The Thrifty Knitter

Just finished up the last of my Spinners’ Hill batt. Once I ply everything, I’ll have finished my Tour de Fleece!

I need not to spin for a couple days, though. My wrist and thumbs are wrecked from twisting fence clips, and I have lots more to attach in the next couple of days, so I’ll probably wait til Friday and ply it all at once. Eugh. Also, I should probably lay off the computer (but there’s so much to do!).

And now, I’m off to can some green beans. This will be my first pressure canning of the season, and it’s a smallish batch. I just need to decide whether to add bacon….

I just realized Tour de Fleece is coming to an end soon and I haven’t spun since last week. I’m glad I didn’t have too ambitious a goal, because it will be very nice to have a little tasks-to-completion success story. I’d really like to try a little spinning meditation. I’ve tried meditating a few times with the Learn to Meditate podcast. It would be doubly nice to apply the mental/physical benefits of meditation to a productive activity. Laura taught spinning meditation at Winter Woolfest, but I was too busy with my booth to try it out. I think I’ll google it and see what I can find. (…Nothing. Anyone have any links?)

Much of my time and energy has been devoted to fencing and preserving. We’ve stretched all but the last span (maybe 400 feet?) of fencing (we’ll have woven wire enclosing about 8 of our 10 acres when we’re done). [Here is where I deleted the incredibly boring explanation of the math of how many clips I’ve installed and how weary my poor wrists are. I suspect this next part will be equally boring, but, what can I say? I’m a bore.] Unless th is rain makes everything too mucky to get around with the Bobcat, the fence will be all but finished in the next week or so. The “all but” part comes from the fact that we also need to install gates. For the back, I think we can rig an interesting closure for the time being with the length of leftover woven wire that was amazingly exactly the length of the opening. For the sides, I want Ron to build some lovely wooden gates to bolt to the existing heavy pipe gates. I think they’ll look much nicer than tubular ranch gates, and they’ll tie in with the wood courtyard gate. The posts and rails for the courtyard gate have been up forever, but we’re waiting on some more wood from our neighbor with a saw mill. We’ve got some lovely cedar he cut, but the fence is going to be a mash-up of a couple different types of wood, and we need it all from the beginning to get the look right.

The only other part of the fence that won’t be 100% is a spot in the back where we’ll need to raise up the ground level to make a proper path that’s out of the way of the water. To do that, we’ll put in a drain pipe for overflow into our neighbor’s pond (which currently takes the natural runoff from our property), and dig out our own pond in a nice clearing in the woods, and use the earth we dig out to raise up the path along the fence line. (We put the fence in 8 feet from the property line and we’re making a nice walking path all along the perimeter of the fence.) The problem is, we’ll need to hire the trackhoe guy to dig it out, and we don’t have the required funds at the moment. So we sunk a wood post 100′ from the corner so we’ll be able to dismantle that one little span we we’re ready to dig the pond. I’m really glad we decided to wait on the pond, because we’ve since had several big unexpected expenses.

Anyway, I’ll be so thrilled when we’re fully fenced. After the dog episode, I’ve been very nervous about the animals. With a secure perimeter, I’ll be able to relax a little. It will be good not to have to plan my evening activities so strictly around the animals.

I’ve also been preserving and baking a lot. Folks who have attended Yarn School or Felt School may have met June Jones, my friend and neighbor who is our on-site massage therapist at workshops. Her husband Tom has a lovely garden, and he planted some extra for me, so I’m helping harvest and can.  June’s been away on vacation, so I wanted to get some of the garden produce put up while she’s gone. I’ve done lots of pickles, some jam, and tonight I’m going to can a small batch of green beans. I’ve also baked and frozen several zucchini bread loaves, and I’m experimenting with a chocolate zucchini cake.

Summer Squash Sandwich Slice Mix-em-ups

Chocolate Zucchini Cake

Bread and Butter Zucchini Pickles, Zany Zucchini Pickles, Zesty Zucchini Relish, and Yellow Squash Dill Spears

Zucchini Bread

British Bread & Butter Pickles

Rhubarb-Orange Conserve

Rhubarb Chutney

The best part of lately is the beautifully mild weather. It’s been in the 70s and 80s lately with overnight lows in the low 60s or high 50s, cool enough to sleep and sleep and sleep.

