Holy Wah, There Was a Tornado!

 Not at this little place here, but a few miles north. We were on the southern edge of all the super strong winds and we lucky to get by with just the nuisance to small limbs down in the yard and a smallish dead tree that fell across the road right by our driveway.  And having no power for about 114 hours (so about 6 hours shy of 5 entire days).

Meanwhile, north and west of us, where the tornado first formed, a nursing home lost it's roof and the occupants had to be relocated, some by ambulance, some by a city bus that was provided, to other nursing homes.  

And due north of us, on the Interstate, semi-trucks and cars were blown around resulting in at least one fatality on the scene and many injuries requiring hospitalization.  It was shut down for almost two days.

To the north east of us, a horse farm lost the roof to it's equipment barn (thank God not the horse barn), many homes were damaged by falling trees, and one farm took a direct hit losing it's century old barn and blowing the windows out of the house.  Many other farms in the direct path lost roofs to their barns, and semi-trucks not on the Interstate but just off the exit onto the state road were also blown over.  There were trees down all over, and power lines laying in yards, parking lots, on major and minor roads. . . It was rather a mess.  For days and days.

DH and I were lucky.  We cleaned up the limbs here, and used the new tractor (and pallet forks!) to push the tree out of the road at our driveway.  We have a generator, and have been using it during the day to keep the wifi on (so DH can work from home), our phones and laptops charged, and the fridges and freezers cold.  Since we are on our own well and septic, with the generator going we also have water and can take showers and use the toilets.  We also have a gas stove, so between that and the grill outside on the patio, we've been able to cook three meals a day and not need to go out to eat.  We are among the priviledged to be set up in this way for emergencies such as this.

DS1 is four miles away to the East.  He also was just on the fringe and had minor limbs down but no damage to his house.  He was without power for about 96 hours.  He bought a generator the morning after the storm and was able to keep his fridge and freezer cold too although with an electric stove he wasn't able to cook.

DS2 is off to the East about 30 miles; he got huge winds and lost a lot of deadwood (and a chain link fence) in his backyard but had no damage to his home or outbuildings.  He was without power for a couple of days; he'd purchased a generator after a big storm this Spring.  He'd also put in a gas line and gas stove this winter when he'd remodeled the kitchen right after buying his house, so he too was able to avoid the need and expense of eating out.

DD1 was in the direct path of the tornado; she is about a mile north and 12 miles east of us.  She, Honorary Son, Faline and Buck were huddled in their larger bathroom during the storm (their house is on a slab).  While they did lose many humongous limbs out of the large trees around their home, none fell directly on the house.  One fell and slid it's outermost branches down the front of the house, bending the fins on the window air conditioning unit in the kids' bedroom but there was no structural damage. They all came through the event safely.  They borrowed a generator in order to keep their fridge and freezer cold, and were without power for about 96 hours also.  They were able to go to the homes of family members for showers and to cook.

We're all glad to have been spared injury to ourselves, and also not have any damage to our homes.  After cleaning up downed trees, and getting electric service restored, we can all go back to our normal daily routines.

I love how the center of morning glories seems to glow with light.  

Just the sort of encouragement we need right now to remind us that God looks after us.

There is light in the the darkness and turmoil.

Building Update. . . and More

 DH's shop had very little done to it in October and November.  We finished putting on the siding and the door trim.

Finally, in December, DH and I installed the overhead doors. It took a long time from when we ordered them, for them to actually come in--right before DH left for his hunting trip out West in November.  

Installing the doors before Christmas was pretty much the end of forward progress on our building projects until Spring.

In the Spring (I can't remember the exact month), DH began doing the dirt work needed to reroute the  drainage around the East side of his shop. Remember that we had to bring in lots of sand to raise the East end of the shop when getting ready to build it?  Well, that left a huge drop off from the back door of the shop to the ground.  And just adding many feet of fill dirt would have backed up the entire drainage around our house, yard, barn, and now shop.  We needed to move what we refer to as 'the river' (the path that rain water and snowmelt take from the front yard, around the house, through the backyard and barnyard and out to the back field) out further away from the shop so that there was room for both fill dirt and a not too steep slope for runoff.

"The river" in early Spring.

Note that it runs quite a bit to the left of the big oak tree in the field.

Early in the dirt work, he got fed up with the tire falling off the tractor.  He had repaired it for good (he thought) after the fiasco in the field hauling sap this year.  But, apparently it wasn't totally fixed.  Because it fell off again, and again, and again when he was trying to scoop and move dirt for the drainage relocation.

One Saturday, I needed to run to town for chicken food, and DH decided to go along.  He wanted to stop at the John Deere dealer near the farm store.  We'd been talking, for years, about replacing our 790 with a larger tractor.  And now, with all the wheel problems, DH was mentally ready to buy that newer tractor.  He wanted to see what used ones were in stock that would suit our needs.

