Challenge #18: Plant Something

Warm weather is finally here, and gardening season has begun!  I've spent so many hours in the garden this week that my face is developing a toasty shade of brown--which looks kind of funny compared to my white arms and legs that only got uncovered in the last 24 hours or so.

The big project so far has been weeding and mulching the strawberry beds.  I'm so happy to finally have gotten the last row completed on Wednesday.  Now I can look forward to juicy red berries next month without having to wade through weeds for them.  Not to mention that without weeds competing for the same nutrients the strawberry plants need, I should get bigger berries.

I also pulled weeds and sod from the area that I had planted grapes in many years ago.  The plan had been to put up posts and wire to make a fence-type trellis for them (rather than an arbor), but like a lot of plans around this little place here, the time from planning to completion has spanned way more years than it probably should have.  But, DH finally installed the posts for me on Sunday, so now I just have to string up the wires and then gently tie the grapevines to them to give the vines the idea of where to hang onto and grow this season.  It will be so nice to have them up off the ground, and see the clusters of grapes instead of accidentally discovering them when I step where I shouldn't because it was overrun with weeds.

new posts (and mulch!) for the grapes

Now that those two big tasks are done, I've turned my attention to getting this year's crops planted.  So far I have planted a long row of mixed lettuces (buttercrunch, red romaine, Paris white cos romaine, black seeded Simpson, silvia red romaine, salad bowl, forellenschluss, tango, oak leaf, Amish deer tongue, rouge d'hiver, rossimo, cocarde, red salad bowl.) for salads.  I also seeded two double rows of beets (Detroit dark red and early wonder), and a row of parsnips.  Next on the list is to get my potatoes and peas planted this weekend; provided we don't get so much rain today that the garden gets too wet.  After that will come the other seeds: corn, beans, squash, cukes, etc, and finally at the end of May when all danger of frost has passed for this little place here, I will transplant all the little green growing things I've been nurturing under lights in the house since the end of March (tomatoes, peppers, basil, etc).

If you've been thinking of putting in a garden, and you're not living in a colder zone than this little place here is located in (zone 5b), now's the time to get cracking!  It's a little too early for the tender plants like tomatoes, melons, and peppers, but there are tons of 'early' veggies you can seed now.  Peas, lettuces and spinach, brassicas like cabbage and broccoli (and cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, turnips, rutabaga. . .) will withstand a few chilly days and nights and can go into the garden asap.

Even if you have no space for a garden, you can still put in a flower bed.  Or, at minimum, a few pots of flowers for a sunny space in the house.  Do you remember back to your early elementary school days when a class project was planting marigold seeds for Mother's Day?  Who says you can't do the same thing as an adult?  A little pot (or an empty, clean yogurt container), some soil, and a few little seeds are all you need.

What are you waiting for?  Plant something!

Boy Crazy?

I have to admit, this post is pure speculation on my part.  It's me thinking on the page more than me presenting any scientifically proven information.

However, as I've watched my daughters grow up--not that they are done with that yet; at least not DD2 who is still 'just' 16--I have noticed a few things.  Things about them, and things about their female friends, through the years.

My daughters have always had friends of both genders.  Even from a young age, they played just as well with little boys as with little girls.  Sometimes better with the boys, in fact.  I still remember one conversation with DD2's first grade teacher in which the teacher relayed to me a playground disagreement between DD2 and one of her female classmates.  The teacher summed it up by saying "Well, J wanted to be the queen bee, and DD2 just wasn't going along with any of that, and that's when noses got bent out of shape."

Other mothers, however, have told me that their daughters didn't want anything to do with boys until suddenly, they got boy crazy.  And then what they wanted from boys wasn't what the moms wanted them to do.

My girls were never like that.  Boy crazy.  I don't know if it stems from growing up with two older brothers whom they viewed as somewhat dorky but equals, or if it is because both of my girls are tomboys, or if it is because I never raised them to be girly-girls who need a man to give them self-worth.  If I needed something done, and their father wasn't home to help, I learned to do it myself.  Dad away on a business trip in the summer and kids want grilled hamburgers for dinner?  Well, Mom is gonna fire up the grill and give it her best shot. Flat tire on the minivan?  Hey kids, somebody get Mom the jack and the four-way, I got a tire to change.  Doesn't have to be a 'women can't do that' kind of thing.  Around here the only thing that men can do that women can't is pee standing up; and don't think I haven't attempted it at some point in time (best I have come up with, short of disrobing, is a squat in the woods).  Amusing side note on that subject:  DD1 was shocked to find out, at age 17, just how many of her female peers had never peed outdoors before.  Even more shocked to find out that there are boys/men who have never done this either!