P.S. Bridgette is two days’ back with the other girls. They were picking on her enough to make a big 1×2″ raw, pecked patch that killed off all the new feathers in that spot and left something of a gooey mess. I tried to switch her back to separate quarters during the day/in at night, but she flew over her fence to get back in with her sisters, so I think she’s there to stay, though I’ll need to keep an eye on that yucky patch. While she doesn’t seem entirely at ease, she doesn’t seem eager to leave, as she did in my early attempts to re-integrate her. She’s strong and feisty enough to stay out of too much harm, and if they’ll leave it alone long enough to grow back her feathers, I think she’ll be in the clear. I repositioned the poultry fence and took down the smaller pen, which has made something of a maze inside their little yard. It may be just enough to cure Faith of her broodiness, because she’s none too clever and tends to get trapped in the open pen if she happens to wander in that way. I’m hoping that will keep her away from the nest box long enough to break her broodiness. (When a hen “goes broody,” she sits on the nest day and night, bristling and clucking whenever you come near, and, leaving just long enough to poop and eat. When you’re trying to hatch eggs, that’s dandy. But when you’re not, it’s a pain in the butt because she’s always hogging the favorite nest box protectively, even when it’s empty. So sometimes the other girls will start laying outside the nest, which can lead to dirty, broken, or lost eggs. In our case, it’s especially annoying because we have no rooster, which means no fertile eggs, which means that unless she’s laying the Immaculate Conception, the only thing sitting on an eggs for weeks would give you is a rotten egg. It can also be bad for the broody hen if she’s not getting enough food and exercise.) But if I can’t keep her out of the nest, I’m thinking of getting some fertile duck eggs for her to sit on, and seeing if she can hatch out some ducklings!

Broody Faith

Veronique in Paris has generously translated Pebble as a pdf! Voilà!

I joined the Tour de Fleece yesterday, just a little bit late. My goal is fairly modest, to finish spinning the last quarter of my Spinners Hill Rhinebeck fiber, and then to ply everything. It’s the perfect goal because it’s not so ambitious it will kill me, but it’s really important I do it very soon, so that I have time to design and knit my Rhinebeck sweater before I get too busy with our August residents and preparations for Fall Yarn School.

The Spinners’ Hill batt (I only have about a quarter left to spin):

The stuff that needs to be plied:

I started my Tour in the chicken pen, where Bridgette made herself at home in my lap as long as I’d let her. Like spinning with a cat in your lap, it can be done, but it’s a little weird and annoying.

Bridgette is healing well, but my attempt at letting her join the general population has been postponed. Initially, she did really well. The only chicken after her was Inara, but as long as Bridgette dutifully ran away when Inara loomed, she’d leave her alone and go about her business. But then Faith, who has been a broody pain in the neck for the last couple of weeks, hauled her fat ass out of the nest box long enough to attack, and unlike Inara, Faith was out for more than just respect.

For the record, Faith is a dick. She’s the one who pecked two of the baby chicks so bad their eyes swelled shut when they were all just ONE DAY OLD! I had to make her a separate brooder and keep her apart from the others until they outgrew her enough that she was too short to peck their eyes (every time I tried to put her with the others, she’d immediately leap at their eyes). Until now, she hasn’t been a problem since then, but man is she all over Bridgette (who, consequently, is one of the two she attacked when they were chicks). Faith drew blood and got Bridgette so worked up that she dove straight into my lap for protection.

Since then, she’s been way too chummy, hopping on my lap or arm or shoulder every chance she gets. It’s kind of adorable, but keep in mind that chickens have pretty sharp claws, so having one on your neck isn’t the most cozy sensation around.

Peanut used to hop on my shoulder as well. She was the smallest one, as Bridgette is now. I’m sure being on higher ground (on, a higher human perch, as the case may be) makes them feel more secure. Anyway, my new plan is to go back to penning Bridgette separately morning and evening for the next week to let her better heal (and bringing her in most of the day and at night) then moving her in with the other girls but moving Faith (and anyone else who attacks–I’ll have my eye on Inara and Buffy–the others are either docile or subservient) into the separate pen.

Hopefully, this will keep her from becoming a big ninny who can’t remember how chickens are supposed to act. As it is, I’m going to need to add an extra couple feet of chicken wire to her little pen, because she’s figured out how to jump up above the wire and through the cattle panel to hop on my arm. I’m also going to avoid hanging out in her pen like a neurotic mama–I was only in there to watch out and rescue her if anyone tried to peck open her wounds. Once her feathers grow back and her wounds close up completely, I’ll be way less nervous about her.

