Take Joy!

Welcome Yule!

The longest night is past and the sun has returned—winter is upon us, but spring is coming. So let us all be merry, while the wheel of the year turns once more.

Welcome Yule!

Riley's Gargoyle

Made from an old pattern by Julie McCullough of Magic Threads, he is 18" tall (more or less). I used fleece instead of the robe velour she calls for (primarily because the local Hancock no longer carries robe velour, just as it no longer carries lots of other useful things); his eyes are buttons with a felt backing, and his wings and horns are some liquid-y metallic fabric that I had on hand. His arms are button jointed, but his legs are stationary. He sits, and that's it. I contemplated (briefly) adding toenails and things of that sort, but Riley is only three and a half, after all . . . maybe if I ever make another one.

I did have to do some adjusting, and I'm not sure whether it was due to the change in fabric, or my stuffing, or something else entirely—but his head was too heavy for his body and he tipped over drunkenly when I tried to sit him down, so I had to open him up, remove his tail, and insert a weight bag of plastic pellets. I also weighted his tail with pellets and sewed it back on a little ways up his back instead of into the botton seam, where it originally was. And I did some more stitching on his legs, to hold them in closer. So now all is well, and I think he'll do nicely.

Here's another picture, so you can see his arm joints.

We Have Snow!

 

 

Ten and a half inches at 9 p.m. More snow than I've ever seen!

Mighty Jungle Cat

Victoria attempts to devour the lemongrass . . . which explains why it is always considerably worse for wear by spring.

Thief!

So now we know who's been eating all that birdseed.

Independence Days Update

1. plant something: Not this week. We planted some saved-over amaryllis bulbs last week, but they haven't done anything, so it may have just been too damp to save them this year.

2. harvest something:  Chicken and turkey eggs. Parsley.

3. preserve something: Nothing this week.

4. reduce waste: The usual: recycling (plastic, cat food cans, milk jugs); using clothesline instead of dryer; using mail waste and cutdown cardboard boxes as firestarters; feeding scraps to chickens. Sorted out fabric scraps to small to use for making things, and packaged to give to school or Mom's church group to use. (They could be made into a quilt, but we all know just how likely that is if they stay here.) 

5. preparation and storage: Stored dried fruit (raisins, apricots) and nuts (walnuts, cashew pieces). Added several jars of baby food chicken/turkey to cat supplies—they'll usually eat those if they won't eat anything else, so I save them for old or sick cats. Bought extra toilet paper (on sale). Picked up another bushel of pine cones for emergency firestarters, and possibly to make some peanut-butter-and-birdseed feeders for the side yard.

6. build community food systems: Shared bread and eggs with the guys who keep our POS cars running.

7. eat the food: Homemade bread, as always. Soup from storage—canned chicken, our canned corn and tomatoes, potatoes from storage, turnips, carrots, thyme. Local lamb chops from freezer. Buttercup (I think) squash pie, made from a squash that had a bad spot (things aren't keeping well this year, at all)—much better than any pumpkin pie! Scrambled eggs, local sausage and biscuits.

Notes: Big news this week: the hairy woodpecker I've been watching on the pokeberries? He's actually a yellow-belied sapsucker. (This give you some idea of just how exciting the week has been, which is fine with me. I've had plenty of excitement already this month.)

Widget is fine—she hopped up on the bed yesterday for a nap, and even went outside on the porch today for a little, so I think she's back to normal. ('Normal' in cats is relative, of course, but you know what I mean.)

We have squirrels. And more squirrels—I have taken to filling one bird feeder with cheap birdseed, because one of them eats out of it. He's fun to watch, and he spills a lot on the ground for the doves to eat. The blue jays eat peanuts, mostly, and the squirrels eat them too—and Ingles has quit carrying the five-pound bags of raw peanuts I feed them. I think I can buy them from David at Kings Produce—at least, until he closes next week. I shall have to send John down to see when he delivers the bread on Thursday.

And we have the woodsplitter running, finally (there was some sort of carburetor problem), so John can get to work on that big pile of oak at the end of yard. And then go up to Bob's and split some of those huge trees lying in his woodyard, that are too big to split by hand (not if you're young and hale, I suppose, but we aren't, so . . . )

I finished half a dozen little snow faries, and sold four of them to Mom. (And I need to get photos of the others—the days have been overcast last week, which would be good for taking pictures out on the porch, bu the temperature was in the thirties, so there are no pictures yet.)

