woo woo!

WOO WOO! i'm heading out for a fiber retreat-loading the car up. liam says it looks like i'm leaving for a week. ha!!!! it's all about comfort these days. if i'm camping i'm going to be warm and cozy-done with roughing it! in the big ass bag i have my feather comforter and my self inflating air mattress. a gurls weekend of spinning and kntting! well, i better get outta here!

i wil leave you with liam's garden bounty harvest this morning:

wild blackberries abound-hope to make jam when i get back!

hey soxchic- wish you were coming. i'm gonna start my boxcar willies!!!!! so you will be there in spirit!

baby blanket done!!!!

i finally finished the baby blanket! 65% cotton and 35% alpaca.

garden calamities

it's been an unusual gardening year this summer. perhaps it was the cold spring and early summer and then getting blasted with heat suddenly. i don't know. as you remember i planted for the first time a soil building cover crop in my raised beds last fall. i was hoping to improve my soil which has a lot of clay so amending the beds every year is a must and can get pricey.

well, i'm not sure what i think about the cover crop-it was a lot of work hand tilling it in and i'm having weird funky things happening this year. although the japanese eggplants are doing well-they love the heat.

the yellow squash took off like gang busters-we had tons of yellow spaceships invading the garden. although i did have a bee mishap-i had tons-o-honey bees happily buzzing around the garden before i had flowers-but as soon as things started blooming they vanished!!! perhaps they found a better hangout or got tired of waiting.

so i had to hand pollinate with a paint brush-taking pollen from the male flower and putting it into the female flower- aiding in act of flower sex was a new experience for me. it sure worked- i think their was some fireworks happening.

we were getting so many i was having to give them away-friends ran from me when they saw me coming! then a weird thing happened-i'm only getting male flowers now-no females at all. they keep blooming and then they die. same with my zuchini and petty pans.

it is also happening with my melons.

we only have one watermelon growing(out of all our melon plants) even though the vine is full of flowers. but all the flowers appear to be male. same with my cremshaw, lambkin and cantaloupe. total bummer!!! the fruit needs to be growing by now!!!

peppers at our place always seem to take awhile to get going. i've harvested some serranos. the jalapenos and orange bells are slowly coming around. we tried a new heirloom this year called the nordello.

from italy-a sweet pepper. they are red when ripe but don't seem to turning and they have been on the plant for ages. now the plant has stopped producing flowers-i know if i pick the peppers they will flower more. dilemma-do i pick them or wait for them to turn red?

i planted basil through out the garden this year-the heat is finally getting it to grow.

i just love potatoes-as you can see-i love all the niteshades -damn. my potatoes were not a success this year-i've been harvesting as the vines are dying and some totally dead. here's some russian fingerlings:

as you can see-they didn't all get big enough. they should be the size of the bigger ones. but the vines died before they finished growing. more questions. while harvesting-i had the pleasure of picking this guy up instead of a potato. when it started moving in my hand-i grossed out! potato bugs freak me! here's what he was eating-he was about 1 1/2 inches long.

he died the terrible death of being pulled apart in two different directions by lily and lucie. the chickens love a good game of tug-o-war!! then they chow down!


leaving the tomato discussion for a different post-that's another situation.

on the fiber side-i did get much merino roving dyed for my LYS. i gave a felter friend first dibs on it before i took them to the store and she bought 10 rovings-ha! i had 14. four bags was not enough to restock-so i need to get on the ball and dye some more!

almost done with the log cabin baby blanket-!!!!!! then i need to burn the midnight oil and get something done for the fair-always the last minute no matter how hard i try to be on top of things. i should be making holiday gifts-but hey-why not wait till november-as always-stress on!

100 books

i got this from birdsong's blog. it's a list of important reads compiled by the BBC. they say most folks have read about 6 books from the list. put an X by the titles you've read. i've decided to also include audio books which i will put an A instead. interesting list-i got 26. i only counted the Xs. it's better than 6 but i think i need to read more-i see tons on this list i have always wanted to read but have forgotten about.

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte- X
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling- A
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee- X
6 The Bible -NOT THE WHOLE THING-DOES THAT COUNT?
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte- X
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell-I THINK SO-EONS AGO!
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller - X
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien - A
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger - X
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger - X
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald - X
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll - X
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame - X
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis - X
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis - X
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini -
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne - X
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell -HUBBY READ IT ALOUD TO THE FAMILY
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown - X
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery- X
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood - X
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding - X
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon- X
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez - X
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck- X
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov - X
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac - X
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett- X
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno - Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt- X
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker - X
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White- X
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery- X
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

happy reading-i nead to get my eyes checked-haven't since i was pregnant with liam(he's 11 now! gads)-i know i know!!!! too much time has past-need to do it. mybe that's why i don't read much anymore. makes my eyes itch.

the reclamation of my bathroom!

once school is out for the summer i think to myself-yeah! i'm going to have so much free time to fill my life with fibery goodness. ha! i forget what summer entails- all the usual chores PLUS gardening, building projects, property work etc. leaving very little time for other things.

great news! i have reclaimed my bathroom. it is no longer a chick brooder. you would not believe have much dusty dander chicks produce-it's rather disgusting-it's everywhere-i wouldn't even brush my teeth in there. the chicks are now fully feathered pullets and can be outside at night-yahoo!

