A Thread Runs Through It
I will write about yesterday’s adventures in a bit—while we were hauling pigs to the processor, our neighbor texted me to ask if our internet was down. We have been without it for about twenty-four hours now. It just came back up, so I am catching up on comments.
We loaded pigs into the trailer yesterday afternoon. I wish I had thought to take a picture while we were out there, but I didn’t have my phone with me and we were on a mission. The husband backed the trailer up close to the gate to the pig pasture over the weekend. Because of the angle, he can’t get it right to the gate, so he puts up a chute system that funnels the pigs out of the pasture and into the trailer. They require some coaxing, however, as they know where the electric fence line is. Even when the fence is down and not active, they are reluctant to walk past it.
The first year we had pigs, it took us several hours—well after dark—to get the pigs into the trailer. We’ve gotten better since then. The husband stood inside the trailer with a loaf of bread. I was outside the trailer, next to the chute, making a trail of marshmallows for them to follow. Marshmallows are a treat. And once one pig discovers that the farmer is handing out treats, the other ones usually come over to see what’s going on.
The pigs have to step up to get into the trailer; the husband had put a pallet down as a step and coated it with sand for traction. As the pigs went into the trailer, he convinced them to stay there by throwing pieces of bread at them. At one point, we had five pigs in the trailer and one very recalcitrant pig lying in the pasture digging up grubs. I had to do some sweet talking with a lot of marshmallows to convince that one to get up while hoping the others wouldn’t decide to come back out. The husband had rigged up a pulley system for the door, so as soon as the last one went into the trailer, I pulled on the rope to close the door. He fastened it and then came out the man door at the front of the trailer.
The whole process took us about an hour. The pigs spent the night in the trailer. This morning, the husband will back the truck in, hook up the trailer, and we’ll make the almost two-hour trip to the processor to drop them off. It’s a solemn drive, but it’s also tinged with relief because it gets very difficult to manage six 300-pound pigs when it’s dark and cold and snowy out. The husband will have one less chore to do in the morning and evening now.
All of this year’s pork has been spoken for. I am hearing reports of processors being booked well into 2021, so while we’re up there, I think I’ll ask our processor to put us on the calendar for next fall.
***********************************************************
If you’re on Instagram, you may have noticed that they are blocking hashtags “to help prevent the spread of possible false information and harmful content related to the election.” Unfortunately, this means that I can’t use #squashsquad—which, by the way, has nothing to do with any election in any country anywhere—to get the instructions for the latest SqSq square. This frosts me on so many levels, the most galling of which is that I am tired of having my intelligence insulted. I do not need some entity “protecting” me from misinformation. I am perfectly capable of sifting through what’s out there and coming to my own conclusions.
Fortunately, the instructions are available on Sue Spargo’s Facebook page, but it took me a bit of time to figure that out. I wonder how she and other makers who rely on Instagram for their business marketing feel about this kind of censorship. (Let’s call a spade a spade.)
I am very tempted to delete my Facebook and IG accounts altogether, just on principle. I refuse to participate in this kind of nonsense. And before anyone tells me that I’ll be cutting off my nose to spite my face, I’d like to note that my pattern sales are back up at the same level they were before I left Ravelry, which proves that if people want your product, they’ll look for it.
I have more thoughts, but I don’t want to start a contentious argument in the comments section (and I’d appreciate it if everyone else refrains from doing so, as well). I don’t care who you support or what you believe. This kind of stuff should concern you.
***********************************************************
I’ve got a (mostly sewing) to-do list started for the rest of November:
Apron order
Finish the Noon and Night quilt and write up the pattern
Insulated shades for the rest of the windows
Slabtown Backpack
A couple of knit hoodies/tops
Get the Kratky lettuce growing system up and running
I also ordered this:
This is the Alaska quilt designed by Edyta Sitar. I am going to make it for DD#1 and her husband. I went ahead and ordered the kit—which I almost never do—because it contains all the pieces laser cut and ready to sew. I think this will be my January project. Edyta has a series of YouTube videos on making this quilt, and while it looks complicated, it’s really only four shapes and straight seams.
This past week was a gift to myself for having survived tourist season, canning season, and the run-up to the wedding. My friend Tera and I have been wanting to make Laura Heine collage quilts. The technique/pattern is ridiculously obfuscated, so we thought it might be better if we stumbled through it together. I found out that the small quilt store in Spokane was offering a weekend class, and because we also like to travel together, we arranged a girls’ weekend away.
As it turned out, I also needed to deliver the rest of DD#1’s belongings and wedding gifts to them. They are staying with DSIL’s parents on the Olympic peninsula while they wait for orders to come through for DSIL to report to the Coast Guard base in Ketichikan, where he will be the dentist. I left home last Monday morning with the BMW packed to the gills:
I powered through to Seattle, where I met DD#2 for dinner. Given the events of this past summer, the husband and I thought it was prudent for her to be out of the city during the election, so on Tuesday morning, she and I got on an early ferry for a quick trip over to the peninsula.
We arrived at DSIL’s parents’ house mid-morning.
I love visiting his parents. His mother is a fabulous cook and baker and staying with them is so relaxing. We got all of the kids’ stuff unloaded into their storage container on Tuesday afternoon. On Wednesday, we took a trip into town to so some shopping. Alas, the quilt store was closed because they were moving to a new space. We went to Joann Fabrics, though, where I found a unicorn. The customer who ordered the apron I’ve been working on originally chose a fabric that was no longer available from Joanns. I had made a shorter apron out of that fabric, but it was a remnant and I had no more left. When I checked Joann Fabrics’ online inventory system—which is, admittedly, less than accurate—it showed there was no more of that fabric to be had at any store between here and the west coast. The customer chose a different fabric, but just to be thorough, I checked for her original choice while we were in the store. It was there! The bolt had a few yards left, so I bought all of it. I’ll let the customer decide which fabric she wants, and if she goes with her alternate choice, I’ll use this for a quilt back.
DD#2 and I headed back to Seattle on Thursday morning. (DSIL’s parents made it clear to DD#2 that she is welcome there anytime, which is a great comfort to me.) She went home and I continued on to Spokane, where I got some dinner and checked into the hotel for the night.
Tera drove over from Kalispell on Friday morning. We met up and did some shopping at the quilt stores before stopping for lunch at Nordstrom and checking into the Airbnb. Our quilt class at Regal Fabrics and Gifts had a Friday session from 4-6 pm. There were only seven of us in the class, mostly due to space constraints and social distancing requirements. Irene, the owner, has a lot packed into the space she’s got. She would love to expand, but rent in that area is on the high end.
This is the second class I’ve taken at Irene’s store. Both have been excellent. The teacher for this class was a former middle-school math teacher. She knew how to pace the class and present information. She explained the technique and set us the goal of getting our collage background done during Friday’s class session. Tera had bought a kit for her collage, so all her fabric pieces were the same size:
My background was a bit less coherent. Originally, I had planned to do one piece of background fabric—a Tim Holtz print, which is pretty busy on its own—but the teacher suggested I do several different background fabrics. I am still struggling with that design decision, as my background ended up much busier than I thought it should be. A collage should have a lot of visual interest, yes, but it shouldn’t be unintelligible, and I included one fabric that is shouting over the others, as you’ll see in a moment.
We got started bright and early Saturday morning. The large focal point of the collage is built on a Teflon sheet and then adhered to the background with Steam-A-Seam. My collage picture is of a tomato pincushion:
I chose this pattern because it looked like one of the easier ones, and it was. Tera had a lot of intricate cutting to do on her octopus and hers took longer.
After placing the large motif on the background, we filled in with little bits and pieces here and there. I got to use several of the sewing-themed fabrics from my stash.