Maybe I don't actually have anything to do with my daughters' lack of boy craziness.  Maybe it is really because they have a father who has always been involved in their lives.  He isn't around 24/7 because of the intermittent traveling his job has required, but he is there for them.  And he has done many things with them while they were growing up, including taking them along for things that are stereotypically 'manly': to major league baseball games, to college football games, on rustic camping trips, on canoe and kayaking trips that are mostly his buddies and their sons and not so much wives and daughters (hmmm, now that I think about it, for a long time, we had the only daughters).

Then again, maybe I did have something to do with that.  You see, before we even had any daughters, when I was pregnant for DD1 and really praying for a daughter instead of a third son, DH admitted to me he wasn't sure he wanted to have girls.  He said he didn't know how to raise a daughter.

I told him, matter of factly, "Just like we are raising our sons.  Girls, boys, it doesn't matter.  I want them all to be capable, responsible, and have good manners."

So, when we made a campfire, the girls were shown how to build and light it, just like the boys.  And they got just as many opportunities as the boys to do so.

When they got old enough to be curious about hunting, the girls got to go sit with DH (or me), just like the boys did.  And they took hunter safety, just like the boys did.

If DH was working on a car repair, or a house repair and needed a hand, the girls got drafted just as many times as the boys did.  We have a picture from when we were building the house at this little place here; it is of 5 year old DD2 with a hammer in her hand.

Likewise, the boys were expected to help out with household tasks, like laundry, cooking, vacuuming, etc.  There were only jobs that needed to be done, not "male" jobs and "female" jobs.  And if there is a job to be done, by golly you better be hopping to it!

My girls are also innately talented in the areas of science and math.  In school, they often had classes in those two subjects with higher male than female student counts.  Group work meant collaborating and communicating with boys in order to maintain their good grades. And some of the teachers have admitted to me they often assigned my girls to the same group as some of the slacker boys, in an attempt to get those boys to toe the line and do the assignment.

It has been kind of funny to note, now in retrospect, that while DH and I made a rule, a long, long time ago that none of our children could date (as in without a parental chaperone, to a non-school event, as a pair rather than part of a large group) until age 16, once our daughters turned 16, they weren't all that interested in dating.  They had many male friends, but they saw them as that:  friends, versus subjects of love interest.  In fact, my girls have often said "Well, I like to hang out with him, but he's really dorky and kind of stupid.  I'm not in love with him," when questioned about this male friend or that one that they went to the school dance with, or studied via text with, or went to see the latest superhero film with.

Whatever the reason my daughters have made it thus far in life (two years of college for one, and three years of high school for the younger) without becoming boy crazy, I am glad.  I've seen their boy crazy peers.  I've heard tales of woe from the mothers of the boy crazy ones.  The stories usually aren't pretty.  I'll take my "boys-are-dorky-sometimes-annoying-beings-that-we-put-up-with" daughters over the "she-idolizes-every-boy-in-sight-and-can't-concentrate-on-anything-else" kind of girl any day.  Besides, having daughters who aren't afraid to toss hay bales, or change the oil on the car, or throw something raw and bloody on the grill, or even teach their male friends how to drive a stick shift are much more fun and useful than having the helpless kind of girl who only wants to look good and attract boys.

Always More Wood

Lately, DH has been doing a lot of chain saw work out in the woods.  With the warmer, and drier, weather we've been having he's spent many an hour on the weekends with his chain saw in hand cleaning up the hundreds of trees that blew over or broke off last fall and winter.  It has became clear to us that there will always be more wood; we don't have to worry that in using it for heat we are deforesting the property, because in our lifetime we can't burn more than what nature has all ready provided.  And through the natural processes of seeds sprouting into new trees, and old trees dying, or younger trees breaking off or blowing down due to ice or heavy snow or sixty mile an hour winds, there will always be wood needing to be cut.

Now, I do admit that part of that blessing of unending wood is on land that we do not own.  That, in itself, is another blessing: that the owner of the neighboring woods does not heat with wood and has said he would rather we cut up and use his blow-downs than have them be a tangled mass rotting away on his property.  And so, with our own 10 acres of woods, and the storm damages on another 40 acres or so of trees, there will always be more wood to cut, haul, and burn.

