
"Nothing but a burden is it all to me.
Lighten ye my branches; let them toss in air!
Only leave me freedom next year’s load to bear."
~Lucy Larcom (1824–93)


We seriously took this to heart. It was an amazing year for apples. The man got me this load....

and I made apple butter, applesauce, apple pie filling.
　
Then he went back again for another load....and the whole family got to work making cider. The grandsons loved making and drinking it. It has been deemed a new yearly tradition to do with them.

Then a guy hubby works with gave him 6 bags and a tote full of apples...and I made him some apple cider

Then same guy came in with 6 more bags....and I made him some apple fruit rolls ups, apple/cherry fruit rolls ups and apple/blueberry fruit roll ups.

And then same guy came in with a 4 ft long ice chest of apples and 3 more bags...... I am not making him a thing as every time I do he brings more! I asked my husband why he didn't just say no and he said because the guy went through all the trouble of picking them. When the snow comes and I am sure of not getting anymore apples I will make him a basket of apple products as a thank you.

I must say he has some beautiful apples, they are so red that they are almost black,

but I am exhausted trying to find things to do with them. I have dumped some on friends but they are sick of them now too.   I can't stand to see waste so we will be eating a lot of applesauce and drinking a lot of cider....198 quarts that I canned for apple juice so far.

The colder temperatures had us lighting the woodstove for the first time Saturday night the 17th. It was our first frost and freeze and officially ended the garden. We had a fire again on the 18th and now we are back to 70's during the day and 40's at night so no more fire until needed. The freeze made a lot of leaves drop but I was able to get pictures of some of their glory.

 

I put apples aside and went to Rhinebeck this past Sunday. I had not been there since 2013 and I must say I was disappointed. Vendors I was looking for have folded up shop, a lot less spinning oriented and more yarn. I was use to seeing shelves with roving balls, tub after tub of roving, booths with several wheels to test drive, loads of carders/skeinwinder or bags upon bags of fleece. Outside the building with the fleece competiton/sale there were only a few that had a fleece or two for sale.

I did not walk away empty handed....I procured 12 oz of cormo pencil roving, some rootbeer float fudge (for #2 daughter), clover honey, small container of feta pesto, and a pair of alpaca socks for the man.

The weekend before we had the grandsons for a sleepover while their parents celebrated their 5th wedding anniversary. It went very well. They painted two pumpkins each and took them home. Toddler B is very diligent and attacked his pumpkins with such focus and complete coverage. Toddler O is very tidy and didn't like it when he got paint on his hands when turning the pumpkin. They helped with the morning chores and ate like horses. It has been along time without little kids underfoot so we were exhausted when they left!

And time before that I was trying to get pictures of the eclipse. I was able to get some regardless of the clouds until almost full eclipse and then it was total cloud coverage.

So we are about ready for the snowy weather. The sheep are sheared and there is hay in the barn. The turkeys took a short ride. #2 son said they would weigh in at 25 and 18...they ate well and weighed a shocking 37 and 24!

The only thing that has to be done still is butchering the pigs and the longer the weather is above normal the longer they will be with us. This year also saw a bounty of acorns and they are eating their fill. They have an acorn fairy that leaves feed bags of acorns by the milkhouse for them. 

I have been knitting very little but I expect that to pick up once the apples are done.  So until I have something fibery to show I will leave you with this little anomaly....

a road in PA without potholes....or political advertisements!



　

　
　

OMG A year has gone by!!!!!

 
 
The mind ought sometimes to be diverted that it may return to better thinking. ~ Phaedrus

I find it funny that I should return to this blog almost a year to the day. Diversion didn't produce any better thinking but I guess it is true that I do love this time of year. Summer keeps me tied to the garden or the stove canning but when September rolls around I know the end is in sight. I have only to do apples

and sauerkraut and then I get a much needed rest.

Unlike last year the temperatures are above normal. The mornings however are wonderful. A cool fog shrouds the mountains.

 

Unexpected visitors were resting in a tree above the chicken coop. 

 

He did not like his picture taken so flew to a fence post,

 

when that didn't stop me he finally flew to a tree on the mountain. While the pigs were too busy doing their pig thing to notice,

the coop residents would not have liked the visit.

