Piglets and Pies

The husband and I picked up piglets yesterday morning. Cathy referred me to a friend of hers some years ago after our first pig supplier flaked out on us. This woman brings in bred sows from the Hutterite colonies east of the mountains and supplies piglets to a lot of the 4-H kids. We have always been more than satisfied with the quality of the animals she sells.

We decided to go up to eight pigs this year. Usually, we do six, but I’ve had so many people ask me about pork that we don’t think we’ll have trouble selling two extra. Kalispell peeps, if you want a half or whole hog, get on the list now. I’ve already taken several reservations.

The piglets settled right in.

They are Duroc/Landrace crosses. We’ve raised those in the past and they finish out nicely. We’ll keep them inside the Piggy Palace for a few days before the husband takes them out and trains them on the electric fence.

Yesterday was a cold, soggy day. After we came home, I left the husband to manage piglets while I came inside to heat up chili. We serve homemade chili, quesadillas, and pie and ice cream at our spring pie social. I happened to be at the grocery store one day a few months ago when ground beef was on sale for $1.98 a pound, so I bought all I needed, made my roaster pan of chili, and put it in the freezer. I moved the chili to the fridge Friday morning so it could thaw out.

We wondered what attendance would be like at the pie social because of the weather, but people came anyway. (This is Montana.) We went through almost four roaster pans of chili—no surprise there. And we had a great selection of pies. Sarah went above and beyond by making more than two dozen herself.

I had a slice of her raspberry/tomatillo pie, which is one of my favorites. I really like the zing that the tomatillos add.

My serger class on Friday went reasonably well. Teaching a new class for the first time is always a bit nerve-wracking, but everyone got their tops done or done except for hemming, so that was good. We used the New Look 6555 keyhole top pattern.

I can see the light at the end of my five-week marathon. I won’t overschedule myself like this again next spring. I’ve already let several groups know that I am giving up some of my leadership positions because I am no longer willing to allow the volunteer responsibilities to take priority over other things I want to do.

[I’ve come to the conclusion that I have a different definition of “leadership” than other people do. I’ve always thought of leadership as being the process of providing a vision and an organizational structure that enables other people to come along and pitch in with their time and energies. I appreciate the people who do come along and pitch in. I have decided, though, that most people define “leader” as “the person who is going to do all the work” so that everyone else can sit back and enjoy the results. Please don’t ever say to me that the best way to get something done is to ask a busy person, because that will get you a guaranteed “no” in response. The busy people are tired of picking up the slack for the rest of the world.]

One of the things I want to do this week is to clean and organize. I can’t be productive in the midst of chaos and my environment feels chaotic right now. The weather looks cool and rainy for most of the week, so it should be a good opportunity to tackle that project. If the forecast holds, though, we’re supposed to get a heat wave after that, so I want to get the peas planted this week. And the husband and I are planning a date night in the garden with the shotgun soon because the ground squirrel population is running amok. I will not tolerate them eating their way through the garden this year. Little Bunny Foo-Foo is back, too, but it lives over here by the house.

People Talk to Me

The LFTN Spring Workshop ended Saturday night. I asked Bob and Deana to drop me off at the airport early Sunday morning so I could decompress. I can do social activities for a weekend if I get some time to rest and recharge. I have no problem sitting by myself in an airport for a few hours or even an entire day and always have something with me to occupy the time. Because it was so early, I couldn’t drop off my bag and go through security to the gate, so I found a seat in the ticketing area and sat down.

I’m still making hexies and had a stack of them to sew into hexie flowers, so I took out my project bag and got to work. All of a sudden, I heard a woman exclaim, “She’s making hexies!” and two older ladies bustled over and sat down next to me. They had been at the Paducah Quilt Show in Paducah, Kentucky, and were on their way home to Edmonton, Alberta. They assumed that I, too, had been at the quilt show.

We chatted for a bit—mostly, they talked about the quilt show—until two more quilting friends of theirs came over. I offered up my seat and excused myself to go find some coffee. What I really did was to go down to baggage claim to find another place to sit. My reasoning was that people in the baggage claim area are in a hurry to retrieve their stuff and leave, so no one was likely to talk to me.

I found another quiet spot and sat down. After a few minutes, a woman joined me a few seats away. I could tell she was watching me. Her curiosity finally got the better of her. “What are you doing?” she asked. I explained the process to her. She said that she wanted to learn how to quilt because she works with women refugees in Roanoake, Virginia, and thought quilting would be a good activity for them. We chatted for a bit until I saw that it was time for the Alaska Airlines counter to open, so I excused myself to drop my bag off and get through security.

When I got to the gate, I sat down and took out a book to read. No one talked to me there.

I must look approachable, because this happens all the time. I’ve had people start up conversations with me in the middle of Tool World, at Lowes, when the husband and I go on date night. DD#1 says tourists in Ketchikan often stop her and ask her to take photos of them.

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Deana has a blog and did a fun write-up of our week together at their house and the spring workshop. She also has better pictures. Go check it out. I borrowed the pic of the three of us just before the workshop started:

I should mention that Bob and I have been friends for 43 years. We sat next to each other in high school band when I was a freshman and sophomore and he was a junior and senior. He is an excellent musician and a much better trombone player than I am, although that bar is pretty low, especially these days. The three of us had a lot of fun hanging out together. Deana also sews, cans, crochets, (and knits! because I taught her at the workshop), and is a most awesome cook.

I knew April was going to be a marathon month—and it was—but it hasn’t let up much. My schedule should ease a bit next week. I got a text from our pig supplier while I was at the workshop, letting us know our piglets were ready. We had asked for piglets around June 1, so that was a bit of a surprise. I told her I was traveling and we wouldn’t be able to get them until this coming weekend. The husband spent last weekend getting the pig pasture ready. We are getting the piglets tomorrow morning. Our homestead foundation pie social is tomorrow afternoon, although the weather forecast is for cold and rain, so I suspect attendance will be down. And then it’s back to playing piano at church on Sunday. Our next big event is the homestead foundation plant sale on May 20. After that, it will be time to put plants in the garden!

I am the Fun Boss

The husband sent the employees here yesterday to keep them busy while he checked out some jobsites. He told them I had a list of things for them to do. They spread some mulch around one of my lavender beds. We moved a billboard tarp over to the old vegetable garden to kill everything there—I have been looking at a mess in that garden and the old herb garden for three years and decided I want to do something about it. I had them move some furniture out to the storage container. We hung the porch shade and they put my wind chimes up for me. I wanted to get some well-aged chicken manure over to the garden, but that required moving the plow truck in order to get to the tractor. The golf cart was in the way, as well, so they got it started and then one of them drove it around the yard for a bit. I drove the tractor out. They hooked up the wagon and filled it with gas for me and then shoveled three loads of chicken manure into the wagon and shoveled it out into the garden. It is some nice-looking chicken manure:

By that time, they were ready for lunch. I pulled a bag of cookies out of the freezer and one of them said to me, “Work would be a lot more fun if you came to the jobsite every day.” I told him that their boss likely would fire me the first day for causing trouble, LOL.

