Life With The Crew

Hello Out There!

Hello out there!  I feel like I'm speaking to an audience of just myself, since everyone has migrated to the land of IG (myself included - I'm a sucker for peaceful photos of country houses and landscapes that are so different from my own.)  However, my daughter's 10th birthday was last week, a decade of life being a rather big milestone, so I thought it was fitting that I pop back in here to commemorate it.  While looking back to see when I first started sharing in this space - 9 years ago and 1 month - I found the first post I wrote and thought I'd share it again.

"Let's see, what happened today.  Cleaned, made cookies, walked the dogs, oh yeah, and almost lost a chicken.  The question I ask - Why jump the fence?  The chickens have to know the dogs are out there.  But they still do it.  So I go flying out the back door and try to find something to break up the massacre.  The wheelbarrow is right there, so I throw the wheelbarrow onto the mass of fur and feathers and drag the first set of dogs into the house.  Then throw the third one into the dog crate that happens to be on the back deck, and that only leaves one left, who screams like a baby when I barely touch his collar.  Amazingly, the chicken is fine and gets tossed back over the fence.  So back inside, wash my hands, and continue the dishes.  Barely broke a sweat on that one."

The "crew" is significantly smaller since I wrote that post.  We only have 2 dogs left - our Romanian rescue Wallace and our 16 year old Corgi, Lola.  We adopted a kitten last Fall named Tiny Tim, we still have a yard of ducks and chickens, and we just acquired a new Lop rabbit and a guinea pig.  My beloved Angora rabbit, Flora, was with us five years until two weeks ago and I miss her little happy furry face.  

The newest members:

We also have three horses that are kept at a boarding stable, so our outside crew has grown while the inside one has shrunk.  Shaya, the Haflinger mare, is the newest addition adopted last year, from Gentle Giants Draft Horse Rescue.  

My hobbies haven't changed that much - gardening, knitting, and spending time in the woods.  I sell my knitted items on Etsy.  My daughter and I spend a lot of time at the barn with the horses and love riding in the field and woods.  

I'm glad to have this space to look back and remember the adventures of parenthood and pets.  

 

An August Morning in Blooms

It has been several months since I've visited this space.  Not for any one particular reason, just life.  But this morning we didn't have anywhere to go, the not so little babe who will always be my babe, was lounging in bed reading, and the sunlight was looking lovely.  And when I was out there puttering in the flowerbed with my camera, it felt good and I think I felt some stress melt away. 

The past couple days have been hot, while the nights are cooler and I think there is a very early feeling of that season to come.  August here means homegrown tomatoes, pesto making, backyard bouquets, happy pollinators on the native plants that only come into their own this month, Red-tailed hawks circling and screaming overhead during the heat of the day, good book reading in the afternoons (well that is anytime of the year actually), and cooling baths for the horses.  I've been filling up various containers of water around the yard every morning for the birds and insects, along with the large containers for the ducks.  I feel slightly guilty when I have as much water available as I want, when so many in the world have to hope for theirs.

I'm thankful for what I have.

Snow Squalls, Seeds, Stories, and Sweaters

Today was a great day and the past week was productive!  For the past three weeks, we have been doing Sunday family mornings at the barn and ending our ring work with a trail ride up the hill and into the woods.  With each week, the new pony gets more used to being a little girl's pony instead of an adult eventing pony.  Kermit's worse habit is having roaming lips - that includes grass, clothing, and whatever else is in reach.  I am not used to such a grabby horse (my own horse is a well refined gentleman TB) and Kermit's soft loose lips are both amusing and annoying.  However, he is very tolerant and lets the small person on his back move all around up there, doing around the world, riding without stirrups, attempting to ride without reins and stirrups...

It was a productive week in the garden, despite the snow squalls.  I was lucky to get my seed order in at High Mowing Seeds before they shut down new orders until the end of the month.  My potato order from Wood Prairie Farm way up in Maine near the Canadian border arrived super quick!  And I was able to place a pick-up order at my local flower shop for onion sets, so the garden is filling up pretty quickly.  Greens, spinach, potatoes, beets, carrots.  Because the Winter was mild, I had some carrots over winter and their leafy green tops bring some cheery green to the otherwise bare garden.  The garlic crop is already 5 inches high and it looks like most of the herbs survived.  Comfrey is taking over my yard!  I knew that it spread when I planted it, but the extent of the spreading is crazy.  Oh well, it is good for the soil when it decomposes and it gets very pretty little blue flowers in early Summer.

On the knitting front, I completed an open front cardigan for girls size 4-5T with an owl design.  I used O-Wool's Balance yarn, a mix of organic cotton and Merino wool and I am now a convert.  I don't like straight cotton - too crunchy for my liking - but this yarn is very soft with a nice drape.  If you're interested, it is listed in my Etsy shop.  Also, I sent out my first custom order and received a positive review, so YEAH!!

There are of course changes that we are dealing with, but overall, life is good.  We have chickens to play with, great audiobooks for free (Alice in Wonderland and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm were two from this week), horses to ride, and woods to explore.  I hope you are able to find something good in each day.

