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Lizzy House Quilting Weekend! (extra-long post)

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Let me start by saying that if you work with fabrics you should know Lizzy House.  Because if you don’t, you are missing out BIG TIME.  Lizzy has beautiful prints in beautiful colors – so much so that Susan collects hoardes bundles of it to display in her house.  It’s that beautiful. 

Lizzy came to the farm this weekend to give a quilting workshop (farm plus BFF’s plus quilting?  I was SO in) and I was thrilled to be a part of it.  I’ve not done a lot of quilting myself, and what I have done has been mostly frustrating because I never really bothered to figure out how to quilt, so when things went wrong I wasn’t really sure how to fix them.  This class was perfect because I am not necessarily a beginner, but I needed to see people properly working a quilt to fill in the knowledge gap.  And now that I know what I was doing wrong I realize how kind of simple the fixes were.  Quilting is so very much easier than I was assuming it is, and so very much more fun!

Don’t you just love this Hello Kitty machine Virginia is sewing on?? Virginia owns “Gather Here” a beautiful yarn & fabric shop in Cambridge, MA.  If you’re in the neighborhood, drop in and check it out.  And tell her I said hi!!

The bonus?  Aside from spending the weekend sewing at the farm, my dear friend Amanda came down from Boston.

I do not get to see Amanda nearly enough.  That has to change.

I collaborated with Caroline and I am pretty sure a new quilting fiend has been born in her – she took right to it and loved it.  Don’t be surprised if she’s designing quilts by this time next year!

Lizzy herself is just as beautiful and friendly and fun as her designs.

We were all working on making our own version of the quilt you see behind her – but not just “making” it.   She shared a story of personal loss that spurred her to begin quilting, and how it saved her.  How all of the emotion and love and sorrow and all of it went into the quilt until it became more than just “a quilt”.  This is very familiar to me as a knitter, and to other knitters as well.  Our craft is a kind of therapy and I have spent many hours knitting while mulling over whatever is happening in my life at that moment.  From then on, that project always reminds me of that moment, like a snapshot.  There are knitters I know who will call something their “angry scarf” or their “lucky socks” because that is what they remember most about knitting them.  I oddly have a project that makes me think of Niagara Falls because I was listening to a “This American Life” segment about the Falls while I was knitting it.

Lizzy’s fabrics being bundled into a gorgeous stack.

This quilt project was about that, but in a more “intentional” way.  Lizzy tasked us with deciding what we wanted our quilts to be about and to focus on that while working on it.  I can tell you my intentions for it were all about my friendships at the farm (both old and new) and my hopes and feelings about finally getting my own farm underway.  This will be an intentionally happy and lucky and grateful quilt.  And Caroline and I worked on it together!  I will remember that every time I see it and it will make me happy.

This is Lisa.  Lisa lives locally (YAY!!!) and for all of you who are local, she and her husband own Revolutionary Soup.  Right??!!!  You can also check out their blog at Red Row Farm.

Caroline and I used a collection by Moda called “Papillon”.

I can’t wait to show off the project when it is all finished.  We knocked out 12 of the 18 squares for the top.  I’ll be machine quilting it once I’ve gotten the backing fabric and sandwiching material.  Nothing fancy – I think the fabric does a knockout job on its own.

If you’re thinking about learning to quilt but are unsure – find a class.  I can’t promise it will be as fun as this was, but it will take away much of the fear factor and get you going on the right track (if you live in the greater Boston area, Virginia’s shop is a great place to take classes, and you can use her machines there by the hour).

If Lizzy is going to be in your area giving a class or workshop – DO IT. I can’t speak highly enough of her.  And for heaven’s sake if you find some of her fabric GET IT!!!

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Let’s Start a Magazine Together!

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This is the post where I steal an entire bit from Susan’s blog and pass it on here.  She and the crew at JMF are starting  magazine.  A beautiful, lovely, useful magazine centered around all things done by hand.  Cooking, sewing, knitting, building…..you name it.  I’m super excited about it (and having a hard time not boasting that I’ve known about it for quite awhile and have seen some of what’s going to go into it…..it’s too exciting to keep to myself!).  Here it is in Susan’s words. There’s some lovely prizes to be had for those who can help get it off the ground.

