Monthly Archives: July 2012

A Bit of an Hiatus

Posted on July 25, 2012 by | Comments Off on A Bit of an Hiatus

Some of you might have (or are bound to now) notice that I put my etsy shop on vacation this morning.

I am not taking it down.

I am not dissolving my business.

I am not even going to quit selling at the farmers market.

I just have not had the time or the peace of mind to put the energy into the online shop that it needs. I make a sale, then forget about it until it’s the last available shipping day. This has happened with every sale this month. I could understand if I weren’t making sales, but I am, and then I forget about them. And I don’t think that is fair to anyone, especially the folks waiting for their fun, new yarn. So I put my shop on vacation until November 5th, 2012.

This gives me time to do three things:
1. Settle fully in to my new job
2. Plan the 3rd Annual Fiber Arts Bazaar (I will settle for nothing less than a fabulous.)
3. Build up some hand-made inventory and replenish sock yarn, etc for the holiday season.

Things I am not taking a break from:
1. Blogging and micro blogging. Keep checking back here and on facebook and twitter
2. Knitting and spinning and maybe weaving if I ever get off my arse and get my loom back out
3. Dyeing
4. Selling locally

So there you have it, the big news.

In other realms, I have decided what my knitting challenge during the Olympics is going to be! (see how I cleverly worked my way around the name controversy there?)

I am going to make Motheye by Anne Hanson out of my red laceweight yarn. And I am going to finish this one! (Some of you might have noticed that I have pulled out every laceweight project I have ever started)

What’s your Olympic challenge?

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Puppy pool party

Posted on July 25, 2012 by | Comments Off on Puppy pool party

After watching the puppies play in their water bowl we decided that they might really enjoy a larger pool party. We thought it would make a great mid summer gift.

At first all of the puppies seemed really interested .

After they had taken a couple gulps of water they became confused and were trying to figure out why the water bowl was so large. They paced around tasting the water from different sides of the pool.

Then they discovered that the pool could also double as a large chew toy.

This briefly was a popular activity but they gang quickly lost interest.

Eventually the puppies went back to their favorite activity of just kicking back and relaxing. We will soon bring back the pool to see if a second introduction will result in some more splish splash activity.

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Night Fall …

Posted on July 25, 2012 by | Comments Off on Night Fall …

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The Bandstand ~ Oak Bluffs ~ Martha’s Vineyard


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Tractor Vs. Tractor

Posted on July 24, 2012 by | Comments Off on Tractor Vs. Tractor

Around here when we are talking about “tractors” chances are good we are talking about portable chicken pens.  It’s a way to keep chickens safe and give them access to fresh grass.

Since we are raising chickens for meat right now Paul has been busy building new tractors for them to live in.  We wanted to feed them a combined diet of standard chicken feed and pasture.  We also wanted them to have plenty of space to move around and stretch their wings and play.  In other words, we wanted happy chickens, since they are going to be feeding us.  We can at least return the favor by making sure they are happy and healthy leading up to freezer camp.

Originally Paul was going to build 3 of these triangle – shaped tractors.  They are very basic, very sturdy, and light-weight enough for either me or the kids to move around easily.

Problem was, I didn’t think that they’d be big enough for fifty birds to have room to roam around.

When they were still fairly small we put them all in this one tractor.  It was roomy enough for them, but it wouldn’t be for long.

So Paul stepped outside the box and built them a new tractor.

From an old trampoline.

They now have a ton of room to move around and not be on top of each other.

As they reach their peak size we won’t have to worry about overcrowding.  We move it every two days or so – and they do quite a job mowing down all the grass in there.  They have a waterer that Paul put a float valve in so that they are never without water.  They get fresh air and shade.

As for the original tractor, there is a new family living in there for now.

Fleur and her babies have taken up residence there.  They’ll stay until the babies are old enough to be introduced to the flock at large (in other words, big enough to defend themselves from the inevitable bullying of the newbies).

 

 


Tagged: Farm, food, Pets

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Early on a Saturday morning*

Posted on July 24, 2012 by | Comments Off on Early on a Saturday morning*

I woke up early this morning, miraculously before anyone else, giving me that most coveted of things – peace and quiet in my own house.

A-ha!  I thought, finally a few minutes where I can think and put up a blog post.  Of course, gathering all the tidbits took longer than I expected, so I’m left with a scant 15 minutes to write.

