Quality Time

DH and I spent some relaxing time together on Sunday afternoon.  The sun was out, the wind was not, and it was just a beautiful day to get outside.  So we did.  We went to the woods and cut (DH) and stacked (me) some fallen trees and widowmakers.  This probably isn't what most couples would call quality time, but for us, it was perfect.  DH loves cutting wood.  And I really don't mind helping out with that task, as long as I'm not behind on my own tasks. 

So, we went to the woods and spent over an hour working together, assessing leaning and hung up trees (the widowmakers) and discussing which way each would fall once DH started cutting it.  He's really good at aiming trees as he cuts, and I'm getting better in my knowledge and input ability in that area.  For stacking, we relied on my expertise in the area of how that part of the woods floods for about two months every spring and where the woodpiles should be located in order to not be partially submerged--which way the water flows and what is actually the high and dry ground.

What do you think of when you look at this picture?

I think of firewood, of heat, of a cozy house in winter.

One fallen tree cut; many to go.

Fresh sawdust on snow;

can you see where the tree used to lie?

A fresh stack

Now, I'm guessing the majority of women wouldn't count going out to cut and stack firewood as quality time with their husband.  But I do.  If there's a task that you both enjoy doing, go do it together.  That's what quality time is all about: a shared enjoyable experience.  It doesn't have to mean spending money or even leaving home.

Pizza, Pancakes, a Skunk(!), and Pretzels

Friday after school, K3 and Toad came over.  The plan was for them to spend the night with DH and I, then go on adventures with DD1 and Honorary Son on Saturday afternoon. Two things have become a given whenever they spend the night at this little place here:

1. We will make pizza for dinner.  They love this, because not only do they get to help make the dough, but once it's risen I give them each their own hunk of dough to stretch and shape.  They get to make their own pizza, with whatever toppings they want on it.
2. We will make pancakes for breakfast.  K3 and Toad measure and stir together the ingredients, and I do the actual cooking. There will be regular circle pancakes, but there will also be shaped pancakes--turtles for Toad and for K3 it varies.  Typically it's Mickey Mouse heads, but this weekend it was bunnies.

These are givens because they request these two things every time they spend the night.  Each is something I did once, and apparently they enjoyed it enough that they want to have it again and again and again.

This time, I had an additional food related activity planned.  But that would come after we spent some time outside on Saturday morning.

And on Saturday we woke up to a surprise that would require our attention right after breakfast.  Not a surprise that DH or I had planned, that's for sure.  You see, early last week something got into my coop overnight despite the closed and latched doors.  It killed a chicken (thankfully only one).  So, last week I got out our large live trap, set it up near the front of the coop, and baited it with that dead chicken. Tied into the back of the trap with baling twine around it's feet, so that whatever critter came along could not steal it out of the trap without getting caught.

The first night, we caught (and disposed of) a decent sized raccoon.  The second night, we caught (and disposed of) a slightly larger raccoon.  Which is what I suspected, as I'd seen raccoon tracks in the snow around my coop the week before.  Raccoons are not welcome around my barn and coop; if caught there they receive the death sentence.  They need to stay out in the woods. 

The third night, nothing ventured into our trap.  The fourth night was Friday night.  And we woke up on Saturday to discover this:

Uh oh.  We'd caught a skunk. Skunks are a lot trickier to shoot than raccoons are.  When I catch a coon, I walk up to the cage (aka the death chamber), stick the end of the .22 through the wire, and dispatch the coon with a shot between the eyes. With a skunk, you can't get that close.  Not without getting a stinky souvenir to show for it.  So, the two times we've caught skunks in the past, they've gotten a stay of execution and a ride out to the woods where they are released. This is accomplished by walking up to the skunk in the trap with an old flannel sheet held up in front of me, so I am not seen (ie no predator threat).  Then I wrap the trap in the sheet, and load it into the tractor bucket.  I drive it out to the edge of the woods, set the trap on the ground, take the sheet off the front end of the trap (leaving the rest of the trap covered), and prop the door open with a chunk of wood.  Then I walk away, or, if the skunk doesn't exit the trap right away, drive back to the house for a few hours.

That is the technique I planned to use on Saturday.  Except that Toad, K3 and DD2 wanted to see the skunk.  And since DD2 has experience (from her internship at the small animal rehab  in 2018) with handling young skunks, she walked K3 and Toad within about eight feet of the trap so they could get a fairly close up look at the skunk.  I have to admit, it was cute, with a white stripe down it's face and a white patch on the top of it's head and no white anywhere else on it's body.