Once all the bits and bobs are in place, the whole thing is pressed with the steam iron to set it in place:
Mine still looks like it’s missing a few things because I plan to add some surface embellishments with hand and machine embroidery. Once that’s done, the piece is layered with batting and backing and quilted.
This was Tera’s octopus after the main motif was placed but before she added the extra bits:
I was happy that we were able to learn the basics of the technique in the class, although I would do a few things differently next time. Getting a kit is not a bad idea. I should have brought a different selection of fabrics with me. Without knowing exactly what I was going to need, though, I had to guess. We were able to buy stuff in the store, but I have enough fabric in my stash without adding more just for a few pieces on my collage. And I would definitely do a much less complicated background next time.
I do want to finish this piece. I also have the large wallhanging pattern for the sewing machine and the rooster. I’d like to do the rooster wallhanging for sure. I want the rooster collage to have the same colors as my junior rooster, Dave, so I need to get a good picture of him. This is the kind of project that needs a dedicated space. I’ll probably set up a table, lay out the collage, and build it over a period of a couple of weeks.
Tera finished her octopus in Sunday morning’s class session. I worked on a prayer shawl, as I had gotten my collage done by the end of Saturday’s class. We left at noon with a bit of trepidation as it was snowing and we weren’t sure what we would be heading into. The highway was bare and dry from Spokane to Lookout Pass. The Montana side of the pass to the rest of the way home, however, was a mess. Tera and I both have a lot of winter driving experience, and I only rarely encounter what I consider white-knuckle driving anymore. This wasn’t terrifying. It was just more of a slow grind, having to travel 35 mph in what are normally 70 mph zones. We made it, though, and the husband had dinner waiting for me.
Now I play catch up. The pigs are going to the processor tomorrow, so we also have to get them into the trailer some time today.
Heads up—I am going to be off most social media next week, except for checking in occasionally to the homesteading groups I belong to. There won’t be any blog posts. I’m doing that for my mental health.
*****************************************************
For my Kalispell peeps—if you or anyone you know is interested in pastured pork, let me know. (Janet at BigSkyKnitting.com is a good e-mail or text my cell number if you have it.) Because of government regulations, we can only sell whole or half hogs. We cannot sell individual cuts. I still have two whole or four halves available. We take our animals to Beeman’s up in Eureka, near the Canadian border, and have been very happy with them. They call each customer and ask how they want the meat cut and packaged. I expect the meat to be available toward the end of November. Smoked items take a bit longer. We pick up from Beeman’s and will deliver. I’ve also got an ad in the Mountain Trader for the next couple of weeks.
*****************************************************
When my mother was here for the wedding, she helped me mark some jeans for hemming. Kohls finally got Gloria Vanderbilt high-rise jeans back in stock in 12 Longs, so I ordered four pair. I wish they would lose the spandex content, but I can live with it. I need the Longs not so much for the length in the legs but for the length in the crotch. These are perfect in that regard. I needed to take off an inch or so at the bottom, however, and yesterday afternoon, I got all of them hemmed.
I watched a documentary on Soap Lake, Washington, while I sewed. Soap Lake is an interesting place. It’s about 20 miles north of I-90, above the towns of Moses Lake and Ephrata, Washington. In the early part of the 20th century, it was a mecca for people with all sorts of illnesses who came to “take the waters.” When modern medicines were developed, people no longer needed the mineral waters of the lake to help their medical problems. (Apparently, the water is great for people with eczema, psoriasis, and other skin ailments.)
I stayed in Soap Lake last October when I went to Charisma Horton’s embroidery retreat. It’s a sad little town, now—almost a ghost town—but still a beautiful place. I spent three nights at an Airbnb whose front windows looked east over the lake. The sunrises were stunning.
I’m still plugging along on the SqSq block. I said to the husband last night that I am rather blown away by the people who’ve already finished the first six blocks. I am still on block #1. Slow stitching, indeed.
*****************************************************
Anna Graham at Noodlehead released another bag pattern yesterday—yay! This one is called the Pepin Tote. I’ve already purchased and printed the pattern.
I’m not sure where in the queue it will land, but at least now I have the pattern.
All the masks are done and one batch has been mailed to the east coast. The others will go west and northwest.
The prototype apron is finished:
Even though it’s a prototype done in some Joann’s clearance fabric, I am quite happy with it. The customer liked the sawtooth design but wanted something much longer. I wasn’t sure how the added length would translate. I also wasn’t sure where and how to scale up the design to maintain the balance. In the end, I winged it and trusted my instincts. I added most of the increased length and width to the gores of the body, then scaled up the bottom sawtooth sections so they matched. All seams were sewn, then finished on the serger and topstitched by machine.
The final design will have a pocket and I might still add a pocket to this one. For the prototype, though, I was most interested in the overall look. I prefer full-body aprons because I am messy, but this would be a good one for church to wear over a dress (if we ever get to have potlucks again). The only thing I might do is to deepen the angle of the sawtooth sections. When I scaled them up, they got a bit lost.
And certainly, if I run out of things to do—like that will happen soon—I could write up the pattern.
I finished the couching portions of the first SqSq block:
I need to add embellishments to the stem and leaf next.
The Squash Squad blocks that Sue Spargo designed and that most people are making are quirky, bright ones. I am usually all about quirky and bright, but my SqSq blocks are leaning toward more realistic colors. Part of that is because I want to use the supplies I’ve got, but I think part of it is also that I grow these veggies in my garden. I must subconsciously want them to look more like the real thing. We’ll see. I’ll finish the first one and re-evaluate. I can always redo them in brighter colors.
The husband went to fire training last night. I spent some time organizing my plastic shoebox full of embroidery thread.
Most of this was bequeathed to me by my mother, supplemented by thrift store purchases. I’ve got to come up with an alternate method of storing these, probably in smaller plastic containers by color. This collection included some partially-used skeins, which got wrapped around bobbins to be stored in a tray.
My YouTube viewing this week while sewing has included a number of documentaries on the history of Seattle and Spokane. I am learning a lot. Apparently, one of the richest people in Seattle history was a madame named Lou Graham who ran a brothel there in the late 1800s. Prostitution was illegal, so when she brought women in to work for her, she put down their occupation as “seamstress.”
I watched an hour-long documentary on rumrunners in Spokane during prohibition and another on the history of silver mining in North Idaho. And while making that apron yesterday afternoon, I got the inside scoop on how Spokane managed to host the World’s Fair in 1974. A group of businessmen had a vision to turn the railyard downtown into the site of the fair, but to do that, they had to get the land from the railroads, demolish everything, and build the infrastructure for what is now Riverfront Park. That was quite an amazing story.
For my viewing pleasure today, I am going to line up a bunch of videos on the Kratky lettuce growing system. I’d really prefer to buy a starter system rather than cobble together something on my own, but I should at least have a solid understanding of what I am looking for. If I can get something up and running by the end of November, we could have a nice supply of lettuce all winter.
Today feels like the first day of vacation! I finished the tomato sauce yesterday—for a grand total of 93 quarts—and for the first time in months, I don’t have a laundry list of tasks that NEED to be accomplished before I fall into bed at night. Whew.
I do have an apron order to fill. I worked on that a bit yesterday morning while waiting for tomatoes to cook down. It’s a modified version of this one:
The customer asked for a longer version, which meant re-drafting the pattern. I pulled out a length of some clearance fabric so I could make up a prototype and test the changes. I’ll put that together today, and if it meets with approval, I’ll make the actual apron.
I’m also halfway through a batch of masks for DSIL and his dad and brother, all of whom are medical professionals. They liked the gray Kona ones with nose wires that I made for DSIL, so I am knocking out about three dozen.
The thought of being able to sew all day is wonderful. I’ve also been collecting supplies for the quilting class that Tera and I are taking next month.
We seem to have gotten through the worst of the early freeze. Yesterday, the high got up to 34 and it felt downright balmy. And next week is supposed to be warmer than normal.