I am delighted to have some of those jobs done. We have one more day of nice weather before a front moves in. Unfortunately, it looks like rain for our pie social on Saturday, followed by cooler temps for a couple of weeks.

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I’ve been sorting all the stuff I brought back from my trip and looking longingly at some new fabric and patterns. I don’t have time to sew right now. I may not have time to sew again until the fall.

I bought this Sallie Tomato Hudson Tote pattern:

This is a small insulated tote, or it can be used to store craft supplies. It looks fun and challenging.

[I used my Klum House Slabtown Backpack during the workshop last week. That was the perfect bag for that event and I’m glad I had a reason to use it.]

I found a Burda top pattern for a blouse that is very similar to the one I tried on at Kohls that was too short. I’ll experiment with the pattern at some point, although I scored big in the Liz Claiborne section at several JC Penney stores on this trip and my wardrobe has quite a few nice blouses now. I even found two dresses that fit well, which hardly ever happens, and they are bright green. Yay!

Joann Fabrics continues to be a huge disappointment, although I did discover that they are now carrying that elusive 60/40 poly/cotton T-shirt blend. It is labeled as cotton interlock, which is incorrect, and it only comes in neutrals and sad pastels, but they have it nonetheless. I also scored three nice pieces of knit fabric—two pontes and one rayon/spandex—from the mystery remnant rack at a couple of Walmart stores along the way.

Is It Homesteading or Lifesteading?

Amy Dingmann, whose Farmish Kind of Life podcast is another of my favorites, suggested in this week’s episode that perhaps we’re not homesteaders. Perhaps we are lifesteaders. Specifically, she said,

If homesteading is the process of building a homestead, lifesteading is the process of building a life.

Amy describes her podcast as “big thoughts from a little farm” and I appreciate her ability to convey those big thoughts so well. I told people that I was going to Tennessee to present at a homesteading conference because that was a context most people understand, especially people who know me. I’m that weirdo who was born 100 years later than I should have been, the woman who has acquired a skill set far better suited to Little House on the Prairie than life in the 21st century. If the grid went down tomorrow, I’d still be able to clothe and feed you. After last weekend, though, I no longer believe that homesteading is the right word for what those of us in that community are doing. Plenty of people who were at that event live in the city. Or the suburbs. Some have gardens, some don’t. Some raise livestock. Most don’t. What we all had in common was that we were building the lives we wanted, in whatever form that took. And Amy, as usual, nailed it with her observation that we are lifesteading, not homesteading.

It’s a subtle distinction, but an important one. “Homesteading” has been a useful description because it conjures up visions of people rejecting modern lifestyles in favor of simpler ones, although anyone who has done it will tell you that homesteading is not simple or easy. However, I wonder if perhaps the term has outlived its usefulness.

Here are a few more highlights from the weekend:

Did we eat well? Yes, we did. All meals were included. As much as possible, Nicole feeds attendees with food she has produced or sourced locally. This was our dinner Thursday night:

Wee had pierogies—Nicole’s neighbor Knighthawk did a seminar Thursday afternoon on making pierogi, which I missed because I was teaching, but they were served up as part of our dinner. These were fried, not boiled and drowned in butter, bacon, and cheese a la Grandma Szabo. They were delicious nonetheless. I had one stuffed with mashed sweet potatoes and it was yummy.

Top center was sauteed Swiss chard, another favorite. I had two servings of the Salisbury steak with mushroom gravy because it was SO GOOD. And of course, I’ve never met cauliflower I didn’t like. At the bottom right is a quail leg. Quail is a popular homestead animal. We also had salad at lunch and dinner every day.

I was highly entertained by this chicken, who took “free range” to a new level.

She spent the whole weekend wandering through the event attempting to steal food from people’s plates. She almost succeeded in getting some of my lunch companion’s soup, which was in a mug on the ground next to his chair, but I saw her coming for it.

Nicole’s mother, Mama Sauce, sat with us everyday and knitted. She made this gorgeous shawl for Nicole out of some ribbon yarn:

Parts of this event were videotaped, although the videographer had car trouble and didn’t arrive until Friday afternoon. As far as I know, my presentations on Thursday weren’t recorded. If anything shows up on YouTube, I’ll let you know.

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Yesterday was spent catching up on paperwork and managing a case of weather whiplash because it was winter when I left but summer when I came home. I took down all the insulated shades. I need to clean the little porch fridge and plug it in so the eggs can go in there. The husband put away my porch lights for me, but now I need to get out and hang up the windchimes and the porch shade. He shut down the wood boiler for the summer. If we need heat, we’ll use propane. I have to get my snow tires taken off and summer tires put on. We are firmly in the summer routine now.

Living the Life You Choose

Several years ago, the husband said to me over dinner one night, “I found a new podcast I think you would like. It’s by some woman in Tennessee. She’s a homesteader and a libertarian.” I said I would give it a listen. I started with the now-infamous July 23, 2017 “squash episode” detailing the many ways to use an abundance of squash from the garden. I was hooked. Since then, Nicole Sauce’s Living Free in Tennessee podcast has stayed at the top of my list of podcast favorites. Other podcasts have come and gone, but Nicole has put out consistently great content for six years. Along the way, she has built an amazing community of doers all over the world. The tag line for her podcast is Living the life you choose, on your terms.

Nicole hosts a workshop weekend at her homestead in Tennessee every April. Last fall, I hatched a plan. A dear friend of mine from high school moved to eastern Tennessee with his girlfriend five years ago. They also have become fans of Nicole’s podcast, so I asked them if they would like to go to the Spring Workshop with me. They agreed. (It is a testament to the longevity of my friendship with Robert that he let me plan this trip for them.) Two weeks ago, I drove to Seattle and flew to Cleveland to see my mother. Robert’s dad lives around the corner from my mother, so Robert and Deana arranged to visit his family that same weekend. The three of us drove back to Tennessee together. I stayed at their house for two days, and last Wednesday, we drove to the middle of Tennessee for this:

This plan had a second component. When I knew we were coming to the workshop, I contacted Nicole and offered to teach some classes. These kinds of homesteading events are typically heavy on things men want to do, like firearms training, animal husbandry, infrastructure projects, etc. Nicole’s mom—known to podcast listeners as Mama Sauce—helps her plan this workshop as well as the twice-yearly Self-Reliance Festival. Mama Sauce is also a knitter. The two of them thought that having some classes on “girly stuff” (yes, it’s sexist) would be great. I packed up a box of textile supplies, including everything I needed to teach knitting, sewing, and spinning, and shipped it to my mother’s house to have ready to take with me to the workshop.