 

A Special Request

I had a special request this morning for a blog post, so here it is. 

Monday morning, the rising sun is shining in the window, so strong that I have to line myself up in the right position behind the window trim so that I can look at the computer facing the window.  It is only the last week of February, so the woodstove is keeping us warm.  Normally it is still burning into the beginning of April, but we'll see what happens in this strangely warm year.  We heard a Mourning Dove calling last week and the Starlings made the first attack on the House Sparrow nesting boxes already.  At the barn yesterday, there were two starlings inside the ring, making Frank extremely nervous with their maniacal cackles.  

We are listening to one of the American Girls audiobooks - "Kit", which is about a girl growing up during the Great Depression.  As with all of the AG stories, they are very well written and historically factual.  Each story ends with information about the time period - I always learn things too!  Forget the expensive American Girl vinyl dolls - the books are fantastic educational entertainment.  

The pictures below are of our very bold chicken.  It is now a daily occurrence to see her walking the fence line.  I actually saw her walk from the far side of the gate, along the top of the gate, and all the way over to the shed door where I swear she gave it the beady eyeball as if calculating if she could somehow get inside (where the birdseed is kept).  I should clip her wings, but she amuses me and the dogs are now too old to really care.

Happy Monday everyone and a special hello to my devoted reader!  

Oh, and I almost forgot, I have a new merino wool shawl in my Etsy shop!  

The End of January

The last week of January has been a good one.  The coat of slick ice in the backyard is slowly melting.  Chip, our old dog with sensitive feet, gets carried to the small patches of grass every time he goes out.  He shivers and whimpers miserably, but wouldn't tolerate us putting boots on his feet.  The babe and I went to the arboretum yesterday, on a sunny winter day, and were surprised to see that all of the perennial "pollinator gardens" have been torn out, leveled into a construction site in the process of making a better pollinator area which will attract "all of the region's native pollinators".  A lofty goal and a worthy cause, but still, it is hard to see gardens reduced to nothing.  I wonder what they did with the perennials - goldenrod, bee balm, and wild sunflower-like plants that rose 8 feet tall.  It was a fantastic place in the height of Summer - I always imagined how many insects were moving around me when I stood there. 

The gardens were pretty barren, cut down and cleaned up, waiting for Spring.  Compared with my gardens, where I let most of the stalks and leaves remain until Spring (critter habitat), this was almost eerily bare.  We did find a lot of Praying Mantis egg cases (about a dozen) and the glass house was open, where they have wonderful displays about nature and small activities for kids.  It is a really nice (warm!) place to visit on a sunny Winter weekday - we had the place to ourselves.

I will leave you with two pictures from the homestead - homemade soft pretzels and January's harvest of parsnips.  I made the pretzels the right way this time, boiling them first in water and baking soda, and they got really good.  However, the thing about soft pretzels is that they are really only good first out of the oven, so partaking in a carb overload is required.

September Cruising

It is a beautiful September day here in Pennsylvania.  We just had a really nice morning walk in the forest with friends - a perk of homeschooling - weekday mornings in the woods are pretty quiet!  We saw a tiny toad, tons of mushrooms that have shot up recently with the cooler wet weather, and plenty of acorns, walnuts, and hickory nuts.  The leaves are slowly changing, though the main color is still green.  In the garden, I still have cukes coming along.  My tomatoes are being eaten by stink bugs!  I have never had them be a garden pest before, just an inside annoyance.   My large mystery pumpkin is still growing.  I am crossing my fingers that it is a Jarrahdale Blue, but I'm not sure.  I planted several types of pumpkins in a scattershot approach to see what evaded the chipmunks.  My garlic chives are now in full bloom and the bees are happy!  These are from seeds that a lovely person sent me in the mail a couple of years ago.  I am so sorry that I cannot remember your name, but if you are reading this - thank you!  I love them and yes, they sure do spread!

The little babe and I are in a good rhythm now.  We have a nice mix of activities, indoor learning, reading time, and free time for her.  I have discovered some fun homeschooling activities/curriculums and it is fun to see her get excited.  I thought I would share two of the new things we are trying.  KiwiCo offers mail order hands-on learning kits and they sucked me in through their FB ads.  I ignored it for a couple months, but finally checked them out and am glad I did.  We have the geography subscription and the little babe can't wait for the next one to arrive.  They offer science, art, and geography kits for all ages and would be great for any kid, not just for homeschoolers.  Our neighbor introduced us to Teaching Textbooks.  They provide a fun interactive math program for kids.  The little babe actually enjoys doing it!  

So September is cruising along smoothly.

Four

Several times during the past week I have intended to sit down and write a blog post.  But then the day gets filled and there was no time.  Which is fine, really, and as it should be.  It makes me smile though to think back on all the free time I somehow had when the little babe was actually little and I wrote multiple blog posts a week.  Crazy.  However, our days are filled with goodness now and if I have less time to document it because I am actually doing it, that is fine.  And so many of the things that make up life now wouldn't necessarily make for a good photo, so let me tell you about some of them and you can make up your own image.