Very Big News!

by Susan on March 2, 2012

So for months now I have been alluding to a big secret I’ve been keeping. I am thrilled that today I can finally share the news with all of you.

Juniper Moon Farm is starting a magazine called By Hand. By Hand will be a lifestyle magazine for people who make, with departments for cooking, crafting, DIY, gardening, and do-gooding, with a bit of travel and profiles of makers every month.

The idea is to celebrate creating things with our hands, and to explore the motivation to make things in a world where there are cheaper and immediate alternatives. It will be both practical (patterns, DIY projects, etc) and thoughtful, with a lovely and gentle aesthetic.

We have lots of amazing contributors and editors on board already, and the first issue is well underway. But before we go any further, we need your help!

We are holding a Kickstarter campaign to raise the rest of the money we need to make the magazine everything we want it to be. And as an added inducement, we have commissioned so amazing rewards! Our art director Michelle Lukezic has designed posters and t-shirts that are going to be incredibly popular with people who make things with their hands. Here’s a sample:

There are posters and t-shirts for each of the sections in the magazine!

If you like what you see and want to support us, great! If you can help us get the word out about the Kickstarter and the magazine we will be forever in your debt!

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Quickies

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What’s going on right now:

  • There’s 14 1/2 dozen eggs in my fridge right now.  It’s getting dire, people.  I am going to start doing egg drops on peoples’ doorsteps.
  • I’ve been reading 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created by Charles C Mann and I am loving it.  There’s all kinds of great little – known facts about the impact that contact with the “New World” made globally. Did you know that at Columbus’ time (he was called Cristobal Colon then, btw) people had known for years the earth was round; Columbus (or Colon) insisted it was pear – shaped, with the very top resembling a woman’s nipple?  Did you know earthworms were unknown in the Americas before the Europeans arrived?  Or that Pocahontas’ name was actually “Mataoka”.  The name “Pocahontas” was a nickname which meant “Little Hellion”?
  • I’m working furiously on Wicked using the luscious Superfine Alpaca yarn Caroline and I bought from the Montpelier Fiber Festival in the fall.  It’s very slow going, and normally I would be ultra bored with it by now, but the yarn is just so wonderful I can’t put it down.
  • To assist with all that knitting – we got a new dvd player.  Okay, we got it because our old one broke.  Paul picked up a new one with all these crazy bells and whistles that I can barely figure out BUT.  I can access my Amazon Prime account through the dvd player so that I can watch any of the streaming shows and movies from my online account ON MY TV!!!  I know I am so late to the party on this but I am very much enjoying it!  Now I don’t have to rely on my laptop to watch Downton Abbey!!!  (And goodness, if you haven’t been watching Downton Abbey, please do.  It is so very good!)
  • I started working out every day back in January.  I’ve been alternating between a strength – training Pilates program with resistance bands and an “Ease into 5K” program on the elliptical.  I also gave up soda completely and have replaced it with green tea.  My favorite is The Republic of Tea’s Blueberry Green Tea.  I’m feeling pretty good.  My goal is to run on the beach this August during my book club beach weekend.  My super – fit friend Beth runs every morning while we are there, and this year I plan to join her.
  • Today I got my spinach and broccoli planted.  As last year, I am using all heritage non – GMO seeds from Baker Creek.  We’ve expanded the vegetable garden site and I am excited for all the fresh veg we’ll have this year!
  • Last but not least, I bought supplies to take to Juniper Moon Farm this weekend where I will get to meet Lizzy House! She’s giving a quilting workshop and I get to go sew with some of my favorite people (and meet Lizzy House!!!!!!)

What are you up to this week????

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Foxing Day

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Well, we knew this day would come.  It was a quiet fall and winter, we had a huge hatch – out of chicks last August and not one of those idiots will remain in the penned areas where it’s safe.  We have a large-ish group that free – ranges all over (even into our neighbor Jack’s yard – good thing he likes them) and I am always worried those dummies are going to get eaten by something.  I freely admit we get far too attached to them, and when they get snatched it’s sad and traumatic.

