Living Where I Hunt

To be able to hunt the same land we live on is a privilege.  I believe the vast majority of deer hunters do not have the ability to sleep in their own bed, eat breakfast in their own kitchen, walk out their own back door, go a few hundred yards, and sit down in their deer stand.  At least, the majority of deer hunters I've known are not able to do this. Some might own property 'up north' or otherwise away from their urban or suburban primary residence.  Some rent someone else's property for the hunting season.  Some drive to and from public hunting lands every single time they go out to hunt.

Me, I walk out my back door, across my field, into the woods, and to whichever of our various deer stands/blinds I feel like hunting from that particular morning or afternoon. Or, at least whichever location DH hasn't put dibs on first.  And if any of the kids are home to hunt, I do try to leave their favorite spots open.

Sounds great, right?

It is.  Sorta.  Except by hunting from the same property I live on, I don't get the advantage of being on vacation or going to hunting camp like the hunters who have to travel.  I still have to cook the meals, clean the floors, take care of the livestock, raise the children (when they were still at young and at home), and all the other daily chores I normally do.  That includes work during the week.  Hunting is something extra I'm trying to squeeze in, not something that I get to say "everything else doesn't exist right now, it's hunting season and I'm going hunting."

It also means that we frequently have 'guests' popping in during the deer hunting season.  Those 'guests' (and I say that tongue in cheek, or maybe biting my tongue, since they don't behave like normal guests, but like they can do what they please while at my home) are friends of DH's who don't have hunting right out their own back doors.  Well, actually a couple of them do, but are more limited in which direction they can shoot by more densely populated neighborhoods than what we live in.

For many years, these 'guests' settled themselves into the deer stands on our property, and if there was an open spot left, then I got to hunt too.  Meanwhile, I was feeding them dinner, washing up the dishes they ate off of, washing the bedding they used when they stayed overnight, cleaning the bathroom & restocking the toilet paper they used. . . All for last dibs on the hunting spots on my own property.  While trying to keep up with all my regular daily responsibilities.

Then, one year, I pretty much blew a gasket.  I told DH that if things were going to continue this way (the prepared meals, the housekeeping service, the priority hunting spots) that he needed to charge his buddies a fee for the privilege of hunting our land.  Especially since at least one of them all ready rented other land but still came to our place and enjoyed the hospitality plus took home our venison.

It was not a discussion you would have wanted to witness, as it got a little heated. I knew from experience that traditionally the guy at hunting camp who was elected to do the cooking and cleaning for the rest of the hunting crew was referred to as the 'camp bitch', and I may have said something about showing DH's buddies a real 'camp bitch' if I continued to be disrespected in my own home while footing the bill for their non-charged hunting experience. . .

But, things did change. Some of the 'guests' suddenly were less interested in taking deer from our woods.  Kind of ironic, how once some courtesy was enforced, hunting at my house became less desirable compared to hunting on the lands they were paying money to use.  When the free meals stopped, and quiet time was nine p.m. on school nights, it just became too far for them to drive just to hunt for an afternoon a handful of times during season. Some guests stopped living with us (interrupting our family life/schedule, since the kids still needed a quiet bedtime so they could get enough sleep and be up and at school in the mornings) quite so much.  The ones who did stay for days started bringing 'gifts' of groceries and packages of toilet paper.

And, wonder of wonders, I stopped being the last person who got to claim a hunting spot.  In fact, I moved up to number two on the list when it came time to choose blinds. And immediately after me on that list, was which ever of our children were old enough to hunt and were home for that particular hunting time.  IF there was any room left in our woods after that, then DH's 'guests' might be able to have a spot.

There is a difference between being hospitable and being taken advantage of.  It's a fine line. And, unfortunately for those of us who hunt where we live, it gets crossed more often than it should.

 .

Flannel Hankies for Hunters

Last winter, I made myself a few handkerchiefs out of some scrap flannel I had from old sewing projects. I tested them out at work, since being in the cold for hours straight tends to make anyone's nose run, and I decided I much preferred a handkerchief over a pocket full of Kleenex that invariably ended up soggy and shredded.  (Not to mention what a mess it made in the washing machine if I forgot to empty the pockets of my barn coat before washing!!)  Nope, Kleenex is out; I'm sold on hankies.

