March Mountain Madness

     March is certainly going out like a lion. Last Sunday it snowed, Monday through  Wednesday it remained cold and flurried, last night it started raining and though it is supposed to be warmer today, it is going to rain all day with thunder storms this afternoon.
     It is time to get the pen prepared for the chicks, they are outgrowing the brooder and they aren't pleasant to smell in the house.  The brooder is in the basement rec room and it will take me a week to clean up the dust they have kicked up and at least a week to air out their smell once they are outdoors.  We upgraded to much larger feeder and waterer and they empty the water, a gallon size at least once a day.
     It is also time to get peas and early spring greens planted in the garden, but it needs to dry out a bit to work the soil.  The tomatoes and peppers must be started indoors now and the electric fence around the garden and orchard needs to be strung to keep the deer and dogs out.  None of the outdoor work can be done in the snow and rain and my shoulder that was injured more than 35 years ago was aggravated by last week's digging and this week's sleeping on a pad on the floor in Northern Virginia while babysitting our oldest grandson, so outdoor work is unappealling right now anyway.
     The little guy spent his entire spring break sick with a cold and just feeling puny.  We made one short trip in to the Natural History Museum at his  request, but his energy level was so low that we only lasted a couple of hours.  Most of our time was spent snuggling and reading or playing his beanbag toss game when he was perkier.
     We are seeing signs of spring, daffodils blooming in yards on the mountain, tree buds swelling, the forsythia looking like it might bloom soon.  Perhaps April will chase the tails of winter away and we can get on with being outdoors some.

The only photo he allowed to be taken while I was there.

 

S is for Spring. . .

Snow and sleet that is.  We are expecting up to 6 inches today and tonight.

And a chance to wear my newly finished sweater.

The sweater is Corriedale sport weight yarn from Bovidae Farms in Mars Hill, NC.  It was purchased last fall when I went to the SAFF 2012 in Asheville.  The pattern is Anne Budd's Top Down Raglan, made as a V-neck cardigan with wide button bands and finished with Dimensions Raku Clay fired buttons also from SAFF 2012.  Dimensions is located in Virginia Beach, where I lived before retiring to the mountains and the spring snow.

Orchard Day

     The first folks I met in the mountains after I moved here, that weren't neighbors or coworkers, were two young organic farmers and their very young, very shy daughter.  They are delightful people, that our eldest son had met at the farmer's market.  I have enjoyed produce from their farm, had several lovely pot luck dinners at their house, and have been the fortunate recipient, thanks to my loving hubby, of a season of their Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) flower share of 15 beautiful bouquets of locally grown flowers during the summer.  I am looking forward to this year's share as well.  They have expanded their farm to growing apple trees, grafting five different varieties.  This was the first year they were selling the trees and we bought five, two Daveys and three Liberty.  Our orchard had been started over the past couple of years with three peach trees, two of which began producing the first fruits.  Last year we added two Asian pears.   Two of the peaches are above the garden and compost bins and define the upper west corner of the garden area.  The third peach and the Asian Pears are to the east of the garden in an area that has been previously plowed, but not used as part of vegetable or berry plots.
     Yesterday the new apples trees were delivered and as we are under a winter storm warning and I am leaving hubby and the pups mid week to go to Northern Virginia to help with childcare for our eldest grandson, today seemed to be the only day in over a week that I could get them planted.  Unfortunately, hubby blew out his knee two weeks ago and reinjured it when we moved and leveled the chicken coop, so he couldn't help.  Bert, farmer friend, looked over my existing trees and showed me how to prune them and suggested getting the sod away from the trunks.  First thing this morning before we went to the Farmer's Market, I pruned the peaches.
     The plan involved using the tractor bucket to strip off 4 x 4' chunks of sod expanding the row that has the Asian Pears and a parallel row 20 feet to the east of them.  Next involved digging by hand, 5 new holes of substantial size, using a maddock and a shovel.  The compost pile was tapped to feed the new trees and also to top dress the older trees after hand stripping the sod from around them.  After the trees were planted, a layer of weed mat weighted down with rocks and more compost was placed around each tree until we can either get tree rings or straw to mulch them.
     The chilly, gray day ended with setting the posts for the electric fence, but I ran out of the electric wire, so I need to just hope that the deer don't discover the new trees before I can get and string more.