***************************************************
I had a phone visit with my naturopath yesterday. He said all of my bloodwork looked great.
My naturopath is a brilliant guy, but I appreciate him most because he is willing to think (and treat) outside the box. We sometimes joke that I am my own clinical trial. I started seeing him 15 years ago out of desperation, but that turned out to be one of the best moves I ever made. When I hit 40, I developed all sorts of problems. I went to my doctor and said, “I am exhausted, my hair is falling out, my skin is dry, I am gaining weight” (which had never been a problem), and she said, “Oh, you’re just eating too much and not exercising enough.” We went back and forth like that several months. She even offered to put me on antidepressants to treat my “body image” issue. I finally got her to check my thyroid levels. She called and told me they were normal and very reluctantly said she would refer me to an endocrinologist if that was what I wanted. I decided that I would see what this naturopath said, instead, so I made an appointment with him.
He tested everything. Lo and behold, not only was I hypothyroid, I was fairly severely hypothyroid. Looking back, I honestly don’t know how I managed to function during that time. I went to see my original doctor and told her what I had done. She whipped out my thyroid test and said, “This was normal!” I looked at the test results. My active thyroid hormone level was 0.1 above the bottom of the range. When I pointed that out, she did have the grace to look sheepish and apologize. She acknowledged that “in range” did not necessarily mean “normal.”
I never went back to her. My naturopath put me on thyroid replacement, which immediately made me feel better. (Montana law allows naturopaths to write prescriptions and order labwork.) We tweaked a few other things and he helped me investigate the MTHFR issue. Over the past couple of years, I have been able to cut way back on my thyroid medication, too, which flies in the face of conventional wisdom. Doctors will tell you that once you go on thyroid replacement, you are on it for life because your own thyroid stops making hormone. Healing my thyroid was not my goal, but somehow I managed to do it anyway. (I think cleaning up my diet had a lot to do with that.) I went from taking thyroid hormone every day to taking a tiny dose 2-3 times a week.
Now I just check in with my naturopath twice a year unless I have problems. He blessed my plans to start experimenting with some intermittent fasting. I accidentally fell into that pattern this past summer—I tend to eat most from about 6-noon, and sometimes forego dinner altogether because I am just not that hungry. We’ll see what happens.
I’ve talked a bit about food as nutrition, and now I want to go in the other direction and talk about food as poison. And no, I don’t think that “poison” is too strong a word, because it’s clear that the standard American diet is killing a lot of people.
Many people view the MTHFR mutation—especially in people who have two copies of the mutation—as an inability to detox harmful substances from the body. What might be fairly benign in someone else could cause a lot of problems for someone like me. I have eliminated a lot of stuff from my diet, including the Big Three:
High fructose corn syrup
Wheat/gluten
Soy
I started with high fructose corn syrup because it provides empty calories and because it’s getting harder and harder to find corn products that are non-GMO. HFCS seems to be in everything—I have found it in commercial canned beans, which is part of why I can my own now. The simple act of cutting out foods containing HFCS can help a lot of people.
[If you really want an eye-opening look at the food industry, I recommend reading The Dorito Effect, by Mark Schatzker. We are being programmed to ingest way more calories than we need.]
Wheat was the next thing to go. Am I truly gluten intolerant? I’m not sure. I suspect that my true intolerance is to glyphosate—RoundUp—that gets used on crops as an herbicide but is also used as a desiccant on grains and legumes to dry them before storage. However, I still have problems with organic wheat and even ancient grains like einkorn, so there is something else going on. I get both inflammatory and digestive symptoms. They don’t manifest immediately, which makes it hard to judge my tolerance level, but I’ve gotten better at that over time. I’ve also experienced some cross-reactivity with foods like brown rice, which produce a similar inflammatory effect. And there are some wheat by-products that cause problems for me; maltodextrin is one.
I did not replace wheat with “gluten-free” foods, or at least very few of them. Foods that have been labelled “gluten free” often have lots of junk carbs and sugar in them to make them palatable. If you’re looking for substitutes, choose items with almond or coconut flour as a base. Bob’s Red Mill, for example, makes a paleo almond flour pancake mix that got rave reviews when I used it during wedding week to feed guests. That mix and 100% maple syrup are my guilt-free way to enjoy pancakes on the weekends. I found it hard to give up pasta, but there are some brown rice and other kinds of alternative pasta products that work just as well.
Soy is a huge no-no, for two reasons. One is that most soy is GMO and/or grown with liberal applications of glyphosate. The other is that soy is estrogenic. I have plenty of estrogen and don’t need or want any more—I’ve been on bioidentical progesterone for many years to counteract it—so I avoid soy like the plague. As I mentioned before, though, soy is highly prevalent in products sold in “health food” stores. And it’s in most oils and oil-containing products, like mayonnaise (even when they are labelled as being made with olive oil).
Getting these things out of one’s diet takes work, but it becomes second nature after a while. I had to stop and think about how I shop and what I buy because I do it automatically now.
Buy organic, although with the understanding that “organic” is a term that has been co-opted by large food manufacturers and has been rendered meaningless in some situations.
Choose minimally-processed food. If the label has a bunch of unfamiliar, chemical-sounding ingredients, it’s probably not good for you.
Keep a food journal, identify triggers, and avoid them.
Get into the habit of reading labels.
Go heavy on the vegetables and less so on the fruits. Grow your own if possible.
Shop the outside perimeter of the grocery store and stay away from convenience foods.
Cook from scratch. This is the big one, which is why this is so hard for most people. I understand that cooking from scratch takes time. I spend 20-30 minutes making a salad for dinner—just the salad!
Don’t try to do it all at once. And don’t let perfect be the enemy of the good. I’ve been wheat-free for almost 10 years now and don’t even notice it being gone, but it took a few years to get to that point. Accept that there will be trade-offs. Our animals don’t eat 100% organic feed other than what they find in the pasture—commercial organic feed is hard to find and ridiculously expensive. I’m aware that some residues may trickle down into what we eat, but I know how the animals were raised otherwise and that tips the balance.
I’m also finding a lot of good alternatives these days—Costco, for example, has started carrying an avocado oil mayonnaise that is quite good. Also check out local suppliers. When I do buy milk or cream, I get it from Kalispell Kreamery.
For me, growing my own food is a form of self-care. I want to feel as good as I possibly can and be active for a long time. The best way to do that is to control what I put into my body. (Gardening is also great exercise.)
**********************************************************
I managed to find some heavier-weight embroidery thread in town yesterday. I started at one of the quilt stores, which offers quite a few classes on Sue Spargo patterns. They had many of the thinner threads, but not the thicker thread I needed for this technique.
I knew that the local yarn store also carried embroidery supplies, although they just moved to a new location. When I stopped in, none of the embroidery supplies were on display. I asked the owner (I presumed), and she said, “Come back here,” and led me to a back room where all of the embroidery threads were still in boxes and bags. She left me there (this is how you know you’re in a small town) and said I could pick out whatever I wanted and bring it up to the register. I bought quite a few hanks. I’ll go back when I need more.
The heavier thread is for a technique called “couching.” The thread is laid on the surface and held in place by a thinner thread. I couched the outline of the spaghetti squash last evening and started the other surface details:
Having to source alternative materials adds another layer of creativity to projects like this. I am aware that my interpretation may not be what the designer had in mind, but I am happy with how my Squash Squad blocks have started out.
I’ve got a phone checkup with my naturopath this morning—we touch base twice a year—and the last of the tomatoes are cooking down. I will be so happy to have that done. The canning supplies will go back into storage until next year and I can delve into my sewing projects with abandon.