Which led to me deciding that this year I should make some flannel hankies to give as gifts to family members who also spend quite a bit of time outdoors in the colder season of the year.  Which led to me hunting down some camouflage patterned flannel in order to make hankies to give the sportsmen in my life (pun intended, ha ha).

Why would a hunter want to use a flannel handkerchief?  Well, I thought of a couple of reasons:

1. No wads of soggy tissue to try to fish out of coat pockets and unfold with gloved hands.  When hunting, the less motion the better for maintaining your "I'm just a tree, don't mind me" persona.
2. Flannel is nice and soft and warm feeling.
3. A tissue is white, or some other pale color.  Who wants to create a flash of white when they are sitting in the woods dressed in clothes meant to make them look like a tree?  A deer's tail is white, and it is used to signal "Danger!" to other deer.  A camo hankie would be less noticeable when in use.

Seemed logical to me.  I guess time will tell if the recipients of my camo hankies agree or not. Anyway. . . 

Amazingly enough, my local Walmart currently is carrying flannel in the wooded camo type pattern (think of you major camo brands, it looks like that) and it is of nice quality. So I picked up a yard, and was able to get a dozen camo handkerchiefs out of it.  That's not a bad return on investment if your budget is tight and you are looking for a token gift for someone on your Christmas list. (And for those who don't hunt, just choose some other color/pattern of flannel!)

I make my flannel handkerchiefs just a little different than my 'regular' cotton ones (both are of 100% cotton fabric, but flannel behaves differently).

(See this post for info on how I make hankies.)

You see, normal fabric will unravel on the edges, especially the more it gets washed.  This is why most things are hemmed or have the edges serged.  Doing so prevents the fabric from unraveling.

Flannel, however, is more resistant to unraveling (also known as fraying).  So, for my flannel hankies I forego the hemmed edge and just run a zigzag stitch on all four sides.  Faster and easier.  I like fast and easy (caveat: as long as it produces good results).

So, all I did was wash, dry and iron the fabric.  Then I cut it into 10" x 10" squares.  Then I zigzag stitched around all four edges of each square.  Some I did in a 'natural' (ie. beige) colored thread, and some I did in black thread (because I ran out of natural, which is also my go-to color for piecing quilt blocks).

just two of the many camo hankies I created

Can't get any easier than that.  And did I mention I got a dozen hankies out of one yard of fabric?  That's a whole lot of gifts.  Of course, I plan to keep a few of those for myself.  Because when I'm out in the woods next week trying to get myself some venison, I don't want soggy, white, wadded up tissues scaring off the deer when my nose gets a little drippy!

Yarn Along 2015.44: Christmas Gift Making is Underway

We are having a beautiful weather Wednesday at this little place here.  Cool and frosty this morning turned into a light drifting fog as the sun climbed in the sky, and then into clear blue skies with sunshine streaming all around.  The air is up to nearly fifty degrees now, which is what our forecasted high temp is supposed to be.  And then, watch out! tonight, rain and cold and wind, wind, wind moving in.

But, for now, it is a gorgeous day, and I'm once again joining Ginny's Yarn Along.

I received my much needed skein of yarn last Wednesday afternoon, so I was able to finish the thumb for DD2's glove, and now those are done.

I also finished my brightly colored double bump dish cloth, then made another one in a turqouise-y blue.

Then, I could no longer fight the urge to knit socks, so I picked a pair off of my Gifts to Make list.  There are several small pair of socks on that list, and it was easy to get right to work on a pair of Jellybean's Special Socks for K3, using a small skein of Regia sock monster in a pink and purple stripe (purchased while shop hopping).  I did make a few modifications to the pattern, because I'm not a super fan of short row heels (namely wrapping and then picking up wraps), and because the last time I made a pair (back when K3 was still a toddler) I thought the toe came out rather pointy.

But, anyway, it took about a day and a half to knit the first sock, and I am all ready to the heel turn on the second sock. Gotta love little feet!  Whipping out a sock in only a couple days makes me feel so accomplished, lol.

The Grass is Always Greener. . .

. . . where the chicken poop is.

Seriously, though, chicken manure is super high in nitrogen.  Plants love nitrogen; they grow more and larger leaves when they have an abundant supply of nitrogen.  Grass blades are the 'leaves' of the plant.

