Category Archives: Uncategorized

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Montpelier Fiber Festival (Sort of)

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Caroline called me up Sunday morning and invited me to the local(ish) fiber festival that was taking place this weekend.  I had been on the fence about going since we’d done Old Farm Day on Saturday and I really didn’t have the cash to be going to a FIBER festival, but I scraped together what I could and we went for it!  Besides, how can you say no to Caroline?  I love hanging with her.

The weather was very fall – like: overcast and chilly.  Perfect for looking at all things wool.

We watched the sheepdog trials for a bit and hit the sheep tent.  We both got plenty of photos of the animals in there, and then promptly forgot we had cameras.  When you’re focused on wool, well.

We made a point to check in on our friend Anna at her vendor station.  I wish I had gotten some pics there, but you’ll simply have to take my word for it that she has beautiful pottery and woven things.  In fact, I’ve linked her website to her name.  Check it out, y’all (she’s the one that did the awesome Juniper Moon Farm mugs and yarn bowls).

Caroline picked out some lovely hand – dyed yarn from Knitting Notions (who I am thrilled has an online store, so I can order from them in the future), and I got some sportweight Superfine Alpaca (actually I bought one hank & Caroline bought me the other – how awesome is she?)  from Delly’s Delights.  I’ll be going back to them again as well.

I really had a great time with Caroline.  I am hoping like mad I can snag her and take her to Rhinebeck next year.  I can’t think of a better travel companion for such an adventure (though all of you Rhinebeck buddies from last year certainly come to mind as well!!)

Anyway, enjoy the only two decent photos I managed to get from the day.  One of an Icelandic who was too hilariously like Feenat to pass up and a Cottswald that looked a lot like Ernie.

Enjoy!

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Cute Place Holder

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I’ve been feeling increasingly crummy the past few days and woke up today with a full – blown head cold.  So although there is stuff going on (pies! knitting! school!) I am too tired to upload pics and share just yet.

For now, enjoy these sweet pictures I took last week at the farm of Caroline and one of my new babies (I’m pretty sure it’s Adelaide – she’s a tad curlier than Sophie.  Or it may be the other way around.  I’ll have to ask Caroline what I decided. My brain’s toast).

Also – how awesome is that hand-knit sweater vest she’s wearing?  She’s mad talented. 

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Today’s Post Brought To You By Wool

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I finished my Far Away / So Close shawl last week and was waiting for a good day without rain to take pictures of it.

As you can see Emily is still quite fond of modeling knitted goods.  Fortunately she’s actually good at it.

When I bought the yarn back at Rhinebeck I was in love with the fall colors in it – all of my favorites.  But then, while I was knitting with it I was afraid it looked a bit too much like an old couch my parents had in the 70’s.

However, once I blocked it I feel in love all over again.  I love how perfect this is for throwing on on a nice crisp autumn evening.

The colorway is  Spices and it’s from Maple Creek Farm yarn.  I would love to buy more of their yarn but their website seems to be non-functional and I can’t find any on the internet.  I should have bought some back at Maryland Sheep & Wool this spring.

Either way this was an easy and enjoyable knit and I will certainly be making plenty more.

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Meet the New Babies!!!

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I got a late birthday surprise (it was yesterday) when Caroline called me this morning to say that Milkshakes had her babies this morning!

We now have two little Angora – cross doelings! We’ve decided to give them the names that Milkshakes’ last litter would have had if they hadn’t been boys.  So without further ado, meet Sophie and Adelaide!

I can’t even tell you how smitten I am with these little girls.  They look SO much like their papa!  I can’t believe how curly they are.

Look at those big airplane ears!

Couldn’t you just nuzzle and kiss that little mouth???

Milkshakes is a great mommy and you couldn’t ask for better shepherds to care for the little family than Zac & Caroline.

This is the BEST belated birthday gift ever!

Edited to add: Watch them on Lambcam!

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Nanny Milkshakes

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Last fall we decided not to breed Milkshakes again since we were running out of space.

Then, early this year we moved all of our big animals over to Juniper Moon Farm to stay while we tried to figure out how on earth we were going to keep managing our livestock.

That’s how Milkshakes met Jack.

Jack is the resident Angora buck at JMF.  And sometime this past spring, well.  You know.

My sweet little Nanny goat is looking rather large.  We’re going to start keeping a good eye on her now because we don’t know exactly when she was bred but by all guesses she should be having babies around the end of this month, if not sooner.

Fall babies will be very cute, and they should be all sproingy by Fall Shearing.  There’s not a lot cuter in this world than lambs and goat kids sproinging.

I’m excited to be growing my flock (though honestly I’d rather be growing myself a sheep flock), and I am hoping that we get girls this time around.  I’m not holding my breath; this spring all of Jack’s babies at JMF turned out to be boys.

