January, The Quietest Month of the Year (NOT)

 

The month of January, the darkest, coldest, snowiest month of the year.  It's a month were snuggling up on the sofa with a soft blanket, a pair of woolly socks, a warm drink, and a good book is expected, nay, required.  By the end of January, a firm and familiar bond has been formed with your snow shovel. Each time you use it you wonder if this will be it's last season, or if you should treat yourself to a new one at the hardware store. After all, they're on clearance now next to the flower seeds.  Your woolen mittens are stiff and now perfectly formed and felted to the shape of your hand. You've completely given up on not having hat hair, and your chore coat, and your very pores perpetually smell of ode to diesel from tractor exhaust. You've developed milk maid's shoulders from hauling warm water to the livestock, and have mastered the art of 'going to your happy place' while preforming them 3 times a day, while being serenaded by the howling, biting winds.

But not this year, not this year.

We have been utterly blessed with fantastic weather this year. We are drastically low on precipitation, which is going to be a problem come Spring if we don't make it up soon. But the temperatures have been very, very nice.  We've been frigid, but then we bounce up into the 50s.  We drop again to have one or two days that never break freezing, but then we pop back into the 40s, or even 60s for a couple of days.  It's made it impossible to fall into the annual Winter funk.  How can you possibly waste a sunny 55 degree day INSIDE?  You can't.  You spend the little cold days inside planning and plotting projects for the nice days.  On the nice days, you work yourself silly before the cold sets in again.

The first couple of days of January were ridiculously cold. Our high temperatures were 9'F(-13'C) and 16'F(-9'C), respectively. Add the wind to that and it was a classic inside pair of days.  I used to to work in the sewing room.  A lot of odds and ends in the repair basket were tackled, but most importantly, I finished the Sewing double!  I have put this off for months.  The original pique knit, which was recommended, was far too stretchy. As you stuffed it, it overstuffed to beyond your measurements and was still too soft for its intended purpose.  To counter that, I changed to a heavy duty cotton duck and added a little to the seam allowances to make up for the total lack of stretch. Once that was complete, I glued heavy cardboard disks to the neck and arms ends to give it structure, slipped it over the base and stuffed it as tightly as I could while still matching the form and measurements.  It came out spot on!  Then I adjusted it to the correct standing height. It is now ready to help drape bodices, and hem skirts.  I'm glad I tackled this project, but I'm VERY glad it's DONE.

I knew I then had two days in the upper 40s and mid 50s.  Laundry was hung outside on the line, one day of clothing and the second 100 ft of sheets to be stripped for rugs on Fergus. It was during one of these hanging sessions that I got a bee in my bonnet.  Fergus was currently, temporarily, inhabiting the space under the window in the upstairs (main floor/ground floor) library due to the weather when we moved him from the garage and into the house, and due to his hulking size and considerable weight. Where on earth was I going to put him on the lower level where his sister, Nessie was residing.  I wasn't happy with her location to start with, I couldn't shove Fergus down there too and be happy. So now where am I going to put the two of them where I would be happy?

There was room on the lower level, large windows, but it always feels apart from the house to me and oppressive, even with the brightest daylight lamps blazing.  I live and work on the main floor. But where to put them both where they could both be used AND out of the way?  As I stood and worked on a rug on Fergus, it came to me.  I would relocate the library and make the library the weaving studio, or as Doc calls it, The Loomy Bin. 

I dropped what I was doing on Fergus, and grabbed my tape measure and ran it across the top of one of the bookcases, and then down the stairs I went to measure the wall behind Nessie and under the windows.  THEY'D FIT!  Then I measured Nessie and went back upstairs to measure under the window. Nessie was lower and would go under the window, while Fergus would go into a corner.  SHE WOULD FIT TOO!

