Well, That Was Different

I can honestly say that this has been a March unlike any I have ever known. We started with a quick get-away to Myrtle Beach where the weather was decidedly gloomy.  Came home and made a bunch of sausage with the kids and grandkids, and began syrup making for this year.

And then, life as we know it changed.  DH was ordered to work from home. So, the desk in the study, which has largely been used as a catch-all in the last 4+ years, had to become a work space once more.

Another big change was that my usual shopping method of stocking up on groceries once a month couldn't happen.  My shopping date hit right as people were being told to work from home, or that they weren't going to be working for the next few weeks (teachers, etc), and so when I went to the store the panic buying was beginning, and I couldn't get a month's worth of anything.  Which meant I've had to go to the grocery store weekly (or twice a week sometimes) rather than once a month plus maybe one more time to restock on produce and dairy.

Ironic that since we've had a lockdown, Stay Home order from the governor, I've actually had to go to the store more than I do when we're allowed to roam about freely.

My cooking routine, however, is largely unchanged.  Since we hardly ever eat out and I've cooked from scratch forever, I'm still baking bread, making pizza by hand, and all the other things I do in my kitchen but most Americans don't.

cabbage rolls

making ricotta for lasagna

finished ricotta

The syrup season has been a crappy one, if I may be blunt. The weather has mainly been too cold, too warm, too rainy, or too windy for the sap to run.  As a result, I've only boiled down one more batch of syrup, which yielded 1 qt and 1 pt.  The local wildlife have been checking out my sap buckets in the woods, as evidenced by the muddy paw prints left behind.

This looks to be our last stretch of days below 50 degrees, so I plan to go out and pull taps tomorrow.  Will either boil sap tomorrow evening or on Thursday after work, depending on how much is actually in the buckets and how long it will take to finish into syrup.

raccoon print

finishing off in the kitchen

I had started my pepper and tomato seedlings indoors in late February, and they have grown enough that last weekend I transplanted most of them into larger containers.  They will continue to live indoors in these containers for another 6-8 weeks before going out to the garden.

Since I work on a farm, I am considered an essential worker and get to leave home to go to work everyday like normal.  Which means I still get to see my horse even though I'm not working with him much currently.

Because I'm still driving 5 days each week, the Suburban continues to roll closer to my 300,000 mile goal on the odometer.  We hit 263,000 this month.

I have been doing more sewing than usual.  I made two quilt blocks for a forum quilt I'm involved in each year.

I also made some hot pads as part of Surprise's upcoming birthday present.  I was tipped off that she likes cows, and there is a really cute cow block pattern in Farm Girl Vintage 2.  So. . . 

in process

finished

There has also been knitting going on, but those pictures are waiting for April's Yarn Along post.

Outdoors, I managed to get DH to do some adjusting of my clothesline setup.  The posts have been leaning inward for years, needing to be pushed back upright with the tractor when the ground is soft.  It's soft now, and I can easily go without using the clothesline for several more weeks since April is usually rainy month.  The timing was perfect to get those posts fixed and let them sit a good while to firm up before needing my clothesline. While we were at it, I decided that I might as well take off the old cotton lines and just put new ones up when I'm ready to hang clothes.

I also decided to actually have DH pull the post on the far end, and move it about six feet closer to the other post.  With only 2-3 of us home, I really don't fill the entire clothesline with laundry like when I was raising four kids and doing 1-2 loads of laundry every single day.  A shorter span would work just fine, plus it would be less unsupported weight to put strain on the posts.  Hopefully they will stay straight longer.  Plus, there is a spruce tree near the far post that had grown big enough that in a few more years it's branches would be able to be touched by laundry hanging (and blowing) on the line.  Now that the post is moved, that tree probably won't interfere with my laundry for a decade at least.

post pulled

both posts in the ground and straightened

That about wraps up what's been happening at this little place here since I last posted.  We'll see what April has in store for us; currently the news reports are that Michigan will remain on Stay Home until April 30th, if not longer.

Sausages and Syrup

DH and I returned from our mini-vacation on Thursday evening last week.  On Friday (he had also taken as a vacation day), DH purchased 60 pounds of boneless pork butt, and that evening both of our sons came over to make sausage.  K3 and Toad came along too, and spent the night (DS1 went home and came back the next morning to finish the sausage project.)  DD1 and Honorary Son also came over on Saturday to assist with the sausage.  That's been our rule since we started making sausage in 2016:  if you want homemade sausage, you  must come help create it.

I typically don't assist in the sausage making endeavors, mainly because I eat very little sausage (for some reason my digestive system is not fond of pork sausage) and also because there are always many other tasks on my to-do list.  That weekend, my main task--other than catching up on laundry after being away from home--was to boil down the 15 gallons of sap that flowed that week.  I had set taps the prior weekend, in anticipation of the warm up that was forecasted to occur while I was out of town.