I’m still trying to process my thoughts about the weekend, because it was one of the most amazing events I’ve ever attended. Nicole sells about 65 tickets. Attendees are welcome to camp on her property; the three of us stayed at a “cabin”—more like a condo—at the nearby Edgar Evins State Park. I got to meet half a dozen people I’ve gotten to know from the homesteading chat group. We made new friends, including a woman whose husband bought her a ticket to the workshop for Christmas. She wasn’t sure she wanted to embrace the homesteading lifestyle, but she agreed to come to the event with an open mind and I am pretty sure she was persuaded by the end of the weekend.

We listened to presentations by entrepreneurs, content creators, and others who had crafted the lifestyles they want to live. At least three self-made millionaires were in attendance, including one who slept in his car because he doesn’t believe in living lavishly. I gave a 45-minute presentation, participated in a roundtable discussion, and taught several people—including a few guys—how to knit, spin, and sew. “Happy hour” in the late afternoons usually included a group of us sitting together knitting and visiting. Robert helped with the solar installation project. Deana went to a couple of canning presentations and to the talk on women entrepreneurs. (She used to own a daycare center.)

I can’t do justice to describing what it was like to be in that environment for three days—and by environment, I mean being surrounded by other people who are so single-mindedly determined to set the course of their lives rather than allowing life to happen to them. The husband and I have fielded various reactions over the past 30 years about to our decision to move to Montana and create what we have built together. Not all of those reactions have been positive. Being able to be with other people with the same mindset—knowing that we did the right thing for us—was wonderful.

I will post other highlights from the trip in the coming days, but I wanted you all to know where I have been for two weeks. I flew back to Seattle from Nashville Sunday night and drove home yesterday. Unfortunately, the trip back was not without incident. I was traveling eastbound on I-90 just outside of Ritzville, listening to music and minding my own business in the right-hand lane, when some idiot in a white Chevy van trying to merge onto the highway hit the right side of my car just above my back tire. (I hadn’t moved over because there were other cars in the left-hand lane.) I heard a loud “bang” and felt the car swerve. I thought I had blown a tire. Thankfully, I had the presence of mind not to slam on the brakes and managed to avoid a bigger accident. I slowed down and eased over to the side of the road, called 911, and a state trooper showed up within a few minutes. The other driver was cited. He admitted fault and we have his insurance information, but now I have one more thing on my to-do list this week.

It was 34 degrees and snowing when I left two weeks ago. I arrived home yesterday to 84 and sunny. The snow is gone. Everything is looking great in the greenhouse and we will have plenty of inventory for the plant sale thanks to Elysian. I’ve got a mountain of paperwork on my desk to sort through and piles of laundry to get done. I’m teaching a class at the quilt store Friday, we may be picking up piglets on Saturday morning, and the homestead foundation pie social is Saturday afternoon, but this is my life and I am happy to be back to it.

Goodbye and Good Riddance

The husband had his own to-do list to tackle yesterday, beginning with troubleshooting a water issue. The water coming out of the hot side of the tap has been lukewarm, at best. (I’ve been taking three-minute showers for the past week.) He suspected a mixing valve issue. I am not sure what he did to fix the problem, but we have hot water again. Yay.

The next item on the list was the Starlink dish installation. He decided not to put it up at the ridgeline of the roof, because getting the forklift over to that side of the house is tricky. I think its position will be fine:

Running the cable down into my office required that he drill a couple of holes, one in the porch roof and one in the wall. He built the house, so he knew what he was doing. After we got the cable through the wall, I plugged it into the router, the dish oriented itself to the satellites, and within about five minutes, we had internet service from Starlink.

And wow, is it fast. It is significantly faster than what we have been getting with CenturyLink. The only issue is that I can’t hook it up to the Orbi mesh system without an adapter, which I didn’t realize we needed. The Orbi is a secondary router with a main unit in my office and satellite units in the basement and upstairs. It extends the range of our wireless network. The Starlink router provides decent service to the TV in the living room—the device that is furthest from my office—but without the mesh system, the husband cannot get wireless service out in his shop.

I ordered the adapter. Hopefully, that will solve the problem. We will keep the CenturyLink service until we make sure that the Starlink service is working properly, but so far, we are very impressed. And I will not be sorry to say goodbye to CenturyLink.

It was almost 2:00 pm by the time we finished the Starlink installation, so we had a late lunch and then went out to plant potatoes. I try not to put crops in the same place in successive gardening seasons to minimize pest and pathogen problems. This year, we planted potatoes in a part of the garden that has been fallow, with black plastic over it, for two years. And rather than prepare that spot with the roto-tiller—the husband’s favorite method—I requested that he just dig some trenches. Tilling really does seem to exacerbate the weed problem. We have far fewer weeds when we disturb the soil as little as possible. The black plastic got moved to the spot where we had potatoes last year, on the other side of the garden.

We put in fingerlings, Red Norlands, Clearwater Russets, and German Butterballs. After covering the potatoes, we put strips of heavy landscape fabric between the rows.

The weather today is supposed to be even nicer than yesterday. (Don’t get excited—it is forecast to snow on Tuesday and be in the 40s all week.) I am going to try to get the rest of the garden cleaned up this afternoon. We’re still at least a month out from planting everything else, but the grapes need pruning and I need to decide where I want to put the other crops.

Blog posts may be few and far between for the next two weeks. I have something going on that will preclude regular posting. I seem to get a lot of concerned inquiries if I don’t post every couple of days, so I’m giving fair warning now.

Spring Snow and a Bit of Piecing

We woke up to snow yesterday morning; it was gone by lunchtime, but the weather stayed chilly enough to keep me inside. A quick peek at the weather forecast for next week shows that it’s not going to get much better. Last spring was cold, too, but this year seems to be even worse. And now the weather people are talking about the fact that we are moving into a strong El Nino pattern, which will bring a drier winter and warmer spring next year.

Thank goodness for our greenhouse. The plants inside are nice and toasty.

After breakfast, I sat down at my desk and knocked items off my to-do list one by one, which brought my stress level down considerably. I discovered long ago that procrastinating on anything never helps me. I can’t formulate a plan until I know the exact scope of a problem, and that means tackling it head on. I had a few items on my list that had potential roadblocks in the way—roadblocks not of my making—and I needed to figure out how to get around them. Those problems are either solved or have a plan of attack in place.

My reward was to spend the afternoon making four more 12-1/2” squares for a cream and white string quilt. This is a great project for when I want to sew and not have to think, as it doesn’t require any measuring. I just sew strips of fabric together until the block is a bit bigger than needed, then trim it to size. The block looks like this:

This is the quilt I made for our bed. The block is a variation on a Log Cabin that starts with a small square in the corner. Strips get added to two sides alternately. I need 64 of them for a king-sized quilt. I’m up to 36.

The number of blocks needs to be a multiple of four in order to be put into this setting:

This is one of the blocks I did yesterday:

(It is square, even though it doesn’t look like it in the photo.)

I could do an alternate setting with a different number of blocks. We’ll see how many I get done. I’d like to put this in the co-op sale in September, and it would be nice to have it be at least a queen-sized quilt.