Fortunately, we have Tevye.

I’d been noticing that his rooster-ish behavior has been much like our dear departed Big Jim – unlike our other roosters who hog all the food to themselves and run at the first sign of trouble (or beat up on each other as well as us humans).  By this I mean that he is an exemplary roo – he makes sweet clucking noises when we bring out the food to tell his ladies to come eat.  He keeps them around him when they’re all free – ranging.  The few times I’ve noticed a hawk circling fairly low I’ve seen Tevye gather all the hens into the underbrush and wooded areas to keep them safe.

He’s also pretty darn friendly to us.  In other words, the perfect rooster.

Today he’s proved himself again.

Today the foxes came back.

We were alerted by the sound of probably all 40 or so of our chickens clucking in unison and when I looked out the window I could see a fox departing across the creek and away, a chicken clearly in its mouth.

Emily and I ran out and I heard a loud “squawk”, and then the fox dropped the chicken and ran.  It was Tevye, and he came bounding back to us.

A check through the yard proved no one was missing.  Tevye clearly gave the fox a good fight and kept the other chickens safe.  He’s got some rather nasty wounds right now, but they could have been much, much worse.  I doused him with Blue Kote, gave him some treats and sent him happily back to his girls, where he crowed loudly and triumphantly.  My fingers are crossed they heal up quickly and don’t fester.

I think somebody deserves a bag of meal worms, don’t you?

 

 

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Citrus-y

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Even though the weather is NOT cooperating (as in, we’re having fall followed by spring) I am still trying to enjoy all the goodness that winter has to offer.

Cozy handknits, warm fires, hot tea…….citrus fruits.

Yup, citrus fruits are in season now, and we have plenty of my favorites: clementines and Meyer lemons.  I’ve never actually been able to find Meyer lemons locally before, so I was surprised to find them at (of all places) our local WalMart.  (I know….I am not a WalMart fan.  But…..when they carry Concord grapes and Meyer lemons, how can you resist?)

Last week I made a lovely Shaker Lemon Pie, and we’ve been snacking steadily on clementines, but as of this morning I still had plenty of both.

So I rooted around a bit on Pinterest until I found what fit the bill for some lovely citrusy fare: recipes for Chinese Orange Chicken and Meyer Lemon Pudding.

Oh yeah.

Neither one was particularly difficult to make, and the results were outstanding.  Seriously.

Paul declared the chicken “The best orange chicken I’ve ever had”.  That’s saying something, because we are quite fond of Chinese food and we’ve tried quite a lot of it.  It was fresh, bold and bright, with a strong orange flavor.  If you like orange chicken, you HAVE to try this recipe.  The only change I made was when frying the chicken, I simply coated the raw chicken pieces in cornstarch (I didn’t use the egg or flours at all).  This was due to simple laziness.  The sauce I made no changes to.

 

We followed the chicken with the Meyer Lemon pudding served on a slice of pound cake (which Paul picked up from the grocery – I didn’t feel like baking any).

After all of this it is a very good thing that I have been following a workout routine for the last week.  SO MANY CALORIES!!!

 

 

 

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Gone Visitin’

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Yesterday I was treated to being able to get out of the house a bit (Paul is almost fully recovered, aside from restrictions on lifting) and see Susan, who was home for literally ONE day between trips, and also to see my animals, who I’ve been missing terribly.

We’re making headway in our efforts to bring them home, though.  Trees are coming down, cleaning up is underway, plans are in process.  It’s very exciting!  I can’t wait to be able to look out the window again and see my flock.

Sophie and Adelaide’s baby-daddy, Jack – who may or may not be the future baby –  daddy of kids that Milkshakes may or may not be already carrying.  She’s been sneaking into his pasture to spend some “quality time” with him.

I got to see Coconut, who is 18 kinds of adorable, and I just want to rub those ears!  But, aside from nibbling at Susan’s fingers, he’s a bit skittish still.

Mr. Jefferson here gave me lots of nice, wet cow kisses.

Sophie and Adelaide are almost as big as Milkshakes, and they won’t let me near them.  On the plus side, unlike Frodo and Finnegan who thought they were lapdogs, these little ladies know they are goats.

