Mud Month

March, to me, is Mud Month.  Yes, we still have our cold weather; most nights are below freezing, but March is predominantly mud.  It snows, it melts, we have mud.  It rains, we have more mud.

The temperatures warm up into the forties or even fifties (or sixties or seventies--I have memories of bathing horses one 75 degree March day many, many years ago), and the frost begins to come out of the ground.  Which means mud, mud, and, yes, you guessed it: mud. Ever deeper mud.

First the squishy surface mud, then the slick mud with ice and frozen ground underneath, then the deep, boot sucking, tractor bogging mud.  The frost laws are on the roadways now (I saw the sign at the end of my road yesterday; it hadn't been there Friday when I last drove that way).

Beware driving anything heavy on the fields this month.  If you aren't aware of your terrain and the  recent temperatures, you might just find yourself axle deep and having to call a neighbor with an even bigger, more powerful tractor, to come haul yours out of the quagmire that is your field.  Been there, done that, and learned how to (hopefully) never do it again.

March is also bright, sunny skies.  March is promise in the air.  March is tapping maple trees.  March is starting the first garden seeds indoors, where the climate is stable and controllable.

March is watching the migratory birds arrive.  I have all ready seen blue birds, Canadian geese, and the earliest of the sandhill cranes.

March is smelling skunk in the air, as their mating season is in full swing.

March this year for me, will be frost seeding some more hay field.  It will be finally attempting to throw together a musty-hay-bale-and-old-window cold frame to start some lettuce and salad mix in.

Hooray for March!  Hooray for Mud Month!

Today in Pictures

Before dawn, everything was blue.  We got about three inches of snow between five p.m. and seven a.m, when these pictures were taken.

                       

The snow plow had been out on the major road (the "milk route"), but not my road yet when I left to go feed at the horse farm.  But that was fine with me, and the other neighbors who have four wheel drive.  Just follow the tracks and keep it between the ditches.  :0)

A surprise awaited me in the horse barn.  This guy had apparently taken shelter from the storm, and was totally surprised to see me walk in the barn at dawn.  He ran down the barn aisle, to the other end, where he discovered he couldn't get out under that door.  So he climbed the wall and tried to hide up by the rafters in the ceiling.

                       

If I were at home, I would have gotten out the .22, or at least the live trap.  But, I wasn't, and the rules are a little different at the horse farm.  So, when I was done feeding I just left the barn door cracked open and let him go.

Back at home, the air was warming up, and the snow evaporating.  A fog was forming over the field.

And my foot was hurting.  The one that got tromped on yesterday by one of my horses.  It's got some interesting bruises on it today.  Sorry for the ugly foot picture, but I wanted to show off the bruising on my next to smallest toe. It's actually a much deeper purple than what the camera captured, and goes between my toes too.  There is also a bruise on the side of my foot, which doesn't really hurt.  At least, not as much as the toe does.

Good Thing I Ran This Morning. . .

A storm is due to blow in today, starting as rain and ending as up to six inches of snow by dawn tomorrow.  Since yesterday was beautiful, in the forties, and melted all the remaining snow off the edges of the road, I decided to go for a run this morning.  The temperature was in the mid-twenties,  there was hardly any wind, and I did a full three miles for the first time since early December.  I felt great!

Then, I went to the horse farm to do turnouts (and bring them in again before the rain hit, predicted for around noon), and clean stalls.  I hadn't been there ten minutes when one of the horses (mine, of course) shied at a dark spot near where he was walking, and clipped the outer edge of my right foot.

Gosh dang it!  That doesn't happen to me too often anymore, but today it did.  He got me.  Unfortunately, as he was connecting with the toe of my boot, I was lifting my foot to take another step. In a split second, his hoof was on my foot, my foot moved, my boot stayed under his hoof, and I found myself standing with one boot on and one boot off, trying to keep my unshod foot away from his!