Other than that, I've been working on Christmas gifts. Most of the adults are getting bread-and-jam baskets—I have black raspberry sauce from this summer, and pineapple sage jelly, and there's a recipe for something called Yummy Toast Spread in the latest King Arthur Baking Sheet newsletter, which has apples, pears, raisins, fresh ginger, and spices, and sounds like something everyone would like—and I have everything to make a batch, including jars. There are books for all the small people, and we have a potholder loom with many, many loops for Emma, and a junior birding guide and a small pair of binoculars for Eliza; I'm making a stuffed hen with three yellow flannel chicks for Madalyn and a pea-green fleece gargoyle for Riley, and there will be clothes for Eliza's dolls and for Emma's bear, who currently has nothing but a wizard's costume and would probably love to have some regular clothing. And I have material for a pair of pillowcases for each of them. Plus the box of blank books and a small planner for Eliza's birthday gift, so she can make lists to her heart's content. 

I've given some of my gifts already: a scarf to my long-suffering dental hygienist, a crocheted beret to one of my favorite grocery cashiers. (I have another scarf for my other favorite, but she and I haven't been there at the same time yet.) A scarf for my doctor, who is leaving the practice at the end of the year (and we'll both miss her dreadfully). And another scarf for my brother-in-law, who is still mourning his wife (she died three years ago) and is on the outs with the rest of the family; I made it green and brown, healing colors—maybe it will help.

I have also unearthed the Duke fleece that Lara gave me last year to make a baby blanket for Emma's doll, so I suppose I'd better get busy with that, too.

Here's a picture of Emma (and me, too, but don't look too closely at that part; I was frazzled) when they were up a couple of weeks ago. She wanted to learn to crochet, but it was too complicated, so I gave her a piece of yarn and some pony beads instead. Crochet can come later . . .

Lord of All

  . . . so far as he's concerned, anyway: Sam surveys his territory, from the roof of the turkey house.

Babeth at The House of Chaos is back after a lengthy absence; pop over and see the doings of Bean Sidhe, Hrimnir et al, plus the latest addition, Frankendrolleke.

Independence Days Update

1. plant something: Garlic! Finally.

2. harvest something:  Eggs—mostly chicken, but one or two odd turkey eggs. Parsley, cutting celery—both of which are still green in their pots on the south side of the house.

3. preserve something: I stored some extra peanut butter cookies in the refrigerator (out of sight, etc.): does that count?

4. reduce waste: The usual: recycling (plastic, cat food cans, milk jugs). Continuing to use clothesline instead of dryer. Using mail waste and cutdown cardboard boxes as firestarters. I haven't mentioned it until now, but any kitchen leftovers always go to the chickens—they'll eat anything. (Though they don't much care for raw turnip, or radishes, and they don't like onions, which is just as well.)

5. preparation and storage: Nothing, really. My mind has been elsewhere this past week. (See notes, below.)

6. build community food systems: Gave away a couple dozen eggs and several loaves of bread to neighbors.

7. eat the food: Homemade bread, as always. Black beans and rice and kielbasa, all from storage. Waldorf salad from the next-to-last of my bushel of Honeycrisps and stored walnuts. Rice pudding with dried cherries—cherries from storage, rice leftover from black beans and rice.

Notes: I haven't done much this past week, because I've had a sick cat. Widget had a stroke or seizure or something while we were gone Friday, and I spent all weekend and the first part of this week nursing and worrying over her. She was eating and drinking and using the litter box, but only doing rudimentary grooming—she spent all weekend just hunkered down in front of the stove and drooling down her front. I was readying myself to say goodbye—the body was there, but my Widget wasn't. But she perked up some last night, and this morning she trotted into the kitchen and sat expectantly with everyone else—and finished up her bowlful, plus the leftovers from two others. And another bowl about lunchtime, and another one an hour ago. (Which is as much proof of normalcy as I need: every time I'm in the kitchen, there she is, saying, "Well, you're here, and I'm here, and I do believe I see a can of catfood on the cabinet. So what are we waiting for?") And she's grooming—you can see her thinking, "How in the world did I get so filthy?" So we have dodged this particular bullet. I know it's only a matter of time: she's nearly fifteen, and her fall from an 80-foot tree five or six years ago didn't do her any favors. But for now, she's back and I am enjoying her chirpy little purr beside my chair.

Other than obsess over Widget, not so much has gbeen accomplished. John has finally—we think—gotten the leak in the roof patched. More rain is forecast this weekend (after yesterday's inch and three-quarters, with wind), so we shall see what we shall see. We went to Hancock the other day and spent an exhorbitant amount on a yard of fake fur, because it's the perfect color to make Brian the stuffed coyote that I have been promising him for what, fifteen years now? Bought several bags of cheap bark mulch to spread on the slick spot in front of the feed shed, since it is obviously going to rain all winter—it's very slidy down there when it's wet and neither of us needs a broken limb right now. (Or any other time, either, thank you very much.)