Not much has changed since a year ago. I am still working on the genealogy. I missed a family reunion because the car's (7 more payments but no more warranty) engine died. I also missed the Endless Sheep and Wool again but will be at Rhinebeck.

I did get a great deal on a 30 x 100 foot greenhouse frame. While too much space for my growing purposes, we intend to put part by the garden and the rest will be used for housing animals and storage for tractor and implements.

#1 daughter and Sir T are house hunting. They found a great house but the owners will not work with them, to the point that even the homeowners realtor thinks her clients are unreasonable. So the hunt goes on. The grandkids are getting so big. O starts kindergarten next September which seems impossible. B will be lost without him.

#1 son had a horrible snowmobile accident this past winter while riding with A.....seven broken ribs, three were broken multiple times, broken sternum, broken collar bone, two punctured lungs one collapsed, and a concussion. He subsequently sold his snowmobile but when Spring came they bought the fastest side by side quad to ride. He turned 30 this Spring so healing wont be as fast something he should keep in mind.

#2 son had long wanted to join the marines. Unfortunately he is PDQ because of his hearing. He was always getting ear infections as a kid and had ruptured his ear drum multiple times because of them. He tried for a waiver since he is only off by one frequency but the Marines are not offering waivers at this time. So he started working at the same place #1 son and husband work and will celebrate his one year anniversary there in a couple of weeks.

#2 daughter is working as a CNA at an area nursing home. She loves it but being the mom I worry about her driving as she works 3-11 pm and during the winter they don't always work on the roads at night. In a little over a month she turns 21. How time flies.

As with all gardening years, something's grow and something's don't. It was a great year for peas and summer squash but tomatoes were indecisive. They are loaded with buds now that it is time to pull them! A new thing this year is cotton!!!!!

 

I was given three plants and they had gorgeous flowers and then the boles started. I can't wait to harvest and plant more next year.

Even the farm is pretty much the same. We got three pigs to raise again this year.

We got a couple of turkeys.

A friend got chickens and ducks but his landlord nixed the ducks so he gave them to us.

I am in the sporadic funk with knitting but I have been spinning a lot. I washed a fleece today so as the weather gets cooler I will have plenty to card/dye/spin.

And that about wraps up the year! Pretty boring to put on paper but in real time it has had some pretty good moments.

A chill in the air

“Autumn has caught us in our summer wear” 

~ Philip Larkin

While not yet Autumn, Sunday I could not get warm.  The weather has definitely cooled down (like 10 degrees below normal) and the a/c units are out of the windows.  Along with Spring this is my favorite time of the year.

A walk along the barn road shows dead leaves starting to accumulate along its edge.  

 A look up into the woods and you notice the trees have lost their vibrant green.  They now wear coats of army green and drab olive.  Soon they will be vibrant again in hues of red, orange and yellow.  The wildflowers or weeds depending on who is talking are blooming.

The multi-flora rosehips are turning red.  

 The hops are past their prime.  

 The acorns are plentiful and the black walnuts 

are making walking across the yard without turning your ankle an impossible feat.

Autumn seems in a rush this year.  The bear is a regular visitor as he tries to put on his winter weight.  The puppy doesn’t like him!  He growls with his hackles up while walking from door to door.  Something took down one of the fawns in the field.  It took ½ one night and ½ the next.  We believe it is the coyotes which are getting to be nightly visitors on the mountain behind us….another thing the puppy doesn’t like!  A small buck was in the yard yesterday, the velvet is off his antlers and his neck looked like it had already started to swell.  And at the man’s worksite there were deep marks of hooves being shoved in the dirt where two bucks had been fighting. 

I have spent the last month canning, knitting and working on the genealogy. A friend knew my tomatoes were not producing what I needed and picked me up 125# from a farm near where he works.  I was kept busy enough that I missed the Endless Mt Fiber Fest. 

I did however enter into their completion and I won on both entries!!!!!  Cyndi from Riverrim was nice enough to take them up for me as she vends there with Grace Hatton.  This year’s project was a cowl.  I entered a crocheted version 

(Main Street byKrista Wolf) which won first place and a knit version 

(Beaded smoke Ring by Jackie Erickson-Schweitzer with a few changes due to time restrictions) which won third place!  I know it’s not like entering into a huge competition such as MD Sheep & Wool or Rhinebeck but its fun.