The wrapping in a sheet and transporting to the woods didn't go so smoothly though.  Because just as I had the trap wrapped and was about to get the tractor out of the barn, DH came roaring up on the 4-wheeler, towing our wood hauler trailer.  He thought that would be better to carry the trap with, and we could bring in a load of firewood after releasing the skunk.  The noise however, startled the skunk, and it did spray.  So now I have a smelly sheet and a trap that is slightly skunky.

skunk transport

(kind of makes me think of a casket on a caisson)

door propped, ready for skunk release

walking away to wait

observing from a distance

It took a while, and we were over at the woodpile in the corner of the field when the skunk finally decided it was curious enough to walk out of the trap.  Once out, it didn't hesitate about heading into the woods for cover.

skunk in the woods

After we had a good size load of firewood on the trailer, and K3 and Toad were tired of climbing on the woodpile and logs, we headed back to the house for our next activity.  Making chocolate dipped pretzel sticks!

They sure had fun with that!  We of course had to eat some before they left this little place here.  And we packed some up to take to DD1 and Honorary Son's house, as well as some more to take home to their parents. Although I suspect they will remember the skunk adventure longer than they will remember dipping pretzels in molten chocolate!

So Simple, An Engineer Can Understand It

Thankfully, late winter has arrived, with it's more abundant hours of daylight, and my hens are swinging back into production mode.  After carefully doling out my remaining stash of eggs laid last year (the hens typically take a break in the darkest months, from late November or early December until mid- to late February), I'm very happy to walk into the coop each day and see this:

fresh eggs!

It's always cause for rejoicing when those first eggs of the year start appearing.  The long, virtually eggless winter is over!  No longer do I need to ration eggs.  

In fact, this week, the girls in the coop have been giving me four eggs a day. Soon I will have an abundance of eggs, and we can eat them in all the ways we love them even if it uses a whole bunch: the 5-egg brownie recipe, omelets, custard, angel food cake, homemade egg noodles. . .

Vitally important is a system for making sure the eggs are used in a timely manner as well as planning for the decline in production in the fall and the eventual end of production in the winter.  

I make sure the egg cartons are rotated between filling and use by marking each full carton with the date on which it was filled before putting the full carton in the basement fridge, and then when using eggs, bringing up to the kitchen fridge the carton that has the oldest date written on it. As each carton is emptied (ie all the eggs in it are eaten), the date is crossed off, and it is put in the cupboard to await refilling.  Pretty simple: look for a date, use the carton with the oldest date first.  Don't use the carton in the kitchen fridge that has no date.  There should always be two (and only two) cartons of eggs in the kitchen: the one with the date that is being eaten, and the one without a date that is being filled.

That has been my system since 2003, which was the first year we raised chickens and got our own farm eggs. A foolproof system, I thought.  A system which all four of my children learned and understood, and taught their significant others and the grandchildren.  A system that I thought DH understood too.

A system which he's followed: eat from the carton with the visible date, don't eat from the carton with no date visible (ie if the date is crossed off, that is the carton being filled) for 16 years without reminder or explanation.  Until this past December, that is, when we were down to our last two cartons of eggs, one of which was very slowly being refilled as the chickens sporadically laid an egg or two in a week's time during the spiral down to the shortest day of the year.

In his defense, he was cooking breakfast for himself and his hunting buddy (I wasn't home that morning), and it's well known around our house that when this particular buddy is around, DH's intelligence tanks. Which, really, is no excuse.  And it's not the excuse he used for cooking the SIX freshest eggs (SIX!!! eggs, for TWO people--during the time of year when we are rationing eggs the most!) and emptying my 'being filled' carton instead of getting eggs from the carton next to it; the one with an October date legible on it. 

No, his excuse was that my egg carton system was confusing.  Nobody could tell, he told me, in front of this buddy, which eggs were supposed to be eaten and which were supposed to be left alone.

So, I came up with a new system so simple, it would be impossible for an engineer to not understand it.  All I needed was a red marker and a sticky note, and the problem was solved.

Egg cartons for engineers. . . 

Everyone who opens my fridge now, finds this hilarious (and easy to understand).  From DH, there has been no comment.  He does now, however, always get eggs from the correct carton.

