Tag Archives: farming

Preparing for the cold

Posted in Farming, Gardening by

The weather is growing colder every day, as we prepare for the winter months. Lots of harvesting and canning filling my days

Soups, jams, sauces, pickles, and jellies line the shelves in my basement, root vegetables are in the process of being stored away for eating over the long winter months, all except for the potatoes which will have to wait until I can find a way to rid of the yellow jackets nest resting in my potato rows. I experienced no less than five stings on Tuesday afternoon and the pain and swelling has only just ceased.

As of yesterday all the firewood has made its way into the house

This wood will warm us through the winter and help cook stews in cast iron pots over the kitchen fireplace.

And this yarn will keep me busy! A Michaels craft store has FINALLY opened near me and I went on a mini shopping spree the night of the “sneak peek” with the help up two 40% off coupons and one 20% off total purchase coupon. As if I didn’t have enough yarn, at least now I have the tea cakes I had been eyeing for sometime. I already finished a hat with one of the Caron Cupcakes.

Of course my favorite part of the winter is planning next years garden and talking about which animals will be making their way to our humble farm. Up next: cows and sheep!

Have a great evening folks!

Babies everywhere

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We have 102 new babies in the house and are they ever cute!!



They are all happy and healthy and noisy!!


The ducklings have been moved to the greenhouse for a few weeks, until they can get big enough to join last years ducks. Sadly we did lose one before the move was made. 

We have had a busy week this past week, not only was school on vacation, but we planted fruit trees 


That so far have been left alone by our daily visitors, hopefully this will continue so we may get proper fencing.



I am finally pain free…in my hands, I am happy that I am now able to pick up my knitting or crochet without wincing. Though my head is still hurting slightly and I am having a hard time focusing on pattern, I’ve worked on a few items


I’ve recently started a mermaid tote bag, I am using red heart unforgettable yarn. I know some people aren’t fans, but I have no complaints. 


I’ve also almost finished the first skien of a Caron cake on my granny square blanket. 


For weeks I’ve been thinking of the pattern I wanted to use with the fabric I have for Lorelai’s quilt. I had my heart set on the Ohio Star, and though I watched many videos, and read many version of the pattern, I could not figure it out. It looks easy enough, though as I previously stated my head is still hurting, so it’s as if it goes in one ear and out the other.

Yesterday a friend from quilting was able to help me and this was the outcome!


I’m happy with the turn out and I am looking forward to practicing more over these next rainy days, so that I may start cutting the fabric intended for the quilt.
I hope you all have a fantastic week! 

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Well folks it’s official! There is a ten year old in the house! We celebrated with a few friends at the local indoor pool, followed by a slumber party.

Per the request, with a bit of hesitation from the chef, there was a Boston cream cake made from scratch by yours truly


It’s not pretty, but it was delicious. Another first was that I made butterscotch pudding for the middle, now that I know how easy it is to make pudding, I might do it more often.


Well we did it, we placed the order for some new feathered friends! Black Australops and Golden Comets, 11 more Golden Runner 300 ducks, and then our short term Cornish Cross birds.

We have a couple of plays (<—what?! 2/5 edit), escape artist in the greenhouse that are either eager for new surroundings or really just want to free range with the chickens and ducks.
Every so often when it warms up they keep trying to tunnel out, we’ve been moving them weekly to to help dig up the soil for spring.

​​                                I’m looking forward to spring to see how Noël will react to grass. 


Last week I took a two day break from knitting & crocheting due to swollen joints from…over crocheting I’m sure. On the third day my hands were back to normal and faster than ever


The top hat has been tossed up on my Etsy page though I am toying with the idea of adding a bow. The others will be added as well when I can finish weaving in the ends


I tried a new pattern this weekend, it isn’t perfect but I’m still the new kid on the quilting scene so that’s alright 


And now my internet friends I have a task for you, my quilting guild was gifted with some already made blocks and we are in search of this green fabric


I have been searching online with no luck but maybe someone out there has the matching fabric or knows where we might purchase some.

Have a great day folks!

Anniversary #3 *edit*

Posted in Farming, Fun on the farm, Fun with fiber, kids, Uncategorized by

Apparently I missed it, but according to WordPress

So let’s have a quick year in review

* This time last year I was home schooling

* We were renting a house on the New Hampshire/Vermont boarder, just two hours south of Canada

* We were just starting our house hunting search, hoping for at least 50 acres

* We had a dog, cat, and rabbit

In that time we have: 

* Stopped Homeschooling 

* Bought a 95 acre farm a little over two hours away from where we had been living

* I started quilting

* I joined a knitting group

* We now have deep breath: a dog, cat, rabbit, three pigs, four turkeys, ten ducks, 66 laying birds, and 100 meat birds….I feel like we have more chickens than that…but I am not going to go count. 

I am now also 32, & according to my lovely nine year old, if you think I look younger, you need your eyes checked. Nice, isn’t she?!

So, to add to the last post, yes we FINALLY got couches


Which would almost make my house look “adult”, if it weren’t for my fireplace

We built a coop for our backyard flock last week


And then went & picked up:

(Back to front): Splatoon, Petunia, & Toffee (who is anything but sweet I case you were wondering).

Saturday we attended the New Hampshire Sheep and Wool festival! It was so much fun!!

I was lucky enough to run into two of my old guild members from the RI Spinning Guild, Dave & his daughter Katie!! I was hoping to see Iris and a few others as well,  though I heard they were going to be there the next day, sorry to have missed everyone.
We had a busy afternoon, we watched the herding dog demo


Toph got to help shear an alpaca


They don’t just sit there all docile like every single sheep I’ve ever watched get shorn, but he seemed way happier without all that heavy. 