Wren!  She’s gotten just about too big for me to be picking her up and snorgling her now.

As for Jerry, he likes to make it difficult to get a decent picture.  Once he knows your game he’s either INYOURFACE or lurking just behind you.

This way you either get NO pictures, or ones like these:

I miss that crazy llama!

 

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The Long – Finished Sweater

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I finished a sweater.  Back in November.  I actually wore it to Fall Shearing.  Where I got baby goat poop all over one newly minted arm of it.  But I digress.

It has taken me this long to get it nicely blocked and to photograph it so I can show it off.  None of these things have stopped me from wearing  it, but I realized I really needed to get it posted here before it didn’t look so nice and new anymore.

The pattern is Fair Enough by Wendy Bernard.  The yarn is Fine Cormo wool from Juniper Moon Farm.  And the model who was making a weird face that she wouldn’t have loved me posting for the world to see is Maddie.

I love the colors – I picked them out because they all looked so lovely together.  I didn’t realize that the blue and pink in the fair isle portion would blend in so well.   They were supposed to “pop” a bit more.  But now that I’ve worn it and gotten used to ti I quite like the subtlety.  It’s actually better this way because the main color has a lot of green and pink hues in it that look almost variegated in spots.

Also I got to use brighter – colored buttons (thank you Susan!) than I otherwise would have done.

Now if it would only stay cold enough for me to wear it!

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Chicken Maintenance – In Which I Bombard You With Chicken Information

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This weather here is crazy, y’all.  Two days ago there was snow and ice (well for us, crappy rain.  For people a mile up the road and points north, snow. For all of us, ice overnight).  We were shivering in our beds from the cold.

Today it’s been practically t-shirt weather.  And since a lot of the eggs Emily has been bringing in from the coop have been dirty, I decided I’d use the warm weather to see how coop winterization was faring.

NOT GOOD.

People take care of their chicken coops a lot of different ways.  Some people use hay or straw, some people use pine or hardwood mulch.  I’ve even heard of people using grass clippings.   Personally, I like to use pine shavings.  They’re nice and fluffy and comfortable for the chickens’ feet, and they do a great job at drying out all the many droppings that chickens leave behind them and absorbing extra moisture and odor.  I’ve used hay and straw but find that the poop doesn’t get dried out at all and the hay doesn’t break down as easily.  If you’re going to use hay or straw, you’ll need to clean it all out more frequently.   As for grass clippings….I imagine it would be like the hay but even less absorbent.  The last thing you want is a moist coop to harbor bacteria and parasites.  You’re going to have those anyway, but you don’t need to put out a welcome mat (and you don’t want to chance introducing any droppings from wild birds that might be on that grass).

Anyway, pine or hardwood shavings.  You don’t want to use cedar because the aromatic oils are bad for the birds.  I really wish that wasn’t the case, because my coops would smell SO much better.

I do a thorough cleaning out of the coop twice a year, in the spring and the fall.  At those times I’ll completely remove all bedding materials and the leave the doors all open for a few hours to air it out well.  If you’ve had a bad time with parasites or illness this is the time when you also want to scrub the surfaces a bit with some hot water and dish soap.  You can bleach it if you’re so inclined, but be careful to dry it out completely and remove any residue before the chickens go back in.

Personally, I like the method that Zac over at Juniper Moon Farm used this past spring after a bout with mites.  He used a propane – fueled weed burning tool (read: flame thrower!) and lightly charred the entire inside of the coop.

Anyway, once the coop is aired and dried out I dust it down with Poultry Dust.  This is an insecticide powder to ward off lice and mites.  Then I add the pine bedding and let the chickens back in to mess it all up.

Like I said, unless we are having an infestation of some sort or there is some major illness afoot, I only do this twice a year.  The bedding and the poop break down together and whenever it’s looking more “muddy” than “piney” in there I’ll throw a layer of more pine on top.  The composting of the under layer of poop and pine creates some heat and insulation during the winter that helps keep them warm.  In the summer, it breaks down a lot faster with the heat and I replace bedding a lot more often.

But back to today.  Today I intended to check the bedding and add some fresh stuff on top.  That’s not what happened.