     As soon as our beef stew is finished and eaten, I plan a long hot soak in the bathtub.

Friday Traditions {5}

     Not snow this week, yesterday's is mostly gone and the weekend storm has yet to arrive.

These two were the same size less than 2 weeks ago when we bought them.  The one on the left outweighs the one on the right by about 3 times.

They take up much more space in the brooder now and we had to upgrade the size of the feeders and waters.

And their coop is now in the orchard awaiting the remainder of the fencing to pen the dogs and coyotes out.  And I'm sitting here awaiting the delivery of 5 new apple trees for the orchard.  They were grafted and grown right here in our county.

A Day in the Life of a Potential Hermit

     Yesterday was a dismal day.  It alternately snowed, drizzled freezing rain and flat out rained.  The predicted high of 41 was never even approached.  It was a good day to stay inside and work/craft.
     I finally called about the coop (see yesterday's rant) about 11:30 a.m. and was told the driver had some truck trouble (good excuse) and we were next on the list to be called (funny, we were the first delivery, so why not the first call), and it would be there between 1 and 2 and they would call first.  We needed chicken feed, gas for my car, and a couple of supplies for soap and body wash making, so we decided to make a dash to town, grab some lunch and do the quick errands.  WRONG.  We did get lunch and a call that the truck was on its way.  Quick dash back up the mountain, stood out in the frozen yuk, guided the truck to a position where he could get the coop close to where I wanted it and he refused to back the truck off the gravel.  The coop was unloaded at least 300 feet from where it shall live.  They did show me how to hook the tow straps to pull it, and we hope the tractor can haul it where it needs to go without tipping it over.
     Errands still to be done, we took a second, more leisurely jaunt back to town (about 15 miles each way) and accomplished the errands.  Once home, it was going to take an act of Congress to make me go out again.
     With supplies in hand, I made my last full batch of melt and pour soap, scented with cedar, rosemary, and red thyme, the preferred scent for eldest son and his family.  I will be spending a half week with them soon to help with some childcare issues while the nearly 8 year old is on spring break.  Trips to visit them usually involved a pasture raised meat purchase, a soap making session, and picking through home canned tomato products and peppers for their pantry.

 

     As I have become more concerned about what goes into the products that we use to clean our homes and our persons, I have over the years made changes.  The first changes were to quit using commercial house cleaning products, a jug of white vinegar, a bottle of castile soap, a box of baking soda and a good cloth will clean most anything.  Furniture polish needs be nothing more than a dab of olive oil or a rub of beeswax applied to give it a shine.
     Next up was the soap.  I found a good quality hemp oil based melt and pour base that listed all the ingredients, nothing sketchy, and a mold, some essential oils and we have soap.  Next batch will be cold pressed with oils of my choice.  That is a bit more challenging and will require the purchase of an immersion blender, dedicated only to soap making, and a bit more of my time, but it is a challenge I think I am now up to undertaking.
     Body wash and lotion were next on my list and yesterday was the first planned attempt.  Realizing that I had failed to locate one essential ingredient for the lotion or lotion bars, I had to put that on hold until the purified beeswax arrives, but body wash was a breeze to make, and I know every ingredient that went into it, better yet, I can pronounce them all.  The internet is such a wonderful resource.  Did you know that most commercial moisturizing body washes contain alcohol, a drying agent?
     At the rate I'm going, I fear I'll become a hermit living on our little homestead, growing my food, making my soap, spinning my yarn and avoiding all human contact. 