I am struggling a bit with writing these posts, because they include a fair bit of criticism of the health care industry. I have several good friends who are physicians. I know them to be kind, caring, competent people who share my frustrations about the limitations of treating people under the current system. I don’t hate doctors, but I have had some less-than-positive interactions with a few. Ultimately, I think it it boils down to a gross lack of understanding about nutrition.
I mentioned that my mother also has the MTHFR mutation, but her issues manifested a bit differently. (Genetics is a complicated topic.) She had a lot of trouble as a baby with what is known commonly as “failure to thrive.” The doctor tried her on breastmilk, cow’s milk, and even goat’s milk, and nothing helped. My aunt was two years older and had never had those kinds of issues. Eventually, my mother was able to start eating solid food and grew up normally.
She always appeared and felt anemic, however, to which the doctors’ standard answer was “Take more iron! Eat more liver!” My mother loves liver, partly because I think it made frequent appearances on their dinner table when she was growing up. However, as we found out later, my mother’s father, her next-youngest sibling, and one of my cousins all have hemochromatosis, which is a buildup of iron in the body and can be life-threatening. So here was a situation where one child looked like she was anemic from lack of iron and another one had too much.
The iron supplements never really helped my mother’s “anemia.” When the Cleveland Clinic began posting lab results online in patient accounts, my mother asked me to log in and take a look at the results from her regular checkups. I am not a doctor and don’t play one on TV, but as a medical transcriptionist for an oncology clinic and also a leukemia survivor, I am familiar with blood test results and what they say.
I noticed on one of her tests that her MCV—mean corpuscular volume—was elevated. The MCV is an indication of the size of the red blood cells. Hers were larger than normal. I looked at other lab tests and saw that the MCV was persistently elevated. Apparently, no doctor in 60+ years of looking at my mother’s blood tests ever thought to investigate that further.
I remembered the stories about her issues as a baby and put those together with the symptoms she had had all her life. I called her up and said, “I think you have pernicious anemia.” Remember what I said about my body craving high-folate foods? My mother’s diet tends to be heavier on red meats and other forms of food high in B12. Huh.
Pernicious anemia is the result of the body not being able to absorb vitamin B12. It’s also found in people with the MTHFR mutation. (I don’t think that we had had our genetic testing, yet, when I suspected that my mother had pernicious anemia.) The problem is that supplementing B12 orally does no good because the body lacks the ability to process and absorb it. I found a company that sold transdermal B12 patches and ordered a box and had them sent to her.
Some of her symptoms resolved. She went back to her doctor and explained what was going on. Her doctor tested B12 levels and then scoffed at the possibility that she could have pernicious anemia because the levels were normal. Normal blood levels do not necessarily indicate that the B12 is getting where it needs to be to do the job it needs to do, but as far as the doctor was concerned, my mother was fine. She still takes B12, although now I think she does a sublingual form because the patches are hard to find. Some people do monthly B12 shots.
I haven’t had issues with B12 absorption—or if I do, they are so mild as not to be noticeable—but I do take a B-complex every day. (I take one without any folate or folic acid in it.) The form of B12 that I take is hydroxocobalamin. The more commonly-available form is cyanocobalamin, which is produced in laboratories to be shelf-stable but is less effective.
***********************************************************
I’ve got my first Squash Squad block—the spaghetti squash—assembled and ready for embellishing.
I have some thoughts about this. Sue Spargo is a brilliant designer with a devoted following. She has built up a successful family business. However, if I were to do this wallhanging project with all of the threads and embellishments she specifies—and they are gorgeous—I think I could easily drop $500 in one fell swoop. That seems a bit excessive for a wallhanging. I am using what I have and only buying what I don’t. (I have to see if I can find #3 perle cotton somewhere in Kalispell—wish me luck.)
I ran jars #58-70 of tomato sauce through the canner before church yesterday morning. We will bring the last of the tomatoes over this afternoon to thaw overnight, and I’ll finish up sauce tomorrow.
We put a heater in the pigs’ water tank, but pigs like to investigate and play with anything new and interesting, and the heater is now MIA. The husband thinks it is buried in the pile of straw and one of the pigs is sleeping on it. It was 5 degrees when I woke up this morning. November 10 seems very far away right now.
I put down some of my thoughts on food; if this isn’t something that interests you, keep scrolling. I will include other items of note below the fold.
My first introduction to the direct effect that food has on health—in other words, more than just the general understanding that nutritious food is good and junk food is bad—came when I got pregnant the first time. It’s a long, sad story, but the upshot is that that baby developed without a brain. That kind of birth defect is incompatible with life. That was also around the time when researchers had determined that those kinds of birth defects, known as neural tube defects, were the direct result of a failure to metabolize folic acid (vitamin B9). With all subsequent pregnancies, I was put on a folic acid supplement. (More on that in a moment.) I went on to have two healthy kids.
A few years ago, I heard about a specific gene mutation that has been linked to all sorts of medical conditions, including anencephaly (what my baby had) and spina bifida (which is the failure of the spinal canal to form properly at the base of the spine). The gene codes for something known as MTHFR, which stands for methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase. (You can see why they came up with an abbreviation.) Methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase is an enzyme that is involved in several different metabolic pathways. The gene mutation means that the body produces less of that necessary enzyme—in some cases, as much as 70% less.
The MTHFR gene can be mutated in one or both of two locations, C677T or A1298C. Curious, I had myself, the husband, and the girls tested through 23andme.com. I also asked my mother, my sister, and my father’s only surviving sibling to be tested. The results confirmed my suspicions. My mother, my sister, my aunt and I all have two copies of the mutation at C677T. We get a copy from each of our parents. I will assume for sake of argument that my father also had two copies, but because he died in 1993, I don’t know for sure. He had to have had at least one copy to pass it on to me. The husband has one copy of the other mutation, at A1298C (as did his mother). My girls have one copy of each mutation.
Mutations are not always bad; there are instances in which a gene mutation can confer an advantage instead of a disadvantage. In my case, though, it is most certainly a disadvantage, and identifying it explained much of my family’s medical history. In addition to folic acid deficiencies, the C677T mutation can cause high homocysteine levels. Homocysteine is an amino acid. The body naturally recycles it into other amino acids with the aid of B vitamins, specifically B9, or folic acid. If folic acid metabolism is impaired, homocysteine can’t be recycled efficiently and builds up in the bloodstream, causing inflammation and cardiac injury.
We have lots of blood clots, strokes, and heart attacks in my family. On both sides. (Some of that has to do with the fact that my mother and father are at least fourth cousins and possibly third cousins, which is a story for another time.) We also have a lot of thyroid disease and a few other bizarre medical conditions. As far as I have been able to determine, this mutation isn’t involved in blood cancers so it doesn’t directly explain why my father had multiple myeloma and I had leukemia (and I think one of his paternal aunts may have had lymphoma). I believe the A1298C mutation has been associated with acute lymphocytic leukemias, but I had acute myeloid leukemia.
Unfortunately, treating this deficiency is not as simple as popping a folic acid pill every day. The folic acid that is available as a supplement is a synthetic version that actually exacerbates the very problem is it supposed to treat. There are other forms, such as methylfolate and folinic acid, which can be used instead. I cannot take methylfolate, which is considered the best supplement for people with this mutation. My naturopath and I have tried for several years to find a dose I can tolerate. I am so intolerant of methylfolate that the tiniest amount will cause terrible anger and anxiety issues. He prescribed an iron supplement for me a few years ago. I took one pill—one pill—and felt like I wanted to rip someone’s head off. I looked at the ingredient list and sure enough, it contained a tiny amount of methylfolate. He thought it was a small enough amount that it wouldn’t cause problems. Now we know better.
I’ve found that I can tolerate an iron supplement with calcium folinate in it, so that’s what I take.