I gathered up everything I will need (which involved spending the best part of one whole afternoon digging into boxes of fabric—I really do have an obscene amount of stash. New Year's Resolution—Use What You Have. Only buy what is Absolutely Necessary.) to make what Christmas gifts I am making, and put it in a box so it will be all together. Fine, right? Actual organization! Well . . . I had gone to Michael's a couple of weeks ago to get something—I forget what—but they had a bunch of small journals, planners, notecards, etc. for $1 each. Eliza has just discovered journals, and list-making, and letters, so I thought I'd give her a box of writing things, and I bought half a dozen assorted odds and ends. Plus a package of glow-in-the-dark snakes for Riley (primarily, I admit, because I liked them, but so will he). I brought them all home and put them safely away. (You see trouble coming, don't you?) Last week I decided to put the books I had accumulated for gifts, and the potholder loom we got for Emma, and some other odds and ends all in an empty cabinet (and no snide remarks, if you please, about there being an empty cabinet where I live. It was an accident, soon remedied.) . . . and I couldn't find the journals and snakes. I looked. John looked (which is a measure of how much I whined about losing them, because he ordinarily avoids doing anything where I've been working). We both looked for two whole days. We even looked in places where they couldn't possibly  have been, because neither of us had looked there for years, possibly. And couldn't find them anywhere. So I went BACK to Michael's and bought some more journals, etc.. There were no more snakes, but I did find a repulsive stretchy wormlike thing with pliable spines—I think it's gross, but I am not a three-year-old boy. I tucked these away safely in the gift cabinet, and then I happened to look in the box of fabric to make things . . . and guess what was in there? So now Eliza will have many journals, and Riley will have snakes and a worm, and I will have a nervous fit sometime later, possibly in January when there's nothing else going on. (I'm still trying to schedule time for my midlife crisis. I was busy working when I should have had it.)

I should have known that trying to be organized and efficient was A Bad Idea. and foreign to my essentially cluttered and sporadic nature.

So now I am working on some snow fairies, and finishing up two vests for Warm Woolies (which ought to have been mailed last week, but weren't, and now I shall have to pay priority shipping . . . . ), and watching the squirrels. They are everywhere—in the side yard, in the trees, in the garden, in the goat lot . . . they usually breed in January, I think, and apparently they are feeling the urge already. They spend a lot of time chasing each other around and around a tree, up and down, getting nowhere. Sort of like people, I guess.

Independence Days Update (after lo, these many weeks)

1. plant something: Tulips and pansies. Still no garlic . . . every time we get ready to plant it, it rains.

2. harvest something:  Eggs. Peppermint. A few leftover onions.

3. preserve something: Made pineapple sage jelly, which is earmarked for Christmas gifts. Canned several pints of turkey broth.

4. reduce waste: The usual: recycling (plastic, cat food cans, milk jugs). Continuing to use clothesline instead of dryer. Using mail waste and cutdown cardboard boxes as firestarters. I was offered the bones from the turkey at John's family dinner, but I didn't have room to do anything with them, so I passed this year.

5. preparation and storage: Nice big stack of wood on porch, and more up at Bob's ready to saw and split. (Never turn down free wood.) Stocked up on sweet potatoes, chicken broth, canned baby green peas, evaporated milk. (Grocery store sales.) Bought a five-pound bag of baking cocoa. More dried beans, oatmeal, raisins, dried apricots. Several jars of local molasses. Replenished stocks of flour, sugar, cat food.

6. build community food systems: Not lately, I'm afraid. Though we are sharing potatoes and eggs with one of the neighbors.

7. eat the food: Homemade bread, as always. Don't remember anything else specific—we didn't cook over Thanksgiving, so there are no leftovers. But we did cook a turkey the week before, and had turkey broth, turkey sandwiches, turkey casserole . . . . Lots of eggs, since the farmer's market replaced ours with someone else's, and now only takes 6 dozen or so a week. (And, of course, ours are laying nicely now, after weeks of nothing . . . ) Fortunately, we're both fond of breakfast-for-supper and deviled eggs, and just plain boiled eggs. Applesauce cake from homecanned applesauce. John's homemade beef jerky. Mashed sweet potatoes (our contribution to Thanksgiving dinner), which later became a pie. A nice big pot of chili, which we ate for several days and fed the last little bit to the chickens, who were highly appreciative.