Gads! can you say "rooster?" the chicks are supposed to be sexed at the hatchery but it's not 100% accurate. liam named him zeemic. as you know we are anti-rooster around here-so he's free to anyone who wants him-he's a catalana. originally from spain but popular in south america as they are heat hearty birds. much needed around these parts-maybe you could breed that trait into your flock. otherwise mondy's gonna eat eat him for dinner. let me know if you want him!!!!

these 8 chickens are living in an adjacent yard to the our original flock so they can get accustomed to one another. chickens are vicious and new comers are never welcome-it can get bloody. i want them to get bigger before i put them in with the nasty gurls! then they will share this coop with them:

we also have 8 new bantams. very excited as we've never had the little chickens before. they are too cute! they come unsexed so we will definitely end up with some roosters. we've identified 2 so far. being that banties are miniature chickens the roosters can sometimes be even nastier than the big guys-little man complex? or the napoleon complex? one is particularly mean already bites real hard-liam named him adolf then changed it to napoleon. dinner anyone? or maybe we could do the recommended procedure of just letting him free in the woods and wish him luck!! hey all you PETA members-you are more than welcome to come over and take him off my hands-just bring some wicked ass leather gloves.

the banty bungalow is near completion. they are living in it-but they are confined to it as fencing has not happened.

building anything sucks when you live on a hill. there's my power tool "rosie"-i love my dewalt!!!!!

liam helped dig these fence post holes 18" deep! actually he did most of it as i was having hand issues again. what a great worker he is. thank you so much liam. post hole cement is god's gift to making my life easier. i hate mixing cement in a wheelbarrow and having to transfer the mess into the hole. post hole cement is just awesome-you just put your pole in the hole add the mix, level and pour in some water-set for 5 days!!! schlepping the 60 lb. bags around is a pain though.

see the boarded up window on the left-that will soon be nesting boxes that come out of the coop-so you can collect eggs from the outside. you can sorta see the nesting boxes sticking out of the left side in the above picture of the old green coop. they are very fun to make! the bantams won't be laying for another couple months so i left that project for later-i just needed to get them out of the bathroom!!!!

here they are inside the new bungalow-on a bed of madrone leaves. i had gotten some rice straw that was incredibly dusty-worried about their little lungs and eyes. the bantams are suppose to be buff wyandottes-but check out the whitish one-huh? that's the one that was crippled for about a week. and the one right by the feeder has dark grey legs and skin-feathers seem to be more like a frizzle-plus she had deformed wings. not sure what is up with her-she seems happy and is eating and drinking so we'll just let her be.

i am so relieved that we don't have to transfer the birds from the garden cage to the bathroom every nite and then back out in the morning-what an ordeal that was. still need to shingle the roof as well as fencing, making a gate and nesting boxes-getting close to being done!!!!

OMG! i just realized it's been forever since i've posted a gross picture for you all. as you remember-i've posted photos of the time i had to stick my fingers up hazel's vent( butt) looking for a stuck egg, dead rat in bottom of stove, dead mouse in pet drinking bowl, bucket-o-worms and many other goodies. so i leave you with-what the dragon threw-up the other day.

yes, it is an entire sock! just be glad i didn't post the picture of when he ate an entire red bandanna and did not throw it up-it came all the thru!

i'm off to clean and disinfect the bathroom.

july 4th-happy independence day!

it's been our family tradition to attend downieville's july 4th celebration since we moved to camptucky(long story). we just love it-it's about a 45 min. drive thru the beautiful north yuba canyon. the parade is small-they close the highway 49 so the parade can go thru town and turn around and go thru town again. my camera was out of batteries so i had to borrow some pics that liam took.
after the parade the crowd is encouraged to join in the fun and create "fire-less" fireworks-as we can't have real fireworks up here in the tinderbox. two big rolls of plastic bubble wrap-rolled down the street f0r the masses to stomp on- the sound is deafening but glorious at the same time.
after the the fire-less fireworks there was a firefighter competition between 3 teams-the forest service, downieville vfd and camptonville vfd(YEA!) what fun-wish i had more pics-liam had some great videos but i'm having trouble downloading them. lot's of water play, screwing and unscrewing hoses, bucket races, capturing water in a big metal garbage cans from the water moniter! balancing a basketball on the spray and keeping it balanced while you shoot it high in hte air.