[I belong to a very helpful Facebook group for people who have two copies of the MTHFR C677T mutation. I am not the only person with the methylfolate intolerance issue. Interestingly, that group is also overrepresented by people with autism and vaccine injuries in their own or their family medical histories. I am not anti-vaccine, but I don’t discount the fact that this gene mutation can wreak havoc in lots of different ways.]
And to bring this back to food, I’ve long wondered why my preferred diet is heavy on leafy greens—all green vegetables, really—beans, and rice. (I should have been born in India.) All of those foods contain high levels of naturally-occurring folate. My body was telling me all along what it was missing. I am not a vegetarian, but I don’t eat a lot of red meat.
I’ll continue this in the next couple of blog posts, because I have a few other comments to make.
************************************************************
I canned another 20 quarts of tomato sauce yesterday to bring the total to 47 so far. The third batch is cooking down on the stove. I decided I might as well get it all done at once so that I don’t have canning supplies strewn from one end of the kitchen to the other for the next three weeks. Hopefully, I will have the freezer emptied and all the sauce made by Monday.
The Hobby Lobby embroidery piece is finished.
I might turn it into a small pouch or something. I don’t need anything else to hang on the wall. Now I have to find another project to work on in the evenings. Those Squash Squad blocks need a bit of prep before I can work on them.
We did get snow yesterday, about 4” or so, and a bit of wind overnight. Spokane set a new record with 6.8” of snowfall at the airport. I haven’t heard how Missoula fared. Dispatchers in Kalispell were kept very busy yesterday with a lot of car accidents. (Slow down, people. Four-wheel drive does not confer magical driving abilities upon you.) We’ll have to see if this snow hangs around—the forecast is for slightly warmer temps toward the end of next week, but that could change. I’m anticipating that winter is here to stay now.
We got bit by the “two is one and one is none” rule yesterday morning—the heated base underneath the chicken waterer decided to die. The husband had already repaired it once. I think it is beyond redemption. (Yes, that is snow in the background.)
Of course, the farm store was sold out of heater bases. I ordered one from Amazon, but it won’t be here for a week. I texted Elysian to see if she had an extra she wasn’t using. She didn’t, but she had a submersible heater that she loaned us to use in the meantime.
While I was at the farm store, I picked up an additional submersible heater for the pigs’ water tank. During the summer, they drink from nipples mounted on the outside of the shelter. The husband had to disconnect the water line to the nipples, though, because overnight temps have been below freezing. The water tank is now their main source of water.
The pigs go to freezer camp on November 10, so we only have to deal with these issues for another couple of weeks. If we wanted to keep pigs year-round, we’d have to build a barn.
I was able to get all my errands done yesterday and then spent some time preparing for this impending storm. I am subscribed to our local NBC station’s weather alerts, which is helpful but sometimes disconcerting when a disembodied voice breaks the silence and announces, loudly, that “A winter storm warning has been issued for your location!” I’ve been watching the Spokane news station as well. They are expecting 3-6” of snow there. The question is whether the storm hits Spokane and then dives south, in which case, Missoula will get hit worse than we will.
The husband has decided to hang around here today. He wouldn’t be able to get much done anyway as the snow is supposed to start around noon.
I’ve got the next batch of tomatoes cooking down. I don’t think it will be as big a run—20 quarts, maybe?—but it’s forward progress.
We had the last of the lettuce in our salad the other night:
This came from a tray of plants in the greenhouse. I can tell they’re not getting enough light anymore, and if we want to keep them from freezing, we’d have to make sure the propane heater is on every night. I’m going to feed what’s left to the chickens. It’s time to start investigating a winter growing setup. I am leaning toward a Kratky system—both Nicole Sauce at Living Free in Tennessee and Jack Spirko of The Survival Podcast have implemented this system and rave about it. We have room for something like it out in the old garage, which is far easier to get to in the winter than the greenhouse.
Making tomato sauce involves moving tomatoes from one stock pot to another as they cook down. I keep the sink full of hot soapy water, and as I empty one pot into another, I wash the empty pot and set it aside until I run the tomato pulp through the food mill. The sauce goes into the clean pot to cook down a bit more, and then those pots get combined. I invested in half a dozen high-quality stainless stock pots of various sizes several years ago and I have never regretted it. I said to the husband yesterday morning that the only thing that would make canning easier in my kitchen would be a six-burner Viking range, but that’s up there in the “nice to have but not essential” category.
I got 27 quarts of sauce from the first round of tomatoes:
Those 27 quarts used up approximately one-fourth of the tomatoes in the freezer, so I am on track to produce around 100 quarts this year. That may be more than we actually use, but I’m doing some for DD#2, as well, and it never hurts to have extras. I aim for a two-year supply for most canned goods.
I am taking a break from tomatoes today. We’re under another winter storm watch starting tomorrow afternoon, so I want to run errands today while the weather is relatively decent. I’ll bring another wheelbarrow load of tomatoes over tomorrow morning and start the next batch of sauce.
These jars represent so much more than just food. These jars are all the seeds I planted, the seedlings I nurtured, the plants I kept watered, and the tomatoes I harvested. This is six months of hard work and I am almost as proud of this food as I am of my children. I know what went into these jars and I know this sauce is full of nutritious ingredients that will nourish our bodies.
[I ingested something that must have contained soybean oil the other day. I’m usually pretty careful about avoiding processed foods and reading labels, but I’ve been trying to use up some of the leftovers from the week of partying and I got sloppy. The offending food caused almost immediate and painful joint and muscle aches. I took some ibuprofen and they went away (which is how I know the pain is from inflammation). Interestingly, products from “health food” stores are sometimes the worst offenders because they are loaded with soy. And then I have to wonder how many people have been diagnosed with “arthritis” when it’s really just a reaction to some ingredient in what they’re eating.]
This early snow has caused panic for people trying to get their construction projects dried in before winter. The husband got back from one job around 5 pm last night, came in to say hello, then headed out to another job to put concrete blankets on a slab (it was 20 degrees when I got up this morning). He came back an hour later but then had to go out to the pig pasture to disconnect the water line and make sure the pigs had enough straw to burrow in to keep warm overnight. It was 7 pm by the time he came in to eat dinner.
I really appreciate the online community that has grown up around Nicole Sauce’s Living Free in Tennessee podcast. When social media gets overwhelmed by people whining about what they don’t have—or posting from Starbucks on their new iPhone about the evils of capitalism—I wander over to the LFTN MeWe group and read about what kinds of “get stuff done” projects people are working on. At our last family dinner together at the end of wedding week, the discussion turned to how hard it is to find people who are willing to work. I looked around and counted among our number two physicians, a dentist, a banker, two people who own their own companies, a philanthropist, an occupational therapist, someone who aspires to take over running Nordstrom, and a chicken farmer (that would be me, LOL). That was most definitely a group of people who understands the value of hard work. I have less and less patience these days for people who are looking for the easy solutions and think they can be found in the voting booth.
(Steps down from soapbox.)
I am going to eke out some time to sew this weekend, even if it’s just a bunch of straight seams on some window shades. I work hard, but I know how to play hard, too, and sometimes they look like the same thing.
The house was very quiet after everyone left yesterday morning. However, my to-do list was full of post-wedding tasks, so I got right to work. I stripped beds and washed bedding, got sewing supplies out of the closets where they had been stashed to make room for guests, cleaned out refrigerators and consolidated food containers (I do not have to cook dinner for several days, which is heavenly), and brought a wheelbarrow load of bagged, frozen tomatoes over from the freezer in the garage. They cooked down on the stove all afternoon:
I am such a lazy canner. I put my whole frozen tomatoes into big pots, cook them down into a thick mass, then run the mixture through the Victorio food mill. The tomato pulp and a bit of juice gets canned for sauce. The skins go to the chickens, who love tomato sauce season very much. I’ve done it this way for years and it’s an efficient system for me. I don’t season the sauce until I am ready to use it; that way, I can make lots of different dishes with it.