I'll save you the long winded tale, but turned out they had exactly the tractor that we both wanted.  And it wasn't used, it was brand new.  And they were running financing deals and other incentives on new tractors.  And when we talked to the sales guy and got down to the nitty gritty on this particular tractor that was out front that we wanted to make our very own, come to find out that tractor was an unused, unsold, 2022 model, which qualified it--until the end of the month--for zero down, 0% financing for 84 months.  Plus, it had the loader we wanted, and we could get a discount on two more implements for it (the pallet forks DH has been lusting after for years, and a wider box blade than the one we had at home) AND the monthly payments with all that came in less than the monthly payments on DH's pick-up which we would be making the very last payment on in October of this year.

PERFECT!!!  It just worked out in so many ways, how could we not buy that tractor?!?  So we did.

It's a John Deere 4044R, and it works so well for everything we want to do.  And the wheel doesn't fall off!!  We were able to sell our 790 and smaller box blade a few weeks later to a guy who didn't mind the wheel falling off issue as he does heavy equipment repair for a living.  Win-win.

Rerouting the river to approach the oak tree from the right.

So, while not much of anything has been done inside DH's shop this year, there has been lots and lots of outdoor aspects of our building projects accomplished.  Especially with the help of the new tractor.

Quite a large area of dirt relocated (all to the east side of DH's shop)

in our drainage project.

North end of the dirt work area;

note the grassy strip, the old river ran below it and 

the new river runs above it.

Left side has been built up with dirt removed from the right.

middle section of the dirt work area

Southern section of the dirt work area;

notice how close to the wood pile near the spruce tree DH removed dirt to change the slope.

Compare to location of the river and wood pile in the picture from early Spring

before work began.

New route for the river.

The area East of the shop still needs more fill brought in closer to the building, but we are done with the river rerouting.  That dirt will have to come from somewhere else.  (We've been talking about digging a pond at the marsh for many, many years, and that would be an easy source of fill dirt; just not sure it's on the docket for 2024. . . )

Words About The Poetess

 This post is my horse-related update for August.  The Poetess and I have been getting to know each other, slowly, in the last month or so.  She arrived in Michigan, at her temporary home until DH and I finish fencing and at least two stalls at this little place here, in late June.  I went to see her three times between then and when I was gone for a good solid week in early July.  Some things I learned in those three visits:

1. She's a mare.  I mean, I knew her gender, but after having/working with geldings since 2015, the lack of cuddliness really hit me like a sledgehammer.  Oh yeah, mare viewpoint.  Most mares don't really need people, not the way geldings are like puppy dogs falling all over themselves for human attention.  This made me hurt over the loss of Camaro even more. Big huge ouch.

2. She has no clue what treats are.  Tried feeding her a carrot.  Nope, not interested.  Tried feeding her a sugar cube. Again, no thanks.  Tried feeding her a peppermint.  Poetess: "No, I'm not interested. Why are you trying to stick things against my lips?!?"  This was new for me.  In almost 39 years of horses, I've never once run into one that had no idea what a treat was.  As treats were going to be my main training method in getting to know her and win her to my side, not having the bribery power of a treat threw me for a loop.

3.  She is pretty aloof (great, not just mare, but aloof mare *sigh*)  and if she isn't interested in what you're doing, you're not going to catch her out in the field.  She would come in at night when the rest of the horses came in, but on her own, if she didn't come to me out of curiosity I wasn't going to get a hand on her that day.  Since I don't believe in chasing down horses (sets a bad precedent of playing tag) there have been a number of days I left the barn empty handed without working her rather than bring all the horses in (and mess up their nice clean stalls) just so I could get ahold of Poetess.

In July, I had to buckle down and really think through my goals and tactics with the Poetess.  She didn't know me, didn't feel that she needed me, and too often wasn't willing to be caught.  She didn't care for treats, so I couldn't bribe her to come to me with that sweet tidbit like you can the vast majority of horses.  And I really was pushed into a funk on the days that she wanted nothing to do with me.  I missed Camaro's animated greetings whenever he'd see me approach the pasture gate.  Poetess, on the other hand, more than not looked at me coming, turned her back, and put her head down.  And once I was through the gate, she would keep just out of arm's reach, even if her pasture mate (who is supposedly also hard to catch) came right to me for scratches and pats.  Ouch.  Thanks, mare.  Not just mare, but aloof mare.  Great.

Luckily, my previous mare had been an aloof mare too, although easily won with treats.  Over time that mare came to know me, trust me, and if not meet me at the gate at least not walk in the other direction when she saw me.  So, I'm positive that Poetess will too.  In time.  Especially once we get her moved to this little place here and I become THE FOOD LADY who feeds her morning and night and brings her in from turnout to the dinner grain awaiting in her stall each evening.  Until then, I was going to need to pull out a tool from my horse training toolbox.