I put the rug supplies to the side and immediately started taking things off the walls and carrying them downstairs. The walls would need painting.  I was shocked at how faded the paint was after only 7 years and protected by UV windows. I cleaned and moved stack after stack of books, then slid the heavy wood shelves to the basement and set the whole library up downstairs.  There were only hours before a cold front was coming through and there was no way I could move Nessie alone, she was far too heavy and bulky.  I folded her up, and made her as skinny as possible and I built an extension for a dolly to hold her.  Doc helped me load her up and get her to the trailer where we drove her up and around the house to the main level, then wheeled her to the front door where she had to be lifted up the stairs and into the house. She was officially in the Loomy Bin.  

It could get cold and miserable now. And it did.

I actually had a spare gallon of paint I loved from another project and spent a whole day painting the studio. The second day I put the room back together and decorated.  Yes, it was that fast.  It's set up exactly right. It's comfortable. It's soothing. It's functional, and lets me be accessible to the whole level of the house I use. And all of my weaving items are in the same room, not spread all over the house, hither and yon. I can close the door and turn up my podcasts or youtube videos and the dog can still see me (glass door), but I don't disturb the rest of the house with 'slide, klunk, swish, klunk'.

I can now keep an eye on dinner (or cookies) and work on a few rows.  I can work and the dog doesn't feel abandoned.  It's lovely. (There are still a couple of empty spots on the walls for certificates still in the mail. I am making a rail to hold my shuttles within reach, and an adjustable work lamp would be a great idea.)

As long as I had the roller, pan, and ladder out, I decided I may as well paint the dinged wall in the kitchen, which turned out to also be horribly faded despite having NO direct sunlight on it EVER.  Sad testimony for this brand of paint. (Suzie helped me paint the kitchen. Yes, my brilliant beagle turned headfirst into a wall.)

The weather warmed again and I put into motion the next outdoor project, as long as the laundry was flapping away on the line again.  I wanted a hoop house for the garden.  I had it slated for later in the Spring, but why waste those warm days, eh?  This would be a place to keep plants earlier and later in the growing season, once they out grew the proper greenhouse.  Irrigation lines needed pulled and cattle panels and T-posts needed removed to make room for the new structure.  I knew what I wanted, but only a little about HOW I wanted to do it.  There were some bumps in the road over a two week span, including some snow, some misfitting pipes, a dead can of paint, poorly manufactured parts, PVC cement failure and not being able to find the right size T-posts. But so far I have a bare frame.  She won't be DONE in January, but she's on her way.

Of course some things had to give way for the hoop house.  The up-cycled bean arch I just put up this fall felt in the way, so down it came.  And with those two rows gone, I could expand the blackberry row another 20 feet, deal.  As long as I was building longer rows in that direction I could add 10 feet to the hyperactive grape vine row, deal.  Oh, and as long as I was out there, the horseradish was not only too close to the hoop house now, but would also be too shaded.  It needed moved.  

Have you ever had to move a 5 year old mother horseradish plant? She was HUGE, 24 inches across and I dug down another 15 inches before I started cutting off the rhizomes, which were almost 2 inches across in some instances.  I broke off some larger ones and tossed them aside and moved mother to a new spot, then dug up two of her daughters and put them in the same row.  I know full well that each broken rhizome left in the ground is a potential new plant this spring. I will be overwhelmed with the spicy condiment, but it is welcome.

I brought in the pungent stick 2 inches across and 20 inches long.  I diced it into manageable pieces, and slipped them into a quart jar along with 1/4t of salt, 6 T water, and 3T of white vinegar and then carried it and my immersion blender to the front porch.  This is NOT a job for INSIDE the house. Holding the jar away from my face and pointed away from me I let the stick blender do its job.  I shook off the blender and capped the jar for 15 minutes before transferring it to a pint jar.  Not a bad haul.  Nothing like a fresh batch of the good stuff for February.