After these tomatoes had cooked down some, I transferred them to the roaster to simmer overnight and put another batch in the pots to thaw. Those are cooking down now. I’ll do a canning run of sauce this afternoon. The big canner holds 14 quarts and I can do another seven quarts in my smaller canner. If I hustle, I might be able to get all the sauce made this week, which is good as we’re running low. And we’ll need that freezer space eventually.
The local news station posted an ominous warning on Facebook yesterday that “Tuesday is the last day to winterize!” Winter seems to be starting off with a bang here, with no signs of letting up. More snow and cold is forecast for today and again this weekend. In addition to starting sauce yesterday, I also filled the wood box, put the flannel sheets on our bed, moved the insulated curtains to the living room windows, and cut out the face fabric for another curtain. I picked up a not-quite-a-full-yard remnant of a pretty 108” wide fabric at Joanns the other day. At only 33” inches long, It wasn’t long enough to get two face fabric pieces from it for two curtains, but it was long enough to slice it vertically down the middle and sew the two halves together horizontally to make a face fabric piece for one curtain. I even matched the print across the seam. The spare bedroom has only one window, so it will go there.
I am having some difficulty finding more 108” fabric. Joanns—both online and the Kalispell store—seems to be sold out of the colors I need. I went to Fabric.com and ordered there, instead. We still have the old insulated curtains to use until I get the new ones finished, but the new ones are a huge improvement, both aesthetically and functionally. Joanns did have some gray Kona remnants, so I cut out more masks in preparation for a marathon mask-making session.
I am almost finished with that little embroidery piece I was working on last week. It’s time to cut out pieces for the Squash Squad blocks. I am also waiting for the quilt store in Spokane to send out the supply list for our class in November so I can start collecting what I need.
******************************************************
The local HVAC company got the heating system installed in the husband’s shop on Monday, and the local propane company came out to install the tank yesterday. This is a new company that has expanded into our area from Missoula. They would very much like to have our business as we have two 1000-gallon tanks for the house, a 500-gallon tank for the shop and another for the rental house, and a 250-gallon tank for the greenhouse. And we own all of them, which allows us to get our propane from whatever supplier has the best price. I had the house tanks filled in May. Those will last a year, so hopefully by next spring, all the tanks will be on roughly the same schedule.
I get such a giggle out of the guys who come to work on the husband’s shop. You can tell how envious they are that he has such a nice space. Ali came over last night to switch out her snow tires; the husband put the car up on the lift and checked it out to make sure nothing else needed attention. Her little guy (he’s 5) came inside and we watched YouTube videos. He was sitting on the couch, but when the husband got up to go out to the shop, he scooted over to sit in the husband’s recliner and said, contentedly, “Tom’s chair.” Those little boys are fascinated by the husband.
I am very glad I had the foresight to get the snow tires put on my car at the end of September. The tire place is going to be a madhouse today. We had DD#2’s snow tires put on as soon as she got here last week. Seattle doesn’t get enough snow, really, to justify having snow tires, but she will need them to get back and forth over the passes if she wants to come home to visit.
This may all melt today and tomorrow as the temps are supposed to get back up into the 50s, but then it’s going to be cold again this weekend (high of 24 on Saturday with a low of 7). The pigs are fine out in their pen, covered in straw. The water lines are freezing, though, and that’s adding extra work for the husband.
It is what it is. We are all set for winter, and if the husband has to stop pouring concrete sooner than he planned to, I don’t think that’s a bad thing. He can spend the winter puttering in his new shop. The HVAC company is coming out today to install the heating system.
I need to get started on tomato sauce soon. That freezer has to be empty by Thanksgiving or so.
My list of sewing projects is growing. DSIL had asked for some masks and has tried a couple of prototypes. We are up to Mask 3.0, which is gray with black elastic (I am using the basic Deaconess pattern) and has a nose wire. He gave some of them to his father and brother to wear this week, and they liked them, too, so I am going to make a dozen for each of them.
I have a custom apron order. That is going to be fun to make.
This is the secret sewing project from last month that I couldn’t show you because it was part of DD#1’s shower gift:
Her MIL bought her a Kitchen Aid mixer, which provided a great excuse to make her a cover for it using the ByAnnie pattern I had just purchased. (The cover is a bit wrinkled because it was crunched up in a gift bag for a few days.) I was going to make one for my Kitchen Aid mixer, so it will be just as easy to make a third one for her MIL’s mixer, too. This was a fast sew once I got all the pieces quilted.
The Noon and Night quilt and pattern need to be finished. I am aiming for a January release of that pattern in the hopes that it will set the tone for a better new year than we had in 2020.
I have a stack of tops from last winter that need to be turned into quilts.
And I need to make the rest of the new insulated curtains. I am starting to feel like maybe this winter won’t be long enough to get everything done, LOL.
We are all exhausted, but it’s a good kind of exhausted. This past week truly was a wonderful bright spot in the midst of the dumpster fire that has been 2020. I am going to need a day or two to recover, but then it’s on to tomato sauce and aprons.
The husband’s brother and father left yesterday afternoon to fly back to Colorado. My SIL also left after changing her flight back to LA to a flight to Baltimore, because her dad ended up in the hospital a few days ago. My other SIL also flew out there from California. The medical issue isn’t life-threatening, but he’s going to need their help getting some things arranged after he comes home from the hospital.
My mother and I made a quick trip to Missoula yesterday to return tuxes. The drive down and back (two hours each way) gave us some time to visit. We also stopped at the Amish store to resupply chocolate-covered espresso beans for the husband, who stayed home to put his shop back together after the party. Everyone else went shopping or up to Glacier Park. Our families met up for one last meal together. The kids will be back at our house for another night or two before going back to Seattle. DD#2 has to be at work Tuesday. DD#1 and DSIL are moving their stuff from Seattle to his parents’ house while they wait for his Coast Guard/PHS orders to come through to report to Ketchikan. We are hoping it is not too much longer as they would like to start their married life together on a new adventure.
Whew.
The other piece of good news—depending on one’s perspective, of course—is that it started snowing yesterday. My yardstick for snow events is the winter of 1996-1997. We had something like 216 inches of snow at our house that year (yes, that is 18 feet) beginning with snow on October 15. By the time it all melted at the end of May, there was not a U-Haul trailer to be had in Kalispell because of all the people leaving for more hospitable locations. The forecast is for similar climate conditions this winter. Indeed, we have a couple of inches of snow on the ground already with more to come today. (It’s still dark, or I would get a picture.) This does not make me sad, although I worry about family traveling back home.
****************************************************************
I did work on some embroidery here and there this week in stolen minutes when I could sit down in my recliner by the fire. This is nothing fancy, just a kit I picked up from Hobby Lobby last year.
The supplies I ordered for my Squash Squad blocks also arrived last week. I am just about ready to start that project. The needle case embroidery is done; all I have to do is assemble the case and that project will be finished.
The Airbnb where DSIL’s aunt and grandma stayed had these wonderful mobiles hanging up high on the walls near the ceiling:
I couldn’t get a good picture because of the location and lighting, but they were pieces of lace in embroidery hoops suspended from large branches. I thought the design was very clever.
****************************************************************
We all got a laugh this week when the husband accidentally locked me in the chicken coop Wednesday afternoon. I had gone in to collect eggs; he brought a bag of scratch grains over from the garage, set it down inside the coop, then went out and automatically locked the door out of habit. (He had forgotten I was in there.) By the time I realized I couldn’t get out, he had left to go check on the pigs. Everyone else was in the house. Fortunately, DD#2 pulled into the driveway a few minutes later and I yelled for her to come over. The husband was on his way back from the pig pasture and said that when he saw DD#2 running over to the coop, he figured something was going on so he followed her. They unlocked the door and let me out.