Retrieving a rubber boot from underneath a horse while trying to balance on just one foot is not an easy, nor a fun thing to do.  Especially while said horse is giving the dark spot on the ground the hairy eyeball and trying to climb into my coat pocket.  And my sock is flapping half off my foot, in the wind that had definitely escalated since my run an hour earlier.

Sock pulled tight, boot safely retrieved and back on my foot, and horse put in the paddock he belongs in for turnout, I was feeling gimpy.  But I had work to do, a couple hours worth, and it was  getting chillier by the minute.  So I decided to put my ouchie toe out of my mind until later, when I got back home.  It's not like a doctor could do anything for it anyway; I'd been here before in my 28+ years of working with horses.  Unless the toe was cut off (which I knew it wasn't, because if it had been, my sock would be wet with blood by now, and it definitely was still dry), a doctor would only say "take some ibuprofen, ice it, tape it to the next toe for support, and try to stay off it."  Ha.  Stay off it.  Not in this lifetime, with this lifestyle.  I'd had dislocated toes, I'd had broken toes, and I'd had a toenail nearly completely ripped off my big toe before--all by my beloved horses, of course--so I knew the drill.  Which translates to:  gut it up, get the work done, take some painkillers, and hobble around for the next two days to two months, depending on whether it's just bruised or truly broken.

Back at home, I finally took my boot off and examined my toe, which hurt like he---  Well, let's keep this G-rated and say it hurt a lot.  No blood, just like I'd thought.  Toenail still in it's proper location and proper coloring.  Toe not swollen, but there is a big purple ring around the middle of it.  Hmmm.  No swelling.  Not much bending.  Big purple spot.  Yeah, this might be a broken one.

Guess I won't be running for a while.  Good thing we're supposed to get too much snow for me to even consider taking off down the road in my running shoes for the next several days.  Got to rest this toe and all. . .

Snowy Day; Planning for Summer

We had a very snowy morning at this little place here.  Sometime around 6 a.m., it began to snow, and continued to snow heavily for a few hours.  There is currently about two inches of snow on the ground where, when today began, there was none.

This morning, I waded through snow, shoveled snow, drove through snow (wow, were the roads slick!), turned horses and chickens out into snow, and knocked snow off the firewood in order to stoke the wood boiler.

This afternoon, I am thinking about summer.  Specifically about my garden.  More specifically, about what varieties and amounts of vegetables to plant in my garden.  What to grow for our own needs, and what to grow to sell this summer at the farmers' market.

I'm inventorying the seeds I have left from last year.  I'm doing calculations.  I'm browsing the websites of my favorite seed suppliers.  I'm trying a new one; new to me, but very reputable from what I've heard.  It's actually been in business longer than my parents have been alive, just not on the national scale that it is now.

So far, I have ordered tomato plants, onion plants (roughly 200 onions; I hope that will be enough),  and seed  for sweet corn, field corn (for the chickens), and pumpkins.  Still need to determine where some of my other seed is going to come from--I have enough potatoes in the cellar that I could just use my own seed potatoes this year.  That is, if I don't want to add another variety to my growing list.  (Ha ha, "growing list".  It's a pun; get it?  List of things I grow/increasing tally of what I want to plant.  Yes, you may groan now.)

I'm thinking of adding some bush beans to my list.  I always grow pole beans, as there is an heirloom variety of those that is my favorite for canning.  They are the same kind as my grandmother grew and canned.  However, bush beans seem to come in a little quicker, and would be ready for market sooner.  So, perhaps I should grow some of those also.  I'm all ready planning to at least double my corn patch, so why not double the beans too?  And the peas.  And the potatoes.  And the cucumbers. . .

I have the blessing of not having space constraints.  I could easily increase my garden by two acres, if I wanted to.

I do want to, if only I could figure out where the man power to keep that extra two acres weeded, mulched, and watered is going to come from.

