September 3rd, 2006

y friend "A" came over this morning.. while I was painting on my "Eggs for Sale" sign, I was also teaching her how to spin since she has a few sheep which she needs to learn how to spin wool from now that we got her shearing earlier this summer. This yarn is a Suffolk if memory serves me right and it is a bright yellow dyed from Grape leaves, alum and ammonia.

Her drop spindle is made from a potato which was wilting and starting to green and a chopstick. She was doing very well at it. This is about 10 minutes after she started. 

I am quite proud of "A" as she homesteads by herself in a little cabin on 8 acres even further out than we do. She is a "city kid" who moved here basically sight unseen last October and she is homesteading.. she is plucky and she has gumption...( I am trying to find her a man currently *G*.. I have the best matchmaking ratio there is for our area, so she has enlisted me to find her one since I am 4-4). The BBQ which you can see just behind her other arm, we had a bear move around last night about 1 am while I was working on the computer after all of our guests had gone home for the night. We cooked 4 fish on it last night. The weird part was the window right behind them is where I was sitting and even with it open, I never heard anything until the BBQ scraped across the concrete.

The next picture is of me in the root cellar peeling very dried logs.. it is a chore.. and all we have are hatchets right now. I have been looking for a drawknife. One more set of logs was put on after
this picture was taken and I do think we need yet one more course. All that snowy stuff in the air below my left elbow is all sawdust

from the chainsaw.. which I will get to in a second. I do a bit here and a bit there depending on how that muscle group is doing in my back (higher, middle or lower logs) or who I am in the way of..

The last picture is my bf and a friend of ours who is a Faller/Bucker setting the second to last course (layer) of logs for the day. Yes.. you may question why we are using a chain saw.. Honestly I would have LOVED to have scribed (cut out) all these logs with the trusty hatchet and adz. On the first course, "Kid" and I beat one log with the hatchets, ax, pocketknife, went to kicking the log.. yelling at the log.. and gave up after 30 minutes each with sharp instruments and made less than a 1/2" dent in it. These are at least 2 years dry logs and it is like trying to chew through concrete with your gums.. it just was not happening.. so in order to keep our sanity and get this cellar done before it was next May,. we opted for the chain saw.

We have 2 sorting piles for the logs.. the other one is to 7 O'clock of the picture. You can see all the ends which were cut off.. the longer (shorter) pieces will be cut in half to be the door casing to the root cellar.

Mary (from OHG) and her daughter and mother are up here for a few days at their new home this weekend to show them the new place just down the road from me. They came over to our place to visit and were so helpful and helped with the tedious job of peeling the root cellar logs for the last couple of days.. which is not one of the best tasks in the entire world, especially when you are peeling logs by scraping
them with a hatchet blade.

This morning, "A" came over and we did not actually do what we were going to do, but it was nice to just sit together on the front porch and I was weather coating my "Eggs for Sale" sign and teaching "A" to
use a drop spindle. It was a ferociously hot day and it was good just to sit there working on our projects and chatting now and again.

Then "A" and I went to go visit Mary at her house and show "A" where Mary lived. We took a quick tour of Mary's place with "A" and then me wondering where the attic crawlspace to Mary's attic was.. somehow ended up with me on a very tall.. very heavy and rungs about 3 feet apart (it was all I could do to crawl from one rung to the next) up about 2 stories, opening a door which I was quite sure would dark and creepy and bats and hornets and things.. and it was nice, clean and light up there *L*.. there was ONE half hearted attempt at a paper wasp nest though.. She has enough insulation, but it is blown in and a little light in a couple places to my liking.

I get back home and, we (we actually NOT involving me- I am usually banned when they are falling) fell more trees for the root cellar as my bf decided a few of them we had hauled up here were too crookedy
to use and brought new ones up.

In between when "A" left my house after dumping me back off at my house, Sue from GA left me an email message telling me she had arrived here in the midst of all her travels and I picked up Mary and we wandered off in my bf's truck to go meet Sue. On the way to Mary's house, I slowed down to watch a fawn who still had spots cross the road. It was so sweet.

After Sue, Mary and I met, we went to Mary's house to show her homestead off and then continued on to my house.

Just as Sue and I got into my yard, the tractor started coming out of the back 40, so I flew to get my (dedicated) grubby pine pitch stained clothes back on (which will probably be burnt when this is all said and done) and go help unchain the load of logs they brought down. Then it was back to work and I felt bad as Sue is wilting in the heat, that I just leave her in my house to cool down while we get back to work on the root cellar since we had a volunteer crew to come help (and cut themselves some firewood as well).. then somehow there was a break and I took Sue on a quick tour of the place, though we never made it on the full tour nor the cabin site due to the heat. In fact I am surprised we do not have lightening storms tonight. But after awhile she came out and read "Down to the Roots" in the shade in the new lawn. When she cooled down enough she helped peel logs as well.

We told everyone who helped that they had to stay for dinner, so for tonight we had BBQ'd Red Snapper, Char and 2 Trout, Rice Pilaf, and our peas. Mary and I made banana-wild blueberry muffins and then her daughter "W" (hehehe) I showed how to make a custard. I had to look up the recipe as I have never made it with cow milk, only goat milk. We also had rolls left over from last night.

We got the "LAST" course up on the root cellar and looking at it and where the door needs to be.. I think we need to do one more course.. AND so the men did not lynch me and hang me from the tallest tree, I said we did not have to do it today and then I ***RAN*** back into the house with the excuse I had to watch and work on dinner..

Everyone who helped on the root cellar will get to sign their names on the inside of the upper door jam on the log and I will carve their names into it. The outside over the door will eventually have the date of "2006" carved into it. It is finally way taller than me now.

The rabbit missed.. no babies.. not sure who is to blame, but if they do not breed again on a cooler day, they are both stew.. I was/am right perturbed.

After dinner, I conned Mary and her daughter to help me put away the turkeys since I forgot to before it was dark, so they had their first turkey herding lesson. They did excellent and no one got struck byany wings.. which are starting to get lethal.. and then we went to feed the pigs.. They also got to be introduced to 'wind up' flashlights.

Somehow Mary conned me into butchering chickens in the morning to teach her how. So she will be here around 7 am, so I need to sleep soon since it is well after midnight, going on 1 am. I need to find a killing cone between now and then. Maybe I will use a milk jug. I think maybe we will only do 1-3 roosters before it gets too hot.. she is not sure if she wants one for dinner tomorrow night yet.. I told her plan B for dinner was goat chops. I need to sharpen knives in the morning as well.

Mary and family headed back to their place and so I showed Sue half my life story in pictures and probably bored her to death and then it was late and she had to go and I drew her a map/directions thing to get her safely back to her town/hotel with the warning to watch out for moose as they do not show up like deer do.

It is crazy here when we are working on the farm all day and then get dinner ready and have 10-11 people here.. it does tend to go smoothly, but could be overwhelming for a newbie to our place. I think Mary is
getting the hang of it *L*.. poor dear.. but also poor Sue.. she gothere in the middle of a workday around here, 10 strangers in a living room in a 900 sf house and zooming people here.. zooming people there.. little wee kids.. midsized "Kid"...

....tranquil and the "Walton's" is not the words to describe thisplace at times.. *ROTF*

But I hope everyone had a good day.. I know I did.