All the baby quilts have been delivered to their destinations—thankfully, before the babies arrived. I put the red churn dash quilt back on the Q20 to work on as I have time. The forecast is for slightly warmer weather today, so the husband and I are planning to get the potatoes in the ground. He also has “fixing the hot water system” on his list. For some reason, our limitless supply of hot water has dwindled to barely lukewarm over the past week or so. The hot water heater is barely 18 months old, so he suspects the problem is with a mixing valve.

What Survived the Winter?

I’m under a deadline right now and feeling the stress. I went to town yesterday morning to do the errands I didn’t get done on Wednesday. The husband wants to plant potatoes this weekend and I promised to pick up seed potatoes. Sometimes we use leftovers from the year before, but sometimes we eat all the potatoes and don’t have any for seed. I got German Butterballs—we did those last year and they were great—Clearwater Russets, and Red Norlands. We have enough fingerlings left to use for seed.

I also went to Costco and discovered they had apple trees! Most of the trees in our front yard orchard came from Costco 10-12 years ago. They have done exceptionally well, unlike the trees we planted on the rental property around the same time. Those were bare root trees we ordered from a supplier and they have not produced a single apple. I want to replace them.

I haven’t seen apple trees at Costco for several years and always assumed that I missed the one week when they were in stock. I only go to Costco once every 4-5 weeks. Yesterday, they had Winesap, Norland, Haralson, Northern Spy, and Lodi trees. I have a Winesap and a Northern Spy. I also have a Lodi but I bought another one because I like that one for pie. I didn’t buy a Norland or a Haralson, even though I don’t have those, because Susan is grafting several apple trees for me and I like the interesting varieties she gets.

I was supposed to attend a birthday party luncheon yesterday but I came home instead. I was too peopled-out from teaching and choir practice. Some days, I just can’t do it. I also knew it would be hard for me to enjoy the party while I was thinking about everything on my to-do list that wasn’t getting done.

After lunch, I went out to the garden to begin cleaning up the mess. I raked dead vegetation into a pile to be burned. I pruned all the lavender hedges. I propped up the pea trellis, although it needs a more permanent fix. I wandered around and looked at everything. The two peach trees—Halehaven and one other whose name escapes me at the moment—survived the winter and look good.

The hollyhocks I put in along the fence last year also survived the winter:

This is a black variety and I hope they get big enough to bloom this year.

I think my rhubarb plants are done for. I couldn’t find any rhubarb and it’s usually the first thing to come up. I had a very robust one when we first put in the garden, but it got some kind of fungal infection and died. Ever since then, every rhubarb plant I’ve put in had has struggled. Growing rhubarb should be as easy as falling off a log. Oh, well, I know my friends will share.

I’ll clean up the other half of the garden this afternoon and prune the grapevines.

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I’ve just about given up on our Joann Fabrics store, and on Joanns in general. I was there yesterday and saw that their adult Gildan T-shirts were on sale. I need to replace some of my work T-shirts that are old and falling apart and I like these because they are long enough. The sign above the T-shirts—literally, three signs all saying the same thing on that aisle—advertised the shirts as “3 for $14.” I picked up three in my size and went to the register.

They rang up at full price. When I asked why, the woman at the register said, “They aren’t on sale.” I said, “Well, the sign says otherwise.” She insisted they weren’t on sale because the sale price wasn’t in the computer. She sent another employee back to check the display, but I didn’t want to hold up the (long) line of people behind me over a few dollars’ difference, so I just went ahead and paid for them and walked out.

That kind of thing happens regularly there now. I don’t know what’s going on, but that company seems to be falling apart. The computer system is as slow as molasses in January and the prices never match what is supposed to be on sale. Perhaps it’s just our local store, although the stores in Spokane aren’t much better. In any case, I’ll start my shopping at Hobby Lobby and only go to Joanns as a last resort.

Green Inside

The blog needs a picture, but all I’ve got is one of the current batch of lettuce in the indoor lettuce system.

We’ll have some in salads this weekend. I’ll start a new crop out in the greenhouse soon.

Yesterday’s serger class was a bit of a challenge. The store had told me four students; I actually had seven. Three had L890 computerized machines, two had non-computerized air threading models, one had an older manual-thread Bernina model, and one had a Bernina model I had never seen before. All but two of the machines were combo machines that did both serging and coverstitch. One lady had a friend with her who was “helping,” although the friend was more of a disruption than a help. She left the class after about an hour to go shopping in the store. The Bernina model I’d never seen before caused some trouble for both the student and me, but thankfully, a customer was in the store who was familiar with it and was able to step in and offer assistance.

We managed. Everyone stayed calm and kept a sense of humor, although we were all exhausted by the end of the six hours. I taught them everything they needed to know about basic serging on their machines and threw in a few special lessons. The top-of-the-line sergers have a blanket stitch programmed into the machine, by name. One of the women with the non-computerized machines said, “Oh, I can’t do that stitch on my machine,” because she looked at her stitch guide and blanket stitch wasn’t listed. I said, “Yes, you can.” (It is based on a two-thread flatlock stitch, which her machine can do.) I gave the instructions for setting up all the machines, handed out materials for everyone to use—that stitch requires the use of some washaway stabilizer—and just like that, they all made blanket stitch samples. That’s the fun part of teaching.

I came straight home after class, did chicken chores, and checked on the plants in the greenhouse. By that time, the husband and two of our employees were pulling into the driveway. The husband lets the guys use his shop to work on their trucks, so they were here for a while and then came in to visit. Around 6 pm, I finally sat down, only to get a text from my friend, Twila, asking me if I was coming to choir practice.

I had completely forgotten about it.

I was really exhausted by the time I got back. And I need to polish up the accompaniment part to that piece because I haven’t looked at it in three weeks. We are singing it on Sunday.

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I stopped in at Staples yesterday morning on my way to class. If I have to ship anything via UPS, that store is the most convenient drop-off location. (I make the labels here using my account.) When I got there, however, the printing and copying area was closed, so I went to the register and asked if the store was still taking UPS packages. The cashier said, “Yes, we had to close the printing area because we only have two employees.” I left my package and checked my account this morning to make sure it had been picked up.

I heard last week that the state of Montana has a 2.4% unemployment rate. That is one of the lowest in the country and the lowest in our state history. What is happening here, though, is that the cost of living has skyrocketed. A lot of people just can’t afford to live and work here any longer and the effects are becoming widespread.

Uncovering the Ugly

Much of the snow disappeared quickly after a couple of days of 60-degree weather. I can see just how awful the garden looks now:

Friday and Saturday are supposed to be reasonably nice. I’ll spend some time out there and rake that dead vegetation into piles to be burned.

These are the images that never make the covers of magazines.

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Due to an apparent breakdown in communication, the class I thought I was teaching today at the quilt store north of town never made it to the calendar. That’s not a big deal; the weather today is supposed to be cold and blustery and I have another laundry list of tasks that need attention. I’d just as soon stay home. I have four students signed up for tomorrow’s Bernina serger mastery class at the quilt store south of town. I’ll take my completed class samples with me for the Christmas in July class. They’ll be put on the display near the checkout to advertise the class.

