A New Old High Chair

 Way back when my kids were babies, I wanted an old fashioned wooden high chair.  But, such things were a) hard to find, and b) out of my budget.  Besides, I'd been gifted a nice new high chair at the baby shower that was thrown for me when I was pregnant with DS1.  So, a wooden high chair just wasn't in the cards.

Fast forward many, many years.  More than thirty, in fact.  Toward the end of her pregnancy with Faline, DD1 sent me a text with a picture of what looked like a 1950s wooden high chair.  It was followed with a text that read "$15, are you interested? It's just down the road from me, I'll go get it."

She had a modern high chair all ready for Faline, but knew that I still wanted a wooden high chair to use at this little place here when grandkids visit.

I jumped on the offer, telling her that if it was sturdy and in usable shape, to please get it. So she did.  And I'm so happy she saw it, because it's in great shape.

The finish had worn off the tray, most likely from years of use, but the rest of it just needed a wash.

When I was staining the porch swing last summer (talked about in this post), I also refinished the high chair tray.  I put on two coats of the same stain/sealant as the swing, and the tray looked good as new.

The stain almost matches the original color on the high chair.  I thought about maybe sanding down the rest of the chair and refinishing it too, so that it all is the exact same shade, but that would be about impossible without damaging the cute rabbit decal that is on it.  So, I left the rest alone.  Under most lighting, you can barely tell that the tray isn't a perfect match.

And that is how I finally got my wooden high chair.  It is missing the identifying plaque that once upon a time was on the footrest, so I don't know when it was made, or who manufactured it.  Searching the internet tells me it could be as old as the 1940s, or as young as the 1960s.  Either way, it's worth way more than the $15 I paid for it.  But, to me, the value is in it's usability.  Like the vast majority of the other antique items in my possession, it's purpose is utilitarian rather than decorative.

Faline totally approves.

Horse Update, March

 

 

The weather this month has been something like this:  blue sky and warm. Two days later, cold, windy, and snow.  Several days later, blue sky and warm.  A couple days later, wind, cold, and snow.

But, we're getting there.  Camaro is shedding more and more.  He's getting a lot of scrubbing this month, both because of all the loose hair, and because he's delighting in rolling around in the mud while wearing his new 'spring jacket'.  In the picture above, he'd been wearing it less than 48 hours, and I'd all ready taken a rice root brush to it to get the caked on mud off. . . 

Riding is picking up.  I'm trying my darnedest to stick to a M-W-F riding schedule (since Tues and Thurs are babysit Faline days and I have to be done with all barn related things by noon on the dot).  So far, so good. Even the weather has cooperated with that plan, not being too windy and gusty on those days.  

I feel that progress is being made more rapidly.  We're doing better on the scary door end of the arena, and on the non-scary end, we canter both directions nearly every ride.  Left canter depart is great, to the point that he's starting to anticipate it and I don't need to prep him quite so many steps ahead of where I want the depart to occur.  To the right, some days are smooth and natural, others are a bit tense and rushy.

Meanwhile, when we're not cantering, we do quite a bit of walk work schooling leg yield in both directions,  introducing shoulder in, playing with shortening and lengthening stride at the walk, and just general responsiveness and suppling.  Especially suppling and responsiveness approaching that horse eating door area.

In terms of trot, if we're not concentrating on staying.  on.  the.  bit.   when going towards and through the scary end (while NOT trying to fall through the inside shoulder to avoid the door), we're doing lots of 10 meter circles, changes of direction through the diagonal, stretchy trot and , especially to the right, alternating between rising and sitting trot because he still thinks sitting trot means that we are going to canter any second and gets really flat and rushy to the right.

Will we be ready to show Intro C (with it's canter circles) in two months???  I'm hoping so.  At least this door nonsense is giving me lots of practice in keeping my cool and position and enforcing to Camaro that he needs to concentrate on me and listen to my aids no matter what is going on.

Sewing & Stitching Update, March

 As far as sewing goes, there's been a whole lot more thinking than sewing (or quilting) going on.  The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.  Or, rather, the brain is guiltily thinking about all the sewing that is NOT getting done.

Stitching, though, has been happening on Tuesday and Thursdays--the days I babysit Faline in the afternoons--and I am feeling like there's progress being made there.  I am working on the Sew By Row pattern from Lori Holt (that I bought early last year? Or late 2020? and finally pulled out to work on).  This will be a project that I will keep for myself, to hang in the (hopefully actually created this summer) sewing/crafting room down in the basement.

285,000

 That's what the odometer on the trusty rusty Suburban said at the end of February.  I'm glad we got to that mileage.

This time last month, I wasn't so sure.  The first week of February, it made an unexpected foray into a ditch with DD2 and wedged itself up next to a bunch of trees in snow up to the bumpers.  We'd had a huge snowstorm the day before, and, while the roads were not good, it wasn't anything she hasn't driven through in the past while living in the Upper Peninsula and Alaska. What she didn't bargain for, on her way home from a doctor visit that had all ready been rescheduled twice (hence why she was on the crappy roads), was the idiot driver coming at her from the opposite direction but traveling in the center of the road.  When she attempted to move over closer to the shoulder to get out of that driver's way--because they weren't getting back into their proper lane, she hit a drift and got sucked off the road.  (And did the other driver stop to see if she was okay?  NO!)

Anyway. . . 