Schedulers

     Late last week, we received a call scheduling the delivery of the small chicken coop on a sled base that we had purchased on Tuesday.  And now we sit here in the house watching the snow and freezing drizzle and waiting.  The coop was to be picked up by their driver between 8:30 a.m. and 9 a.m.  We live about 20 minutes from where it was purchased and even if you don't know where you are going, they should have been here by now.  It could have been dragged behind a horse in this time.  By my calculations, they are over an hour late.  If the weather is a problem, a call to let us know would be nice.  Afterall, it is too wet for the truck to get anywhere close to where we want it placed.  If they ever arrive, I guess the coop will temporarily be deposited well above the garden at the gravel turn-around and we will drag it to its new location once the weather improves.

Changes

     With each season, the decorations on the porch and in front of the house change.  The fall brings pumpkins, mums, and corn shocks with a fall flag, the flag tradition began when the kids were small and there was one for each season, plus a birthday, Easter, Valentines (our anniversary), Thanksgiving, Christmas, and of course, an American.
     Thanksgiving changes only  the door wreath and the flag, one my husband picked out long ago.  This one always brings a chuckle and the repeated quote, "This year we fight back."  It is a turkey dressed as a pilgrim with a blunderbuss.
      For Christmas, the door wreath and flag represent the season, sometimes with sprigs of fir on the porch light and the posts of the porch.  There are also a chainsaw carved Santa and Snowman that bracket the door.
      After Christmas, Santa comes in and an old fashioned sled goes out, leaving the snowman until spring.  The winter flag is brought out and hangs for the next couple of months.  Of course, the snow shovel appears and disappears, the kids toboggans are brought out if the grands are visiting or if the power goes out and we have to haul water, but they are transient and not really part of the décor.
      By mid March, we are tired of winter, the snow if we receive it is generally sublimation snow or light snow showers, the rains have set in, it is too cold and wet to play in the garden, or walk the dogs most days.  They don't mind the weather and will play outdoors on our farm regardless of the weather, including playing in the muddy creek when I think it is too cold to even wash them down with the hose.  After a couple of spring like days, a short walk yesterday, as hubby's knee is bothering him, I decided it was time to put away winter.  The Snowman and sled were brought in; the winter flag taken down and it and a couple of others that are showing wear from flapping in the persistent wind the hollow generates, were brought to my sewing area and repaired before being put away for the year.
     As Easter is only a couple of weeks away, that flag was brought out and hung and the blown decorated eggs hung from the grapevine wreath on the door.  Perhaps I will buy some pansy plants to put in the porch side pots.  But today also brought the end of the early spring weather we have had this past week.  Today is cold and rainy, sleet and snow showers are due tomorrow morning and the temperatures are returning to freezing at night this week.

     Soon it will be warm enough for the shrubs to recover from winter, for the Spider plants to be hung from the edge of the covered porch, the daylilies, iris, daisies and other perennials to bloom and the herb and flowers planted in the deck pots.  The garden will be seeded and another growing season will begin.  This year, there will be chickens running in the yard, helping to keep the bug population down and hopefully by midsummer, providing us with eggs.

Spring Musings

     Today is a beautiful spring like day.  Already warm enough for just a long sleeve T-shirt and going up to the mid 60's.  The maples are swelled with buds, the redbuds showing that they will soon be in their lovely pink glory.  The birds are trilling and singing, presumably reestablishing territory and seeking their mates.
     A few days ago as we were coming in to our driveway, we met a car with out of state plates on the narrow state road off of which we live.  The lady and man in the car are professors from Indiana State University and North Dakota University.  They had come down from the top of the mountain where the Biological Research Station is located and she is in charge of a nearly 40 year long study of the Junco birds.  There are two groups of Juncos here right now, both the same species, however some of them stay here year round, the Carolina Juncos and the others migrate, the Dark Eyed Juncos.  They were looking for additional locations to place mist nets to catch and band the beautiful little birds.  After a delightful talk with them and a hike around our property, we offered them permission to set a net here for their study.  This fascinates me and now I am on the constant lookout for the little gray birds.
     This morning, the swifts started making their initial recon visit for nest making purposes.  I am now going to have to be on the alert to keep them from building against the logs.
     In spite of the glory of today, I know that this is just a tease, next week brings snow showers, rain and freezing temperatures at night again.