I need an apprentice.  My best 'workers' have grown up and moved away from home, leaving me with the less enthusiastic ones who would rather get summer jobs in town waiting tables.  They'd rather get sunburned at the beach than in the garden.  They'd rather cover themselves in bug spray in order to hang out with friends as the sun goes down than pick potato bugs or tomato worms.  I agonize over what this world is coming to.  (I hope you know I'm being rather tongue-in-cheek here.  But I do wish my girls were as helpful in the garden as my boys were.)

Anybody want to come be an apprentice?  I can't pay you, but you'd get lots of good food to eat while you're here!  Fresh eggs, fresh lettuce and spinach, asparagus in May, strawberries glowing like rubies in June, inky blackberries in July, tomatoes warm from the sun, sweet corn that goes from the stalk to the cooking pot in just five minutes, venison loin hot and juicy off the grill . . .  MMMM!  Can't wait for summer!

Elephant

That is what I made for dinner last night.  It is a childhood favorite, evoking memories of Sunday dinner with my maternal grandparents.

Confused yet, Dear Reader?

When I was little, in the 1970's, my parents, brother and I lived within about twenty miles of both sets of my grandparents.  We saw each set weekly, usually on the weekend, and Sunday dinner was almost always with my maternal grandparents.  Most of the time, we ate at their house, with my grandpa doing the cooking.  I know my grandma did cook, but honestly I don't have any memories of her cooking.  Maybe because her specialty was cabbage rolls, and I really don't like cooked cabbage!

Sometimes, though, they took us out to eat at Bill Knapps.  The children's menu at Bill Knapps featured pictures of animals, with each animal being a different entree.  My favorite was Elephant, which was creamed chicken and biscuits.  It was pretty much chicken pot pie filling served over a biscuit that had been split in half and laid open on the plate.  Mmmm.

Many years--okay, many decades--later when I learned how to make chicken pot pie from scratch, I remembered eating Elephant with my Grandpa and Grandma.  I decided, one day when I had leftover chicken to make into something for dinner, that I would serve Elephant to my husband and children.  That evening, as the kitchen was smelling good and I was rolling out biscuit dough, DH asked what was for dinner.

I told him "Elephant", and explained what it was.  He looked at me as if I were nuts.  Apparently they didn't have Bill Knapps in the northwoods where he grew up.  He had never heard of such a thing.  And, I guess, he hadn't ever had good creamed chicken and biscuits either, because the curl of his lip didn't look like he was all that enthused about the coming meal.

One bite, however, and he changed his mind (he loves my chicken pot pie).

Now, when I say we're having Elephant for dinner, he cheers.  And the kids enjoy telling their friends at school that we ate Elephant the night before.  They, of course, leave off the explanation of what Elephant really is.  Because it's more fun that way.  :0)

The Elephant Recipe (mine, not the original Bill Knapps)

If you'd like to make Elephant for yourself some night, just take about 2 cups of leftover cooked chicken, deboned and cut in chunks, steam up some peas, carrots, and diced potatoes, and add them to this chicken gravy recipe:

1/3 cup butter
1/3 cup finely chopped onion
1/3 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp flour
1 3/4 cup chicken broth (can make with 1 tsp bouillon and 1 3/4 cup water if you don't have the real deal on hand)
2/3 cup milk

In a 3 qt sauce pan, melt the butter over medium heat.  Add the onion and saute for about 2 minutes.  Stir in the flour, salt, and pepper.  Slowly add the chicken broth, stirring so not to form lumps with the flour/butter/onion mixture.  Once the broth is stirred in, add the milk.  Heat to boiling, stirring constantly.  Boil and stir one minute.

Stir in your pre-cooked chicken and veggies.  Turn to low and let sit while you make the biscuits.

Biscuits
2 cup flour
1/4 cup lard (or shortening)
1 Tbsp sugar
3 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
3/4  cup milk

Put all the dry ingredients in a medium sized bowl.  Cut in the shortening until mixture is crumbly, then stir in the milk.

On a lightly floured surface, knead the dough 20-25 times.  Roll out about 1" thick, and cut with a glass, cookie cutter, or biscuit cutter into 2" or 3" rounds.  Put on an ungreased baking sheet and bake in 450 degree oven for 9-11 minutes, or until the biscuits are golden brown on top.