I hope to be back on a regular blogging schedule this week, barring any more unforeseen events in the chicken coop.
This week has been so much fun. I hate to see it end. DD#1 and her fiancé were married last evening in an absolutely beautiful ceremony attended by about two dozen family members. I don’t have pictures because I really wanted to be in the moment. However, I am sure others will be sharing some of the pictures they took, so you may see them in future blog posts.
We started our festivities on Sunday when the kids got here. The girls and DSIL (I have a son-in-law!) drove over from Seattle together and my sister-in-law flew up from Los Angeles. On Monday, DSIL’s parents arrived along with his grandmother and aunt from Wisconsin. We all had dinner together that evening. The husband’s brother and father arrived Monday night; my mother and sister were supposed to get in Tuesday night, but we had a terrible windstorm down in the valley and their flight was delayed until Wednesday morning. The rest of us had dinner again together. By Wednesday evening, the night of the rehearsal dinner, our numbers had swelled to include DSIL’s brother, grandfather, uncle, and cousin. And the wedding was last evening.
I remember saying to someone, when asked how we felt about our future son-in-law, that I was so happy that our daughter was marrying into a normal family. These people are wonderful. We have had so much fun together this week that we are trying to figure out how we can get together again. There has been much love and laughter and zero drama (except from the wedding photographer, but that was handled).
One of the delights for me has been having dear friends involved in the planning and preparation. Our pastor, who has known DD#1 since she was a little girl, performed the ceremony. Our friend Anna handled the catering and prepared the most wonderful meal. A friend of DD#2’s did the cake (Cakes by Briza, for you Kalispell peeps—highly recommended!). And yesterday, when I got to the venue before the ceremony, these two very special ladies were putting the finishing touches on the flower decorations:
The lady on the left is Debbie Kauffman, who owns Memories in Blossom. She taught at the elementary school and also drove the bus that DD#1 rode to school every day starting in kindergarten. And the lady on the right, Jan Madison, was DD#1’s first-grade teacher. I would have loved to have had everyone we know—and everyone who loved DD#1 and had a part in her life—at the wedding to help us celebrate, but this was the next best thing.
The ceremony and reception were held at Snowline. Tom and Kristen were marvelous to work with and helped us scale down from our original plans to something smaller. Sarah Gasbarro was our wedding coordinator; I told her yesterday morning that she was my new favorite person, LOL. She smoothed the way and that allowed me to relax and enjoy the entire day. I brought her a box of items and she created a beautiful display to remember and honor my mother-in-law, who died in March.
And thanks to the wonders of technology, we were even able to have far-away relatives join us for the ceremony and reception. My SIL, who has worked in the movie industry for many years, has been filming all week. She plans to create a video when she gets back home.
We’re planning to extend the fun today by having a “garage party” to christen the husband’s new shop and give the kids an opportunity to open some wedding gifts. The husband is being very gracious about letting us hold a party in his space. The remaining guests leave this weekend.
As DD#1 noted last night as she addressed her family and friends, she hoped that this was a bright spot in an otherwise very difficult year. I think it was.
Yesterday was a great day. I woke up to find an e-mail from Koerts Music—James Koerts is one of my favorite arrangers and I have just about every collection of music he has released. I also belong to his Piano Club and get a new arrangement at the start of every month. I get tired of playing the same pieces Sunday after Sunday, so I am constantly searching out new, fun music to play. (Yes, church music can be fun to play!)
I went to the website immediately and purchased this:
After I printed the file, I went to the piano and played through each of the medleys. Not only are they fun to play, but each medley is balanced with popular and lesser-known hymns. I sight-read most of them easily; only a few passages are going to require some work.
[Music for church pianists usually falls into one of two categories: very short, simple arrangements or complex, dramatic pieces. Finding interesting arrangements for someone who plays for two small, relatively older congregations and who doesn’t spend hours practicing or playing every day is a challenge. Really talented arrangers want to arrange challenging music. One arranger I used to like—before she went off the rails—once stated that pianists should be able to play with equal facility in all keys, so she began releasing pieces with five and six sharps and really weird chord substitutions. No thank you.]
I was so happy with this purchase that I went back to my computer and sent a thank you e-mail to James Koerts. I know that I love to receive positive feedback, so I try to give it, too.
I also belong to a subscription service called The Church Pianist from the Lorenz Corporation. I’ve belonged to this for years—it arrives quarterly and contains about a dozen seasonally-appropriate arrangements in a variety of styles and skill levels. I depend on that publication for finding new beloved arrangers. A few weeks ago, I got a letter in the mail from the Lorenz Corporation letting all subscribers know that from now on, the publication will be available in PDF format only. I understand they are trying to save money and stay solvent, but I dread having to print music to file in page protectors in binders. It is what it is. That’s a quality publication and I have a three-year subscription.
[I have seen pianists play from music on iPads and other tablets, but I have enough issues with my middle-aged vision that I prefer to have the actual music.]
Soon it will be time to start working on Christmas music.
After lunch, the big brown truck of happiness delivered my Amazon order, including the purse embroidery book, which is very good. It features excellent designs, excellent instructions for actually making the purses—the first I’ve seen in a book like that—and excellent embroidery instructions. More projects! And this week’s Squash Squad block is the Baby Boo Pumpkin.
As if all of that weren’t enough to make me deliriously happy, Anna Graham at Noodlehead released a new pattern yesterday, the Sandhill Sling.
The Slabtown Backpack from Klum House is still up first in the queue, but I I’ll have plenty of waxed canvas in the stash to make this one, because my yard of Lime Green waxed canvas from AL Frances Textiles came in the mail:
I am prepared to be snowed in for MONTHS, people.
I have a custom apron order to make after the wedding, and I need to finish the Noon and Night quilt, but after that, I’ll be making bags and embroidering up a storm. Watch out.
The husband asked, “How goes the battle?” as he was getting ready to leave for work yesterday morning. He was referring to my attempts to get the dust and dirt under control. I’ve made quite a bit of headway. I cleaned the living room so that we could move the kitchen table in there and add the leaf. We do that when we have guests at Christmas and it makes feeding people much easier.
The fit is a bit tight, but less so than it would be in the kitchen. We’ll put up a long folding table in the kitchen to hold extra stuff that comes in with people. It’s a familiar system.
I’ve just got the other end of the kitchen to finish cleaning today and we should be mostly ready. The house hasn’t looked this good since we built it 24 years ago, LOL.
I’ve wrapped most of the presents that were shipped here to the house. I also found some time to sew yesterday—I made more masks for future son-in-law based on the prototype that I took him in August. And one of our college friends needed a new pillowcase. I had made him one with motorcycle fabric a few years ago. He mentioned to me that it had worn through in a couple of places, so when I was in town earlier this week, I picked up another yard of motorcycle fabric. (I am not sure it’s the same print, but there aren’t a lot of choices in motorcycle fabric.) That will be on its way to him today.
[Speaking of the US Postal System, I sent a Priority Mail envelope containing that hat for Susan’s grandson to Seattle. On September 26. As of yesterday, it still had not arrived. The tracking number from my mail program indicates it is sitting in a sorting facility there. So glad I paid extra so it could languish for two weeks instead of being delivered. The frequency with which these kinds of things happen is mind-boggling.]
I’m enjoying watching the last bit of wildlife before everyone goes into hibernation for the winter. A memo must have gone out to the mama turkeys, because we had several come through the other day with more than a dozen babies in tow:
I wonder, sometimes, if these mamas were the babies that came through here in seasons past and remembered that we had free scratch grains. Oh, well. I am happy to provide sanctuary for baby forest animals. I just wish they wouldn’t eat my grapes.
