Merry, Merry

I just wanted to wish everyone a very, very Merry Christmas and a happy New Year.

I'm still here!

We moved and now I'm on solar power so since I work at home there's not a lot of power left over for blogging.  We will be getting another solar panel and some more batteries so hopefully I will be able to blog more consistently in the future.

Denise

It's been a while...

Hope everyone had a very nice summer.  Here's some pics of the cabin.  No we're not moved in yet.

Here are part of the address numbers on our cabin - no I didn't show them all.  Those nails were soooooo tiny.  I dropped one and luckily it didn't fall through the porch boards to the ground.  I never would have found it then ;)

Here are our steps.  There is a little lizard that lives near them.  I saw him yesterday. See how much of a gap there is between the boards.  Now you know what I meant when I said that I was lucky that the nail didn't fall down through them.   

Here is a look at our floor.  These were just 12" blocks.  Very nice to lay down and a lot lighter in weight than some other flooring options that we looked at. 

Here are some other photos of the floor.

The wheelbarrow needs to go somewhere else unless Hubby decides to sleep in it LOL.  

Little bit of dehydrating and jelly making

I dehydrated some cranberries I had in the freezer.  This is before they went into the dehydrator.  They are realllly realllly good on yogurt :)

And these are the wild violets I gathered from my front lawn for some violet jelly.  I would have shown you what the jelly looked like but it did not turn a pretty color.  I think I had too much lemon and not enough flowers.  It was kind of a honey color, not ugly just not a pretty purply-pink color.  It does however taste great.  Hubby loved it.  Now I need to hide it from him cause we have to use up the old stuff before we use this and I want to give some away for gifts too.  I'll have to try it again some time.  If you want to try it next year, just Google violet jelly.  There are a lot of recipes out there on the web.

Chickens we have 'em...

Not as many as we used to but here are pics of the four we have left...

Here's One Black Feather (otherwise known as Esther), Martha, Mac (mean a__ chicken) and Katie Do.

Here's Martha again.  That's baler twine we use to put over the run so the hawks overhead don't get any crazy ideas.

And here they are again having their afternoon snack.  Actually they line up in a row whenever I come out of the house.  The laundry basket is not filled with food LOL.  

Garden pics #2

Peas two months ago.

Potatoes and cabbage two months ago

Lavender (needing weeding - I so hate weeding)

Ok so I thought this was the lilac Mom gave me a  few years ago, but no, it's actually a smoke tree I got on clearance.  See what happens when hubby chops down things that are planted...It's full on top and 

full on bottom but look what's that yes It has a empty middle.  Pics taken two months ago and 

one month ago.  I'll have to get some more pics cause right now it's really purdy.  And it actually is filling in with branches in the middle.  It will look really good when we sell...drat.  

These are some of the little flowers that are "weeds".  I think they look like miniature periwinkles.  Any one know for sure what they are?

And these were growing across from the cabin.  The almost looked like sweet peas but no scent.  Any ideas?

And these were growing along the road.  They are a little different from the other blue flowers.  These almost look like they might be related to Edelweiss.  

These flags were growing along the road by the cabin too.

And now for some dogwoods that grow in our woods.  

These are paperwhites, they 

were all over along the sides of the road.

Garden pics #1

Chinese cabbage plant left over from last year.  This was about two months ago.  

Celerac

Blueberries two months ago

and one month ago.  Sorry for the blurry pic.

 Grapes two months ago.
 

Grapes one month ago.  Can you see the tiny things ?

Tomatoes one month ago.

Boysenberries two months ago

See how the berries formed after only one month.

Little buttercup...

My Weigela (sorry don't know how to spell it)

Chives

Basil and parsley

And my sour cherry bushes are just filled with cherries this year.  They are so heavy they will have to be tied up.  Chicken in the background...

Some finished things

Well a pair of socks anyway ;)  Finished these up and hubby couldn't wait to have them to wear...guess I'll have to do some more for him.

Downton Abbey humor

Half garden planted

I already had potatoes, peas, several different kinds of cabbage, celeriac planted.  Today I planted seeds for kale, sunflowers, several different kinds of beets (a lot), carrots and hubby planted his tomato plants.  I'm going to wait until it gets warmer to plant some cucumbers, melons and such.  I'm trying some companion planting this year.  We'll see how it turns out.  It is such a pretty day out.  Rain is on the way tonight and all day tomorrow.  Nearby farm has fresh strawberries.  I need to get me some...yum.  Other than that, not much going on here.  I hope it's warming up where you are.

