Yet More "Life" Thoughts

Today we celebrated our youngest grand daughters first birthday (which was actually yesterday). As I stood there holding her and listening to her laugh and take her first steps, I remembered back 2 months ago when we didn't know if she would see this day. As she was being flown to Vanderbilt Children's Hospital, basically on life support, I remember thinking that we could actually NOT see her 1st birthday without the Lords intervention. I for one am humbled that He saw fit to answer our prayers for healing and that we have the joy of celebrating the first of MANY birthdays with her. I realize yet again that there's nothing like a major crisis to put things in perspective!

TA-DA!

Proof that there is actual progress in the matching sweater project. This is the "test batt" that we carded on the Super Carder and since its rolled up nice and neat, I don't want to unroll it to get a measurement. The carder managed the 2 ounces of blended fiber without as much as a hiccup so I would say that my math appears to be correct....so far. The next step will be for Susie to start spinning and then do a test swatch to test for both gauge and drape. Assuming that the test swatch works fine, I will then start weighing out fibers into small bags and the carding of the next 100 batts will begin in earnest.

Sweater Update

Way back "when" we posted a picture of our pile of gray wool that we were amassing for a "His and Hers" sweater project. (Remember that?) Today I FINALLY finished weighing all the individual fibers for a total weight and started doing the math to figure out the blending ratios. After cleaning out the so-called sun room a few weeks ago and setting up a table our daughter salvaged from the library, I now have a place to work other than the dinning room table. We ended up with 6 different fiber sources going into this project and I gave myself a headache working the percentages of each to go into the blended batts. We now have the test bags weighed out (4.6, 5.7, 7.0, 8.3, 13.1, & 18.1 grams) and ready to put through the drum carder. The final fiber content is going to be a 50/50 blend of wool and alpaca....unless we see something in the blending, spinning, and swatch knitting process we don't like. If my calculations are correct, we will end up making 101 blended batts that Susie will then get to spin and ply before starting the knitting. And believe it or not, we actually have the pattern picked out already too!

Things here remain the same. The weather is calling for a freeze warning tonight so we went and picked the Muscadine grapes, the rest of the tomatoes and peppers and covered the Pima cotton in preparation. I am REALLY praying that the cotton manages to survive through this since as of now, we have managed an entire harvest of 4 whole bolls! The cotton on these 4 has been WONDERFUL and has a much longer staple length than the colored cotton we grew last year so we'd really like to get more than a Q tips worth. Other than the weather, work continues to be a "challenge" ...and I will leave it at that! Our granddaughter is doing very well after the ordeal with being Life Flighted but our son and his family were in an accident right after getting back from spending 10 days with Liberty in the hospital. This wreck put 4 of the 5 of them in the ER and totaled their car....so life continues to be interesting.

Cotton Bolls

Proof that our Pima cotton is growing and producing bolls. If the weather holds out, the next step in the process will be the bolls opening to reveal the white Pima fibers inside. The problem we usually have is the weather turns cold and we have to attempt to cover the rows to give the plants every day of growing possible. What we HAVE learned though is that unless the fiber matures ON the plant, they don't develop completely and the fiber strength is severely compromised. In years past, we usually wait till the plants can't survive any longer outside, then cut the woody branches, remove the leaves, and bring them into the house to hang and dry. The "thought" was that they would continue to somewhat develop but after ginning all the brown and green cotton from last year, I think that what doesn't fully mature, isn't worth the effort. (But that's just MY opinion!)

Our Old House

While up in Illinois, we HAD to drive by our old house just to see what it looked like. This was the house we bought back in 1983 and I would give my eye teeth for this house again! I for one was rather disappointed that they owners have repainted it a green since we had heat stripped the house from roof peak to foundation and had it painted a 2 tone brown with the same colors of trim. Also, the fence has now been removed on 3 sides and even though I love plantings, the place now has a rather over grown look to it. Oh well, it IS their house now but still.....I'd change things back if I could own it again!

Road Trip!

This past weekend, we made a road trip back to Illinois to attend a wedding and I FINALLY remembered to take my camera to get a picture of this sign. We have seen this sign on I-65 in Kentucky a few miles past Cave City for years and I've always wanted a picture of it since most people don't believe me when I tell them about it. Having grown up in the mid-west in a small farming community, this has always tickled me and I even though I understand the meaning of the sign, I have to wonder how many people look at it and wonder what they were used FOR! (Don't forget to kick the hooves before buying!)

