Chicks!

Mid-week, I was excited to actually find broiler chicks for sale at the farm store!  After trying to order my own at the end of March (when I typically order for a late April/early May delivery) and not being able to find any available from the hatchery before the second week of June, I wasn't sure how much luck I'd have getting any locally.  From past experience, the Spring weekly orders of broiler chicks are usually sold out by the day they arrive at the store, and sometimes even weeks before then.

When I stopped to buy a mineral block and some fly spray for my horse, I just had to cruise through the part of the store where the new chicks are kept. Just in case, you know.

There, in a stock tank, was a whole bunch of fuzzy little Cornish cross babies!  The tank had three different "pre-sold" slips of various quantities taped to it, but I didn't see the typical SOLD OUT sign on the tank.

Hunting down a sales associate, I tentatively asked if any of the broiler chicks might still be available.  And amazingly, the answer was yes!! I could buy the dozen that I requested.  I admit, I'd had my fingers crossed.

Woo hoo!  Adding a bag of chick starter and a bale of pine shavings to my cart while the associate fished yellow fuzzballs from the stock tank, my day took on a whole lot more happiness.  Farm fresh chicken to eat before September!! (My chicks on order probably won't be ready to butcher until late August, which was a bummer.)

box of future chicken dinners

Based on a few of the chicks still having a prominent egg tooth, I'm guessing that they had just arrived at the farm store mere hours before I did.  That's probably how I got lucky enough to buy them; they hadn't sold out yet.

Now they are happily adjusting to life at this little place here, in our brooder.

Making Vanilla Extract

This is actually a post I was going to write 6 years ago.  Truly, the draft date on it says 5/3/14.  And I never got around to writing it because??  Life got in the way, I guess.  Or I thought no one would be interested?

Anyway, I'm writing it now.

I can't remember how long I've been making my own vanilla extract.  At least six years; I'm guessing more like ten or twelve.  Old frugal habits just don't die for me.

Is making vanilla extract really frugal?

If you're asking: Is it cheaper than buying imitation vanilla?  Heck no.  But that ain't real vanilla. 

Real vanilla extract is expensive.  Real vanilla is nothing more than vanilla beans soaked in some sort of alcohol to leach out the flavor.  And making it myself is definitely cheaper than buying real vanilla extract.

It is not, however, something you make with the plan to use it tomorrow.  Or next week.  Or even next month.  I know there are tutorials out there that say shake daily for a few weeks and you're good to go.  Mine sits and steeps a minimum of two months.  And that is just for the first amount I want to use.

I have a stash of old glass extract bottles (saved from when I used to buy it), and unless I'm planning to give one as a gift or something, I just fill one small bottle from my pint sized jar of steeping vanilla beans at a time.  The rest just continues to steep, and age.  And, judging from the date on the jar lid of the last batch I made, a pint of vanilla extract lasts me about a year.

homemade vanilla 

Since I knew I was running low, I went ahead in March and ordered some Madagascar vanilla beans so that I could get a new batch of vanilla going.  Once they arrived, all I did was cut them in half, put them in a clean pint canning jar, and cover them with vodka.  A little less than a pint of vodka actually, as I usually make two batches of vanilla out of a fifth of vodka and this was my second batch from that bottle.

jar on left is remainder of last year's batch;

jar on right is newly filled for this year

after only 5 days steeping

Now it sits, in a cupboard, and on occasion gets shaken. But mostly it sits, for two months, or until my little bottle of vanilla needs a refill.

A Quick Doll Quilt

K3, last time she was here (before the state-wide lockdown), dropped numerous hints that she would like me to make her a doll blanket.

1. Grandma, what are you making?  It's pretty.  It would be a good size for my doll.

2. I don't have any doll blankets.

3. Grandma, where's your sewing machine?

Her birthday is coming up, so I decided to make her a doll sized quilt.  Using what I have on hand, I did some stash diving, and some piecing together of batting strips I have leftover from people sized quilts.  Some ironing, some cutting, some sewing, and in an afternoon I created a quilt she'll love.

can you see my 'whoops' block?

cat fabric for the backing;

leftover from a pillowcase I made her in 2017

The design is a simple one, I just cut 3 1/2" squares and alternated them in 7 rows of 5 blocks each.  The border fabric was cut at 2".

Ingenuity

I ran out of onion powder.  I hate to run out of anything, especially something that is a frequent ingredient in the meals I cook.  To add insult to injury, I normally buy onion powder (and most spices) from the bulk bin at the natural food store.  Which, currently, is not an option.  Bulk bins being unsafe--and therefore unavailable--during this pandemic and all.

As a settle-for, I decided to get a jar of onion powder at the regular (chain) grocery store.  Except that apparently now that people are home and cooking for themselves, they have had to buy out all the commonly used spices.  I could not find a single jar of onion powder.  Not a small jar, not a giant jar, not a generic brand, not a name brand.

What I could find, though, was lots and lots of minced onion.

Adapt.  Improvise.  Overcome.

Kind of a mantra for my life, not just in the current times, but always.  Maybe because my Dad was a Viet Nam era Marine. Maybe because all of my grandparents grew up in the Great Depression, some of them in the South in homes with no electricity or running water.  Maybe because we were pretty poor in my early childhood while Dad was trying to get through college and then law school, Mom  working  to support us even though child care for my brother and I took a lot of her income. Maybe because of becoming a mother myself right out of high school and having 4 kids and a husband and a mortgage by age 26; whyever it is, these three words are a good description of my mindset in times of challenge.