Her feathers are already coming in on her intact skin, but the wound is still an ugly and delicate mess:

Anyway, despite all the chickeny commotion, I was able to accomplish a little successful spinning. I think I’ll be able to finish this off and start plying by the end of the week.

P.S. Partly due to clouds, partly poor attention/engineering on my part, the solar cooking is on hold for a bit while I get my act together.

P.P.S. Cuckoobatt Club shipped earlier this week, except for Joanne’s. I’m doing your custom Blue Streaks tonight & they’ll be in tomorrow’s mail. (Yes, that’s June. Yes, I know it’s July. At least I’m only getting closer to being on time. I was actually ready to go Friday, but I forgot my post office was closing early for the holiday weekend.)

I’m beginning to feel I have the power to control the weather. Every time I try to test out my solar cooker, I drag out the clouds. But we were originally scheduled for thunderstorms, so I guess I really should quit whining.

A couple days ago, I had my first, very ham-fisted attempt at making a solar cooker of my own design. Once again, I was surprised and disappointed to learn I’m not the engineering genius I expected myself to be. I’ve been learning and relearning (so I guess, more accurately: NOT learning) this same lesson since I was a child. In fact, after my pathetic and ridiculous first try at making a reflector out of floppy sunshades and scrounged baling wire, I suddenly recalled my 4th grade attempt at making a solar cooler, and my surprise and disappointment that it didn’t work as expected, that instead of crisp chocolate chip cookies, I got congealed chocolate chip cookie dough full of ants.

Now, I have advanced a little since 4th grade. I have the internet to help inform me about the design (I think my original plan was something on the order of a tinfoil-lined shoebox), and I had an actual thermometer so I could easily tell the temperatures were nowhere in the neighborhood of cooking temperatures. But still. Despite an extra 30 years of life experience, I once again ended up with what looked like last place in a grade school science fair.

My second try wasn’t much better. I used the floppy reflectors to cover tapered cardboard panels. If I can cut the glass I have on hand to a suitable size, I can probably actually use those to good effect. I think I may fit a metal file drawer painted with black grill paint into the modified (I cut the top out and folded back the cut edges to make a nice opening but keep the double depth) grill base and insulate the space between, then attach the panels to the more uniform box (the grill still tapers in, as you can see, making it difficult to work with panels or a lid). Then I can cut the glass to fit the more regular shape of the box and possibly create a decent and deep oven. But in the meantime, the panels are just as useless as the crappy wire halo-and-foil contraption of my first go.

Until I get a chance to hit the hardware store, I decided to go back to plan A. I dropped $5 on a rigid windshield shade and $1 a package of velcro at Big Lots and made the original windshield shade cooker. I didn’t have the cooking bags, so I used a large glass jar with half gallon glass jar wrapped in black cloth instead. But I haven’t had enough sun to test it out yet.

When I first tried it yesterday, it wouldn’t rise above 110–then I rotated it slightly so it caught the sun the way it was supposed to, and the temperature immediately started to climb. Of course, 10 minutes later, clouds rolled in and foiled me.

I’m going to try again today, but I think it’s partly cloudy all day, so I’ll probably have better luck next week.

In other news, Bridgette seems to be improving. Today’s the last day in her antibiotics, and she seems quite on the mend. I’m going to keep her separated but give her more time outside today (what with the partly cloudy keeping things cooler), then gradually give her time back with the flock. She seems anxious to rejoin them, but I don’t want to put her in harm’s way. The open wounds are gone, but she’s totally nekked back there, and I don’t know if the rest of the girls will find all that pink skin irresistable.

P.S. Happy 4th of July!

Today I’m actually going to make and test a solar cooker! The plan is a multipurpose oven useful for both cooking and dyeing (food and dye both be contained, so never touch the same surfaces, so there’s no worries).

I suspect I could solar dye without any special solar cooker (just sealed mason jars sitting on the sidewalk, I’ll bet–maybe I’ll test that theory today, too!) with all this nice summer sunshine. But for cooking, I’ll really need to concentrate the heat. I’ve got a bounty of summer produce, so I’d like to cook up and freeze a mess of it without overheating my kitchen (and therefor overtaxing my freezer).