I’m also collecting a load of stuff to take to the thrift store. Some unused items are impeding progress and either need to be put in the storage container or donated. I still want to move a bed out—either from DD#2’s room or the spare bedroom—and reorganize those spaces more efficiently.

The husband and I have been watching clips of the PBD Podcast hosted by Patrick Bet-David, an Iranian-American entrepreneur who is the head of a media empire called Valuetainment. We especially enjoyed this one:

I jokingly refer to this as the “Bro Podcast” because it’s four guys sitting around discussing various topics. Some day when I feel like angering a large group of people all at once, I’ll do a blog post about why I think we’ve overdone it with female energy. I happen to enjoy being around strong male energy, and that balance is important.

If you don’t want to watch the clip—although you should, because it’s good—I’ll sum it up for you: The job market is tightening, and those employees who thought they could get paid simply for showing up are going to find themselves out of a job and unable to find another one. And if you’re over 50, your work ethic may soon be in demand by employers.

Inch by Inch

I gauge the coming of spring by mileposts big and little: longer days, the arrival of chicks, seedlings popping up in the greenhouse, the day I no longer have to wear boots, etc. I took the ice cleats off my mucks yesterday, because the path to the greenhouse is finally clear of ice and snow. This week, I will take the insulated shades off the windows and put them away.

Turkeys are everywhere. These two think they are all that and then some:

The flock comes to hoover up any scratch grains that fall outside the chicken yard.

Inside the coop, the peeps are busy learning to be big chickens:

We hit 60 degrees yesterday afternoon. I wish I could say that spring is here to stay, but it looks like we’re going to cool off again, with some rain. We need it.

I did not have a very productive weekend. I puttered, mostly, and cleaned and organized. I did have a brief moment of insanity late Saturday afternoon when it occurred to me that I should have made myself something to wear to church on Easter Sunday. I started to look through my patterns and fabric, then came to my senses. Beginning a project at that late hour would have led to nothing but frustration.

I am still lacking some really nice blouses, mostly because I’ve been fitting muslins. Maybe I can get a few made next month. I could also use some dresses, but those are going to take a bit more work.

This week, I have two serger classes, a board meeting, and a birthday party to attend. I’ve got a long list of little errands to chase down, too. We’ll see what I can accomplish.

O Spring, Where Art Thou?

It has been a long 10 days. All of my volunteer obligations have been met, though, and I can give my attention to other tasks. Susan and I copied, folded, and taped 2400 homestead foundation newsletters on Wednesday, and Thursday. (After the first time I helped her, when we folded newsletters by hand, I bought a paper folding machine.) We got some offers of help but the timing didn’t work out so it was just the two of us. The copier needs a new fuser, though. I called the business machine company that has serviced it in the past. They are checking to see if replacement parts are still available. I bought this copier from our church about 20 years ago, and while it’s been great for the limited number of copies we make on it, I know that at some point, we’ll be out of luck.

The chicks got moved to the coop. They have recovered from their initial terror of the big chickens—Dave, in particular, wanted to know what was going on and paced around watching them—and are taking advantage of the additional space to run around. We have a flock of turkeys hanging out by the chicken coop. The two males strut around with their feathers up, gobbling and trying to impress the hens. No doubt we will see babies in another month or so.

Seedlings are up in the greenhouse and looking good. I pruned as much of the fruit trees as I could yesterday, although I need to get a ladder out there and there is still too much snow in the yard to position one securely. The weather forecast is saying 64 degrees on Monday, followed by a few days in the mid-40s before warming back up to the mid-60s.

I was able to get a photo of the front of the raffle quilt before our service Thursday night:

The colors are not quite right, but this will do until I can get a good shot outside in natural light. I like to photograph quilts on the side of our woodshed. It makes a good backdrop and the lighting is great. Unfortunately, there is still too much snow out there. (I might be saying that until July at the rate we’re going.)

I finished my Christmas class samples yesterday and will drop them off at the store next week. My sewing area(s) need to be throughly cleaned and reorganized. I’m spending way too much time looking for stuff I know I have. I also started an apron yesterday. I need about six more, but one is good.

Sinclair Patterns released a new design this week, the Delta Dress:

Karina at Lifting Pins and Needles did a review of the pattern. I like that is has princess seams. I also love that Sinclair Patterns includes a “tall” option in the pattern, which should cut down on the number of adjustments I need to make. I’ll make the longer length skirt version. Anything that ends at knee length on me looks weird.

It’ll be May, though, before I get back to making any clothing.

Men Should Not Name Quilts

Our little community here is known as Mountain Brook. The Mountain Brook Ladies Club has been in existence for many decades. I am on the board of the Mountain Brook Homestead Foundation, whose mission is to maintain and upgrade the 1927 schoolhouse and Community Center. The two groups work together. Last year, the Ladies Club made and donated a quilt to the Homestead Foundation which we raffled off. They made another quilt this year. I picked up the finished quilt last week and last night, I sewed the label on to the back:

The quilt is different every year. This year, it’s made from batiks and has a large center panel featuring a buck standing on a mountain looking out over a valley. I asked for a name for the quilt and Robin came up with “Mountain Splendor,” which I thought was perfect.

The husband wanted to see the quilt, so I unfolded it and held it up. He looked at the center panel—which also has black birds in the sky—and said, “You should call it ‘Something Died in the Valley’ because that looks like a flock of vultures circling.”

This man says the most inappropriate but hilarious things. He is forever reminding me that quilting is “cutting up big pieces of fabric into little pieces of fabric and sewing them back together into big pieces of fabric.” I have never been able to maintain righteous indignation about anything for long because he’ll make some comment and I’ll dissolve into giggles. It’s one of his superpowers and he wields it mercilessly.

[A thousand apologies to my friends who made this quilt. “Mountain Splendor” is a much better name.]

Now that I have the label sewn on, I’ll take the quilt to the church, hang it up, and get a good photo of it.

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I did not move the babies yesterday as planned because it never got above 40 degrees and snowed intermittently all day. We’ll try again today. Everyone is tired of this weather. It is the topic of conversation everywhere I go. And it doesn’t look like it will change any time soon.

The husband reminded me that I was praying for a long winter so that people would stop moving here. That is true. If I weren’t trying to grow half of the inventory for a plant sale, though, I’d be a bit more patient for better weather.

I spent the afternoon finishing up one of the class samples, although I still need one or two items that I wasn’t able to find in town. I tried to go to the yarn/embroidery store yesterday but they were closed, even though their sign said they should have been open. Shopping here is so frustrating sometimes.

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Episode 56 of the Sew & So Podcast features a recap of the Sewing and Stitchery Expo that Tera and I attended last month. This is a Bernina-sponsored podcast, so the perspective comes from that angle, but I thought it was a nice recap of the event, including a lot of the history. The host is excellent. She did an interview with Kaffe Fassett at Bernina University last summer and that episode is also worth a listen.