we had 4 members from our camptonville vfd-we won 2 out of 4-yea!!!!! you guys rock!

and of course a dip in the north fork of the yuba is always a must on a hot day!!

i almost forgot the races and tug o war- last year i ran the races and nearly killed myself-this year i stuck to the tug o war only-my favorite event. and yes, i'm proud to say the mountain gurls won once again against the flatlanders!

st. john's wort oil

summer solstice it is tradition for me to go out and harvest some wild (non-native) st. john's wort(hypericum perforatum) for my healing oil. thought i'd share it with you. the benefits are many- tea or tincture from the flowers can be used for minor depression and massage oil is wonderful for nerve damage such as sciatic issues and also general muscle aches and pain. the oil can also be added to healing salves.

st. john's wort is usually ready to harvest around the summer solstice around these parts. i was so lame this year-i knew harvest was approaching and waited a day-the flowers went from perfectly bloomed to most of them dead the following day. hiking around our property i found some blooms that had not died yet. be sure to harvest this variety and not the landscape type- refer to a book if you are confused. if you hold a leaf up to the sun you will see tiny dark dots-this holds the precious medicine and helps you to identify.

i cut the flower as well as about 4-6 inches of foliage. do not wash!!!! you don't want excess moisture on the plant as it will cause mold!-so pick after dew has evaporated. i also let the plants wilt in the shade or house for about 4-6 hours to help aid in getting rid of moisture! here's my pile:
once the herb is wilted i roll it in my hands and squish and squeeze to break the cell wall. some people use knives or food processors-i prefer my hands -works fine for me. i then stuff the st. john's in a jar leaving about half inch to an inch from the top. pour olive oil to the top-always use olive oil- it does not go rancid as quickly. i then use chop stick to release air bubbles.

let alchemy do it's magic by placing the jar in the sun-it always amazes me that the oil does not turn rancid. shake the jar daily and you will see the green oil turn a beautiful shade of ruby red! it usually takes about a month and will be ready..strain thru cheese cloth and store in amber bottles in a cool dark place...i've had the oil last for years before going bad!you can see the olive is starting to pink after just one day!!! i love this stuff. but as with anything there are cautions- some folks experience a photo sensitive reaction from touching the plant-if this happens-do not use in any form. the herb is not good for livestock either.

liam sings!

yesterday-liam, blue, hubby and i headed to north fork of the yuba for play. i was able to catch a recording of liam and hubby playing "in the pines." blue watched and listened. sorry the visuals arent's better-but i needed to point the camera with the mic in their direction. we found a new swimming hole- we named it fishing eagle as we saw an eagle swoop down and catch a fish!

bass pro celebration!!!!!

last february at stitches west soxchik astounded rhodie and i with her bass pro shop finesse(bait) binder that was stuffed full of everything a knitter could possible need. i SO wanted one-but could not find one near by...and looking on line was way too confusing. this week at the post office what surprise i had waiting for me!

soxchik made my day! thank you!!!! i am now the proud owner of my very own bait binder! yipee! i can't wait to get organized. here's an inside peek:

i'll give you an update when i actually get it all set- i know you are just drooling waiting for this phenomenon.

liam has been very excited about selling our "rebel hen ranch" eggs.


he hand makes labels and just started including a recipe.

lot's to post about but no time-so i leave you with a picture of my first garlic harvest.-the garlic has to be cure before i clean them. i learned a lot and hope for a better crop next year.

stay tuned.. update on all our recent adventures!!!

Fourth Annual World Wide Knit in Public Day

yesterday was world wide knit in public day...my fiber guild was meeting at the farmers market in town to do their duty. i, on the other had another agenda. liam has been waiting eagerly for the annual dobbins vfd flea market. i had planned to knit there. but my god there was so many treasures to unearth i never had a chance! here's our score:

you might not be able to tell what some things are:-2 hard covered poetry books-emily dickinson and edgar allen poe, shelf brackets, brass fire extinguisher, tools, old matches, antique quilt, videos-the thin man, and "call of the wild"- with charsleton heston(ha! do you think he'll bare his chest in this one?) here's some close ups! antique rosaries from slovenia for my mom:

insulators for liam-50 cents a piece

after the flea market we headed to the hardware store for yet more chicken coop materials! damn i need to complete this project! later after lunch we decided to head to humbug days at malikoff diggins. that's where i decided to knit public!!! a celebration of the mining days. what a wonderful celebration! old time music, activities for kids-including candle making and even jump roping! i made camp at the stage to knit and listen to music-one of my old miner favorites "alkali" was there:

note the anderson family in the background up next-another local band. i settled in with my homebrew to knit in public and listen to music.