The winter this year has been very mild and very, very, very wet.  The chickens are spending more time inside trying to stay dry and therefore pooping a whole lot more inside.  It hasn’t been cold enough to keep the waste in any kind of deep freeze, and it’s been just cold and wet enough to keep everything gross and damp.  No drying.  Not breaking down as fast.  Gross.

Today I cleaned out the coop.

The good news is that all the “muddy” compost I shoveled out can be used as……. compost.  I chucked it all over the area that will be the garden this spring.

And while I was at it I spent time listening to the chickens, observing their behavior and taking stock of their general health and well – being.

Speckles – our Egyptian Fayoumi – just started laying for us.  We’re getting the cutest little cream – colored eggs from her.  And it took her long enough – she’ll be a year old in about a month and a half.

Miss Harriett, a pretty black Cochin.

Roobert, the resident jack-ass.  He likes to attack boots.

ETA: Emily and I have been calling him “Mad – Eye” because he lost an eye a few years back, and that’s when the bad behavior started. Nothing worse than a grumpy one eyed rooster.

This handsome boy was one of the batch we hatched out in August.  He’s  called “Tevye” and he’s a bit off a mutt.

One of Speckle’s adorable little eggs next to a normal – sized egg.

And speaking of eggs: last summer our hens were on strike.  Nobody was laying.  For months we were in an egg drought.  I couldn’t figure it out.  I treated them for every possible ailment, checked thoroughly for any and all problems.

We’re pretty sure they were all in a slow molt.  Nobody looked bald or shabby, but there were a whole lot more airborn feathers than usual.  So this fall we installed a light into the back coop so that once the molt was over they wouldn’t go immediately into winter mode.  ( chickens stop laying in the winter due to loss of daylight, not the cold temperatures.  Increase their light, and they won’t stop laying)

Now it’s January and we are overloaded with eggs.

There are no fewer than 6 dozen eggs in my fridge at this very moment, and we haven’t collected yet today.

Anybody want an omelet?

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SOPA

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Okay, I am not very tech – savvy, so I won’t spend time trying to black out my site here.  But I would like to express my support of those sites all over the internet that are blacked out today to protest SOPA.

You can read more about current SOPA news here, and you can sign Google’s petition here.
Back later for our regularly scheduled blogging (unless SOPA has its way………)

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Pre-Holiday Caper

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For those of you who haven’t seen the story on Susan’s blog already, we had quite a fun adventure a few days before Christmas.

Susan called me one evening and I asked if I would like to help her pick up some baby cows.  An hour and a half away.  In my truck. The thing about this kind of this is that YES.  Yes this is the kind of thing I would say YES to.  Also, Susan and I haven’t been on a road trip together in ages, and this mini trip promised the kinds of fun we could talk about well into the future.

So we loaded up our “Ram Cram” box into the back of the suburban and headed out after a quick run through the Dunkin’ Donuts drive-thru for large iced coffees all around.  Did I mention Zac came with us?  I think he was picturing a fun and relaxing road trip.  I think Susan and I were thinking it would be fun to have along someone else to do all the hard work.

Fortunately we had great weather and the drive was easy.  Before we knew it, we were there, staring down the reality of cramming 3 calves into the truck.

One cow in place.  At about 2 and a half weeks old, these guys are just under 100 lbs each.  In a year’s time they’ll each top out around 1,000 lbs or so.

Cow number 2 in place.  These two are called “Madison” and “Monroe”.

And cow number 3!  This cute little brown guy is called “Jefferson”.

With some trepidation I closed the hatch and we started our drive back to Juniper Moon Farm.  They were a bit anxious and had trouble adjusting to the movement at first, but after a bit they settled down (and thought the lights and hooks in the ceiling were teats).

Susan got to hang out in back and get lots of cow kisses.  These little boys are very friendly.

We felt quite smug cruising down the highway with our haul.

Caroline was thrilled to come out and help us get them all situated in the barn and nuzzle their sweet faces.

Once they’re full grown it’ll be hard to believe we ever managed this, but we certainly won’t forget how much fun it was.

I can’t wait to see what she’ll ask me to put in my truck next!