Reseasoned Cast Iron

For longer than I care to admit, I've had a couple of cast iron pots sitting around in need of reseasoning.  Let's just say that one was all ready awaiting my attention when DD2 found an abandoned dutch oven in a fire pit at work the summer of 2018. . .

The dutch oven she found was half buried in ash, and other than some very burnt food inside of it, appeared to be brand new.  Except that it had been left in a fire pit, and gotten rained on, and obviously had that carbonized food that needed to be cleaned out of it.  But, knowing the value of good cast iron (we found this brand and size for $40 at Walmart later. . ), she asked her boss if she might be allowed to keep the dutch oven.  Of course Mom (me) would know how to clean it of the charred food and the rust it had accumulated.

Yes, Mom (me) does know how to clean and reseason cast iron; we've had our own camping set for nearly two decades. But, along with all the other challenges life was throwing at me in summer 2018 (and for another year plus), I really wasn't overly eager to tackle the reconditioning project.  And so it sat.  And sat.  And sat.

Until this month!  Maybe it's the increased amount of daylight.  Maybe it's the endorphins from doing my daily mile on the treadmill. Maybe it's the fact that DH's job has eased up a little and when he's home, his brain is too and his phone doesn't alert with work calls or texts in the evening or on weekends lately.  Whatever the reason being, I decided it was high time to get to caring for that cast iron that needed me.

And so, armed with hot water and a steel wool pad (actually, two, the first one got totally eaten up on the dutch oven), I set to scrubbing.  And scrubbing. And scrubbing.  (And forgot to take pictures of the process.)

Once the rust and residue was removed from my three cast iron pieces, I rinsed them in scaldingly hot water and let them air dry (being hot, they did so quickly).  Once dry, each piece got coated inside and out with shortening.  Then into a 350 degree oven they went, for one hour.

On the rack underneath the cast iron, I placed my largest cookie sheet to use as a drip pan.  I didn't want to also have to scrub my oven when finished with this cast iron project! Incidentally, this cookie sheet has long been my favorite cookie sheet; it was a gift at my bridal shower in 1993, and has been so well used that the original coating has just about completely worn off.  In fact, just a week prior, DH had asked me if I didn't think it was time to replace that cookie sheet.  A question I vehemently answered "NO!  That cookie sheet works great!  It's my favorite one!"

The cast iron came out of the oven perfectly seasoned, and very hot.  I set it on cooling racks on the island for several hours.

So black and shiny!  And HOT!

Finished cooling; still beautiful.

I was very pleased with how the dutch oven and my pot turned out.  They look like brand new!

My cookie sheet, however, did not fare so well.

Yuck!

The shortening that dripped off of the cast iron during the seasoning process kind of baked itself into a very plastic-like film on my beloved nearly 27 year old cookie sheet.  A film that I have not been able to get off with steel wool, or boiling water, or even sticking back into the oven to 'soften'.  I think I killed it.  Guess DH was right; time to retire my cookie sheet. It isn't fit for baking cookies on anymore.

I will, however, keep it on hand for when I need a drip pan under a pie or cheesecake, or the next time we have some cast iron in need of reseasoning!

Out of My Head and Onto My Couch

I finished the quilt that I talked about here.  I'm very pleased with how it came out.  Not just very pretty, but also the way I was able to take a concept in my head and turn it into a real object that is both useful and pleasing to look at.

The 'snowflakes' quilt now resides on the back of my couch, until winter is far enough over that I put it away for a few months and place a lighter throw on the couch for the warm months of the year.

Here are a few photos of the quilt.

The top, before sandwiching and quilting.

Unfortunately, the camera did no justice to the fabric colors.

I fell in love with the backing fabric;

it is the only part of the quilt that was a new purchase.

Quilted and bound: a finished quilt.

These are the true colors.

Out of my head and onto my couch!

For the quilting, I decided to just do wavy lines (kind of like the pattern of windblown snowdrifts)  spaced roughly  3-4 inches apart on the rows of blocks.  I wanted it to be something fairly quiet and not take away from the designs in the blocks themselves.  For the setting and corner triangles, however, I wanted something very bold and noticeable, that would further invoke the feeling of snowy weather.  So I went with spirals, which worked out very well and were really fun to make.

snowdrifts

spirals

Yarn Along: February 2020

I am joining Ginny today for the Yarn Along!

Since my knitting update of January, I have finished the Meandering socks that I was working on.  I'm loving their very bright and sunny color.