New Discovery

During the time our youngest grand daughter was hospitalized, Susie and I were able to care for our other 2 grand kids here at the farm. One of the nice things about being out here instead of in the "city" is discovering weird critters! I have to admit that when they found this thing, I didn't have a clue what this was. We were able to do a little investigation and found that this is actually the caterpillar for the Luna moth. The Luna moths are one of the summer times great pleasures for me. I don't remember ever seeing them growing up in Illinois and the first time we saw one down here I kinda freaked out! They are a BEAUTIFUL large green moth with cool wings that love to fly around our windows at night. One of these days I will attempt to get a picture of one and post it. Until then, just imagine this flying around gracefully!

Lessons In Perspecive

Another reason for the length between postings is some of the "life lessons" we have encountered this summer have been rather intense. Besides the lack of rain, the unreal heat and humidity, a plethora of financial setbacks, a less than ideal work situation that has gotten progressively worse since the beginning of the year, and a number of health and dental issues with Susie and myself, we recently dealt with a life threatening situation with our youngest granddaughter. On August 27th, we were here at the farm working on the gray sweater project (STILL!) when we got a call from our son asking for prayer for Liberty, our 10 month old granddaughter and his youngest child. Liberty had been fussy and this fussiness had been attributed to an ear infection and teething but when she had gotten sick that morning and became very lethargic, they took her to the pediatrician who in turn sent her to the local hospital. At the hospital, they noticed that she was having a difficult time breathing and even though x-rays didn't show any problems in her lungs, she continued to not respond. The decision was finally made to call in the Vanderbilt Life Flight helicopter to transport her to Nashville. Prior to transport, they decided to insert a breathing tube which we later found out probably saved her life. During the flight her breathing stopped and the EMT's had to manually give her air. Once in Nashville her blood sugar level was found to be at 440 so the initial diagnosis was infant diabetes. Liberty ended up staying at Vanderbilt Children's Hospital for 10 days and is now home and well on her way to a TOTAL and COMPLETE healing and we believe it will be a healing that eventually will mean one without the need of daily insulin shots!

Having said all this, the "perspective" lesson we learned was that even in the midst of all this stress and worry, the little 3 year old girl in the next room was dealing with cystic fibrosis.....ALONE! Her father, we learned, was a patient at the other Vanderbilt Hospital and her mother was hours away having to take care of other children. Even alone though, she had the sweetest spirit and stood in the doorway and waved at everyone going past her room. This little girl was really able to put "life" into a perspective that touched our hearts and we pray daily for her healing as well. What I've learned is the truth in the old saying that no matter what your dealing with, someone has it as bad or worse. We've had work issues....but I am at least working! We've had financial issues, but we still can pay our bills! It's been hot and dry here, but we have not dealt with what Texas and the East Coast has had to deal with! All in all, regardless of what it may look like, things are really not that bad!

Romans 5:3-6

More over (let us also be full of joy now!) let us exult in triumph in our troubles and rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that pressure and affliction and hardship produce patient and unswerving endurance. And endurance (fortitude) develops maturity of character (approved faith and tried integrity). And character (of this sort) produces (the habit of) joyful and confident hope of eternal salvation. Such hope never disappoints or deludes or shames us, for God's love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit Who has been given to us. While we were yet in weakness (powerless to help ourselves), at the fitting time Christ died for (in behalf of) the ungodly.

The Amplified Bible

FINALLY Another Posting!

I have really been meaning to post on here for over a month but, as usual, life just seems to move faster than I am able at times to keep up with. Like most of the nation, we have had to deal with a lot of bizarre weather this summer. This has been some of the hottest, driest weather I can remember since moving to Tennessee and I'd say the closest our spring had EVER come to running dry! Prior to some rain that we got September 4th, we hadn't had a drop in over 9 weeks! This was also one of the first times I've seen it so dry we weren't even getting any dew in the mornings. The plus side to this was that until this week, I hadn't had to mow our 4 plus acres in 2 months (which was fine with me). The problem was that the cotton, along with all the other vegetables in the garden, came close to dying. With the spring down to a trickle, we had to carry water to each individual plant in a watering can just to keep things alive. The growing delay means that we are just NOW getting tomatoes and peppers and while the cotton is looking really good, I'm going to have to pray that they develop mature bolls before frost. Since I still have never figured out how to add multiple pictures to this blog, I will be posting several more times today as I attempt to bring it up to date with whats going on. As you can see, the cotton is looking much better than back in July when I posted a picture of it before. Stay tuned for another update in a moment!