But back to the gardening/canning….With the addition of the 125# of tomatoes, my  shelves are now stocked with all the BBQ sauce, chili sauce, salsa, bruschetta in a jar, rotel tomatoes, crushed tomatoes, tomato sauce and V8 that I need to get through the year.  The green beans which were late to start are still producing.  I slowed down picking so I can save seed for next year.  The summer squash were nothing to write about but the winter squash are doing fantastic.  I planted two spaghetti and one LI Cheese in the regular garden and I must have 10 spaghetti squash still out there and three cheese.  Up by the barn in a manure pile I also planted one LI cheese, 1 striped cushaw and some saved seed from a sugar pie pumpkin I got from Walmart last year.  I intended to keep moving the fence but the vines soon grew through the roll so I couldn’t move it without breaking the vines. 

However I have four cheese, three cushaw and some sugar pie’s.  The chickens have discovered the sugar pie and are pecking at them.  I had to wrap the others that are growing outside the fence in old feed bags so as not to lose them.

We went blueberry picking in August at Herrick Hill Huckleberry Farm and it was awesome. Toddler O kept eating and every time we asked him how many berries he picked and put in his bucket the answer was three.  His brother Baby B went from person to person, stomped his foot, grunted, put his hand out and waited for it to be filled. We brought home 30 pounds.  I froze some, and then canned blueberry/lime jam, blueberry syrup and blueberry pie filling. This past weekend we went apple picking at Roba’s.  You can quickly fill a ½ bushel as the trees are loaded 

so it wasn’t as much fun as berry picking for the adults or the grandkids.  Closer to Halloween we will go back pumpkin picking and after looking at their cut your own Christmas trees we might have to get our tree there this year. And did you know there are less than 100 days until Christmas?

And in genealogy…I got back into it after being contacted by a relative on my father’s side.  This past week I contacted someone about my grandmother’s sister (or daughter as has always been assumed) on my mom’s side and it ended up being her granddaughter.  Now maybe we can make some head way on our great grandparents.  

And that about wraps it up.  

A thousand fibers connect us

 “We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects.” 

                                       ~ Herman Melville

On Wednesday, childhood friends of mine, a brother and sister, lost a very small but important person in their lives; his first grandchild and her great niece. This baby had been so highly anticipated.  Their whole family looked up on this little girl as a happy new beginning as they had been devastated by the loss of his wife a couple of years ago.  They knew there might be problems but hope reigned eternal but it was not to be.  She lived 17 short hours but the joy she brought during that time was insurmountable.

Even though my daughter keeps busting on me I hadn’t been posting anymore as it all seemed pointless, writing about the same things year after year as I live a very mundane, by most standards, life.  I don’t believe I know enough to tell people how to do things, I am not trying to sell things and the blog an extension of that;  it was just my ramblings, an online journal of sorts, and until Ravelry a central place to post pictures of projects.  But today I was thinking of the baby and I remember reading the book The Five People You Meet in Heaven where Eddie learns that there are no random events in life and all individuals and experiences are connected in some way.   This baby came into the world for 17 short hours, impacted people’s lives and although she may be gone, her story is not yet finished.  If the premise is true that we do just randomly touch another life, that we say or do something that unbeknownst to us effects others than I guess I can continue to throw words on paper (or screen).  Maybe when I get to heaven (fingers crossed)I might find out somebody found something in those words.

So a quick round up of life from April when the trees were starting to leaf out until today’s walk to the barn where I was walking upon fallen leaves every other step….

Toddler O turned 3 and is amazing.  I have heard it said that they get that from their grandmother and who am I to argue!!!  Oh and I am not one bit prejudice.

We hatched out our own chickens for the first time…what fun.  The second hatch was tampered with and the temperature got up too high so we will try again next spring.  We also got three pigs to raise.  It was hard finding them and costly when we did but with the prices rising we were told we will come out ahead.  Time will tell I guess.  We plan to butcher in late September or October.  And after losing four turkeys to a raccoon we finally found four more so Thanksgiving dinner is still on!