Along with cutting wood, DH has also been using the tractor to pull stumps from those blown down/broken off trees and hauling them to the edge of the field.  They will make many long-burning bonfires in coming years (and also this summer, as we are the hosts of DH's family reunion for 2014; a reunion which encompasses all the descendants of his paternal grandparents--who begat nine children!).  Right now, the stumps he's pulled and hauled out of the woods sit in a pile on the edge of the field, awaiting the time he will drag them over to our fire pit.

Nearby, there is also a pile of mostly limbless trees he pulled in early winter.  They were the first casualties, blowing down over the woods road and across shooting lanes in the huge wind storm we had n the third day of firearm deer season last year.  They are more 'junk wood' than long burning oak, so will be more bonfire/campfire fodder rather than being split and stacked for use in the wood boiler in coming heating seasons.

When DH cuts wood, in the woods, he does not haul it in and burn it right away.  He, or often he and I, make stacks near where it was cut, and there it stays for at least a year before being loaded onto our wood hauler trailer and towed up to the vicinity of the wood boiler, where it will be split and then stacked for at least another half-year before being burned.

So, with all the cutting we did last spring, and all the cutting DH has done so far this one, it is hard to go anywhere in the woods without seeing piles of tree trunks cut into fire wood length pieces.

Even with all those piles, there are still many leaners, aka widow makers, all over the woods that need to be taken care of.  One section at a time, they too will become stacks of wood squirreled away for winter warmth.

Challenge #17: Pile o' Ironing

I don't know about you, but I don't do the ironing very often.  Not as often as I should, apparently, judging by the stack of clean-but-not-ironed-and-hung-up-yet shirts and dress pants that currently is taking up space at this little place here.  To give you a rough idea of how high my stack is, well, if I set it on the floor and stood next to it, I'm pretty sure it would come nearly to my knees.

Maybe you don't have this problem.  You lucky dog, you!  Either you take all your dress clothes to the cleaners and then retrieve them pressed, hung, and ready to wear, or your lifestyle doesn't require you to own very many dress clothes.

But for those of us who do have a pile of ironing awaiting our attention, that is what this week's challenge is all about.  Do a pile o' ironing this weekend, or at least between now and next Friday.

Haul out the ironing board, dust off the iron, fill the chamber with water so you can steam out those stubborn wrinkles, and set to it.

Now, ironing doesn't have to be a damper on your day.  Not at all.  It might take you an hour to press your way through the stack of shirts and pants; I know from past experience with piles of ironing that it is going to take me roughly an hour to make my stack disappear.  But that doesn't have to be an hour filled with sweat and tears. Just because my procrastination has let the pile grow and grow and grow doesn't mean I have to hate every minute spent catching up on the task.

It can be fun. Yes it really can. Because I said so.  And because I have a few tricks for making my gargantuan task of ironing a bit more enjoyable.

Here are a few ways you can make ironing less about drudgery and more about some me-time while accomplishing a necessary household chore:

1. Set up your ironing station near the TV, and watch a show or DVD while you iron.
2. Alternately, set up your ironing station near the computer, and enjoy some you-tubing while ironing.
3. Or, set up your ironing station near a dresser, desk, or counter where you can open up a book or magazine and do some reading while making that stack of shirts disappear.
4. Put on some fun music--you can define the genre for your fun--and jam out while you iron.

Either way, get that pile attended to.  Stop tripping over it, or adverting your eyes every time you walk by it.  Stop searching your nearly empty closet for your favorite shirts for work.  Stop giving your hubby reason to point out all that he has clean in his closet to wear to work is polo shirts, again.

Get out your favorite book, show, or music, the ironing board and the iron, then do a pile o' ironing.  When it's done, you'll be glad you did.

A New Knitting Skill

I always find it interesting how things play out.  How many times that a chance conversation or exposure to something ends up, down the road--possibly weeks or months or even years down the road, becoming part of my everyday life.  Some people say that is merely coincidence.  For me, it happens way too often, if I really think back, to be more than the random toss of the dice of life.