Summer Update!

Here you go....the 2011 Pima Cotton Crop to date! Susie counted and I think we have 33 plants (out of several hundred we planted!). Not what I would call a very good result but at least we have SOMETHING to look forward to! As of this date, they are still small but looking very healthy so only time will tell if they will mature enough to make bolls. Actually everything in the garden is still small so I'm not real sure just what the problem is but I'm guessing that it's time to apply a few tons of compost and fertilizer to the beds again and dream about large crops NEXT year!

Maybe a year ago....I can't remember when...I posted about a project we were working on that included a number of gray fleeces we've purchased. The project is a pair of matching sweaters for which we are blending 2 Shetland fleeces....1 mix breed fleece and 2 alpaca fleeces along with several pounds of alpaca top that I bought pre-processed into top. I'm glad to say that by the time the weekend is over, I will be down to only ONE alpaca fleece to work on before we start the math end of the project where we weigh out each separate fiber then figure the blend percentages...then start carding samples on the Super Carder for Susie to spin and once we hit upon a blend we like and works well on the knitting needles, the carding process will begin! This has been a much bigger project than I realized but hopefully we will be able to wear these sweaters before we retire!

"Life on the farm is ANYTHING but laidback!"

The year continues to be a weird and wild one! Our weather here has been from one extreme to the other with temperatures being way cold to over the top HOT! And of course, right in the middle of the hot spell, our 30+ year old window AC unit decided to call it quits! Every year we wonder if this is "the year" it dies and sure enough, this was it. Our daughter had a small window unit she wasn't using anymore that we installed to replace the old unit but try as it might, I don't think its big enough to help a whole lot. Really, out here in the woods the goal is not so much to cool the house as it is to take the humidity out of the air. High humidity and the problems accompanying it are more pronounced in the woods and hollars than when we lived in town. (At least the dehumidifier in the basement has held up and I'm doing "stair laps" 2 or 3 times a day to empty it!)

Snakes continue to be an ever present problem this spring and early summer which is not normal at ALL! Even the cats walk through the yard as if they are about to step on a mine. We usually don't have to be this cautious until later in the fall when they begin their shedding and get much more aggressive.

Most of the garden is in but for some reason nothing seems to be growing! I'm not sure what to attribute that too but we should be picking our first tomatoes by now and yet they are still only a matter of a few inches tall! The cotton is just sitting there and about the only thing that looks like it's doing anything are the lima beans. (While the garden doesn't seem to be growing the grass is growing JUST fine!)

On the fiber scene, I had a printing supply salesman stop in the shop a few months ago that I found out raised Alpacas. Last week he brought in 4 bags of samples from this years clip for Susie and I to look at and try out. I scoured them this past week and combed them last night so tomorrow I will take them back to the shop to weigh on the digital scale and see what percentage of loss we had. These are some REALLY nice samples and I'm looking forward to not only Susie spinning them up, but also driving over towards Nashville to visit this breeders farm. Maybe we will have to buy some more fiber....after all.....it's IMPOSSIBLE to have too much!!!!

Weird Spring!

To say that "life" has continued to be weird around here would be a gross understatement! Part of the reason there is sooooo much time between blog postings goes back once again to the old adage of if you don't have anything nice (or positive) to say then don't say anything! Well.... with that in mind I probably should just post a picture and not write much because it's been pretty un-positive. While we have graciously been spared the death and devastation the weather has been dealing out to areas like Joplin and Tuscaloosa, we have had our share of weather issues. Here we are almost into June and Susie and I are JUST now getting into the garden to turn ground and plant. With a 40 mile drive to work each day, I try to keep my eyes open for every one's gardening progress and I must say that I am seeing very, very few gardens that have been planted or even worked up so I guess it's not just us. (Somehow I find very little comfort in that!) As far as the Pima cotton progress goes after planting close to 300 plants, I THINK we have 30+ that have survived and they look really bad! At this rate, IF we get a harvest, we may be able to make "his and hers" matching Q tips.

As you can see from the picture, we are already dealing with "nasties " which is really out of the norm since we usually don't have to worry about these bad boys till in the fall! I've already scored one rattler and one copperhead so far and Susie has one copperhead under her belt so far as well. It's getting to the point you don't venture through the door unless you scan the ground FIRST!