I have been working on another pair of socks, intended to be for DS2's birthday next month.  The pattern is called Wanderlust, and (other than the heel, which I substituted a gusset heel in eye of partridge) is very easy to follow.  I decided to forego the charted pattern on the foot portion--afraid of not having enough of my contrast color for both socks--and am just doing plain stockinette in the master color for the feet.

I have done a fair bit of reading in the past month.  On January 7th I set myself a goal of walking a mile on the treadmill every day.  As incentive, I would read while I walked.  I used to be quite good at reading and walking at the same time; this was my technique through the halls of junior high and high school to avoid having to speak to people (massive introvert).  So, putting a book on the front tray thing of our treadmill, I've gotten a solid uninterrupted half hour of reading just about every day.

As a result, I've read three novels in not quite 30 days!

In The Company of Others by Jan Karon--a nice engaging read in the Mitford Series

Her Last Breath by Linda Castillo--intense murder mystery thriller

Caught Bread Handed by Ellie Alexander--light and fun murder mystery

Currently, I am about half way through The Lost Husband by Katharine Center.  

If these authors sound familiar, it's because I took a look at everything I read last year, and made a list of other books by the authors I most enjoyed reading.  That list is my intended reading for this year; at least as many as I can find through the local library and the state-wide lending system it gives me access to.  I'm sure I'll throw in a few books not on the list too, as I run across them on the new book shelves of the library.

Learning Something New

In January, I set about on a project.  My plan: to take a concept I had in my head, and turn it into a lap quilt for the back of my couch.  A winter themed quilt.

It's not quite finished yet, but hopefully will be in the next few days.

To begin, I had an idea of trying to find quilt block patterns that, if done in a color scheme of blues and white, could give the impression of snow flakes. Limitations: this quilt must cost me next to nothing--since cash is short, I wanted to use as much fabric as I could from my stash, while staying in my color scheme.  Also, no paying for patterns.  I could find actual snowflake patterns for purchase online, but that was not in the spirit of I want something new but I'm too broke to buy it right now.  So I went to my favorite online free quilt pattern site Quilters Cache and looked at all they had to offer.

I found several star type blocks that I thought might work, and made a list of those patterns.  Then I whittled it down to just four patterns, with the idea of making multiple blocks of each pattern (four, I thought) until the quilt was large enough for a lap quilt/throw.

Two of the patterns I chose, were very simple. The other two, however, would be a challenge.  One had templates and would require doing Y-seams.  The other, was paper pieced.

not bad for first attempts

Y-seam on left, paper pieced on right

I found that I really loved the paper piecing, even though I kept sewing things on wrong and having to rip out my stitches. The Y-seam was challenging, and just when I thought I'd gotten the hang of it (on the second block of that pattern), my third block came out completely wonky and had to be redone.

But I loved the paper piecing and can see myself doing and entire quilt this way sometime in the future.

another of the paper pieced blocks

 I had made 2-3 blocks of each pattern when I got the idea to do the quilt with my blocks on point. I thought that layout might help my blocks look less like stars, and more like a bunch of snow flakes.  So I googled how to do that.  And found out I would need only 13 blocks instead of the 16 I had originally calculated.  But, I didn't want one pattern to have more representation in the quilt than the other three.  What I decided was that  I wanted a fifth pattern, in just a single block, as the center block of this quilt. So, back to Quilters Cache I went.

Consulting my original list of prospects, I reviewed those that hadn't been chosen to be the four for the quilt, and decided on this one, which I'd been very close to using originally.

Once I had all my blocks sewn, I did some more research so that I could figure out how to do the setting and corner triangles for a quilt on point. I'd show you my quilt top all sewn together, but I'd rather wait until I'm done with quilting and binding it.

Speaking of quilting and binding, when I envisioned this quilt in my head, it wasn't tied, and it wasn't quilted with stitch-in-the-ditch like the other quilts I've made to date have been.  No, this one is supposed to have an all over quilting design.  Another new skill for me to try my hand at.

I thought I might want to stipple quilt it.  But first, I should try that on a smaller project.  Enter, the quick pot holder (made with DD1 in mind).  Behold, my 'stipple' quilted Baking Day potholder (pattern from Farm Girl Vintage).

Stipple quilting was easier than I thought it would be.  And yet, while I was doing it, I decided that it wasn't the design I was going to use to quilt my snowflakes after all.  I'm going to do something a little less free form, while still being visible.

Stay tuned. . . I'm hoping to have a finished product to show by this time next week.  :0)