Notes: We're still not up to par from the flu—neither of us feels like doing much, so we haven't been. It's good to have things in the pantry . . . and John's brother-in-law shot a deer for us this past weekend when he went hunting down in Vance County. It's not a big one, and we still have deer shoulder and round steaks from last year in the freezer, so I think we'll get a piece of beef with a fair amount of fat on it and grind them together to make sausage, and freeze it in packs of half-a-dozen patties. And maybe make some more jerky, too. I splurged last week and bought enough ground beef to make a bunch of hamburger patties—we ate two for supper the other night and the rest are in the refrigerator for lunches—and a pound of sandwich ham (on sale) and sliced cheese; we're both tired of cooking and wanted a change.

Other than that, what have we done lately? Not much. Cleaned up a bit in the yard, but it's still so warm things aren't dying back yet, and I hate to cut down the flower/weed seed heads until January or so to give the birds a chance to eat what they want. The peppermint has come back up, and the pineapple sage—from which I carefully picked all the leaves before the freezing night we had a couple of weeks ago—has leafed out again. Tulips are peeking up. Not good. It's forecast to get down in the twenties by the weekend, so we shall see what happens to everything then.

Found out what has been happening to the chickens (we've lost half the flock this year!)—John shot two big male raccoons and a big opossum. One raccoon caught in the act, and the other two trying to be. All is quiet now, so far, though we are down to only three dozen or so chickens; hardly enough to sell eggs, but more than we need to supply ourselves. (The feed bill is lower, though . . . ) I hated to kill them, but this is not a cafeteria.

We acquired a turkey yesterday—one of them kept flying over the garden fence and wandering around in the yard. John chased it back a couple of times, then it went up the road to the neighhbors, who called us to come and get it; after taking stock, we discovered that all *our* turkeys were accounted for, and this was apparently an escaped one (possibly from up the road) who had come visiting. So we clipped her wings and put her in the garden with the other turkeys, and we'll see what happens.

Many squirrels in the yard. Many blue jays, titmice,  chickadees . . . cardinals and bluebirds are mostly in the woods still, and the goldfinches are busy eating goldenrd seed and haven't come to the feeders yet. We have what is apparently a family group of mockingbirds (there are three together, and they're fiercely territorial, so I presume they are related) who come to the weeping cherry sometimes. There's a flock of eight or ten doves that come in and eat the seed the squirrels spill from the feeders. I saw the pileated woodpecker in the side yard last week, working on a tree about twenty feet from the house. And the hairy woodpecker (the black and white one with the bloodred cap and throat, not the little downy with only a red cap) has taken to hanging upside down on the pokeberry bush outside my window, dangling from the tip of a spray of berries and gobbling his way up.

I've been working on gifts—I have all the raw materials in The Stash; now to get them done. And there is the giant pile of goodwill and book-sale books, from which I shall choose several to give away. I am buying a couple of things, but only a couple. Adults get bread-and-jam baskets, children get [mostly] what I can make, and a few books. We have a tree—a lovely symmetrical three-foot one, which will sit on the round table so as to be out of the cats' reach (no sense in putting temptation right down in their faces), and which cost a mere $10 at the produce stand (and which I will get back on Thursday, when I sell David his weekly bread order). It's currently residing in a bucket of water on the side porch; we'll put it up (well, technically *I* will put it up; John only hauls the box of ornaments down from the attic) on Yule, probably. That way I can leave it up until Twelfth Night, so I can enjoy it after all the hoorah has died down.

So. There you are. Not much going on here, which is fine with me. I got a clean bill of health at the dentist last week; that appoitnment, plus renewing various magazine subscriptions—which all seem to come due t once—is why we're seriously broke this month. (But at least the $140 set of xrays can be put off until the next appointment.) But we have plenty of food for all and sundry and wood for the stove, I have a scarf in the works, and directions for another one I want to make as soon as I get down to the yarn store to buy three skeins of wool, and I have borrowed Edwin Way Teale's Circle of the Seasons from Mom (I had to promise to bring it back within a month; she didn't want to part with it. She knows me.), AND I am next on the list for Artisan Bread in Five Minutes at the library . . . 

 

This was a couple of days after I'd planted them, a week or so ago. They've filled out considerably since them, with more blooms; I'm enjoying them a great deal.

Praise

Praise the light of late November,
the thin sunlight that goes deep in the bones.
Praise the crows chattering in the oak trees;
though they are clothed in night, they do not
despair. Praise what little there's left:
the small boats of milkweed pods, husks, hulls,
shells, the architecture of trees. Praise the meadow
of dried weeds: yarrow, goldenrod, chicory,
the remains of summer. Praise the blue sky
that hasn't cracked. Praise the sun slipping down
behind the beechnuts, praise the quilt of leaves
that covers the grass: Scarlet Oak, Sweet Gum,
Sugar Maple. Though darkness gathers, praise our crazy
fallen world; it's all we have, and it's never enough.

—Barbara Crooker, from Radiance