For years, I had off and on thoughts that I might want to try knitting.  I'd see something that was made by knitting, like it, and wish I had that ability.  But I had so many things on my plate all ready, and knitting seemed like a difficult skill to master, that I would push the idea aside.  Then, in the fall of 2012, DD1 mentioned to me that she thought she'd like to learn to knit.  Actually, I think the way she said it was "I wish I'd had great-grandma teach me to knit when she was still alive." You see, great-grandma had taught DD1 to crochet during her early middle school years, but they had never gotten around to tackling how to knit, and great-grandma died the summer before DD1 entered high school.

DD1's chance mention of her desire to knit reminded me that I, too, had a wish to be able to knit.  And, with Christmas coming up in a few months, my Possible Present Radar was active.  Knitting lessons went down on the mental list of items DD1 would enjoy receiving as Christmas gifts.  Which lead to not just DD1, but also DD2 and myself taking knitting lessons in January of 2013.  The girls enjoyed the lessons, but once knitting was somewhat demystified, for them it took a back seat to their school work and social lives.  For me, however, it turned into a passion.  I knit at least an hour every week, and have an ongoing list of knitted items I would like to make to give as gifts for future birthdays and holidays, as well as practical items for myself.  Socks, in particular, are my favorite things to knit.

Well, it just so happened that this winter, while I was finishing up a pair of socks to give someone else, I saw a picture of some entrelac socks posted on the internet.  Ooh, socks, my favorite!  And ooh, entrelac, it looks so cool.  And so difficult!  My brain simultaneously said "I want to make those" and "I don't think I am skillful enough to make those".  I bookmarked the pattern, but that was it. Entrelac was something I liked the look of, but was sure was terribly difficult to actually do.  Besides, spring was nearly here, and spring begins the busy planting season, and I wouldn't have time to learn something new and complicated like entrelac.  That was that.

About a month later, my local yarn shop (where DD1, DD2 and I had taken lessons in 2013) announced via Facebook, that it would be holding an Enterlac Knitting Class in mid-April.

Coincidence?  Maybe. When I looked at my calendar, there was nothing on it to prevent me from attending the class. The one afternoon of a busy week that didn't have anything slotted for about a three hour time span happened to be the exact day and time of the entrelac class. Still coincidence?  

So I went.  The instructor handed out patterns for a scarf (if we wanted to use 4 skeins of yarn) that could be shortened and made into a cowl (if we only wanted to use 2 skeins of yarn).  Then she had us choose our yarn, and get started following the step-by-step directions.

I was pleasantly surprised to learn that entrelac is not hard.  It is really very easy.  It does require concentration, because there is a lot of turning and picking up of stitches to do, but it is not complicated at all. Straight forward knit and purl. I found entrelac to be very enjoyable, and I definitely appreciated all those socks I had previously knit; learning to turn heels and pick up gusset stitches was a skill that made learning entrelac a breeze.

The first full row done.

About 1/2 way,

loving the woven look of entrelac.

Two full skeins done;

another coincidence that it makes a cowl, because I had decided a few weeks before hearing of the entrelac class that I needed to learn to wear cowls (I'm not much for accessorizing).

So, now I know how to do entrelac.  I'm thinking that entrelac sock pattern I saw during the winter will now move up from the bookmarked realm of "I wish I could make this" to actually being on my project list this summer.  Maybe someone in the family will get a pair of entrelac socks for Christmas 2014.  And maybe next winter I'll be wearing an entrelac patterned sweater, handknit by me for me.  Meanwhile, I have a really cool cowl to learn how to wear. :0)

Coolest Mom in the World Feat #376

Today, I have once again performed a task that has given me the title of Coolest Mom in the World.

You see, last week, DD2 purchased a dress for Prom.  She bought it from a friend who had worn the dress a few years ago, was not planning to wear it again, and offered it to DD2 for a very good price.  DD2, being very confident in my sewing abilities, didn't blink an eye when the dress was about 2 sizes larger than what she normally wears.

"My mom can fix that," she confidently told the friend.  "She's really good at sewing stuff.  She altered my sister's prom dresses."

I, however, blinked both eyes when DD2 put the dress on for me to see where and how much it needed altering.  In fact, I think maybe my eyes started to tear, and then to glaze over in fear.  For you see, this is a strapless dress, with a sequined bodice, and boning.  I have never had to deal with boning before.  The alterations I made on DD1's prom dresses were much simpler.  They were of the type where you just pinch a half inch or so under the arms and fold it over to meet the seam.  No disassembly necessary.