Everywhere my broiler pen sits during the course of raising our meat birds each season later tells the tale.  I can look out at my orchard and see every single spot the broiler pen was parked.  Because the grass is greener.  Way greener.  And thicker.

My hope, in using the orchard as the location for the broiler pen, is that some of that nitrogen from the chicken manure is soaking down into the soil, where the fruit tree roots can soak it up and nourish the trees, making them strong and healthy.  And more resistant to disease and insect pests.

Garlic Experiment Concluded

Actually, the experiment concluded several months ago, since garlic is harvested in mid-summer here.  I just haven't gotten around to finishing up writing a post about it.  (In case you missed my other posts about my garlic experiment, quick click and read here, here, and here!)

But now, here it is: the conclusion!

I'll start with a picture of the harvest.

Not too bad.  Most of the cloves I planted out in the spring lived and produced heads.  And the heads were actually pretty close in size to what I've harvested in previous years, when I had planted the cloves at the proper time: in the fall.

So, what I learned from this experiment, and am passing on to you, the reader, is that if for some reason you forget or are not able to plant your seed garlic at the right time, all is not lost.  If you have a cool place to keep them until spring, you can plant them in some potting soil in plastic cups (or even yogurt containers; the cloves did not grow much over the winter while sitting in the cellar) and then plant them outside as soon as the ground thaws.They should grow pretty much as normal after that point.

Yarn Along 2015.43: Yarn Chicken and Switching Gears

For November, we sure are having beautiful weather at this little place here today.  The sky is blue, there is no wind, the winter wheat in the field behind the house is bright green, and the temperature is touching seventy degrees.  There's even laundry hanging on the line! I'm joining Ginny for the Yarn Along this afternoon.

I had planned to show you a pair of finished gloves today, and tell you how I had mailed them off to DD2 on Friday, and she had received them on Tuesday, and that she absolutely loved them and thought they were the coolest gloves ever.

Except on Thursday I found myself playing yarn chicken against my will.  For those who might not know, yarn chicken is when you find yourself nearing the end of your yarn more quickly than you seem to be nearing the end of your knitting.

The right glove that I only had three fingers and a thumb to go on for last Wednesday's yarn along post now had three completed fingers, and I was halfway done with the pinky finger.  That's when I noticed my skein of yarn looking awfully meager.

I got the pinky finger finished, and still had yarn left.  Not a lot of yarn left, in fact I'd say less than 24" of yarn left.  But, I rationalized, a thumb is only a few inches long, so hopefully I had enough.  So I started knitting the thumb.  And got about 1/3 of the way done when I *gasp* ran out of yarn!  Oh no!

I had no 'scrap' yarn from previous projects that was the same weight and coloring to substitute in.  I could not finish the glove until I bought more yarn!!  But the yarn store I had purchased it from was 30 minutes away, and not in the direction I usually go. (I bought it while shop hopping with my Mom last month, remember.)  I got online, and went to that yarn shop's website, hoping they might offer online shopping.  No deal.

So then I started looking into where online I could purchase the yarn.  Not from the company, apparently, they only sell to stores.  What do you do in that situation?  I'll tell you what I do.  I looked on etsy, but didn't find any of that colorway.  Then I looked on Amazon, and bingo!  Winner!  So I ordered another skein of yarn (I'll knit the thumb for this glove, then use the rest of the skein for mittens for the grandkids) plus a few other things on my wish list in order to bring the total order to the right dollar figure to qualify for free shipping.

And then I switched gears from glove knitting to dish cloth knitting while I await the arrival of my yarn.  I decided on dish cloths because they knit up quick, and because I am planning to make quite a few to give as gifts this Christmas.

First was a garterlac dishcloth in red, white and green.

Once that was done, I stared on a Double Bump dish cloth in a rainbow colored skein of cotton.  I have about a dozen rows to go on that one, and it will be finished too.  Hopefully my delivery from Amazon will show up this afternoon and I can get back to knitting that glove as soon as I'm done with the rainbow dish cloth.