liam and hubby decided to explore and hike as liam hated the crowd(he's used to having the diggins to himself.) they were to return around closing time to get me(4:00pm)about that time i went looking for the spinners-but they had already left. i decided to take some pictures while waiting for the family to return. the drug store:


an interested building that called my name:

closer examination revealed- chicken coop-check out the nesting boxes!

and my favorite... my personal steph dream house.....just for me-i could live here.

meanwhile time ticks on.......no family. my overactive imagination kicks in once again and my mind is full of all sorts of scenarios- the clicking axle on the car finally broke and they are stranded somewhere, hubby slipped on the rocks(a common occurrence) and really hurt himself this time. liam desperately trying to find help, or they found an old mine shaft and fell in and they are stranded deep in the earth......the crowd had completely emptied by now and there were like 2 rangers left-it' 5 :30 and i was beginning to freak!

trying to remain calm-i told the ranger my predicament. they weren't much help. but i figured i could hang with the clampers who were camping there-they are always a lively and fun bunch. i always thought about starting a whole new chapter...E knita vitus. i mentioned that once at casey's place in allegany-they were not humored.

as usual-the boys showed up shortly after i began to weep slightly(okay-i had just started my period and was a wee bit sensitive-okay!) they were exploring a mining tunnel and hiking-they didn't think the sidewalks would roll up right at 4pm.

wanted to post a picture of an old door i found- i love old doors-wanted to steal it but my catholic upbringing keeps me inline-sometimes. the computer keeps rotating the picture on it's own accord-bizarre!!!! it's suppose to go the other way-tired of fiddling with it. but get the idea!


the funny thing was-while i was knitting during the event no one talked to me. but afterward-i moved my chair by the side of the dirt road and knitted waiting for the boys return and everyone was heading to their cars-many stopped and asked me what i was doing. i inspired a european knitter to knit a log cagin blanket as that was what i was working on. a young punked-out gurl excitedly approached me a told me she was starting high school in the fall. the school offered knitting as a class- she really wanted to take it but heard it was really hard-i encouraged her and told her she could do it-she beamed and told me she liked my nose ring. i felt real good!

dye day results

last week-jeez, i think it was last week-i decided to dye wool instead of being responsible and check off things on my "to do" list. here's a sampling of what occurred. the pictures as usual are not true representations. my favorite-below:


ha!the roving doesn't look anything like this!!! it's quite beautiful in real life!

with this roving i tried to create a real ugly color combination-i can't wait to spin and ply and i think it's gonna turn out cool!

i promise to post about our high sierra adventure real soon!

life is a bowl of cherries.....NOT!

life has been a pyre in a gyre-too much to post about these days. did i mention it's cherry season? okay that is equivalent to hell in our household. for those of you who don't know-hubby works for an organic produce broker. these cute little bites of delectable bliss cause total caos in our home!!! cherries are well, quite a pain the arse......the wind will bruise them, the rain will crack them and they perish at the speed of light. madeline engelbreit was clueless!!!!

the rebel hen ranch report: we lost the second golden penciled hamburg chick-a few days after the first one. otherwise the rest of the chicks(all 16 0f them) seem quite healthy-except for the brief worry of mareks disease when a banty had leg problems-i think it was a case of slipped tendon though-as she is walking fine now after some vitamins. that was a big stress-as mareks could have wiped out my new flock. the chicks enjoy being being in the garden cage during the day-still to cold for them at nite. they are still losing their baby fluff and getting feathers-the awkward stage! can't wait for warm nights- i want my bathroom back!!!today we decided to get away instead of working at home as hubby had to leave again to the packing shed(remember-cherries) but we had a grand day despite of it all-a hike in the sierras- all 4 of us!!!! we actually pried carey away from his 17 year old self and made him come on a hike with OMG-the family!!! we had such a blast that liam and i have decided to return tomorrow and continue the fun.

now i'm not a very organized person and while i was making dinner tonight liam was very intensely occupied with making a list. afterwards he said, "mom, here's our schedule for tomorrow." it was quite the schedule. i feel the need to post it...as it shows..kids are there own person. he didn't get it from either of us: here it is-but he wrote it in cursive!!!!!

6:30am- wake up and get dressed
7:00am-start breakfast
7:15am-eat breakfast
7:30am-do morning chores
7:45am-leave(gee-he only gave us 15 minutes for this!!!!)
8:15am- reach downieville
8:30-8:45am-reach trail head in sierra city
11:15am-finish hike
11:30am- order lunch(red moose cafe)
12 noon-get lunch
12:30pm-finish lunch
12:30-1:30pm-random acts(this one cracked me up!)
2:00pm-reach downieville
2:30pm-second trail head
3:00pm-finish trail
3:30pm-leave
4:30pm-reach home

jeeze! talk about pressure!! hope i can live up to it! hahahaha-where do these kids come from-really?