That kind of stuff wasn't going to work on this dress DD2 was so excited about.  Partly because it wasn't the sides that needed to be taken in.  This was more along the lines of bust-shaping work and repositioning a few seams.   And we weren't talking about 1/2 an inch here or there.  No, when I started pinching and pinning to see how much tighter I needed to make the bodice so it would stay up at prom no matter how vigorously DD2 danced or if she raised her arms, it got a little scary.  In fact, I asked the height of her date and then suggested that DD2 needed to wear only 2.5" heels to make her as tall as her date, so no arm raising while slow dancing would be necessary (DH suggested just no slow dancing at all, and problem would be solved)!

Anyway, I estimated about 5" of changes needed to be made overall.

Did I mention that boning?  Yeah, that was in the way, which meant I would have to remove it, make the changes, and then replace it.

Did I mention the sequins?  I wasn't even sure what to do with the sequins; if my machine could sew through them or if I would be breaking needles left and right.

Did I mention 5"?  I needed to resew each bust seam so that the top of the dress came in about 2.5" on each side to be tight enough.  The lower rib cage was fine; it was just from mid-boob up that was loose.

Did I mention it looked like I was going to have to take the top half of the dress apart to accomplish these things?  My eyes definitely glazed over.

So I set the dress aside for about five days.  I was worried.  I didn't want to ruin a gorgeous dress, even if it did only cost $25. (Yep, you read that right, $25 for a floor length dress with sequined bodice and tons of tulle overlay on the skirt.)

Then I gritted my teeth, looked at the calendar (at that point, Prom was just six days away!), and did some searching of the internet for tutorials on how to alter the bodice of a strapless dress with boning and sequins.  It didn't look too bad.  Very time consuming, but at least not out of the realm of possibility.

Pretty much I needed to take the dress apart, from the top, down to the point where the bodice needed to come in.  Out came my seam ripper.  In went a deep breath and a "I can do this" pep talk.  Then I began to rip out stitches.

Off came the piping at the top of the bodice.  Now I had two parts to work with: the front fabric, and the lining.  Each had it's own seam that needed to be altered.

pin marking how far down to rip the seam

commence seam ripping on sequined front fabric

Out came the stitches holding the channel for the boning.  I pulled the boning out of the first seam, and marked the top with an "F" to indicate that was the side that went toward the front of the dress (the boning was curved to shape the bust outward) so that I would be sure to replace it exactly the way it had been in the dress.

boning

Then those seams had to go, from the top down almost six inches.  Each layer had to be adjusted, pinned, and a new seam sewn.

sewing the new bust seam on front fabric

 The channel for the boning had to be remade, then the boning reinstalled facing the correct direction and the top of the channel sewn shut.  The front and lining layers had to be aligned, the piping placed just so on the top edge, and everything sewn back together.

After getting all that done, I began to wonder if it would have been faster to just make a prom dress from scratch!  Truthfully, it only took about two and a half hours start to finish, including a few places that had to be handsewn.

reworked bodice, 

looks just like before I ripped it apart

Now I am Coolest Mom in the World.  At least until the next time DD2 gets upset with me. There's a pretty good chance that will happen between now and Prom this Saturday.  Afterall, we still have to figure out how she wants her hair styled and DH and I need to name her curfew time for that evening.  Most definitely going to lose my title then.  But I'll get a new one:  Strictest Mom in the World.  Won't be the first time I've swapped one for the other.  Or the last.

Saturday, In Pictures

I went to the auction again, and bought more straw.

I think I have about enough now to mulch the garden this season.

DH tilled the garden.

I started cleaning up the strawberry bed and mulching (with straw) between the rows.

Cascade hops (on the south side of the house) are up about a foot.  

Time to get in and thin them out. 

Darn things grow so fast; they weren't above ground yet on Monday!

First tulip to bloom for 2014.

Hyacinths turning their heads to the late afternoon sun.

(Doesn't that oak bark mulch look awesome in the flowerbed? Yes, I'm proud of all the weeding and mulching I did last weekend & on Monday)

The farmer came and turned the field today.

plowing. . . 

Front field (about 2 acres) all freshly plowed.

DH and I ate 1/2 of a homemade pizza for dinner. 

(Neither of the girls were home.)

Which means the other half will be a lunch or two next week.

After dinner, DH headed out to the woods with the tractor and chainsaw.

Got more wood to cut.  Haven't cleaned up all the blow downs yet.

The roses DD1 bought DD2 for opening night of the high school's spring play.