Imagining the Potential

Everything but the corn has been started in the greenhouse. Now we wait. I feel like we are weeks behind, but I think we will catch up by the time we need to put plants in the ground.

The garden is going to require some work:

The strawberry bed looks great. Everything else is a mess. I’ve got to move plastic around and rake up dead vegetation. The husband will plant potatoes for me as soon as the ground is workable, so we have been talking about what is going to go where. I try to shift things around from year to year to confuse the bugs.

I am moving the baby velociraptors to the chicken coop today. This is an aggressive bunch of chicks and I am worried they are going to start pecking at each other. The coop has a small, enclosed room. The chicks can see the big chickens and vice versa, but they are physically separated. The chicks will have plenty of room to run around.

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I let my inner magpie loose in the sewing room yesterday to play with shiny serger thread:

This is such a departure for me. I am not into bling, but I’m teaching a serger class called Christmas in July (in July) and I need class samples. Class samples might be made from a commercial pattern or they might come out of my head. Even if I am using a commercial pattern, I have to make it up at least once to identify potential student pitfalls. And if the class sample has to come out of my head, it almost always requires several iterations before I have something I can use. The process can be tedious.

I am working on three projects for this class. One project has a prototype—out of my head—that needs refinement. A second project is almost done; I need to get a few supplies to finish it. The third project has been through the testing phase and looks great.

The goal of this class is to make the projects, yes, but it’s also for students to learn some new techniques using glitzy threads. I used the Bernina L860 yesterday. I will also try some of these techniques on my Juki serger in case I have students who don’t have the fancy Bernina sergers. Fancy is nice, but I want these projects to be accessible to everyone.

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I’ve been having trouble getting a live person on the phone at BMW of Spokane. The husband wanted me to call and find out if the current fault code is related to the work they did back in September. I called again yesterday afternoon and someone finally answered. I gave my name and asked for Kevin, as I usually do, and the guy on the other end said," “He’s no longer here. He went to work at another dealership. My name is Josh. Can I help you with something?”

[Bummer. Kevin did not treat me like an idiot woman who knows nothing about cars, and now I have to break in a new tech. I might not be an expert, but I am conversant in the basics.]

I said, “Hi, Josh. You and I are about to become good friends.” I explained what was going on and of course, he wants me to bring the car in so they can hook it up and run a thorough diagnostic panel. Fortunately, the husband does not think this is a critical fix as it involves the heater in the diesel exhaust fluid tank and we’re heading into warm weather. He’s going to check the car again this weekend to make sure it’s not throwing any other codes (the check engine light is still on). I will figure out when I can get the car over there—Robin and I still need to take a trip to Spokane—and let the dealer take a look at it.

Someone consigned a 1999 BMW 328 sedan to the auction last week. I looked up the Kelly Blue Book value just in case I decided to bid on it. It had a gas engine, not diesel, but it had fewer miles on it than my station wagon and I thought it might be a nice beater car to keep around. (I did clear this plan with the resident BMW mechanic, although he wasn’t quite as enthusiastic about the idea as I was.) The car went for more than I would have paid so it was a moot point.

Pixie Dust

One of our homestead foundation fundraising committee members uses a phrase that I love. We were discussing, in our meeting last night, the fact that we have to limit registration for our kid activities because we don’t have enough adult helpers. She framed it as an opportunity to counter the belief that “Someone sprinkles pixie dust and things just happen.” We need to let parents know that if we had more adult helpers (parents), we could open up our kid activities to more children.

The pixie dust analogy applies to many situations these days. People expect that someone else will sprinkle pixie dust and poof!—things will happen.

Honestly, I don’t think most people understand that historically, life was hard. Even with all we do here at our place, we only get a small taste of that. If my crops fail, I can get food from the grocery store. If the husband forgets to load the wood boiler in the morning—or worse, doesn’t stack enough wood in the fall—our backup propane heat kicks in. A hundred years ago, a diagnosis of leukemia would have been a death sentence. Our lives are not difficult, all things considered.

Resilience has been lost, individually and socially. By removing obstacles and impediments from people’s lives, we’ve created a culture where people expect to be given everything with little to no effort. And that expectation causes many people to fold the moment things become tough.

I’ll fall off this soapbox soon, I promise.

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Montana PBS is airing a documentary right now on author Ivan Doig. (I believe it’s only available through PBS Passport, though, for PBS members.) I watched it last week. Ivan Doig’s books are near and dear to my heart. I was first introduced to them by my friend Kathy, back when we still lived in Pennsylvania. Kathy was reading Dancing at the Rascal Fair, the second book in Doig’s “Montana Trilogy.” (English Creek is the first, set in the 1930s. Rascal Fair is set in the late 1800s.) If you want a glimpse of what life as a sheepherder in northern Montana in the 1800s was like—and it was not for the faint of heart—Dancing at the Rascal Fair provides an excellent description. Doig’s trilogy is somewhat autobiographical, as he was raised by his sheepherding father and his grandmother in the part of Montana where the story takes place. To say that their way of life was tough is an understatement.

The third book in the trilogy is also special, and takes place in the 1980s:

DD#1 is named after one of the central characters, Mariah McCaskill. We chose that name while we were still back east—she was born in Baltimore—and practically no one had heard of it other than in association with the song “They Call the Wind Mariah.” When we moved out here, it seemed like every third little girl was named Mariah.

[Fun fact: The pass from Glacier Park over to the east side of the mountains is called Maria’s Pass, but Maria is pronounced like Mariah.]

Ivan Doig did a book signing in Kalispell some years ago and was kind enough to inscribe a copy of Ride With Me, Mariah Montana for DD#1. All together, he authored sixteen books before his death from multiple myeloma in 2015. If you can access the PBS documentary, I highly recommend it.

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I might be able to sneak in some sewing this morning—more class samples—before going out to the greenhouse this afternoon. I ought to start pruning fruit trees, too, but it is still hard to get around the yard with all the snow.

I sent an e-mail to the company in Seattle that sells industrial sewing machines. They have several used machines that would fit my needs and budget, so I will try to arrange a shopping trip there some time in the next couple of months. And the husband ordered a new piece of equipment this past weekend. We can’t take delivery until the fall, but at least the order is in.

A Shift in the Mood

I’ve worked a lot of Creston Auctions over the years. This weekend’s auction was different and I am trying to sort out why. The weather was awful, yes—cold, wind, and snow—but we’ve had successful sales even when the weather wasn’t great. We had lots of community support; one elderly lady who came to fill bags with trail mix told me she wasn’t sure she was contributing much, and I responded that to those of us who like to munch on trail mix all weekend, her efforts were greatly appreciated. Everyone pitches in and helps.

We didn’t have as much merchandise consigned to the equipment sale as in previous years. This was my view from the (enclosed and relatively warm) auction wagon:

That’s the husband on the right and our head auctioneer on the left. Amanda was manning the computer and I was up there to help her and provide a backup report of what sold.