While the wrecker we called pulled it back onto the road, the rear window on the passenger side got broken by a tree limb.  Going into the ditch and trees had all ready dented the front fender, and a little of the front passenger door, torn off the fender molding and passenger side mirror, bent the antenna and broke the front passenger door handle.  Had we had full coverage insurance on it, given the age (2005) and mileage (284,500+), our car insurance company would have considered it totaled and that would be that.

a little crunched, and missing the molding

no mirror, and an antenna with a jaunty angle

the biggest ouch

But, we have PLPD insurance on it, and so it was up to DH and I to decide whether it should be scrapped, or repaired.  After about six hours of looking online at what used and brand new vehicles were currently available, we started calling scrap yards for prices on the parts that needed replacing, and an auto glass place for a quote on replacing that broken window. There was absolutely nothing on the market within 500 miles that we wanted to take out a loan on in order to buy.  I have to admit, I'm kind of set in my ways about what I want to drive, and the current SUVs are not it.

Plus, I really, really didn't want to junk the Suburban.  I've been driving it for 17 years now, and have a goal of hitting 300,000 miles.  We're getting so close to that target, I just couldn't see throwing in the towel.

DH spent a few Saturday afternoon hours at the salvage yard acquiring a new door handle and mirror. then installing them on the Suburban.  He also straightened the cockeyed antenna.

new mirror, and antenna straight

waiting on the glass repair guys

The rear side window was replaced in a few hours on a Tuesday afternoon by a local mobile glass repair service for less than $500.

A new fender is going to wait a bit; it's perfectly road-worthy with the dented up one.  We're holding out for a black one to match instead of just going with the non-matching colors currently available locally.

Less than $600 and about a week later after the ditch incident, the suburban rode again!

When You Can't Buy It, Make It

 The ongoing weird grocery shortages are really beginning to bug me.  For the most part, I'm a patient person, and I try to be flexible.

BUT, there are some things, simple things, that make life better.  And having frozen diced green peppers is one of them.  Having a bag of peppers in my freezer just makes homemade pizza better, and omelets better, and spaghetti sauce better, and sloppy joes better. . .  Makes my state of mind better, to be honest.  

Peppers were hit and miss in the garden in 2021, and we've all ready run through the ones I diced and froze last fall.  Honestly, we ran through those by the end of November.  Thinking I'd just go back to purchasing them, I put them on my grocery list.  And then couldn't find them in any of the (few) grocery stores near me that I frequent. Since that's pretty much a 20 mile radius, that meant no frozen peppers for me.  I do have limits on what's reasonable to drive for one grocery item.  So I adjusted my meal plans to just be without that little zip that green peppers bring to a recipe.

And so it went, all through December, and into January.  Still no frozen peppers.  In fact, all frozen veggies seemed to have disappeared.  No companies processing them?  Was this a shortage caused by all the tons of fresh produce left to rot in the fields last year due to a shortage of workers?  

Who knows?  But I wanted some damn blasted frozen diced peppers.  And, I can be really good at workarounds. So in January, when I found fresh green bell peppers on sale, I bought 4, took them home, diced and froze them myself.  

Guess what.  4 peppers worth didn't last long.  I started, again, in early February, to peruse the frozen veggie aisle at the store(s).  Still no peppers.  And so it went, all month long. For the record, I haven't seen frozen peppers in any store since last summer, when I had enough fresh ones in the garden that it didn't occur to me to stock up yet on frozen ones.

This week, still no frozen peppers.  But, fresh green bell peppers went on sale again!  So, I grabbed four more and repeated my stubborn process of making my own durn frozen diced peppers.

Cream cheese has been another MIA item for several months. We're almost out of it at this little place here, and today I pulled out my book on home cheese making.  Cream cheese sounds simple enough, I just need to check to see if I still have starter and rennet. . . Milk and heavy cream so far have been easy enough to pick up whenever I'm at the store.

Knitting Update, March

 Like everything else seems to anymore, February went fast.  I don't think I got as much knitting in as I had intended.  Sock #2 of the Rickrack socks I'm making as a surprise for Mother-In-Law is in the heel gusset decrease stage.  I'd kind of hoped to be grafting the toe by now. . .

But, I do like how they are turning out.  And there's not a whole lot more hours of knitting left to do and I will be working kitchener stitch on the toe, then weaving the ends where the colors got cut, and they will be officially done.

I didn't do a whole lot of reading in the past few weeks either.  I finished reading the Lager Queen of Minnesota by J Ryan Stradal, which was pretty good.  I especially liked that there was knowledgeable stuff about beer and microbrewing in the story, not just buzz words to fit into a trendy genre.  As someone who has brewed, and does know more than a little about the beer making process and chemistry, it was refreshing to read stuff that was correct.

After that, I read 101 Ways to go Zero Waste by Kathryn Kellogg, most of which was redundant as it's things we've been doing for years.  But, if you're not 50 or over, super frugal, and raised a bunch of kids on not a ton of money, there's probably lots of suggestions in it that would be new or of interest to you.

I also read Rhythms of Renewal by Rebekah Lyons.  To me, it was an okay book.  Not terrible, not great, and maybe it just wasn't the right season of life for me to read and enjoy it.  I think I was just expecting it to be a little more than it was.  Or, maybe it was the three questions at the end of each chapter that were intended for personal reflection. . . kind of made it feel to me like a "read and discuss" book (sort of like high school literature class) which I never cared for and is probably the main reason I've never joined any book clubs.

Hopefully you've had copious amounts of knitting and reading time lately.  I'd love to hear any book suggestions you might have.