A little side note…I’m a “useful antiquer”.  I don’t tend to buy things just because they are old.   I’m not really a collector of anything.  I go to antique stores to find the useful things. The things that were made to be used, and were used, for years, before our world changed and went plastic.  Before it turned into a world where all things are bought, in one huge store, during one convenient stop and for one low price.  They were made when quality meant something.  When beauty and charm were part of function.  Those things speak to me and give me such a sense of grounding.

For instance the amazing crock.  Perfect condition, with it’s original lid.  It’s 5 gallons and will be perfect for putting up salt pork!  I have fatback, for just that use, in my freezer, from my neighbor, who raised and butchered his own pig.  I’ve been scouring the antique stores for a crock for months.  Not only was this in perfect condition, I almost stole it from them, they wanted such a fair price for it.

The green trivet isn’t all that old, but it’s enamel, a great size to put on the woodstove for the water bucket we keep on there, to keep the air from drying out too much.  It will also be perfect for setting a pot of soup on the stove to simmer.

Then there were the soup bowls.  Old.  Beautiful.  The design is so delicate, and it’s brown!  I love brown on cream for my dishes.  I also love those low bowls that are almost deep plates.  They are great for thick stews…mmm.

Probably the most frivolous purchase was the crate, but who could pass that up!?  I couldn’t and my friend Jessica threatened to buy it if I didn’t and could I stand going over to her house seeing it looking all old and charming, knowing it could have been at my place looking all old and charming, while holding something on my newly built shelves?  No.  I couldn’t stand it.  The price was, again, very fair, the print on the side might have enticed me to even pay a slightly less fair price.  Come on, United Farmers.  It had to be mine…so maybe I am sometimes wooed by the fact it’s simply old…but it is still useful.

So, what started as an innocent trip to keep a friend company while she went to find the lamp that has remained steadfast in her mind for weeks, turned into quite a treasure trove.  Oh, and the fabulous table cloth my new bounty rests on, is linen, in fabulous condition, and was picked up on the trip when she saw that lamp to begin with.  I’ve loved it every day since.

It seem like a good idea.  He lives next door, has a chain saw, knows how to use it, is a very safety conscious guy, and let’s face it, has taught me much of what I know.

Why it wasn’t a such a good idea…he’s my dad.  He doesn’t want his little girl to cut off a leg, because she was using his chainsaw, that he taught her to use.  He doesn’t want a saw to kick back and hurt me.  He has known me my whole life…even during my clumsy stage, or more to the point, he knew the 11 year old who hated helping cut the wood so much she would drop a log on her hand, early in the project, thus spending a good deal of time crying and sitting with an ice pack on her hand…in the house (note: far away from the the cold, hard work of lugging wood, you’re seeing the picture), but the point is, he’s my dad and he wants to protect me from danger.

I did prevail…it took some fast talking, lots of assurance of not cutting down anything bigger than I could put both hands around, and agreement of both eye AND ear protection.  Some great patience as he did his “old guy” tinkering routine (the use of quotes here, because he’s not an old guy but likes to try on the role, he intends to wear proudly, in the not so distant future)…seriously it took what seemed like forever for him to fill that saw with gas and oil, and tighten the chain.

Finally the debate was over the saw was ready to go, and I got my first lesson in how to cut down a tree.  It went pretty well, and off I went to cut some things down!  A nice little starter pile.

After 1 hour in the oven at 350 degrees.

A beautiful Pint of Roasted Garlic all ready to go!

My favorite use, so far… I hung a quart of yogurt to remove the whey, creating a yogurt with the consistency of cream cheese.  It’s really that easy, pour yogurt  into a fine cheese cloth, hang until the whey stops dripping, roll cheese off the  cloth into your container.  It’s delicious, and makes a great spread…especially served with chutney… But this time I took the “cream cheese” spread it on a piece of toast, then topped with some microgreens.  Good stuff!  The next batch is doing very nicely!

Well a light bulb went on one day, in part due to Ana White.  There is a great website, that is filled with woodworking projects.  Each project comes complete with a shopping list, a cut list and the step by step instructions for making the given project.  I’ve been in awe of what people are doing, and have wanted to join in the fun (see another “hobby” with equipment/tools/supplies…I can’t stop).  I started with a very basic shelf with the purpose of giving Christopher a place for his computer equipment and homeschooling supplies.  Those items were slowly creeping away from the corner of our bedroom, into the walk areas…due to no fault of Christopher…stuff has a mind of it’s own.

I found a very basic, sturdy, manly shelf, and set off to the hardware store for supplies.  I brought the cutlist and had the guy at the store cut the pieces, so I really came home with a kit.  Easy.  I slapped it together, lightly sanded, painted and popped it in the corner.  All the stuff has a place, it looks clean and organized.  I loved it.