I would tell you how busy I’ve been, but I read this article in the New York Times a few weeks ago, and I’ve decided to stop telling people how busy I’ve been unless it’s actually true – and it’s not, in this case.  Lacking the ability to find 20 minutes in a block to write is just not busy – nor is an inability to pull myself away from my crossword puzzle or my Internet refresh loop.

That’s not to say, though, that nothing’s been going on!

There was a week of family vacation, where there was a lot of this and this and that. There was also a lot of spinning, as I re-learned how to use my spindle and a whole lot of jigsaw puzzling – turns out my sister in law loves puzzles even more than I do, so we had one going on the table in our cabin all week long.  It was great, but it really cut into my knitting and spinning and reading time!

Run one of my spindle spinning, which will become a three ply. Unknown fiber. And the puzzle it took us at least four days to finish.

Since we came back, there’s been snippets of knitting time.

That’s my current sock-on-the-go, which is my basic recipe sock; the yarn is Miss Babs’ Windsor yarn in the Cleopatra colorway. And we were stopped waiting for the drawbridge; I’m not enough of a multi-tasker to knit and drive!

There has been a lot of spinning, both more on the spindle and some beautiful fiber that I bought at Squam.

Bought at the Squam Art Fair from my cabin mate Renee**. She had lots of beautiful roving and batts – I picked this one because that blue is Miss H’s favorite color.

 

And in the few weeks since we got back, the morning glories have started trying to take over the entire planter bed, crowding out our poor marigolds and petunias.  But if we get lovely flowers every morning, I might just not mind.

 

*I started this Saturday morning.  Then it was time to wake up the family and go out and do stuff all day.  And Sunday, and yesterday.  So finally, on Tuesday, here I am finally posting.  But I’m not busy, right?

** She has an etsy shop right here and maybe you should go check out her delicious stuff.

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Homeowners!

Posted on July 24, 2012 by | Comments Off on Homeowners!
Yesterday we closed on our house.  Everything went smoothly.  When I told the closer that I had been a title examiner for 15 years she gave me a copy of the actual search.  This is such a cool thing to have (and saves me doing the research again) since it tells the history of our new home.  Of course it only goes back 60 years but its valuable information.  It appears our little house was built for a member of one of the local, now prominent Snellings family.

After closing we had a celebration lunch at the local vegetarian friendly Sammy T's, went home to let Layla out of her crate, time for her to calm down, then packed up a small cooler of beer grabbed some popcorn and headed over to our new porch for Happy Hour!  Poor Layla was a little freaked in the new place, was a little shakey and had to be coaxed into the kitchen with her bowl of water....


It's been awhile since she has been in an empty house with no rugs.

She met the neighbor dog, Brother, with only one small incident (she is a bit antisocial in her old age) but settled down on the porch with us.


It's a great neighborhood.  We've already had a good chat with a couple of the neighbors. The adjoining family is satisfied that they don't have to put up a new fence to protect themselves from the new unknown (us) and I think Layla and Brother may manage to coexisit.

Now we are just waiting for drawings...and sweating the budget.

Meanwhile I have been working at LibertyTown, around the afternoon kids summer camp.  The face yarn bowls from the previous post are glazed and waiting to be fired.  I will post pictures as soon as they are cooked and cooled!

Also I have my Etsy shop up again. I finally stopped by a local camera store for some help.  She suggested Fstop settings and I bought some expensive fancy light bulbs.  I discovered this morning that one is not working out of the box.  But even with just one light I feel like these pictures are just a bit sharper.  I am getting there!   I have not been quick to fill up my shop in the past, so my goal is to add two or three items EVERY DAY.  That way there will be something new on a regular basis.  So keep checking. :)




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New Car!

Posted on July 24, 2012 by | Comments Off on New Car!
New Toy! err, New Car!

Something else we fit in Sunday was the purchase of a new car. We had been procrastinating a bit because it was such a long drawn out miserable experience both times we bought a Honda. Toyota could not be more different. Start to finish we were done in 90 minutes without any hassle, games or pushiness. They were amazingly pleasant! It’s incredibly different from a Civic so it’s going to take me a little while to learn the ins and outs but I’m looking forward to polluting less and spending less on gas.