My friend Marcie has a couple of pet blue jays. She started feeding them peanuts. They know when she is outside and will come down for treats. She said they let her know that they prefer the peanuts with the shells on. These are not Stellar Jays; they look like the Eastern Blue Jays that we had in Ohio when I was growing up, but bigger. Apparently, their range has expanded in the last couple of decades. I wonder if that was in response to the West Nile virus. That virus decimated the blue jay population back east. My mother used to walk out in the morning to get the newspaper and find them dead on her driveway.
I can tell the difference between them and the Stellar Jays by listening. Both are loud, but have slightly different variations of yelling.
We’re just bashing the Prime Directive left and right out here. We don’t feed bears, however.
****************************************************
This really is my favorite time of year. We’ve had some spectacular weather recently, but I love fall even when it’s blustery and unsettled—sometimes even more so. This time last year, I was on my way to Moses Lake, Washington, for an embroidery retreat with Charisma Horton. That was such a fun weekend. I stayed at a wonderful Airbnb (once I found it), enjoyed two solid days of learning and stitching, and got to take a road trip that included dinner with DD#2, who was in Spokane for homecoming at Gonzaga that weekend.
Long-range forecasts are still pointing to a La Nina winter with an 85% chance of it being “moderate to strong,” and the possibility for much colder and wetter weather than normal. Another winter like 1996-97 would clear a lot of people out of here. I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. We’re prepared to hunker down.
I am deep into housecleaning mode right now, so exciting blog content is hard to find. I took apart the laundry room yesterday, moved everything, vacuumed, mopped, sorted, and put stuff back. Then I did a couple of bathrooms. Today, I start the kitchen. (That should be fun.) I am in a constant battle against dust—dust from the road, ash from the fires, dirt that Lila brings in—that settles on every horizontal surface. It doesn’t matter how often I wipe things down with a damp cloth, in a couple of weeks, it’s all back. My vacuum cleaners are a Dyson and a shop vac with a HEPA filter. This is just a huge rock that I’ve been pushing up the same hill for 24 years.
I think we have one or two more days of nice weather, and then fall arrives for good. The weather for the wedding will be cool (50s), but no precipitation is in the forecast.
Our UPS guy delivered five boxes yesterday and asked me if I had ordered all that stuff. Two boxes were parts for my car, two were wedding presents for DD#1, and one was the cushion for my garden bench. And I know there is more on the way. The FedEx guy has also been making regular stops here.
This came in the mail:
This is the Laura Heine Teeny Tiny collection that I ordered for the class in November. I have the full-size pattern for the sewing machine, but the instructor (the store owner) recommends doing one of these smaller versions in the class. I think I am going to do the pincushion. I ordered this from Regal Fabric and Gifts in Spokane, where we’re taking the class, and the owner included a nice handwritten note on the invoice.
I am glad Tera and I are taking the class, though, because this isn’t so much a “pattern” as it is several stream-of-consciousness blocks of text—in a fancy, unreadable font—telling the quilter what to do. Oh, that makes my head hurt.
I ordered a book from Amazon the other day, and am expecting it in the next UPS delivery:
I looked at this book at a Joanns in Spokane last month and didn’t buy it. I assumed our Joanns would have it and I could buy it here. Nope. This is one of those times when not being an impulse buyer came back to bite me in the ass. I want this book enough to have ordered it from Amazon, which also guarantees that it will show up in our Joanns next week.
I am trying to decide if I should cram tomato sauce production into the last two weeks of October or wait until after I get back from Spokane in November. I think I may try to do it right after the wedding and get it done and out of the way. I am taking the next two Sundays off from pianist duties at church because I need the breathing room.
I’ve been going through the cedar chests, pulling out a few things to use at the wedding and organizing what’s inside of them, and I ran across this picture:
This is the husband, sometime in 1988-ish, with his 5-series BMW. To say that he loved that car more than anything else is an understatement. His best friend, Michael—who had been his college roommate all four years and was a gifted writer—once penned a story about the husband and his BMW. A copy of that story is also in the cedar chest. Reading it makes me laugh. because it’s so accurate. (Michael is no longer with us, which also makes that story bittersweet.) There is a line in the story where Michael notes that the husband said to him that if he ever got hurt and needed to go to the hospital, Michael should let him die rather than try to drive the BMW. (It was a manual.) We were all allowed to ride in it, but no one else—not even me, the girlfriend or Michael, the best friend—was allowed to drive it.
The husband worked for a while as the parts manager for a body shop in Baltimore that specialized in foreign cars. He knows cars (and trucks) inside and out, but I am sure that my BMW is quite different from the one in this picture. Mine has a computer, and the computer told me this week that it is time for service. When the supplies he ordered get here, he’s going to change the oil and do scheduled maintenance on it.
We also had to order a new wheel badge for one of the hubcaps on my station wagon, because I either lost one or—more likely—someone pried one off as a souvenir. (One of the hazards of driving a car like that in a big city.) They come in packs of four, so I’ll have a spare if it happens again.
I need to pick up a frame for this picture and hang it up here in my office. He has my “senior pic” photo from college hanging downstairs in his office.
*******************************************************
I found a 60% off coupon in my Joanns e-mail yesterday, so I ordered more of that insulated curtain fabric, enough to do the rest of the windows, but just before bedtime, I got a notification that the order had been canceled. Joann Fabrics’ entire computer system has some serious glitches. It’s possible the store didn’t have as much in stock as the website said they did. I’ll have to stop in there today and see what happened. Unfortunately, the coupon is only valid if you order online and pick up in the store.
We dug up the potatoes yesterday afternoon and got a respectable haul, mostly Classic Russets. There were only a few Butter Reds, which are my favorites. We’ll have to get fresh seed potatoes next spring. Elysian has been coming by every day to get tomatoes. I have a nice tray of lettuce in the greenhouse; I transplanted some to the garden but it was getting munched on by turkeys and/or ground squirrels, so I gave up.
We’re right on schedule for pre-wedding preps. Now I just need to clean the house from top to bottom.
Every fall, we are entertained by one of the resident squirrels as it stocks up for winter by stashing pine nuts in the woodshed. (This is a horrible picture, but I took it from inside the house so as not to scare it away.)
This has happened every year since we built our house (in 1996), which makes this a multi-generational squirrel tradition. The squirrel spends most of September and October running back and forth between a couple of trees collecting nuts, then takes them to the woodshed. Occasionally, it will detour and run up on top of the woodpile or one of the husband’s work trailers. Once in a while, it even comes up on the porch. Lila sits and watches from the kitchen door. We refer to this as Squirrel TV.
The husband and I were busy yesterday, too. I canned 19 pints of chicken stock:
We took more stuff out to the storage container and rearranged a few things here in the house. He moved the freezer that had been on the porch to the old garage, which freed up space for the garden bench I bought. It’ll go out to the garden next spring, but we’ll store it here on the porch over the winter.
He stained the fence around the propane tanks and the porta-potty that were hit by a large tree limb during that horrible windstorm in March. The tree limb took out the porta-potty—which still has to be repaired—and several of the fence slats. He replaced the fence slats a few months ago and gave the entire fence a coat of stain yesterday.
I finished the insulated shades for the living room (hallelujah). There is a small piece of insulated material left, enough to make a shade for the window in the door in the laundry room. I’m going to watch for another 50% or 60% off coupon at Joanns and get enough of the insulated shade material to do the other eight windows this winter. The shades look so much nicer than the curtains I had up there before, nice enough that they are worth the hassle of making them.
He and I plan to dig up the rest of the potatoes this afternoon and that will be it for the garden.
We’re getting down to the wire with wedding preparations. The kids arrive a week from today, followed by the rest of the relatives. DD#1 very helpfully put together a timeline of events for each day of wedding week showing who needs to be where doing what. The big jobs we needed to do are done. Now it’s mostly a matter of staying on top of all the little details.
Blog posts may be few and far between next week as a result, but we’ll see how things go.