Another site for graph paper

http://incompetech.com/graphpaper/

This one has triangles and hexagons too for paper piecing that hexagon quilt you always wanted to do.  Now you can make multiple hexagons on one sheet of paper.  Really a great idea.

Yarn for life!

Here is a link to enter a contest through Fons and Porter's Love of Knitting magazine.  You can enter for free no obligation although they do ask for your email and address.  You (or me, please be me ;) could win yarn for life.  First prize is yarn for 20 years and second prize is yarn for a year.  Remember, yarn is a good insulation for your walls LOL.

http://ck.upickem.net/r/2JgyxwCnh3h?r=898791

I found some...

I was looking for graph paper and found these free ones here:

http://donnayoung.org/math/graph-paper.htm  

She has multiple sizes.  I printed out the 1/4 inch size.

I'm mapping out where to put everything in the cabin before we move in just to save some time and swearing LOL.  Cause there's nothing worse than moving somewhere and trying to fit your stuff in and finding that something doesn't fit.  We have to get the water well first though so this will give me something to do in the meantime and we can see how much stuff we need to get rid of too.

Interesting article to read

http://www.wnd.com/2013/04/the-it-cant-happen-here-syndrome/

Gardening update

Hubby finally got the garden rototilled and then I planted my potatoes.  Then I planted some peas in between the potatoes (they are supposed to be good companion plantings together).  We have cabbage, celeriac and tomato seedlings almost ready to go in.  Have to wait another couple of weeks to be past the last frost date here.

The chickens are really putting out the eggs.  This is their third year.  Hoping they live and lay for a while since we don't plan on getting any chicks for a year at least.

The blueberries and cherry trees have lots of buds.  Keeping my fingers crossed that we will have lots of cherries this year as last year there were lots but they all dropped off...:(  Not too worried about the blueberries, they are soooooo prolific every year.

I been knitting

Here is a little sweater I made myself.  It is a short one but I loved the pattern.  It was very easy.

I usually use a pin to close it (not the clothespin pictured LOL).

Here is a close up of the lace pattern:

The yarn was a wool/acrylic blend.  I think I might  do another one but lengthen it cause Lord knows I don't need to show off my butt ;)

I been quilting

No I didn't do this top but I bought it on Ebay and then put it together.  I just fell in love with the background fabric.  Here is the back I put with it:

It's just a lap size quilt.

This is a table runner I made using precuts, 2 1/2 inch ones and 5 inch ones.  I didn't even buy them together and they are from different manufacturers but the look good together don't they?

Here is the back:

I had this piece for a while.  I thought I could flip the table runner and use this side for Christmas if I wanted to.  Here is a close up of some fancy stitching I did on my machine for it:

It's just the feather stitch.  I used a variegated thread.  It goes from off white to a light brownish color.

Here is another table topper.  I now have this backed, pinned and ready to quilt.  And I did iron it after this pic was taken ;)

A short video

This is a short video on Monsanto's seeds.  Gives you a little bit of history on the company and what they are doing now.  If you ever wondered about GMO's, check out this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=htt91SjI7uY

Heads Up!

Just wanted to let everyone know that you can view for free the Food Matters movie.  Here is the link:

http://www.hungryforchange.tv/free-worldwide-online-screening?utm_expid=56511667-2

If you haven't seen it, you need to because it is very informative and they are giving away 500 DVD's of the movie and you get free recipes.  I've seen it before and signed up to see it again.  Yes, it's that good.

GNOWFGLINS

Have you heard of GNOWFGLINS?  GNOWFGLINS stands for God's natural, organic, whole foods, grown locally in season.  It's a site that has information and step by step videos on how to ferment foods, dehydrating, etc.  If you click on the link below, you can get a free mini subscription with no obligation.  What do I get if you do sign up for the mini subscription?  Just a little video showing me how to make tea tree soap if 5 people sign up.  Her site is really informative and I have learned so much.  If you do sign up for a full subscription, it's about the same cost of having one of those movie/TV subscriptions.  To find out more just click the link or copy and paste it.  Like I said, there is no obligation and she doesn't share anyone's email addresses ever.  Maybe I'll get lucky and have 5 sign up ;)


https://rl102.infusionsoft.com/app/page/raf?_Ref=218