Fingers are crossed anyway.

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Beach Weekend

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This past weekend was Beach Weekend for my book club.  Every summer we caravan out to Virginia Beach, go in together for a couple of hotel rooms, and spend a relaxing weekend on the beach.


We were lucky weather – wise once again: no rain, and it wasn’t brutally hot.

Since we are a book club, we actually do read at the beach.  We didn’t pick a book for August since we didn’t have a formal discussion planned, so everyone read books of their own choosing (though at least half of us had just read The Hunger Games trilogy).

I also made time to try and take pictures using the tips I learned from the photography workshop I took last weekend at the farm (more on that later).

Not bad, right?  The seagulls were right at head level from our room’s balcony.

As if all of this doesn’t sound relaxing enough, one of our fellow beach-goers is an Acupuncturist.

I am very fortunate to be part of such a close – knit wonderful group of women; beach weekend is just the icing on the cake.

What about you? Any fun trips planned with your book/knitting/quilting/etc groups?

 

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Boston Weekend

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This is an incredibly overdue post.  BUT I think I have finally figured out this whole Mac thing and how to use my photo program effectively enough to post again.

A few weekends ago I took the train up to Boston to stay with my dear friend Jenny and her lovely husband Ken. (Note: 12 hours on the train equals mad knitting time.  Knit a complete pair of baby socks on the way up).  She’s been to Virginia numerous times but I had never been to stay with her.  I was very excited, and the trip did not disappoint.

For the first time ever, I finally made it to Salem, Mass.  I studied quite a bit about it in college and in my spare time since, but I was beyond happy to finally get there in person.

Unfortunately, we lamed out on the whole museum experience.  When you get old friends together (our friend Amanda met us there) who haven’t seen each other in awhile, time seems to get away from you.  Even still, I wouldn’t trade the time we had there for anything.  It was just wonderful.

I spent a lot of time looking at all the old houses.  Salem, like the rest of New England, is full of great architecture.

We did take in the tour at the Salem Witch Museum, which though it ended up being not the one we had intended to do, was still fun.

We had lunch at a pub called “The Old Spot”, full of photographs of Old Spotted Pigs, the breed for whom the pub was named.  Our bellies full of Cheese Fries with Gravy (drool) we headed back out to take in the town and get some gelato.

See?  Great architecture!

Did you know that Salem is also on the water?  Gorgeous!

Salem was perfect and next time we know just where to go.  We’ll also make a beeline for the ancient cemeteries for some photos of the elaborate gravestones.

After our day at Salem Jenny took me to one of her favorite places, Portsmouth, NH.  If you’re ever there, please be sure to stop by The Friendly Toast restaurant ( Guinness – battered onion rings anyone? ).

Noticing a trend?  Yeah.  Jenny and I know how to do food.

Another sure – fire sign you’re in New England?  Lobster rolls being advertised everywhere.  If you’ve never had one, you need to make it a goal.

More excellent New England architecture.  Clearly you can see where my heart lives.

There’s a great little park full of flowers in Portsmouth where Jenny and I stopped to rest.

It’s right on the water.  And do you know what’s on the opposite side of that water?  (This blew my un-geographically smart brain) MAINE.  I immediately made Jenny get back in the car and drive across the bridge so I could say I went to Maine.

I am a nerd.

I very much did not want to leave and return to the south.  Although I have come to love my home in Virginia, there’s nothing like the restorative power of your homeland.  The upside is that the 12 hour train ride back got me pretty far along on a shawl I started while at Jenny’s house (and I brought Polar Birch Beer & Drake’s Cakes home with me – we can’t get those down here).

The train may have been an all – day affair but now that I know how easy it is to hop on and go I am certain I will be making more trips north to see my friends.

And the architecture.  You can’t forget that.

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Chicken World

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This post is WAY overdue.  My only excuse is that I was in Boston visiting my wonderful friend Jenny and when I got back I had a new computer waiting for me to learn.  It’s a Macbook and I am used to using a PC.  And I am a techno-dummy so the adjustment period will be longer for me than most!

We really are feeling an awful lot like chicken world these days.  As of this morning we’ve had 12 hatchlings.

It all started last week with Puffy Fluffy:

I wasn’t too sure we’d get more than 2 or 3 hatches out of the 15 or so that our broody hen, Amelie, was sitting on.  In our experience, the hen would get sick of sitting on those eggs after the second or third and then abandon the half – baked eggs still in the nest.

Amelie, though, has proved herself to be made for broodiness and motherhood.  She’s stuck it out almost to the bitter end.