The crowd seemed smaller and the auctioneers were having a hard time getting bids out of people. The mood has shifted. Pessimism would be one word for it. Grief might even be another—grief and sadness that something important has been lost with the influx of outsiders to this valley.

[I want to be clear that we came here from elsewhere, and we have lots of friends that came from elsewhere, but there is a huge difference between moving to a place and becoming part of the existing community and moving to a place and trying to change it into the place you left. We moved to Montana to live in Montana.]

We’ll have to see how the final numbers shake out. All funds raised will go toward the construction of our new fire station.

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I was approached over the weekend by a friend and asked if I would be open to considering a position on a volunteer board in the future. That request came out of the clear blue sky. I mentioned it to the husband, who asked me if he was supposed to hit me upside the head with a 2 x 4.

It is humbling that my name came up as a potential candidate for this position. The organization does important work for this community. However, I came home and looked at my calendar and reminded myself that I need to stop allowing the tail to wag the dog. I just finished four days at a fundraising auction. I have to chair a meeting for the homestead foundation fundraising committee this evening, which means organizing the agenda and getting reports sent out some time today. Susan and I need to copy and fold the quarterly homestead foundation newsletter this week—and it has to be done this week because I am teaching two serger classes next week. I have a few updates to make to the homestead foundation website. As soon as I sew the label on the quilt that the Ladies Club made for the annual homestead foundation raffle, I need to take it over to the church, hang it up, and take photos for the website.

And this is Holy Week and I have to play at our Maundy Thursday service.

I am the one who committed to these activities and I will follow through with them, but when I say that sometimes I feel like unpaid staff for these organizations, I am not kidding. I am handing off my auction duties. I plan to cut down my homestead foundation involvement next year to managing the website and being chairman of the plant sale. I only took over chairing the fundraising committee because our pastor, who retired last fall, also retired from his homestead foundation duties and I didn’t want us to lose the momentum we had built. I can’t keep spinning these plates, though, at the expense of shoving aside the things I want to do, like teach.

April is a wash, sewing-wise. I have to finish my class samples and bind the last baby quilt—which I finished quilting last week—but beyond that, not much else will be happening. Tomato seedlings are popping up and will need to be transplanted, and it’s time to start the next round of plants.

Sadly, I think our little deer got hit by a car. I saw a deer by the side of the road Thursday morning that had similar markings. She never went more than a day or two without coming by for a snack. I haven’t seen her since the middle of last week. I’ll be pleasantly surprised if she shows up, but I’m not holding out much hope.

The 57th Annual Creston Auction

We were fortunate enough to settle in an area that has a long tradition of community coming together to get things done. And not just little things, either. Some of our schools, fire stations, and even roads were built with donations and volunteer labor. Sadly, that community-driven mindset is disappearing as people now expect to be taken care of by the government.

This weekend is our fire department’s 57th annual Creston Auction. This event raises money for our department to buy gear and equipment. Whereas most fire districts go to their residents, hat in hand, our fire chief is committed to making as many improvements as possible without raising taxes. The auction is our big money-maker, but we also have smaller fundraisers throughout the year. We are raising money to build a new station.

The husband and I have been working at the auction since he joined the fire department in 1994. When the girls were little, my mother-in-law would come out and take care of them so he and I could have the week free. I started out helping my friend Pat, who ran the food section of the auction for many years. When I became treasurer of the firefighters’ association, I ran Finance, which was a huge job but one that I loved. (I really like keeping track of pennies.) The husband was head of Logistics for most of that time. A few years ago, he moved over to run the Sunday equipment sale, so I moved there to help him.

We snagged a young woman, Amanda, to help us at the equipment sale last year. She is part of the large family that helped start the Mennonite church here in 1913 and I’ve known her since she was a toddler because she and DD#2 took dance lessons together. She is a sharp cookie. I decided that 2023 would be my last year of being in charge of anything at the auction, so we’re training her to take over for me. Another young couple, Nick and Brittany, are also helping out. The husband would like Nick to take over for him, and Amanda and Brittany would run the administrative end of the sale.

Yesterday was our intake day—people bring items from 7 am to 7 pm and consign them to the sale. The equipment sale requires having a notary on hand to inspect titles and notarize them if necessary. Linda, who was the secretary at the elementary school my kids attended, was our notary for the first half of the day. We had a new notary helping us yesterday afternoon—a friend of Elysian’s—and she and I discovered within the first five minutes that we had grown up a few miles from each other in Ohio.

[Cue It’s a Small World, After All]

I mostly supervised and served as institutional memory. Amanda and Brittany did a great job and I have no worries about them taking over next year.

Today is the general merchandise sale so we get a break. Tomorrow will be our big day.

These are the kinds of events that undergird a strong community. There was a lot of catching up happening yesterday as people emerged from their homes after a long winter—which is not over yet—and talked to neighbors and friends they hadn’t seen for a while.

We’ll have to see what the buying crowds are like today as the weather is supposed to be cold and windy. I’ll be all bundled up in my long underwear, wool pants, wool socks, and Carhartt jacket. (There is no such thing as bad weather, just poor clothing choices.) Maybe we’ll come home with some goodies.

Lunch With the Ladies

On Monday, six of us met at a local assisted living facility to have lunch with one of the women from our church who lives there now. We’re hoping to make this a monthly occurrence. We used to do this about 20 years ago—DD#2 was in kindergarten at the time—when a group of us met monthly at another facility to have lunch with the mother of one of our members. Margaret probably remembers, as she was part of that group. The assisted living centers are quite happy to accommodate us.

We had a lovely time. The facility set us up in a private dining room and for $5, each of us got to have lunch. We chose our menus ahead of time. I had glazed ham. We visited and caught up with each other. I love these women. They are a wealth of knowledge and encouragement and they are the ones who taught me to quilt.

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I spent most of yesterday morning working on Mountain Brook Homestead Foundation stuff. I had to add information to the website and also send out a few administrative-type e-mails. I am chairman of the plant sale that will be held in May. We have our spring pie social at the beginning of May, and Sunnie is coordinating the Community Yard Sale that will be held at the end of June.

For the past two years, the Homestead Foundation has hosted a Garden Tour fundraiser, but we were having trouble getting people to agree to participate in a third one. Not everyone is willing to have strangers tromping through their property. I suggested that we contact Kim and Dave, owners of a nearby property, to see if we could partner with them for an event. Kim—who has a wealth of nonprofit fundraising experience and is a delight to work with—responded enthusiastically. We are planning a “Picnic at the Plaid Swan” for August 5.

Locals may recognize Plaid Swan as the former Avalanche Ranch. The 60-acre property is located about half a mile up the road from us and has an interesting history. Back in 1999, the husband and his then-business partner got the contract to build a guest house, a caretaker’s house, two guest cabins, and a barn on the property. They worked on that job for almost two years. The main house was built by another contractor. A few years later, the owners divorced. The wife got the property as part of the settlement but had trouble maintaining it. It went onto the market for 26 million dollars, then sat. Eventually, everything down to the HVAC system was sold and the property reverted to the bank. I went there with Cathy and her husband and a real estate agent sometime in 2017 or so and saw first-hand how the property had deteriorated.