Tool of choice--Get to her in the mornings before she is turned out for the day.  While she's still in her stall I can easily get her.  In fact, she comes right to me when the stall door opens.  Unfortunately, the barn owner where she's at (very small private barn) turns horses out by 6:45 a.m.  Oh, getting up at to the barn that early is proving to be killer.  Some mornings, my gut doesn't cooperate and I'm unable to leave home (and the vicinity of the bathroom) until it's too late to get to Poetess before turnout time.  Other mornings, our air quality has been too bad and I can't breathe well enough to go work her.  And, a few mornings, especially after working outside on fencing until nearly 10:00 p.m. the night before, I just cannot get up; I feel like I've been hit by a truck and just can't get out of bed.

7 a.m. work session

We are slowly coming along though.  Poetess is learning to be led from both the left and right sides.  She's learning to longe; left side is coming along great, right side suffers from the not-being-used-to-being-handled/worked-with-a-person-on-her-right syndrome, but we're making slow progress there.  She's also learning to hand graze; something else she had no clue about when she arrived.  

She would just stand with her head up in the air when I would take her out to hand graze the first couple of weeks.  Then, she began to dart her head down, yank a mouthful of grass, and return to her on alert head-up position.  Recently she has figured out that hand grazing time is eating time; I don't want anything else from her but to stand next to her while she munches grass.  She will eat about four or five mouthfuls before putting her head up for a quick look around, then dive back into eating again.

Recently we've had a couple of breakthroughs:

• We found her treat of choice:  Nicker Makers (thanks to one of the other boarders who gives them to every horse each evening when she's there to see her own horse).  They seem to be working as I have been able to catch Tess each of the last four times I've tried with a Nicker Maker in my hand.
• She is learning to let me brush her ears, and, if in the right mood, actually rub them with my hand.  She came to me with pretty clear signs of headshyness-slash-phobia to having her ears touched, so I've been slowly working with her on rubs and scratches on her forehead, poll, and right behind her ears.
• Today she longed both to the left and to the right!  Hooray!  Prior to today the right side was very inconsistent, if I stepped too far away from her side, she would just stop.  It wasn't longeing in circles as much as leading a circle then slowly stepping away while still walking and she would stop about half- to two-thirds of the way around the next circle.   Back to leading in a circle, slowly step away, try to encourage her to keep walking a whole circle--unsuccessfully-- go back to her head, lead her in a circle. . .  Today she kept on walking the circle without me right at her head.  Not only did she walk several entire circles, she trotted and cantered a couple too (her idea, not mine, but hey, it's actual longeing on a circle!) Hopefully she doesn't suddenly 'forget' this skill and we can make progress in leaps and bounds from here.  Longeing is how I plan to instill voice commands before even thinking about sitting on her back and taking up the reins.

Summer Stitching & Sewing Update

 There hasn't been much sewing.  I cut out the rest of the pieces for the dress I intended to make Faline back in early April (that I totally got waylaid by the death of K2 and didn't touch for months).  It's a summer weight dress and more than likely won't fit her next summer, so I really need to get it sewn up before the weather turns too cool for her to wear it. 

 Unfortunately I got through the sewing of the bodice (and bodice lining), sewed the side seams on the skirt and had intended to sew the two pieces together yesterday (including installing the side zipper) when I discovered that the second page of the instructions is missing!  ARGH!  It's been so long since I started this (like late March) and so much has happened since then, and my sewing area is such a complete mess at the moment, that I don't know where the heck that needed second page is.  (Bash head here).  

It's been a long time since I made a dress with a zipper, so long that doing the side zipper thing isn't clear in my memory.  I'm pretty sure I sew the skirt and bodice together at the waist, starting and ending either side of the zipper opening, and then put in the zipper, but I could be wrong.  I'm sure I can find that info online these days even though the pattern itself is 10 years old or more.

While my sewing area has suffered from lack of regular attention (and tidying!!), I have done quite a bit of cross-stitching in the past month.  A little here and a little there in the middle of a hot afternoon (when I'm hiding inside from the sun) or to relax after dark at night once the outdoor work has been halted and before I get into bed, has really added up quickly.

The more I stitch on it, the more I like this piece.  It's very folk art-ish and reminds me of the decor of my early childhood (1970's).  It's also going to go very well in my chicken kitchen.

See my little fox needle minder in the above picture?  Well, the other day I thought to myself how much I like it, and wouldn't it be nice to have more than one, so I didn't have to steal it off one project (the Santa that is done except for the beadwork) in order to use it on another (this chicken thing).  Which resulted in me taking a quick peek at the needle minders currently offered by the Fat Quarter Shop, where I bought the fox one.  And lo and behold, they had some really cute ones. So I just may have treated myself to not just one additional needle minder, but three.  Although I might give one to K3; she's been showing an interest lately in maybe learning to do counted cross stitch.