Next room, the mud/laundry/pantry/recycling/catchall room.  It shouldn’t be the catchall room, because being a mud/laundry/pantry/recycling room seems like more than enough for one small room.  But because it was so disorganized and over extended, the other stuff just found a sneaky little spot to hang out.  Not now.  I moved EVERYTHING out of the room, save the Washer and Dryer and Utility sink…I even pulled the cabinets away from the wall.  Then I assessed.  I determined that I liked the counter top from the cabinet, and if I put it back , without the cabinet, I could put the hampers under it, giving us much more floor space.  I then built shelves above the counter top.  The upper cabinets went back in, but over the utility sink, since shelves took over their original spot.  This is a work in progress because I have plans to paint the entire room, and all the new shelves.  I added a shelf above the window, and the pantry closet door.  I just keep finding more places to put shelves.  This will allow me to keep all the gardening supplies in there, since the garden is right outside the mudroom door.  It will give me a place to wash up veggies, instead of my kitchen sink.  I’ll share pictures when the painting is finished.  I’m thinking some lime green in there somewhere…I need to check with my color consultant, the amazing Jessica.  She is a painter/interior decorator, so if you need anyone for such things, let me know.  Her work is amazing!

I did all this during the past 2-3 weeks, but today…

I added 44 feet of shelf space to my craft room!  One whole wall is shelves and I can’t be more excited.  I am going to add another 8 feet when I get to the store, because I found that spacing worked out to give me a couple more shelves than I expected.  This is also a work in progress, because I still need to prime and paint the shelves, along with the room.

A note about the painting.  I find that one part of feeling good in the space is cleanliness/orderliness, but a very huge part is that it is visually pleasing.  Yes, you can slap up industrial metal shelves (which in some applications would look very cool) or you could build shelves of wood, and use baskets for organization.  I find that more calming, so that is the endgame in the craft room.

I guess that was a lot of teasing, since there are no pictures to share, at this time.  But maybe it can still inspire you to take this “inside time of year” and spruce things up, so this Spring when the planting and brooding begin, you will feel good about how the house looks, and be able to find all the tools you need for your outside projects.

Oh, and Jessica told me, “People are always telling me how clean my house is.  The key, is when I move into a new place, I immediately figure out storage.  Once you have proper storage it’s easy to keep a space clean.  But if there is no place for it, then it will become clutter…maybe clutter in the living room one day, and the dining room the next, but without a home of it’s own it will be clutter.”  My other friend, Hilaree, had a good point today too, “If it doesn’t have a home decide if it’s important enough to get a home, and if it’s not consider getting rid of it”.   I keep company with very wise women.

Oh, and something farmy I have to share…  a great new book.

This by far the BEST chicken book I’ve ever read.  It’s perfect.  I can’t rave enough. The Small-Scale Poultry Flock: An All-Natural Approach to Raising Chickens and Other Fowl for Home and Market Growers–With information on building soil fertility, replacing purchased  feed, and working with poultry in the garden Isn’t that title great?!  The chapters on feed are worth the price, but then there is a ton more.  I find it hard to believe that anyone could be disappointed with this one.  So if you have chickens, or plan on getting them, seriously consider getting this book.  It really is brilliant.

All the rabbits are in the computer program.  I have gone through and made notes on each Doe’s file as to who they can and can’t be bred with, so I can tell at just a quick glance.  I cleaned all the cages in my housing structures, and moved everyone into those.  I’ll make some modifications to my friends housing for Spring.  I moved 3 does into my art studio, in the basement, and will be breeding them over the next week.  If all goes well, we will have kits delivered the week after Valentine’s Day!

I found a great use for my hot head torch.  I am a glass bead maker, and I use an oxygen/propane mix torch to melt the glass, but there are a great many people who do the same thing with a map gas torch, called a hot head.  I am in awe of those people, because map is a much cooler gas than the propane mixed with oxygen, so melting glass takes longer with that kind of torch.  Hot head users are a very patience, or tenacious bunch, for sure.  Some of them are doing some really amazing things with those torches, but I found a new use. I found it works great for cleaning rabbit housing.  All the fur that sort of wisps about and gets caught in the cage squares disappear almost immediately with the help of that torch.  I cleaned the cages, then used the torch to remove any remaining fur fluffs and debris. The cages look great, everything is clean and organized, and ready for Spring breeding to begin!

With organized pedigrees, a breeding plan, and super clean cages, the next issue to tackle was the water.  It’s cold out there.  The rabbits don’t mind, but the water freezes, in just a couple hours.  I could buy heated water bottles for $20+, but my animals are given bowls because I think it’s nicer for them to drink out of a bowl than those little licky ball end bits of a waterer.  So cost was one factor, and unpleasant drinking the other.  Then I found a post on Facebook… a friend made a heater for her chicken waterers…I modified it and it works brilliantly!  First night, all water frozen, except the one with the experimental heater.

Test heater made with a Valentine tin…

Today I went to the store, ravaged their 75% off  Christmas tin section, picked up some very cheap lights at the local “stuff” store, O’Keefe’s in Rochester, and the remaining (they only had 7, and I needed 10) at Lowe’s.  A little time, drilling, and electrical tape, and I now have heated water bowls for all the outside rabbits.

For 10 rabbit cages:

Light fixtures: $61.97

Light Bulbs: $2.83

Tins: $6.20

Not having to break water out of dishes 4 times a day: Priceless!

