I looked out the back kitchen window at lunch and noticed the back creek was running. This is very bad. The back creek is a runoff creek only. It normally runs from late February to June. It is December and it is running. This is a first for us in the last three years. That means we are way too warm. It has been over freezing for the last three days and we have had a chinook wind come in and melt all of the snow away. The really bad part is my new fence had to be improved over the creek to keep the sheep from escaping. If the water is going to keep running I need to go out and prop the panels up out of the water so my fence doesn’t get ripped out. That would be very very bad. So I really hope it gets another 15 degrees colder so this problem goes away. I have been on vacation for two weeks so I have been unable to get my cheap chicken food, so tomorrow I will have to pick up some expensive food for the chickens. They are almost out. I keep hearing the coyotes at night howling and carrying on the last few nights. So far we have not forgotten to lock up the chickens and I have not lost any in a while.
Farm
New Craft Closet
While Steve and Doug played with wood, Linda and I played with fiber and loaded in my new craft closet. This is the absolutely most decadent thing I’ve ever had in my house. A complete closet fully and totally dedicated to organizing the supplies for my various hobbies. I ask you, does it really get much better than this?
We’ll start with the doors neatly closed to protect all my supplies from cats and dogs.
Now, let’s open up the left side.
I think my favorite thing on this end is that all of my knitting needles are organized by length and out where I can see and find them easily. The lower baskets hold some of my scrapbooking supplies, and my papers are currently stacked flat on the floor in bags. I’ll get some holders for the papers soon. Large cutting items are on the shelf above.
We’ll move one section to the right to look in the middle left.
Here you can see that I actually even have some empty baskets for expansion. See, my stash still has a little room to grow (just don’t tell Steve). At the top, you can see part of the shelf that is dedicated to my crafting books. Most of these are knitting books, and my library is pitifully small, but most of my patters are my own, so I don’t feel too badly about that. I have a request in for a couple of additions for my Birthday and Christmas. Hopefully the elves will be paying attention.
If we move one section to the right, we see the rest on my bookshelf and the beginnings of my fiber.
There’s quite a variety visible here. There’s a lot of acrylic that was gifted to me, an unfinished cross-stitch baby blanket, some serger cones that were also gifts, and my stash of crochet cotton. Now, I don’t crochet at that gage, but the stuff works great for tablet weaving, and is perfect for teaching that craft, so I’ve got a stash. Besides, you never know when you might need a little smooth thread to hold knitting stitches.
One more section to the right, and we get to the bulk of my fiber stash.
I’ve again got quite a variety, but there’s some very nice alpaca, and some wool-silk blends in lace weight, and some sock yarn, and some baby yarn, and some Cascade 220 for felted slippers. The important thing, though, is that it’s all out and visible so I can easily see what’s there. It’s kind of like having my own private yarn shop in the bedroom.
Deep sink enclosure done
We had company during the Thanksgiving holiday, Doug and Linda. As always we truly enjoyed the visit. Doug always helps me with a project when they come. This year we finished the cabinet for the deep sink in the utility room. We made it out of tongue and groove oak flooring. It took us a day, but turned out very nice. Now I only have to order the drain and the faucet and get the plumber to come set the sink. Of course I will need to bring the 150# sink into the house and clean it out (it has been on the old house porch for three years). This sink was the very first thing I ever bought for the house. I purchased it before I did anything on the house. It just never got installed because there was no cabinet. The utility room had a deep sink in it before, but it was concrete and had several cracks in it. It was not salvageable.
Annmarie and Linda got the craft closet all stocked up with yarn and various craft stuffs. It looks great and surprisingly there was not as much yarn as I thought there would be.
 |
| Sink spot |
 |
| Sides and back completed. Just needs the front and the door. |
Here it is!! I still need to add the hinges, door latch and finish the wood. I added a large backsplash due to all the water damage that was on the wall from the old deep sink. It turned out great. The piece in the back is the door. We made it moveable so we could pull it out and drop the sink in then attach it to the wall. I will get the ball rolling on the parts we need to finish this so there will be no more egg washing in the kitchen sink or filling of animal waterers in the kitchen sink or washing of the dog. The little things that annoy the wife! lol.