Garlic Harvest

 At the beginning of this week, I harvested my garlic crop.  Most of the stalks had dried off about halfway up, and it was time to dig the bulbs.  This is the first year I've tried growing garlic in the garden (because it has to be planted in the Fall, and DH may or may not get around to tilling the garden in the Fall, depending on weather, his work schedule, and his hunting schedule).  Instead, I've always grown it in one of the terraced beds in the retaining wall behind the house/garage.  Usually that gives me a so-so harvest, as it is not an easy area to water without dragging a couple hundred feet of hose and a sprinkler from either the front of the house or the south side (terraces are on the east). 

Last year, I decided I was going to plant my garlic in the spot where (someday) the greenhouse will be added on to the south side of the garden shed.  And *I* tilled that spot.  Then I cleaned the chicken coop of it's summer accumulation of bedding and added about three tractor buckets of chicken litter to my freshly tilled spot.  Chicken manure has a high nitrogen content, and garlic loves nitrogen.  Then I tilled that spot again and let it set a week or so before planting the garlic bulbs.

I planted every single bulb of garlic I had from my 2022 crop, which hadn't done all that well.  It was garlic that I'd been growing from seed stock originally purchased around 2016.  The seed stock had been grown by someone in Wisconsin that I knew from an online homesteading forum. He was known for his really good garlic.  Unfortunately, he passed away in 2021, so if I couldn't have success with the coming year's garlic crop, that would be the end of that variety for me because after his death, seed stock was no longer available.

Once the garlic was planted, three rows worth, I mulched it with several inches of straw, then covered the straw with strips of hardware cloth (leftover from an old rabbit hutch we'd dismantled years ago when the kids lost their interest in rabbits) weighed down on the edges with scrap lumber (or big rocks) in order to discourage my free ranging chickens from scratching in the straw and digging up the garlic cloves.

Then I waited.  And waited.  All through the winter. In the spring, my efforts were rewarded with garlic shoots poking up through the straw!

Then came the removal of the hardware cloth so that the shoots didn't get strangled in the wire.  And hoping the chickens were busy enough elsewhere to not come around the far side of the shed and see all that uncovered straw.  For the most part, they stayed away.

Then there was weeding, and watering, and waiting through the early part of the summer for the garlic to grow and develop.  Some of the shoots died off when I didn't get the weeds pulled in time before they crowded out the garlic.  But, for the most part, the crop grew well and thrived.  Scapes were sent up, and cut off, trying to force the energy back down into the developing bulb.  My knit garden gloves still give off the aroma of garlic from that pruning.

Finally, this week was harvest time.  I carefully loosened the soil on the edges of the rows with a spade, and pulled out the garlic by the stalks.  There were some bulbs that were the size I was used to getting in the terraced bed; in other words, okay but wimpy. But most of the bulbs were good sized.  And more than a few were nearly as big across as the palm of my hand!

This is undoubtedly the best crop of garlic I've ever grown. I harvested about 100 bulbs, most of them good sized, which gives me more than enough cloves as seed stock and to have a lot for use in canning and cooking too. 

I have been laying the garlic out daily on the (covered) front porch to cure and finish the drying down of the stalks before removing the heads.  The above picture is from the first day.  I don't have a picture from yesterday, but the stalks are 100% yellow now. More than likely I'll remove the heads tomorrow.

Then I will choose the best ones to set aside as seed stock to be planted this Fall. My supply of Martin's Garlic (the only name I know for this variety) is safe for another year!

August Knitting Update

 July was not a very knitty time for me this year.  I didn't even take a knitting project on vacation for working on in the car; mainly because we were taking the three eldest grandchildren and keeping them busy in the backseat with a minimum of bickering takes a lot of my attention.  Nothing left for keeping track of where in a pattern I am or even if I am dropping stitches when I turn around to see what's going on back there.

I did manage to get through the first 69 rows of the Traveling Woman shawl I had cast on in June, and am now ready to start the lace chart.

I read two books. Or, rather, finished one I had been reading all ready (Beyond the Track: Retraining the Thoroughbred from Racehorse to Riding Horse by Anna Morgan Ford) and then started and finished The Sweetheart Deal by Polly Dugan (which is a pretty quick and easy read although the story-line--death of a husband/father/friend--wasn't all that light.  I did enjoy it though.)

Newly picked up from the library, where I had it on hold, and barely started is my next read: Silence of the Grave by Arnaldur Indridason.  It is the second of a series he wrote; I had read and very much enjoyed the first one back in 2020 just as Covid was sweeping the US.  It's been my intent, since then, to find and read the rest of the series.