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Colorful Railing …

Posted on July 24, 2012 by | Comments Off on Colorful Railing …

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Martha’s Vineyard


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Melons of All Sizes

Posted on July 24, 2012 by | Comments Off on Melons of All Sizes

Whenever I get too down about summer in the South, and long for a perfectly cool New England summer garden, with nothing crisped up or frizzled or killed and brown, I remember melons– those awful, sticky summer nights are what allow us to grow piles and piles of delicious subtropical wonders with complete ease.

With fruit like these, it might all be worth it (and with central A/C, it definitely is).

Those Petit Gris de Rennes melons I was so excited about have finally came to fruit around the beginning of the month, and our CSA members have gotten them in their baskets for the past three weeks (yesterday, they each got two!).

This might be analogous to hearing your children complimented, but it was the most gratifying thing in the world to hear that these melons were the best they’d ever had.

And, honestly, I agree.

They’re perfectly sweet, delightfully perfumed, and, on the whole, small enough to make a meal for a single person (for all their good qualities– or, in fact, because of them– these melons are not for sharing).

There is really nothing more decadent than bringing a whole, warm, luscious melon straight in from the field, and enjoying it as a slow breakfast.

However, all the rain we’ve had– right on the heels of a considerable hot and dry spell– has caused a few of them to split and crack wide open. Once the yellow jackets have found a melon, it’s a little too risky to try and pick it up and compost it, so I’ve just been leaving them to compost in place.

 Over on the other side of the garden, we’re growing Mexican Sour Gherkins.

 They’ve apparently been on the hip vegetable radar (?) since 2007, when New York Magazine ran a story about them, although I learned about them in last summer’s Bon Appetit (at which point, of course, I had to wait until the next summer to grow them).

They’re literally the size of a jelly bean. They look like watermelons and taste like a sour cucumber. We haven’t been able to keep them around! Despite the fact that the vines are prodigiously prolific, and seem to thrive in the heat, I snack on a handful nearly every trip out to the garden.

Which is why we don’t have so many left.

 Luckily, though, the vines are putting out more. See how absolutely tiny they are when they start out?

The most adorable thing about these adorable little guys, though, might be that their name in Spanish– sandia de raton– translates to Mouse Melon.

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Vacation, all I ever wanted

Posted on July 24, 2012 by | Comments Off on Vacation, all I ever wanted

Last weekend we hopped in the car and off we went -- destination Cape Cod!

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Don't worry, Ian didn't drive the entire way.

The last time we took a proper vacation was the year before Ian was born, so we were long overdue. We opted for the big-ass family vacation -- the three of us plus Jim's mom and aunt, and his brother and sister and their spouses, all sharing a house in Brewster -- and it was awesome.  

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This was Ian's first time at the beach. He was a little wary of the water (these days, he's not even really a fan of the bathtub, so that was not at all unexpected) but otherwise loved it.  Which was good -- for weeks, every time we mentioned going to the beach he would solemnly say, "no, Ian stay home."  We have no idea why he was so convinced that he wanted to stay home, but in the end the promise of getting to play in the sand and wear his beloved baby suit (that would be "bathing suit" to the rest of you) was enough to convince him.

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After a couple of hours, he owned the place. He wouldn't go near the water on his own -- the above picture is one of the very few times he let his feet touch it at all -- but he was happy to wander around in the dry sand and play.

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I love the beach and have such happy memories of all my beach vacations as a kid. It was awesome to see it through Ian's eyes. It'll only get more fun from here, too.

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We had a bit of a setback, as Ian had a fever for a couple of days so he and I had to stay cooped up at the house, but thankfully it never progressed to the point of needing medical attention, and the rest of the time was awesome.  We ate lobster and steamers and mussels, and poked around shops, and saw lots of Angry Birds (all birds are "A-bee Burns", as far as Ian is concerned, you see), and had a nice dinner in Wellfleet for our anniversary, and rode our bikes, and visited the docks in Hyannis so Ian could see all the boats...

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...and we were in Provincetown for an awesome thunderstorm on Wednesday. (I took, literally, about 250 shots of the same scene, hoping for a good lightning shot. I was just about to give up when BAM. Finally. Not bad for taking a picture from the window of a car without benefit of a tripod.)

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It was such a wonderful week, full of fun and family (and yes, we managed to have nine people crammed into a little house without one bit of drama. I think we deserve a medal.)  The only problem was that it wasn't long enough. I've already made the executive decision that next year we're going for TWO weeks.

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