~Four quarts of homemade pickles in my fridge.  I have always struck out with cucumbers for some reason, but this reason I am the cucumber queen!  I have about ten vines and have never eaten so many cucumbers in my life.  My favorite way is super simple:  chopped cukes, hunks of feta cheese, a splash of olive oil and red wine vinegar, and a pinch of salt and pepper.  Crunch!

~Four skeins of silvery mouse gray bulky wool squashed into a bag with one skein of super bright pink bulky.  My next knitting project is the Mini Meow for my little cat lover.  After this, I will need something very neutral and soothing...

~Four milkshakes consumed by the little babe and I during four days at two different agriculture fairs in the area.  There were interesting horse events at both and we had a good time.  Did you know that you could get a "twist" milkshake (choc on bottom, vanilla on top)?  Yum!

~Four hooves jumping over low crossrails with a rider who has not jumped in twenty years.  Frank and I have started jumping and we are having a great time.  My smart old man knows exactly what to do and enjoys doing it - I simply have to point him in the right direction and hang on.  It isn't pretty, but it makes me smile.

~Four months left in this year.  September is almost here:  the sun is sinking earlier, even the little babe noticed it.  The mornings are cooler with more dew on the ground.  The tomato plants are still producing, but have slowed down.  The pumpkin vines are still vigorously taking over the trellis though.  

All good things.  Happy weekend folks.

 

No Vampires Here

Along with it being strawberry season, it is scape season too!  I always laugh when I remember back 14 years ago, when my husband and I were in our first apartment and we received a bag of garlic scapes in our CSA box.  (The scapes are the top part of the garlic plant that will form a flower.  You don't want this to happen, because then the energy will go into forming those seeds and not into the garlic bulb.)  We both said, "What the heck are those?!" and then set them aside, to linger in the box until we threw them out.  So awful.  Flash forward to now, and on Wednesday night we had a wonderful dinner of linguini topped with homemade garlic scape pesto along with crisp salad from my garden.  For the pesto, I combined a lot of scapes with a handful of kale leaves, then walnuts, pecorino, and olive oil.  It was pungent and very garlicky - perfect for scaring away vampires!  I have three containers in the freezer, so in the depths of winter, this green garden goodness will be a nice change from root veggie soups.

What have you been picking in your garden lately?

 

Cheering Up With Some Color

Monday morning, wild and windy outside.  I can't believe that it will be March by the end of the week.  Winter is definitely not over yet, but still, March seems like a turning point.  I heard the first Mourning Doves of the Spring yesterday, they were calling in our big Spruce.  I was looking at my bird list from last year and saw that I heard them first on February 16th, so a week later now.  I started my new bird list - I am up to 29 different species so far this year.  We found a good book at the library called, "The Robin Makes a Laughing Sound" by Sallie Wolf.  It is a birding journal that has a good mix of poetry, art, and bird facts in a fun format.  The little babe enjoyed it as much as I did.  It is a good introduction to nature journaling for kids.

Speaking of birds, our Little Red Hen died on Saturday.  She had been slowing down last week and on Saturday, she refused food and went into hunched over slump position - the sure sign of death for a chicken.  I made sure she was safe in the coop and the other chickens were not bothering her.  I found her shortly after she died.  She was a good Little Red Hen, spunky when she was younger.  

I am glad that she died on Saturday when the temps were mild.  Last night it dropped below freezing again and crazing gusting winds started up.  We woke this morning to a yard littered with branches and detritus - it looked like the trees waged a major battle overnight.  So today is a quiet inside day.  There is some workbooks to do, a new knitting project to start, tea to drink, and then a trip to the animal chiropractor/acupuncturist for Ruby, our dog with liver issues.  There are also brightly colored oatmeal beet chocolate chip cookies - they taste much better than they sound.  The little babe loves them!  Their bright color is a pretty contrast to the white outside.

Enjoy!  A new week has begun.

Warmth During the Cold

It is a bit chilly around here, but nothing unbearable.  It means I check on the chickens more often, taking them extra bread snacks.  I'm drinking more tea, which gets cold more quickly.  I'm worrying about my old man at the barn, but I know he is in good hands.  I'm carrying out the old dog with sensitive feet, ordering him to go to the bathroom while his feet freeze and burn.  The little babe and I completed our first 500 piece puzzle yesterday.  It arrived just in time for the deep freeze days.  If anyone is interested in puzzles, this Songbird one by Mudpuppy is a really bright and fun one.  I finished a custom Nutkin sweater and am working on a bonnet.  The dogs and cats are rotating through the hot spot in front of the fire.  We occasionally smell something awful and realize that Molokai (a not very smart cat) has gotten too close to the woodstove again. 

It is supposed to warm up tomorrow, back to normal Winter conditions.  January will be over; February will begin.  Another month of taking it easy, hoping my back is healing.  At least my fingers can keep busy.  

I hope you can find something bright in your day - warmth comes in many forms.