After breakfast on Saturday, the guys ground the 60 pounds of meat they had diced and seasoned the night before, and the grandkids and I checked sap buckets out in the woods to see if any more had run overnight. It hadn't, but the grandkids wanted to go look, so we did.  Any excuse to go for a tractor ride or to the woods will do.

It was rather muddy in the woods, and K3 mostly wanted to just walk/balance on every fallen tree she could find.

Toad, on the other hand, is drawn to puddles and mud like a magnet.  As a bonus, it had been cold enough overnight to form a thin layer of ice on most of the wet spots in the woods.  He of course had to walk on them to see if the ice was thick enough to hold him.

It wasn't.  But that was okay, because both kids were wearing boots.  We always request that they bring boots when they are coming over to stay with us.  Because kids need to explore outside no matter what the weather or ground conditions.

Back in the house, they washed up and then helped with stuffing Italian sausage into casings, as well as packaging all three kinds of sausage: Italian, chorizo, and breakfast.  They also helped me keep an eye on the sap as it boiled down.  

Unfortunately, they had to go home before it was finished syrup, but I did dip a little out shortly before they left and let it cool so that they could taste the progress from slightly sweet water (the beginning sap) to light golden brown almost-syrup that was kind of like an uncarbonated maple flavored soft drink.

A few hours later, the syrup was completed, a lovely amber color with a delicious flavor.  That fifteen gallons of sap yielded 2 pints, 6 ounces.  The pints are sealed and in storage until needed.  The 6 ounces, being not enough to fill even a half-pint container, went into the fridge for use first.  A couple spoonfuls went on top of vanilla ice cream for DH and my dessert that night.

This post tells in more detail about how we make sausage.

Yarn Along: March

I'm finally joining Ginny for this month's Yarn Along.  I was without computer access for most of the week while DH and I took a little R&R time.

I got DS2's Wanderlust socks finished in time to give them to him for his birthday. (Photos are unblocked socks; they really are the same length and shape.)

Left sock, right sock.

 

Inner leg, outer leg.

He had mentioned to me last fall that the socks I had made him several years ago for wearing while hiking were getting pretty worn out.  I decided then, that a new pair would make a great and useful birthday present. Especially as he and his outdoor adventure pals are planning a backpacking trip in Glacier National Park this summer.

Once those socks were finished, I began a just-for-me project that I had actually bought the pattern and yarn for about a year ago:  a Hue-shift afghan.  I am absolutely loving working on this project and confess that making those mitered squares has become quite addicting.  I don't like to put this project down if I have an uncompleted square!

Miter magic!

However, it doesn't make a good travel project, and DH and I had a little mini-vacation to go on.  So, I grabbed a skein of speckled yarn my Mom had dropped by (in January) with the request that I make her a pair of socks whenever I have time to spare.  I have to be honest; I'm not a huge fan of speckled yarn.  On it's own, I find it kind of uninteresting.  It doesn't show patterns very well, in my opinion.  I decided to take a little creative license with Mom's yarn and match it with a skein of purple tonal yarn that I've had in my stash for a while. 

I'm making a very plain sock: ribbed cuff, slip-stitch ribbed heel and all stockinette (no pattern, formula in my head); yet the addition of the purple for the cuffs, heels and toes is really making those speckles pop, especially the purple ones.  I don't think Mom will mind that I took a little liberty with her socks.

true color picture

Not true colors, but shows how much was knit in 3 days!

I've read a couple of book since February's Yarn Along post. Treadmill walking and being on vacation have given me lots more reading time than normal.

The Lost Husband by Katherine Coulter was good, yet at times I could have sworn I've read the book before.  Just some deja vu sections, although I can't find any record of it in my library history.

Going Over Home; a Search For Rural Justice in an Unsettled Land by Charles D. Thompson, Jr. was sometimes like memoir, sometimes like an educational text.  Overall I liked it, but I did start to get tired of the style about 2/3 of the way through the book.  The parts where he talked about the history of his family sharecropping and farming in the Appalachian hollers were of particular interest to me, as a good chunk of my lineage comes from the same.

Postscript by Cecelia Ahern, her lastest novel and the sequel to P.S. I Love You.  I love everything I've ever read by this author and this book does not disappoint.

Jar City by Arnaldur Indridason, is a murder mystery set in Iceland.  Straight forward, makes you think, no excessive sex or gore = my kind of book!  I've become a little leery in recent years of new to me authors because it seems so often books these days are more graphic in the sex or horror/gore department than I care for (or just poorly written/edited). This book is A-1!  I have definitely found another author to follow and plan to read all of his works.

Currently, I am reading another Linda Castillo novel, The Dead Will Tell, and I am devouring it. It also goes well with stockinette knitting!