Friday Tradition {4}

     Sixteen chicks in their new habitat.  Already they can get out of the 28 gallon washtub.  We started with 17, but when you buy chicks who are shipped within hours of hatching and they are only a day or two old when purchased at Tractor Supply, that happens, especially when it is still winter like weather here.  The remaining 16 are thriving.  The youngest, the Cornish Rock cross for meat, grow quickly and are already the biggest and most active.  They were so tiny on Tuesday, when we brought them home and are now larger than the Red Rocks that were about a week old already on Monday when we brought them home, they already were developing wing and tail feathers, but they have been surpassed in growth.  The remaining Rhode Island Reds and Silver Laced Wyandottes, the potential egg layers are still cute cuddly little chicks.

Farming commences

     Since the first idea of moving to country and buying the land for the farm, we have discussed what animals could provide us with entertainment, income and food.  The first animals added were the dogs, obviously for  entertainment and as guard animals for the property, though the goofy Mastiff guards us by chasing deer, his size up the driveway and greets the neighbors like long lost friends.  We have observed him getting between us and the neighbor's somewhat threatening male pitbull.

     We started riding lessons and horse care in preparation of adding a couple of horses to the farm for riding, again entertainment.   A couple of grass raised beef cattle to provide meat are also in the plan, but the large animals require some improvement of the property fencing which we haven't yet begun.

     Each week we spend between $7 to $8 on freerange eggs at the farmer's market and a freerange chicken goes for about $7 per pound.  Chickens are relatively easy to raise and require minimal equipment.  For the past two springs, I have thought about starting a free range flock of laying hens and if successful, adding some meat birds to the farm critters.  Today, we were going out to the Amish community in our county to look at the chicken coops that they build and realized that they have opened a Tractor Supply in our county seat.  This necessitated a stop-in and discovered that it is already Chick Days.  We left with 8 chicks, a heat lamp, feeder, waterer, pine chips and chick feed.  Once home, they were bedded down in a large galvanized tub that we had in the garage.  Set up in the heated part of the basement, they are safe from the dogs until they are old enough to introduce and put outdoors.  

     We did go on to look at the coops and decided that the ones they build are too large and too expensive for my small flock needs.  I discussed with hubby, just buying some framing wood and a sheet of marine grade plywood and building one using some of the extra house roofing metal for the roof.  He decided that was more of a task than we were willing to tackle right now and we had seen a more appropriate sized and priced coop in town, so we went back to measure and ask questions about that coop.  It will house according to the literature, up to 20 chickens, the salesman said 15 was probably more appropriate, so we decided to purchase one and maybe add another half dozen meat chickens.  This will be delivered sometime next week and since we have at least 3 or 4 weeks before the chicks can be moved outdoors, I will have time to put a 12 foot square of chicken wire around the coop to help them adjust and help the dogs adjust to the new critters on the property.

     By mid July, we should be getting eggs and should have a few roosters and meat chickens to put in the freezer.  Farming other than my vegetable and fruit garden has commenced.

It's coming, it's coming!

     Yesterday was glorius.  The sun was shining, the week's wind died to a whisper, it made it into the low 40's with much higher expectations today and tomorrow.  The pups haven't been on a leash walk in weeks, so off to the Huckleberry Trail we went.  The trail is an old rail grade that runs from the library in Blacksburg to behind the mall in Christiansburg, about 7 miles.  More of the trail, an offshoot is under construction in Blacksburg.  The trail is about 6 feet wide, paved with asphalt, sometimes running behind houses, sometimes through farm fields, often shaded by mature trees.  The trees are showing buds that we aren't seeing on the mountain yet.  Right near the parking lot at the Blacksburg end, a resident whose house backs up to the trail, plants a small well maintained flower garden, poppies in the spring, daffodils, lilies, a flowering crabapple and these...

the first spring flowers I've seen.