But really the project, for 10 heaters, cost: $71.00 plus a little bit of a roll of electrical tape and some wire that I had laying around.  $7.10 each, instead of $19.99 each for heated water bottles…Plus, in the off season I have plenty of extra lighting!

Oh, note: You need to use incandescent bulbs.  Those CFL bulbs do not throw heat, so they won’t work.

Finally, I have figured out the dilemma of feed.  Phew, yes, this is a rabbit intensive post, for sure.  Okay, in NH there are no organic rabbit feed options in bulk for a rabbitry.  If I have one little pet rabbit I could get a 5 pound bag, for a lot of money, but nothing for livestock type feeding.  I’ve been searching.  I begged a local mill in VT to start making some. Finally, I found Countryside Organics.  They are a full like organic feed company, that aren’t just organic, but they are soy free!!  Brilliant.  I hate that I feed my chickens and ducks soy, and that I in turn have soy in my meat and eggs.  The more I learn the more I hated it.  That is actually how I found Countryside Organics, I was looking for soy free options for the poultry and as a bonus found rabbit feed too.

Until now I’ve been feeding a ration of rolled oats and barley, along with alfalfa hay, and a salt/mineral lick in each cage.  It is a recipe based on an old book that dates before bagged grain mixes.  But to have the convenience of just putting feed in feeders, having it rationed for optimum grown and mineral content, has been a dream of mine.

If you look at the top of the blog, there is a tab for the new buying group I’ve started. If you are interested in joining us, let me know.  There is rabbit feed, as well as chicken, turkey, cow, goat…well, there are a lot of options, as well as single grains like oats or barley, or field peas…so go check it out if you are curious.

I think the rabbits are now perfect.  I’m excited to start breeding and for all those adorable bunnies.  The girls are, too. It’s been a few months since we had bunnies for petting and playing.

This pair kicked 2010 out the door.  Pictured with the start of pair three!  I love the new yarn…It’s so yummy!

This stripey pair was so fun to knit!  I loved seeing the next stripe appear!

The greens have done so well.  The first harvest happened tonight. I can’t wait to sprinkle them on my eggs in the morning!  The radish plants have been brilliant and I will plant them again.  The broccoli is a bit lame, really.  Not sure if it’s the variety, or if they just need longer.  I’m going to give them a few more days to see what develops, but they are a bit puny and don’t look very lush.

I clearly could have planted closer together, especially the broccoli.  I’m going to start my next tray tomorrow, so I’ll try to be less generous with the spacing.

I have a nice little bag of them in the fridge, with more to cut tomorrow.

By the way, it’s been nice to be back!  I’ve posted daily for almost an entire week.

One pair was able to be fixed with the original yarn, the others, weren’t as lucky, but I don’t mind that the soles of my feet don’t match the tops.  They are warm, cozy, and in good repair!

The sprouts are going like gangbusters.  I never plant enough seeds in the space.  I’m going to try to better with the next tray…this one is a little sparse which will make it more difficult to harvest.  By the way, this is Day 4.  Broccoli on left, radish on right.

Sorry for the blurry picture, but you get the idea…

I made the little sock blockers out of cardboard.  I traced the sock, then I measured the tracing based on her foot measurements.  Her foot is 6″ around, so I made sure the blocker was 3″ tall (1/2 the circumference of her foot), then I made sure the length was right, and then I cut out based on the measured lines.  Wet the socks, and inserted my little blockers.  They blocked perfectly and fit just as they should.

When I was making them, I tried the first one on to be sure of the size.  After asking Istra several questions about the fit, and determining that the sock was just as it should be.  Istra sat for a moment with the sock on her foot, and then said “Mama, can you make me another sock?” I guess she feared I thought my job was done with just the one.

The microgreens received a light today.  I just hung one of my photo lights, with a small CFL bulb above them.  It was amazing to see the pale yellowish new leaves turn bright green in only a couple hours.  It’s amazing how fast things change with seedlings.

The radishes are far out pacing the broccoli. I guess I did know that would happen, radishes are super fast/efficient little plants.  In the garden my dad says it’s best to plant your carrots and radishes in alternating rows.  The carrots take a dogs age to come up, but the radishes sprint to the surface making their place, and flanking the carrots so you know where they are until they find their way up.  I’m glad I planted them in halves on the tray, and not integrated.  I’ll be able to harvest at different times, so it will all be fine.

Here is the hat.  I went to pull the pattern off the internet, and it’s not available anymore. I had to paw through old pattern printouts in my craft room to find the hard copy I had.  It’s a little fiddlehead fern motif with the curls at the top.  I used some Malabrigo twist in “lovely autumn leaves in New England” colors.  Love it!

This is the same pattern I used for the hat that Istra wore home from the hospital, and probably every day there after for a few weeks. Here’s a little memory shared.

Not much cuter than a baby surrounded in knitted goodness.

The microgreens are taking off.  The book indicated the broccoli and radishes should take about the same amount of time, however the radishes are really moving much quicker than the broccoli.

Radish

Broccoli