It is officially Winter now
Well it only got to -6 here last night according to our thermometer (which is out of the wind and has brand new batteries in both the sensor and thermometer this month). Add on the foot of snow we got in the last 2 days and it is official, Winter is here. The lousy party about this cold is trying to keep the chickens watered. Their water freezes up all the time because there is no heat in the coop. The chickens don’t need heat to survive that is why they have feathers. The coop is watertight and insulated so the heat they do self generate does stay in the coop. With all this snow on the ground the chickens won’t come outside the coop. It makes for cramped living quarters inside. They truly hate change. Last year I shoveled a path out in the chicken yard for them so that they did not have to go into the deep snow. It didn’t help, they still stayed inside. So this year I didn’t bother yet. The one good thing is the chickens will eat the snow for their water. I have a heated dog bowl just outside for water, but the chickens won’t go to it. They eat the snow because it is closer and ignore the dog bowl. So for now it is snow for water.
Unfortunately, this still complicates the quail thing. I had a self waterer in the quail enclosure that was doing fine but -6 did not help it. It was frozen solid. So I added some hot water to it this morning and tonight we will have to change it out again. This is going to be an issue for me if I add in more quail. I will need power and a way to water them in the Winter next year. I added hot water to the self nipple waterer inside for the chickens. It had a small 1/8 inch ice film on top and that was it. I was surprised at that but I manipulated the nipple underneath and could not get a drop of water to come out. So I added a small 5 gallon fish tank heater to the five gallon bucket and plugged it in. It sits down near the nipples at the bottom of the bucket. I may need to take some duct tape and insulation and rig a wrap to go around the bucket. The duct tape cover will keep the chickens from eating the insulation.
We have all started to pet the sheep when we feed them in the morning. The two new teenage female ewes let me pet on them this morning while they were eating hay. The new teenage ram, Lucky, would not let me touch him. We need to get him tamed down. Persistence on our part will pay off.
Do you every wonder why?
Occasionally, I wonder why some creatures exist? I used to wonder this about snakes, but I’ve mostly gotten over that. Currently, however, I have been pondering this question in regards to yellow jackets and wasps. They aren’t particularly good pollinators. Bees, humming birds, and butterflies are all much more effective, and they are all much more pleasant neighbors. What, you may be wondering, could have led to such questioning?
It all began on Monday. We’d been noticing quite a few insects attempting to escape the cooling temperatures by sharing our warm domicile. Now, I’m pretty tolerant of most insects as long as they remain outside. Inside, however, they are fair game. Things were getting pretty bad, so Steve set off bug bombs in the attic and the crawl space Monday morning. We figured this would eliminate the most likely populations trying to enter the house. Lat on Monday, we noticed a few listless refugees. We put them out of their misery anytime we saw them, and went blissfully to bed.
Tuesday morning, when I finally decided I needed to drag my carcass out of bed, I tossed on my robe, and headed down the hall to wake Sarah. About 2/3 of the way to her room, I felt a hot burning sensation in the middle toe of my left foot. Now, understand that I went most of my 40+ years without being stung by bee or yellow jacket. In fact, I’ve only been stung 4 times in my life, and all of them have been inside one house or another. And two of them were Tuesday morning. Yes, two dying little buggers had stung my toe. I’m screeching like a banshee, ’cause it hurts. I want to hop around and grab my foot, but I have no idea how many more of the little buggers might be around, because of course, we don’t have lights in that hallway, and of course, I didn’t have my glasses on nor my contacts in. And I really don’t want to get my other foot stung too. Remember, I had just rolled out of bed, and hadn’t been to any other room in the house yet. Any woman over 40 will understand what I’m not saying.
Steve of course, only hears me screeching, and comes running out of the bedroom to see what was killing me. Needless to say, I turn my ire on him, particularly since he insists on calling the offenders bees. These are not bees. They are good-for-nothing yellow jackets.
By this time, I’m in the bathroom taking care of the rest of the morning business, and trying to figure out how to make my poor throbbing toe feel better. I can’t really find the sting, so a meat tenderizer paste is out. I finally decide that I’m just going to have to settle for ice. So, I cool it down for a little bit with and ice pack. At some point in there, Steve comes down and tells me he has killed a total of 7 bees. I inform him, perhaps a bit forcefully, that there are no *&^%&*) bees in this house. OK, perhaps I was still a bit irate and irritated. Fortunately for the state of our marriage, Steve thinks I’m cute when I’m angry, and once he started trying not to smile, I couldn’t help it either, and the steam was all blown off.
Then he set off another bug bomb in the attic to kill the last of the stragglers. I’m still a bit leery of running around the house without at least slippers, but it’s been three whole days now without any sightings, so I think I’m safe for a while.