The inability to get onion powder at my preferred store (with good quality affordable spices) wasn't going to stop me from having onion powder to cook with.  The inability to get onion powder of lesser quality and greater cost wasn't going to stop me from having onion powder to cook with.

I bought minced onion and took it home.

At home, I got out DH's old coffee grinder that he broke the handle on (so apparently he can't use it and had to have a new one with a handle that doesn't fall off) that I had saved for my own purposes.  I poured the entire bottle of minced onion into the coffee grinder.

Carefully aligning the handle into it's original spot, I held it down to activate the grinder.

A few seconds later, viola!  Onion powder!

Good to go another month of these crazy restrictions and grocery store shortages.

The New Normal?

We're still hanging in there, DH working from his home office, and me tending horses Monday through Friday in the mornings.  The wood boiler still needs stoking daily, chickens still need care morning and evening.

Still under the Stay Home order too, which has made Sundays a little strange as church is closed.  We have been doing church at home on Sunday mornings, using the live streamed services of sister churches in our synod.  I dug out the hymnals from when my kids were in parochial school (and had a hymn a week as memory work); and for Palm Sunday service we sang along with gusto.  It felt so good to sing those familiar festive hymns.

The plan is to stream Holy Week services too; on Thursday evening and Friday afternoon, as well as on Easter Sunday.  I've been giving DH a bit of ribbing over Easter breakfast, as he is a member of the church council and the councilmen cook and serve breakfast at church on Easter morning. I told him that even though church won't be open for breakfast that day, my kitchen certainly is, and it's stocked with ham, eggs, and bread (for toast), so there's no reason he shouldn't make breakfast for me that day. LOL.  We'll see. . .

Meanwhile, it's unclear if people will be required to wear masks when out in public (I've heard conflicting reports on this issue and can't find anything official in writing). . .   Just in case, I decided to go ahead and make myself a couple of fabric masks.  I'd actually been thinking about such a thing for over a year, mainly for when I'm working in dusty conditions such as putting hay up in the loft.  My lungs aren't what they used to be.

And if I'm going to wear a mask, it's going to be one with my personality in mind.  So I went stash diving through my fabric and came out with two horse themed prints.

yep, looks like me

 Each mask has different fabric for each side, to make them easy to recognize which side is which if they get temporarily taken off.  The one with the large horse print, I lined with flannel for softness.  And just in case flannel proves too hot in the warmer months I used a plain piece of cotton for the inside of the second mask.

pinned together

mask 1 sewn together, in need of pleats

mask 2 pleats pinned and ready to sew

two finished masks;

slightly different styling

ready to wear

Working away on a few other crafty projects, one of which will be part of K3's birthday present at the end of the month.  She's been hinting for a doll blanket made by Grandma, and I've got the sewing machine out currently.  No pictures to show yet, it's still in the concept and pulling fabric from the stash phase.  Artistic me wants to go with pieced blocks, yet practical get-it-done me is leaning toward squares of different fabrics sewn in rows.

How are things going with you?  Feeling crafty in your at home time?  Or just like the world has gone off it's axis? 

I confess, there are days when I feel very out of sorts, and others that are not much different as long as I don't read any news or turn on the TV.  My biggest anxiety inducer lately is when I think about paying bills with 20% less income; even though DH is still working, his employer is holding back 20% of his pay until this coming fall or winter.  Not much can be done about that. We'll have to figure this out as we go along.

Yarn Along: April

Happy April!  I am joining Ginny's Yarn Along this afternoon.

I've done a lot of knitting in the past month. I completed section one of my Hue Shift afghan.  And almost immediately started on section two.

I have about 5 2/3 squares to go on section two yet, then it's on to section three! 

Another finish is the pair of socks I was making for my Mom in speckled yarn that she picked out.  I've mislaid the ball band, but it's Happy Feet fingering yarn in the colorway Iris, if I remember right.  I added in some tonal purple fingering I had in my stash for accent on the cuffs, heels and toes.  Since I won't be able to see her in person any time soon--Michigan is supposed to continue under the Stay Home order for the month of April--I will probably mail them to her. 

I've been making some gifts for Surprise's upcoming birthday, and they've developed a cow in the kitchen theme (thanks to DS2 for telling me she likes cows and only has kitchen basics).  In yesterday's post, I shared two quilted potholders/hot pads that I made.  Today, I'm sharing the knitted portion (so far, I plan to make another) of her gift:  a dishcloth in the pattern Belle, found on Ravelry.  I am also planning on making a second dish cloth in another pattern, Hay, Baby!, but so far I have not cast on for it.  

My local library has been closed since the second week of March.  I'm getting really antsy for it to reopen; I have one book awaiting pick-up and several on the hold list.  Again, that's another thing that is shut down until at least the end of April.  I have long finished the library books I had on hand at the beginning of the month (currently, you can't even return borrowed library materials).  What I have read since March's yarn along post is:

The Dead Will Tell by Linda Castillo (I was partially through this book at the yarn along).  Another gripping Amish themed murder mystery.

Before and After; The Incredible Real Life Stories of Orphans Who Survived the Tennessee Children's Home Society by Judy Christie and Lisa Wingate.  This book was sometimes interesting, sometimes slow.  It is a non-fiction book that is related to the novel Before We Were Yours.

Winter in Paradise by Elin Hilderbrand.  I was slow to warm up to this story, but once I did, it was very hard to put down.  And it ends with a cliff hanger!  See why I can't wait for the library to reopen?!?

How are you spending your at home time?  Getting any reading or knitting done?