Emily has named them all (with the exception of Puffy Fluffy) after characters in the Hunger Games trilogy and the Harry Potter series.  So please welcome Prim, Clove, Fleur, Twill, Madge, Wiress, Tonks, Bonnie, Effie,  Ginny and Minerva.

There are at least 2 chicks that are a cross of Sicilian Buttercup and Buff Brahma. (Funky weird comb plus fluffy feet equals awesome).

I am only sad that we didn’t have any blue eggs to hatch this time or eggs from our funny “hatted” chicken, Delia:

Next spring?

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Making My Peace With Summer

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It’s probably abundantly clear to most people who know me well that summer is not my favorite season.  I have very little tolerance for the heat, and as for the bugs, well.

But it wasn’t always this way.  My dislike for summer is fairly recent – it started about 15 years ago when we moved to central Virginia from upstate New York.  Most of my summers as a kid were spent on lakes or rivers in a place where most people still don’t have central air.  If they do, they don’t need to run it more than a week or two a year.  We run ours nearly non – stop from May through October.

Of course we save on the heating bills come winter.

My point is summer used to be fun, full of swimming and fresh garden vegetables, drive 0 in movies and soft – serve ice cream.

My kids rarely get to see the outside world until late afternoon, once the sun is not so intense and it’s not too hot to swim.

This makes me sad, and I am trying to make sure we have a better summer experience than years past.  We’re still enforcing the “no being out in the sun if it’s over 100” rule, but having the pool makes it easier to have some summer fun.

The garden is also helping me out with my summer malaise.  Good fresh tomatoes and basil and cucumbers go a long way to cure the “I miss winter” blues.

I’ve been conquering some of the heat by reminding myself that without me being out there to manage it, the garden wouldn’t thrive.  Every day I am out there to water it, pull weeds and take care of the squash bugs that have yet again invaded.  The best way to control them without chemicals is to crush the eggs whenever you find them – and find them I do.  It’s pretty gross, and I usually find a few mature bugs to deal with as well.  All in all, however, this daily attention has saved me the infestation levels I have suffered in other years.  Plus – the rewards are many.

Like this beauty, not too far from harvest-ability:

It’s a Dixie Queen Watermelon, and I hadn’t even realized it was there until today.  There’s several little ones around it.

I am so excited for them to mature fully so we can enjoy them!

There’s some pie pumpkins beginning to orange (not enough, but hopefully we’ll get a few more before the vine stops producing), about 6 or so acorn squash getting darker by the day, and about a bajillion butternut squash – several of which look close to done.

This fall we’ll have plenty of my butternut squash and apple soup.

With cucumbers I picked from the front garden today I made 4 jars of refrigerator pickles and then picked fresh basil to make pesto for dinner.

This is what saves summer for me.  I’ll try not to whine so much about the way the humidity deflates my will and the heat saps my motivation and instead I’ll savor some freshness from my garden.

But I’ll still quietly look forward to fall.  Just sayin’.

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Summer Baking

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I know, I know.  Considering it’s been dangerously hot out for the last week baking doesn’t seem quite like the thing to do.

Thankfully Paul doesn’t mind that I keep the AC set to 70.

There’s been so many zucchini from the garden and there’s local peaches for sale at our Whole Foods Market, so I was itching to do something.  Plus my computer got virused and I couldn’t get online for a few days.

Not that I honestly have wanted to do anything while it’s been this hot other than lay around and nap (the pool water’s been into the 95 range, so we can’t even swim) , but I couldn’t let all this goodness go bad.

First up was a twist on plain ol’ Zucchini Bread that I found while wandering around Pinterest.

Zucchini Blueberry Bread. (Click the link to go straight to the recipe)

Fortunately I am also swimming in an abundance of eggs so I got to use of some of those as well.

Grated zucchini plus plump fresh blueberries in a sweet and cinnamon-y batter.  Yum!

I can tell it’s awesomely good, but I can’t tell you much more because Neve’s  barely let me have any.

Clearly it’s excellent summer snacking for the 8 year old crowd.

Next up is Peach Cobbler from a Country Living article a summer or two ago.  It’s made in a cast iron skillet, which I find incredibly charming and rustic in a fruit dessert.

You can go right to the recipe by clicking on it above, but basically you get a bunch of fresh peaches, scald them in boiling water to soften them up a bit and make the skin slide off nice and easily.

You make a luscious topping with your dry ingredients (plus a hint of dried ginger) and toss your sliced peaches in a bowl with sugar and vanilla.  I added a bunch of cinnamon as well.

Throw it in your cast iron skillet, top it with your chilled topping like so:

Throw it in the oven and bake it and enjoy the magnificent aromas that will fill your kitchen.

Then it will disappear with alarming speed, I guarantee.

Just like peach and zucchini season will disappear before we know it as well. So go forth and enjoy the fruits of summer while they last!