Halfway to a Mini Poppins

This is one of the rainiest summers in recent memory—and I am not complaining, because I would rather have rain than forest fires. The weather still could turn hot and windy in late July and into August, but I’ll take a bit of rain every week if we can get it until then. Periodic rain showers also give me a bit of bonus sewing time.

I got halfway through the Mini Poppins bag yesterday:

As patterns go, this one could benefit from some tech editing. I have yet to find in the pattern where the seam allowances are specified. (WHY is that information so often left out?) I am not a big fan of the pattern/YouTube video combination. I understand that some people like having the visual explanation, but I am of the opinion that the pattern should be comprehensive enough to stand on its own. Videos should not be required for successful completion. Also, we have a whole lexicon of standard sewing terminology, so why not use it in the pattern?

Noodlehead patterns are the gold standard for bag patterns. Maybe I am just spoiled, having made so many of them.

Design-wise, this bag features some construction techniques that have been fun to try. I’ve never made rolled handles before. I am all for adding techniques to my repertoire that might be used on other projects.

It’s still raining this morning, so we’ll see how far I get on this today. I was hoping to get out and work in the garden, but I think it might be too soggy out there. The peas are coming on fast and furious, though. I’ll probably need to make a pass through the pea patch. And I’ve got a couple of zucchinis that are just about big enough to start zucchini bread production.

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I am going to talk about animals as food now, so if you’re squeamish, you might want to skip this part and come back for the next post.

Elysian went camping for a couple of days, so I took care of her animals for her. She has two horses, a Shetland pony, two goats, many chickens, several turkeys, and a batch of meat birds. The horses—a gelding and his mother—are sweethearts. They know that I come with a pocketful of carrots for them and will follow me around like a couple of overgrown puppies. The goats are master escape artists and like to climb on everything.

Most people who raise chickens do so for the eggs. We often see ads in the local pennysaver paper for people trying to get rid of older chickens that have stopped laying because they don’t want to butcher them. We eat our chickens, although layers tend to be skinny under all those feathers. When I cook old layers down into stock for chicken soup, I might only get a couple of cups of meat off of them, and I’m ruthless when I go over the carcasses. (There is nothing like raising your own food to make you very conscious of wasting anything.)

Old layers are also tough—which is why I usually cook them down into stock—although Nicole Sauce at the Living Free in Tennessee podcast has a theory that I’d like to test. She thinks that part of why layers are so tough is because most people freeze them when they are in rigor mortis. She says that if you butcher the birds and leave them in the refrigerator for 24 hours until they have gone through and come out of rigor mortis and then freeze them, they aren’t tough. The problem is that we often butcher several dozen chickens at once, and I just don’t have space in our fridge for that many birds. We probably ought to get an old fridge and stick it in the garage.

Our pastor and his wife like to cut up the chickens, put the pieces in jars, and pressure cook them. He says that when they open the jars, the meat comes out nice and tender and falls off the bones.

Some people raise chickens specifically for meat, sometimes called “broilers.” The Cornish Cross is the most well-known meat breed. These birds have been bred to grow to maturity in about 8 weeks and provide the chicken meat that is sold commercially. I tend to think of them as Frankenchickens, although I understand their popularity. Elysian has about a dozen meat birds. They are smaller than regular chickens, with short, fat legs. They can get so big that they cannot walk. You also have to be careful how you feed them because they don’t have an “off” switch when it comes to eating. We leave regular food out for our chickens 24/7 and let them determine how much to eat. If you do that with Cornish Crosses, they literally will eat themselves to death. When you do feed them, it’s like being in the middle of a piranha tank. They push and fight and try to inhale as much feed as possible.

Taking care of Elysian’s meat birds was my first introduction to that breed and it has been interesting to see how they differ from regular chickens. I doubt we’d ever do meat chickens, though, just because they require special handling and have to be kept separate from the other chickens.