I installed a set of shelves in the sewing room to hold materials for the rug loom, since that's where they'll be cut .  I just took the first warp winding worth of rugs of Fergus.  I actually ran out of room on the take-up beam before I ran out of warm. I manage 12 rugs, with probably two left on the loom. When this warp runs out I'll order new heddles for Fergus, install them, and thread him up again.  It's nice to have a project that doesn't require a great deal of brain power for break times.  (Unlike the projects on Nessie, which require so much attention, the radio can't even be on.)

The hens and alpaca are happy and very much enjoying the warmer winter. Days are spent lounging in the warm sunshine and searching the poo piles for bugs and wayward seeds in the straw and dropped hay.

In closing, the only thing special that came out of the kitchen during this month long work-a-thon was a triple twisted cinnamon flake roll from scratch, 100% whole wheat.  I think it made up for the couple of night's that dinner was soup and cold sandwiches.

December, It Just FLEW By.

 

Most of the reason it sped by so quickly was due to the great loom project.  Fergus was all consuming for 10 days. It was wonderful.  Now Fergus is safely in the house and set up, and working.  Being on the main floor affords me the same opportunity as my studio desk in the kitchen.  I can work for a bit and then continue on with chores or cooking.  It's easy to just work for a few minutes as the mood strikes.

Fergus is well on his way, and has rag rug #4 on it now.  I should have that done by tomorrow.  I've been managing a rug a day just by doing several rows every so often throughout the day.  I have a great deal of scraps saved up and ready to be stripped as needed.

I love the process and the result.  One of my main goals for January is to finish the custom sewing double dummy and to get the next Tartan threaded up on the downstairs Loom, Nessie. That is a HUGE project. I dread it, but to start weaving, it must be done. 

December 15th rolled in with temperatures in the mid 70s, which is unheard of for here.  The air felt odd all day, it was still and a little humid.  The storms began to develop to our west and then picked up speed, barreling across the state like a freight train.  Tropical storm and hurricane force winds chewed up everything in front of it and torrential rains raced horizontally along the hills, and tornadoes formed unpredictably along the leading edge of the storm. As I sat on the front porch working and passing information to surrounding broadcasting agencies, the unmistakable roar came from the next valley. As the winds picked up, the roar wasn't muffed by the approaching rain on the tin rooves nor the wind twisting the giant tree limbs. In fact, it grew louder.  There was a flash across the valley and the power was gone, the air was green, and still the sound of a jet engine grew closer. I sent one more report and went inside and told Doc, that I didn't know where the tornado was, I couldn't see it, but it was out there and it was close.  I returned to my observation post but could see nothing.  The air pressure dropped to 29.03, before the station shut down. The beast was out there, but invisible.  The whole thing was over in 15 minutes.  The line passed, the sun was golden, and the air behind the storm was fresh and clear. We were still here, the only damage was a missing vent panel on the greenhouse. (I forgot to close the lower vents during storm prep.) (The tornado was headed our way, but lifted just 5 miles south of the house.  For a storm that was moving at us at 80 mph, that's a big deal- 4 minutes is all that stood between us and that twister.)

For us, the power was out.  Long before the storm had hit, I had filled the extra water buckets for both animals and people. I used the clear glass jugs and a candle to blow the light from one candle into a full lantern in the kitchen, and with the help of food put up in the pantry, managed a full Thai dinner from scratch for supper.  A reward for an insane evening.

After that, we still had wild swings of cool and warm days. It was warm enough to bring the ladybugs back out and warm and breezy enough to still hang laundry on the line.  Odd for sure, but no one was complaining. Although we all know Mr. Freeze Meister's shoe will drop on us eventually.

The warm weather even distracted us from the fact that the holidays were sneaking up on us. But we found enough spirit to make and eat a Yule Log and get the tree up, albeit, two days before Christmas. The ornaments never did make it out of storage, and the whole tree was put away by Christmas afternoon. Then, in the blink of an eye, it was New Year Day, and Winter arrived.

From DunRovinStation Ranch to you and yours, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.