     Today was farmer's market day and in the beautiful weather, we took the pups, purchased our week's meat, cheese and eggs then walked around town with the dogs.  After lunch and a peek at prebuilt chicken coops, we took a 2 1/2 mile walk around Pandapas Pond and Poverity Creek trail.
     One more day of stellar weather then it gets wet and seasonal again, but spring is coming.

Winter Voyeurism

     Mother was kind to us.  The brunt of the storm was north of us and we only got a couple inches of snow.  It has remained overcast this week with sublimation snow showers and temperatures hovering at or near freezing.  In spite of this, the snow is gone except in the woods and north slopes.  The overcast weather brings the wildlife out into view.  The week has brought a large flock of wild turkey, about 15 of them, repeatedly out to forage the hayfield for bugs and seed.  Each late afternoon, a herd of 5 deer seemingly materialize from the edge of the trees, one at a time to graze in the same field, and a gimpy doe that survived hunting season with her twins from last season frequent the area around the barn each evening.
     With the pups indoors and the lights inside kept low, we can sit and watch them.  The beauty of the snow cover still in the woods is seeing them as they move among the trees before entering the field.  At this time of year, their coats are dark and when they are still, they are perfectly camoflaged in the trees.

The calm before the storm

The morning broke with sunshine, small puffy clouds, and the lightest hint of a snow dusting.  The wind is still for the first time in 6 days.  What will Mother give us for the next two days?  We shall see.

Uncharacteristic Week

     This past week has been uncharacteristic; it has snowed for 5 days, mountain snow showers that fall, often heavy, all day, but accumulate nothing more than a dusting at night that disappears during the day in spite of the continued showers.  We are being threatened with the worst storm of the season this coming week.  After our January storm that took out our power for 72 hours, we have kept the downstairs bathtub filled, 5 gallon containers filled and ready to deal with it again.  This weekend, we had house guests, so the tub and containers were drained to get them out of the way and to make the guest bath available.
     This afternoon, as they have returned home, we again are preparing for this potential storm by refilling the tub and containers and if we really get a foot or more of wet snow, we may not be able to get out for a few days, so I am also partially preparing some meals that can be finished easily on the propane camp stove.
     Our houseguests were my sister in law and her friend.  We drove the hour to the nearest, very small ski resort, for a day of skiing yesterday.  The conditions were fair, snowing lightly, but it being a Saturday, it was crazy busy, long lines and the snow quickly getting skied off by too many people, many up there with groups and new skiers.  It is a great resort for new skiers, and the friend is a new skier, but it was frustrating to us, especially on the heels of our great week in Colorado.  As a result, hubby and I went over to the most difficult two runs on the mountain, where there were fewer people and more challenge to ski.  Our first run down this, I was feeling confident, unafraid of my speed or the ice patches.  About a third of the way down, suddenly I was in the air, then my head was slamming down on the ice and I was sliding head downhill on my back about another third of the way down the run.  To my amazement, once I stopped, I was able to get up by myself, looked uphill to see a man and his teen son collecting the missing ski and poles and skiing toward me to check on me, shocked that I seemed okay and had gotten up.  After much concern and assurances on my part that I was OK, the Dad stated, "Ma'am, that was a spectacular fall!"  I am lucky, all I seem to have experienced is much soreness, whiplash type soreness, and a sore spot on the back of my head and a small cut on the bridge of my nose (I was wearing a helmet and goggles, fortunately).
     I have never been a fan of guns, but live on a farm in the mountains, and when we moved here, we installed a gun safe for the few guns and a hunting rifle that my husband owned or had inherited.  I have not even fired a gun on a range in more than 40 years.  As we are beginning this spring to start our livestock acquisition, and since the coyote population seems to be swelling, we determined that I should learn to shoot, safely and accurately.  None of the weapons in the house were ones that I could handle, so very uncharacteristically, I suggested to my hubby that perhaps we should go look at a smaller rifle that I could handle, that I could use to defend our livestock and garden from the coyotes and groundhogs should I be here alone and need to do so.  We made the purchase and now we are going to have to make some treks to the local shooting range to familiarize me with the handling and safety of this rifle and to help me learn to fire it accurately.
     This has not be a characteristic week.