A few years ago, a woman called our number and said she and her husband were thinking about buying the property and could they ask some questions? They talked to the husband, who filled them in on the history. By then, the price had dropped considerably. That woman turned out to be Kim. She and her husband did indeed buy the property and have been working on it for about three years. They have brought it back to its former beauty and then some. Dave raises llamas and alpacas. The guest houses are rented out as Airbnbs.

We will be selling tickets for a picnic lunch and an afternoon at the Plaid Swan that will include the opportunity to stroll the many gardens—Kim planted 500 lavender plants last year (!)—pet the animals, enjoy demonstrations by our local spinner’s guild, shop vendor booths, and visit with local artists who will be set up throughout the property.

You can take a look at the properties and see some of the amazing transformation by visiting the websites at https://plaidswanranch.com and https://redryderllamas.com. We are very excited about this event and hope it becomes an annual tradition.

Symptoms of Decline

The husband had my car up on the lift Saturday to change the oil. He found this:

He said to me, “Did you run over something?”

No. I know exactly how this happened. (It’s a bit of a convoluted story, so bear with me.) Some years ago, all of our mail began being shipped to Missoula to be processed. This was explained to us as being “more efficient,” (?) and because we care about climate change, if I want to send a piece of mail to someone in Kalispell, that piece of mail now makes a 240-mile round trip to Missoula and back. The only way to avoid that nonsense is to take it town and deposit it in the “local mail” box at the post office on Meridian.

Ever since then, if I have local mail—and yes, I do pay bills online, but sometimes contractors need to send hard copies of items to each other—I will make a special trip to the local deposit box at the post office and put it in the box.

I’ve been going through that mailbox drive-through for 20+ years. A few weeks ago, I went through and deposited some mail, then maneuvered out to the street to continue on my way. Unbeknownst to me—I had to drive around the block and come back and look at it to see what had happened—the street has sunk to a level several inches below the drive-through lane.

My car rides low to the ground to begin with. That is rarely an issue, even with all the snow we get here. But that difference in road levels was enough of a precipice, at the correct angle, that I hit it. And I forgot to mention it to the husband.

He assures me it is not structural. Of course, no one would be accountable for the damage even if it were. An apartment complex went up across the street from that post office about four years ago. I wonder if in the process of building it, something happened that caused the road to sink. As the husband noted, that’s usually because water is flowing somewhere that it shouldn’t be.

And now you get a mini-sermon on the decline of empires—and the decline of the American empire, specifically. This sermon has been building for a while.

Nothing works anymore, including people. The economy is a house of cards waiting for a gust of wind. Stuff breaks much sooner than it should. Infrastructure is crumbling, literally. The entire government is corrupt—and don’t tell me that your side is holier than the other, because it isn’t. The president is obviously senile. No one is held accountable for anything. Kids aren’t learning how to read and write, and heaven help us when those kids become the adults in charge. The USPS, certainly no model of fiscal responsibility, thinks that sending our mail to another city to be processed is somehow more efficient than processing it here.

I am constantly surprised at the capacity of human beings to ignore what is right in front of them. (You would think I would have gotten over that surprise, but apparently not.)

Nelsonian Knowledge: The phrase, first referenced as ‘blind-eye knowledge,’ is attributable to Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, 1st Duke of Bronté (better known simply as Lord Nelson) holding a telescope to his blind eye and claiming to see no ships. —Engineering News

All around me, people are claiming not to see any ships and it is absolutely maddening. Just because you choose to ignore something doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist or isn’t happening. On the other hand, I understand that for many people, acknowledging the current state of affairs would send them around the bend. Denial is a coping mechanism.

The Self-Reliance Festival was held this past weekend in Camden, Tennessee. Nicole Sauce, who hosts the Living Free in Tennessee podcast, posted a clip from SRF on her channel. The speaker is CJ Kilmer, former college professor-turned podcaster. (His Dangerous History podcast is now his full-time means of support.) There is nothing inflammatory or subversive in this clip; he simply lays out historical parallels to what we are seeing now. His talk is about 30 minutes long and well worth watching.

And if you need me, I’ll be over here polishing my tinfoil hat and making sure I can see clearly out of my telescope, because I prefer to be prepared for what is coming at us.

A Couple of Fun Laundry Day Tees

Life is too short to wear boring clothes. These are two recent Laundry Day Tees. The first is my fruit and vegetable one:

The fabric is a rib-knit rayon blend from the Walmart mystery rack. I plan to wear this at the plant sale. I might take that neckband off, though, and re-do it. I made it wider and I’ve since decided I don’t like them that wide.

This second one is my favorite:

I prefer that narrower neckband. This fabric is a double-brushed polyester, also from the Walmart mystery rack. The lighting washed out the green; it is even more intense than it appears here.

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I spent a couple of hours out in the greenhouse yesterday afternoon and got the rest of the tomatoes and peppers planted, as well as broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage. I’ll start the cucumbers and squash after the auction. Seedlings have popped up in the tray of tomatoes I planted last week. The trays have plastic covers, and I laid some boards on top just to make sure that no mice could get into them. We have a heater running and a backup heater just in case.

I also made up another prototype for one of my classes this summer and it turned out very well. I need to pick up some thread at the quilt store today because I want to try a few variations.

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I’m not sure what it is this year, but I am feeling weight of responsibility more than usual. I said to the husband last night that I know I am overwhelmed when I fantasize about running away—taking a road trip—and ignoring all the demands on my time for a while.

One of my friends came up to me after church and said that she wanted to thank me for playing the piano. We’ve had more than the usual amount of music in our services recently, including some new songs that require extra work on my part to learn. I was touched that she noticed and said something to me. The song leader also thanked me before the service, but I suspect that to most people, I’m mostly invisible unless something goes horribly wrong.

I’m working on divesting myself of some obligations. I’ve said no to several recent requests for help. I’m training someone to take over my responsibilities for the equipment sale at the fire department auction so I can retire after this year. We’re going to have to find a few more people to head up some of the homestead foundation fundraising events. This is a process, though, and right now, I just need to get through the month of April.

[I recently ran across the phrase performance punishment. In a nutshell, it’s when people who do a good job tend to get loaded down with even more work while everyone else skates. I think it’s why the phrase, “If you want something done, ask a busy person to do it” annoys me so much. I see this happening a bit with my girls—those apples did not fall far from the tree—and I’d like to help them avoid it.]

The husband changed the oil in the BMW yesterday. It’s also throwing another fault code. I have to call Kevin this morning because the issue might be related to the part they replaced last fall and thus under warranty. The husband also fixed a brake light issue. The car has some damage underneath, and I’m a bit more than irritated about it because the damage wasn’t my fault. I’ll get the picture he took from his phone and post it tomorrow. He assures me the damage is not structural (it’s a “battle scar”), but it annoys me nonetheless.