When your biscuits are done, serve one sliced in half on each plate for small children, or two sliced in half per plate for older children and adults.  Scoop the chicken gravy mixture and pour over top of biscuits.

Working on a Mystery

Going where ever it leads. . .   (Tom Petty lyrics running through my head, and now, thanks to me, your head too).

In January, I embarked on my first ever mystery quilt.  If you've never heard of a mystery quilt--prior to December, I hadn't ever heard of one--it's a quilt where you are given directions week by week, you follow the directions, and at the end of a certain time period, you have all the blocks for a quilt, which you are then instructed on how to arrange them to sew into the final product.

I had never done one before, and it sounded like a fun thing to do in the mentally taxing time of winter, when there's nothing going on in the garden and not usually enough snow outside this little place here to do much in the way of entertaining outdoor activities.  Seemed like a great time to tackle a new sewing project, especially one where I had no clue what I would be doing from one week to the next.  Something to combat the winter blahs.

So I signed up.

The first week, all of us participants (who are all members of a particular homesteading forum), were instructed to choose four fabrics: a focal, a background, a primary accent and a secondary accent, and also to choose which size quilt we wanted to make. In order to know how much fabric was needed for each, we were given the needed yardages based on which size of quilt we had picked to make.  I wanted to use just fabrics from my stash, some of which were large scraps of someone else's stash I had picked up a rummage and yard sales through the years (ever frugal, always on the lookout for needful things secondhand or at a discount), so I chose to make the smallest size.

Going through my stash (which takes up one dresser and two 18-gallon totes), I chose a primary colored fabric as my focal, white as the background, a solid blue as the primary, and a kelly green with small red hearts as the secondary.

I initially chose white, because the instructions had the background as a light colored fabric and white was what I had in my stash that was both large enough and light colored, but when I posted the above picture of the fabrics to the group, a few of the participants asked if I had any black and we all agreed black would look better than the white.

So I became the 'rebel' in the group and went with a dark background rather than a light one, LOL.

The second week, we were given cutting instructions, and cut out squares, strips, and rectangles from our fabrics.

The third week, we got to begin sewing, and were given a technique to use in making hourglass squares.  I had never made hourglass squares before, and so learned something new.  I was quite pleased with my new found skill.

The fourth week, we were given another set of blocks to make, this time taking some of the strips and sewing them together, then cutting them into units, which were then sewn together along with some rectangles and small squares.

Week five, our instructions had us making shaded four patch blocks.  Another first for me, and I again thrilled at adding something new to my quilting repertoire.

Week six, the final week of block making, arrived.  I began working on the instructions, and, before I had my first star block--week 6 was all stars--half done, I realized that somewhere a few weeks back I had made a tragic mistake.  I had confused my primary accent fabric and my secondary accent fabric.  For three weeks, I had thought my green was primary, and had sewn the blocks that way.

OH NO!!  I looked back at the blocks, and saw that the week 4 blocks were balanced in primary and secondary, and you really couldn't tell which was which.  So, luckily, those blocks didn't need to be redone.  The week five blocks, though, were totally wrong. And my first star block, also wrong.  Well, darn!  I had to rip out the four blocks of week five and redo them with the correct colored fabric.  And my first star, the one that was partially done, yep, it had to go too.  Talk about frustrating.

Finally on the right track, and with my week five shaded four patches fixed, I made up my week six stars.  I also learned a new technique for making flying geese (the points on the stars) that I hadn't heard of before.  I'm still trying to decide if I like my traditional method of geese making or this new method better.  Either way, you end up with scrap.

For week six, we made four of the stars with the background and primary accent color in the center, and one of the stars with the background and secondary accent color in the center.

Then we were told to play with our blocks, twenty-five total, and see if we could guess what the layout of the mystery quilt was.  We were told it was a square, not a rectangle, but other than that, we were on our own.