I bought 6lbs and 3oz of yummy wool!! Ohhhh baby! The two largest bags are each 2lbs of  my all time favorite, beautiful, silky (after its washed) Merino. The bag in front is 1lb of beautiful luscious Romney, behind that is 3oz Corriedale all ready to be spun up, and then finally a lb of coopworth. I cannot wait to start processing this wool!! 


There were so many large bags of wool, I couldn’t believe it, and the prices were fantastic!! 


Lorelai enjoyed watching the horses, while we waited for Toph to finish watching the lecture about coyotes.


I finally figured out the Bavarian stitch blanket on the way home.

I’m currently recovering from the head cold I picked up after you know…building a coop in the rain on Friday, & processing chickens (not mine) in the cold and rain on Sunday. Monday I slept all day long under three heavy blankets.

Tuesday and Wednesday I made a rather large amount of progress on my sweater

Not the best picture, but it was a last minute picture. I am just starting the lovely semi-lacy design part….glad to be doing something other than the stockinette stitch.

I’m off to soak up the sunshine (I hope, we’ve had hail twice this week).

Have a great day folks!

Also, thank you to everyone who has read my blog along the way, read it once, read it & liked what they have read, read it & rolled their eyes, those who keep coming back, those who are new, those who stumbled on my blog by mistake (oh yes, I’ve read the search terms and also wondered how you ended up here).

Thank you all for sticking with me!! You are all awesome!!
*edit*

Oh hey look!! 200 posts!

Go go go

Posted in Farming, Fun on the farm, Fun with fiber, Uncategorized by

Time is flying these days, when I’m not on the go, this spoiled furry princess is commanding my attention 


Including the exact moment (that picture was 90 seconds old when I started writing this)

We have even MORE babies keeping us on our toes 

The free unsexed Rhode Island Red chicks we got with our order

Rhode Island reds and barred rock ladies 
Our beautiful ducks, which has become an absolute favorite in our house, they are Golden 300 hybrid layer ducks.


They are super loveable


I took the plunge and signed up for the craft fair in August, I’m going to sell yarn and what not which means I need to work my behind off.

I already have one item ready to go 


This beautiful Ashland bay silk & merino yarn, spun up from fiber I got forever ago, yarn I started ages ago. 191 yards. I have more of the same fiber to spin up and I need a warm day to go card more fiber to spin.

When that warm day will happen, I’m not sure. You see this was exactly a week ago.

My kids had no desire to help me, I bribed Leif just to come hang outside with me while I built the chicken and the pig (that looks more like my sisters pitbull lol). Since then we’ve had very few warm days and it has been steadily raining since my birthday party on Sunday. 

Yep, yesterday I completed a trip a round the Sun and I’m ready for trip 32! My “party” was super de duper small but I had fun decorating 

I LOVE Gilmore girls, can you tell?! Don’t mind that some signs are super uneven, those were made at around 11:30 the previous night. Way past my bedtime.

I spent my birthday working on a strip quilt, which may or may not have cause my anxiety attack yesterday


No seriously, the color combinations were not doing it for me, but someone had to do it. Three more rows to go.

Well folks, I’m gonna go hang out with my feather friends and work on some projects for the fair. Have a great day!!! 

Babies 

Posted in Farming, Fun with fiber, Uncategorized by

I have hardly picked up a hook or knitting needle this week, my kids were on spring vacation (did I mention we are no longer homeschooling?! We have FANTASTIC school here), so we were busy doing other things such as:

  
Cleaning up the leaves and cutting back the old lavender

  
Enjoying flowers

  
Baking a cake for YaYa’s birthday (natural food coloring doesn’t make the most vibrant colors, but we don’t mind)

  
  
Enjoying sunsets

….and oh yes

  
Picking up our first set (of many) babies ❤ six chickens and four turkeys

Oh and here is the outcome of the small amount of time I did manage to get something done

  
Have a great night folks!

Back to business (almost)

Posted in Farming, Fun on the farm, Fun with fiber, Gardening, Uncategorized by

Well my migraines are few and far between, I can function with almost no medication, and I can leave my house for long periods of time, so I think it’s safe to say that despite limited mobility of my left hand (pain in joints, poor circulation), I might actually be back to normal (whatever that is).

Before my horrible food allergy mess, I joined a quilting group with the Ladies Guild in town and I have to say, I really enjoyed it. I met a lot of lovely women and learned a lot that first meeting. They donate quilts to the hospitals, which are the distributed to newborn babies. These quilts are just absolutely beautiful, I am in awe.

I missed a meeting and then attempted to attend one last week, but still wasn’t up to par and had to head home. Tomorrow one of the ladies will be teaching us to make “quick 9 patch” quilts, I intend to participate as much as I possibly can, and if all else fails, there will be pictures.

Over these last few weeks I’ve been able to sit back and enjoy watching nature (Toph put me on a housework ban, so I had time to sit and stare out the window)

I’ve enjoyed the crazy weather patterns 

 
And a little over week later 
  
   

Last Saturday Toph and I had a kid free night, we drove around the back roads of our little town for an hour, we saw in that time two dozen wild turkeys and three dozen deer, it was incredible. Sadly some of them were moving to fast to get pictures or as you can see it was starting to get dark.

We spent the time talking about critters, gardens, fencing, & shelters. 

 

Our seeds came in, ducks & chickens have been ordered, piglets are being looked for, and a guardian livestock alpaca is being considered 😉

As I cannot currently crochet or work on small knitting needles, my projects had to be shelved 😭, in the meantime, last week I stared The Ragnar blanket, the size 11 needles don’t hurt my hands nearly had badly, & I have this amazing ability to knit one handed when I need to.

   
   
And with that I say, typing one handed is hard and so I end this now.

Have a nice day folks!! (Typos will be fixed when both hands are better)