I'm still reading Murder Tightly Knit, just not very quickly.  It's been a pretty busy week, and I haven't spent much time reading.  I am enjoying the story, though, even if my husband does keep making fun of my 'Amish murder mystery' when I'm reading by saying things like "It was Jeremiah, in the kitchen, with the pitchfork." and "It was Samuel, in the buggy shop, with the scythe."  If he keeps up this way, it will be Kris, in the living room, with the knitting needles!  :0)

Apparently It's Time For New Curtains

I'm not much for following trends.  I prefer to decorate once, and be done with it.  When we built the house at this little place here, and I painted the interior top to bottom (yes, yes I did, we cut the painter out of the construction budget and  since I have some artistic talents that include a little dabbling in painting, I volunteered to paint the whole blasted house).  Once I had primed and painted every room, every closet, every stairwell, and stained every door, window trim, and the wooden edge on my kitchen counter top, I declared that I had used colors I liked and did not plan to repaint the house ever.  Ever. No matter how long we lived here (at that time, our estimate was 15 years or so). Not even for resale.  Whomever bought it could paint things whatever color they liked, I wasn't going to repaint just to please someone else.

I have a similar line of thought on curtains.  I don't plan to change the style, color, etc, every handful of years (or decade). Not every window in this house has curtains yet, and that's because I haven't made (or purchased if I can't make) the ones I want for that room yet.

So,  when I made a set of curtains for the master bathroom a year or two after we moved in, I didn't think that I would ever change the window treatment in there.

Until a few weeks ago, when I was doing a semi-annual deep cleaning of the master bath, and washed the curtains.  When I took them out of the washer and hung them on the clothesline to dry, I found out I would indeed be getting new curtains.

um, this curtain didn't look like this going into the wash

definitely not going to be putting this one back on the window 

I guess the fabric, which had originally been a bed sheet, had sun rotted after all those years of hanging in the window.  

I would have to dig through my stash of top sheets and find one to make a new set of curtains with.  You see, when I have a set of sheets that the bottom sheet wears out on, rather than throw away the pillow cases and top sheet too, I save them to use the fabric for other projects.  There is a whole lot of fabric in a king sized sheet.

It took me a few weeks to actually get around to digging through my stash, but I finally got that new pair of curtains made today.  It was pretty easy.  They aren't anything fancy.

(And I forgot to take pictures of the process).  

But all I did was measure the window top to bottom and side to side, to refresh my memory on how big the curtains needed to be. Then I added two inches to the length for hemming.  I didn't add anything to the sides, because I wanted my curtains to be 'bunchy', so extra fabric on the sides was a good thing.

After that,  I chose the sheet I wanted to use, and folded it in half side to side (matching the left and right edges from top to bottom).  From there, I measured down from the bottom of the doubled over part that makes up the decorative top edge of the sheet, to the length I wanted my curtains to be.

Hope that makes sense.  In other words, I didn't start my length measurement at the very top edge of the sheet, but about 4-5" down from the top, where the stitching is.  I made this measurement in several spots, putting a light pencil mark at each one, then used a yard stick to draw a line connecting those dots.  Following the line with my fabric scissors, I cut the sheet off at that length. 

Then I carefully cut up the fold, to make my left curtain and right curtain the exact same width. Again, side to side measurement didn't matter because, since I was using a king sized sheet, I knew I had more than enough fabric there to cover the width of the window.

Now that I had my two pieces to work with, I basted a line 1/2" from the bottom on each piece.  Then, like when making my hankies, I folded under and pressed along that line.  Unlike the hankies, I folded a second time, to conceal the cut edge.  Then I stitched this hem down about 1/4" from the bottom on the 'curtain'.

After the bottoms were hemmed, I made a similar hem on the cut side-edge of each piece. Each piece had one original side hem from the sheet, and I matched the size of that hem, which was 3/8".  If you want to make curtains using this method, measure the existing side hem on the sheet you are using, and make the other hem to match.

Now that all the cut edges were finished, it was time to make the rod pocket.  I wanted to make mine with a little ruffly part on top, so I folded that decorative finished edge at the top of the sheet on the line of stitching that was there.  Then I sewed that down about  3/8" from the part that used to be the top edge.  Turning my curtain so that the new top edge lined up with the right edge of the foot plate on my sewing machine, I sewed another line of stitching.  This creates the rod pocket with the ruffle above it.  If you don't want yours ruffly on top, just skip this second row of stitching.

A quick ironing of each piece, and my new curtains were ready to hang.

(Funky lighting in the picture, the walls aren't peachy, they are beige.  And the curtain isn't white, it's pale green with stripes. Although, peachy doesn't look too bad; I might have to reconsider my stance on painting. . . )