Well, I looked and looked, and arranged, and rearranged, and couldn't come up with a single layout I liked and thought was the 'right one'.

On the last day of week six, we were allowed to take pictures of our guesses and post them after two p.m.  It was amazing to see all the different combinations the mystery quilt participants came up with using the same number and patterns of blocks.  Four different layouts were posted within the first three hours of being allowed to guess.

This was my best guess, which I don't feel is all that aesthetically pleasing, but it was the only one I came up with that looked somewhat okay to me.  My daughters loved it, but they are biased and think all my quilting is awesome.  Someday they'll know better ;0)

On the first day of week seven, the hostess of the mystery quilt, who had been giving us all our instructions from the beginning, revealed to us what the mystery quilt was intended to be.  Of course, since we were each making our own quilt for our own use, we had the option of sewing our blocks into her design, our own design, or the design guessed by a fellow participant.

Here are my blocks, arranged in what the real design was.

I definitely like the real design better, it makes the colors pop so much more.  I'm thinking this would make an awesome wall hanging, with maybe just a very thin black border.  Or perhaps no border at all.  Once I have the blocks sewn together, finished size w/out borders is projected to be 40" x 40".

More Adventures in Knitting

The knitting lessons are going swimmingly.  I am having a blast.  DD1 is chugging right along,  thrilled that she can "actually make something wearable" (and that's a quote).  DD2, well, she's not so wild about it.  She does like to knit, but she's not nearly as addicted to it as I am.  She's pretty happy sticking with large straight needles, knit stitches, and small projects.

DD1 and I, however, have branched out.  Last weekend, we began our first projects on circular needles.  She chose to do a slouchy hat, while I chose to do a watch cap style hat.  I was thinking along the lines of the practical keep-my-head-warm-while-doing-outdoor-chores, whereas DD1 was thinking ooh-I'd-look-cute-in-that.  Must be the difference between being 18 and being 41, LOL.

Her hat began with two inches of ribbing, then a slight increase, and was followed by 8 inches of knit stitches before being decreased in the last 10 rows.

Mine was ribbed for 10 inches, then a dramatic decrease in 8 rows.

Cool.  Nice, easy, rhythmic.  Knit two, purl two, knit two, purl two, for ten inches.  I wonder how long it will take me to finish?  Around and around I go, knitting in the round, knit two, purl two, and when I get to my row marker, move it to the right needle and keep going knit two, purl two.

two days after starting my hat

DH went out of town for business at the end of the week.  Since he was gone and I'd be home alone (both girls had things going on that night) I decided to go to the Friday night knitting club that meets at the yarn shop where I take lessons.  Oh boy, did I have fun!  I met more knitters, saw the projects they were working on, won a door prize (a book of neat wearables to knit), and knitted for two and a half hours straight!

At the end of the night, my hat was 9" done!

The next day was our lesson.  I worked on my hat some more, and when I got the decrease rows down to such a small number of stitches that it was hard to work on the circular needles, where I needed to switch to double pointed needles, the instructor had me join the class on dpns that she was giving in just a few minutes.

So, my hat got finished, and I got a class on using double pointed needles, which is a prerequisite for a class on making socks that will be held next month.  Socks are my goal.  They are the true reason I wanted to learn to knit:  so I can make my own socks.  Warm socks, soft socks, comfy socks, quirky socks.

It was a great day.  And my question got answered:  How long will it take to make a hat?  Apparently, about  eight hours.

DD1 also finished her hat that day, also sitting in on the dpn class and using them to finish her hat.  She's not sure if she ever wants to make socks, but did find the double pointed needles interesting to use.


My finished hat:

lying flat on the table, it looks kind of small

stretched over the end of a jumbo roll of paper towel

you can see it does fit an adult-sized head.

I do have a picture of me wearing it, but to post that would violate my "no identifiable picture of people" policy.  So the paper towel will have to do.  Just add brown hair, brown eyes, and a big proud smile.