Today I’m going to try building a solar cooker out of a rickety cheap bbq grill that isn’t working out (we have a decent one, too; this one was reserved for vegetarian cooking, but it’s more toy-sized, so I’m planning to replace it at the oddly early post-season sales–Target’s already clearing out summer stuff for back-to-school, and Hobby Lobby has freaking CHRISTMAS ornaments out). That will act as the base and raise it up a bit to avoid stooping. Then the reflector will come from two windshield shades from the dollar store (unlike the nice acccordian-style ones you get at Target these are very flimsy & will require reinforcement–I have extra chicken wire that I think will fit the bill) and the heat trapper will be the glass in an old disused picture frame I found. I also dug a couple of disposable aluminum chafing dishes out of the recycling bin.

I’m using this plan and on-hand scrounged materials as my jumping-off point (so far, the only thing I’ve had to buy specifically for this are the shades–my out-of-pocket cost would be way higher if I hadn’t dug up the other crap).

Aside from reinforcing the chicken floppy windshield shades, the only problem I foresee is the depth of the thing. I think it’s too shallow to hold my Le Creuset Dutch ovens or quart jars (for dyeing) as-is. Maybe I can rig up some extra height, either with flattened #10 cans, or buy cutting through the crappy top. It’s cheap, but I don’t think it’s probably cheap enough for tin snips….

Anyway, off to experiment!

Well, Bridgette’s still alive and acting fairly chickeny. She’s obviously still not herself, and she’s not laying, but she’s eating some and, though still dazed, she doesn’t seem too weak. She started a 5-day cycle of antibiotics today, so hopefully that will keep her punctures from getting mucky.

Jennifer & Tom examined her on Sunday and said keeping down the infection would be the key. The punctures are a particular problem, because you can’t pick them and drain an abscess the way you would on, say, yourself, because their skin is so delicate generally, and she lost a lot of skin in the attack.

Tom said I should probably go ahead and keep her in the basement where it’s cool and clean and safe, but he gave me the go-ahead to rotate her outside in the morning and evening coolness in her own little private pens, adjacent to but not interacting directly with the other girls.

So I made her a little pen out of cattle panel pieces, lined with chicken wire and outfitted with her own food and water and nest box. Later I added a ramp up to the nest box, because she was trying unsuccessfully to jump in, and a nice log for her to hop around on.

Now she can see the other chickens and get in on the group eating excitement (it’s really getting her to eat much better) without being in harm’s way.

She looks really small without her tail. Buffy was a little bigger than her before, but now she looks twice her size.

From the front, she looks pretty much the same:

But her back end’s a mess (and this is with the grossest stuff concealed by her wing):

Her butt looks (accurately) like a plucked chicken, and there’s a big chunk of skin gone to expose what any carnivore can plainly identify as chicken meat (yuck, that part doesn’t really show up here).

Her basic routine is: get toted out to the pen from 6.30 to 7.30 or 8 am, back in for the heat of the day, then back out when the shadows get long at around 7.30 at night, until I grain the sheep (around 8.30 or so). If I wait too long, all the other girls go to bed and she paces back and forth along her shared wall, looking for an opening to magically appear so she get in and go to bed, too. So then I put her under my arm like a football and carry her back inside.

Here’s her little hospital room:

Before I replace the cover (just hardware cloth over a little frame), I like to keep it off for a while because she likes to her hop up on her perch and stretch up and look around. I like to imagine her continuing chickeny curiosity is a good sign.

Well, Bridgette’s back in her hospital box. The other girls were just finding her wounds too irresistable, and I was going to be away all afternoon, so I though it better not to risk a full-fledged cannibalistic chicken feast.

She did mingle successfully for a few hours, and I think I’ll try to repeat the process for a bit each day while she recovers, so she doesn’t get blue. I might even go ahead with the hospital pen, since the weather’s supposed to finally cool down to highs in the low 90s.

This evening, I let her out in the courtyard by herself for about 20 minutes so she could scratch around and act like a chicken. She didn’t have too much enthusiasm until I dug her up half a dozen grubs, which she gobbled up with gusto and chased with some scratch.

Jennifer & her husband are coming by tomorrow morning to pick up the wheels I borrowed for the PBS thing and check out the portable electric fencing, and they’re going to look her over for me. He’s in veterinary research at Kansas State and she’s a former vet, too. It’s always nice to have access to pros. If you can ever say a dog attack has good timing, this one did–I’m glad it happened a couple days before they were due for a visit.

Tomorrow is Spinsters Club! My mom’s in town, so I probably won’t be able to really spin, but I do want to take her down there to see Alpacas of Wildcat Hollow. My mom’s an animal lover, and I’m sure she’ll fall all over herself for the adorableness.