#2 daughter graduated and is now a licensed CNA.  She was offered a job but it was taking care of 36 people, alone.  A daunting task for even a more mature experienced individual and so she turned it down.  Yesterday she got a call from the place she did her residency at with a job offer so fingers crossed all works out.  Her training did come in handy when she was walking by the neighbors and he had caught himself on fire.  She was able to get the flames out, call 911 and help his wife take care of him until the ambulance got there.  

Our efforts, feeding the deer this past winter paid off with some awesome little fawns.  I have seen two sets of twins and #2 daughter saw a set of triplets. 

 

#2 son graduated from high school and has been going to Marine PT every Wednesday night to lose weight so he can officially join the Marines.  If all goes as planned he leaves in March.  This means that come September when school starts I will not have any children in school for the first time in 27 years!  No more backpacks, notebooks, pens and pencils and no more packing lunch each and every day!!!!!  Part of me is happy and part of me sad.  But in two more years Toddler O starts school so I can take him school shopping.

#1 daughter and Sir T moved closer!  He accepted a job and they now live 40 minutes away! Although he took a cut in his gross pay moving from Philly he actually brings home more because of less taxes and the company pays his insurance!  They are renting for now while they scout the area for a house to buy.  It is wonderful having them so close.  We have family (all my children together!!!) dinner every Sunday and I am usually up their way once a week.  We even got to take the grandkids to their first county fair and Toddler O loves rollercoaster’s!  Baby B was too small for most rides but did get a go on the little race cars and was ear to ear grinning the whole time.  He also indulged in some chocolate covered bacon, peanut butter covered bacon, fries and cheese and a blooming onion.  I have to say those kids love to eat and will try anything.

I turned the big 50 and the kids threw me a surprise party.  Rotten children…actually it was nice, I didn’t have to do any of the cooking/baking or the cleanup!!!   Then the next day I was told we were going berry picking and we ended up at a dog shelter where I acquired a new puppy.  They thought it was time and I had been looking.   He is a mutt that was returned supposedly because the man lost his job …or could it be puppy has some bad habits… but he loves kids (good for the grandkids).  He is four months old so we can work with him on his bad habits.  Mom was a boxer/beagle and dad was a lab/hound.  His name was Buddy but a neighbor has a dog with the same name.  While they don’t live close if they call their dog I can hear it and I didn’t want him to run across a road to them by mistake or vise versa so his new name is Huckleberry since that is what we were supposed to be picking.

The man bought himself a tractor!  He has been wanting to buy one but I didn’t want the debt.  So I asked him if he would rather a newer truck or the tractor thinking he would say the truck but he didn’t.  Then he got a raise at work and it covers the cost so he has a brand new Kioti and his to do list just got longer!  And every time I think of the tractor the song "She thinks my tractor's sexy" runs through my mind.

Ancestry sent me an email with a great offer so I am back to working on my genealogy.  It is something my mother and I started but most information was lost on an old computer.  It is a huge time suck but I figure I will work on it and if any of the kids are interested later on, it will be there for them.

My garden is abysmal this year...well maybe that is a little harsh.  I had lots of Nanking cherries after I covered them from the birds, the peppers are doing good, the beans are just coming in, the winter squash/pumpkins look like they will be awesome, the cabbages look like they will need to be shredded for kraut soon so they don’t split from the recent rain, the potatoes are going strong but the tomatoes were awful.  Tomatoes are a huge staple for us.  They are our spaghetti and BBQ sauce, soup, V8, salsa, stewed tomatoes, etc etc etc so their loss is a huge hit to my canning totals.  

In the fiber arena not much is happening.  I did get my wool back from a local processor.  I love the way the roving comes back and it is a dream to spin but she leaves a little too much lanolin in for my taste.  And although it was costly I did get some spun into worsted and dk weight.  It is nice to be able to knit and not spin my own wool.

Work continues on the house and yard, an endless process as I change flower gardens around.  We had some lumbering done on our property so all the tree tops are lying in the woods to be pulled out (with the tractor) cut up and stacked for firewood.  Thankfully we will have enough for us for a couple of years and be able to sell some to a friend.

And I guess that about sums up the missing time. I have to get out of my knitting funk as fall seems to be coming early this year and winter is sure to follow.  As a matter of fact only 19 weeks until Christmas, YIKES!