Cotton Update!

OK.....I haven't lost it QUITE that bad....I realize that this is NOT a cotton picture! Actually it's a picture of the columbine (Aquildgia canadensis to be exact) that grows out our back door but I wanted to see if anyone was paying attention.

As far as the cotton goes, I'm starting to wonder if there is going to be much to report this year. We have already planted and RE-planted the crop and from the looks of things, it could stand to be re-re-planted but at this point in time, there isn't time to start again and get a crop from it. I'm not sure if the poor growth as been caused by cold temperatures, lack of sun light, the fact I used newspaper starting cells, or if it's just the way Pima is. I was suppose to have growing shelves with heat pads and grow lights done before we started these seeds but the planer broke and we ended up spending too much time finding parts and repairing it to wait till it was finished. Next season should see it finished and i hope it makes a big difference. Although it's been years since we raised white Pima, memory tells me that we had this problem last time as well! Depending on how this all plays out, I think we may well go back to the open pollinated heirloom colored cotton next year....assuming there IS a next year growing season.

Susie and I spent yesterday out in the garden hand turning ground and putting as much of what was left in hopes that maybe it would get growing but the ground is still rather cold and of course we had yet ANOTHER storm come through early this morning! We are praying for whats IN and praying for a break in the crazy weather so we can get the rest in....not to mention the never ending mowing! To date we have all the yard mowed but haven't been able to do either of the fields yet which stinks. The grass is already almost taller than our poor mower can handle and with push mowing over 4 acres, ANYTHING that causes problems or delays really causes a snowball of problems. Besides the cruddy weather, the gas prices are going to be really interesting with this years mowing. We took our cans into town yesterday and filled up and spent more for just this time than we use to spend for an entire season!


On a positive note, not only have we been spared the death and destruction that others in the south have faced this past week, but the wild flowers were really amazing this spring! We were worried what they would be like since the area around us had been basically clear cut last year and things are REALLY tore up. Some of the flowers we are use to seeing were gone but others were spread far and wide. The biggest thing we have missed this year were the mushrooms. With all the habitat gone, we have only found one to date....but it was sure good!

Out The Back Door!

Meet Paul Pima!

I guess it COULD be Pauline Pima since I really don't know if it's a girl or a boy cotton plant. (And I hope everyone knows I'm making a joke) There is a growing number of the seeds germinating so I couldn't resist taking a picture of one of this years plants. Stay tune....either Susie or I will keep posting the cotton progress.

That Was FAST!

No pictures yet but after planting the Pima cotton last Saturday afternoon, I am pleased to announce that our FIRST seedling has "crowned" this afternoon.....only 5 DAYS from planting!!!! Now, if the rest of the little buggers will just come up, life will be good....well...at least BETTER! We also soaked some of the old dark brown cotton seeds from several years ago in a "tea" of water and Miracle Grow which we read helped the germination rate on possibly non-viable seed. These were planted today so time will tell if this will work.

Cotton Seed

And last but not least, here is the bag full of Pima cotton seed. After filling the 3 flats, you can't tell I've even opened the bag! I guess the next big question to be answered is how to store them for next year to retain their viability. (I would have done these 3 postings as one post but I have YET to figure out how to place more than 1 picture in these blogs without them being stacked on top of each other and the wording doing weird things around them. Sorry!)

P.S. It's also come to my attention that in years past, people talking to themselves was viewed as "abnormal" and could get you locked up. Now a days its called blogging and people actually follow you talking to yourself! Kinda weird if you ask me!

Cotton Continues

Here are 2 of the 4 flats with the planing cells all rolled up but not yet filled. The three that I did for the Pima held 32 per flat giving us only 96 plants if they all make it. I had hoped to put in a lot more than this but with food prices going the way they are, I think I had better use the garden space for FOOD rather than fiber. I've searched for a recipe for Cotton Soup but haven't found one. (I hope you know I AM joking!)

With the growing season bearing down on us, we decided early on that this year we were going to try our hand again at white Pima cotton. A number of years ago we raised Pima and a small amount of brown cotton and after planting all colored cotton last year, thought we would try our hand with white this time. One of the biggest problems we have faced in the past is finding enough peat pots to plant all the cotton seed since cotton does NOT take to transplanting well at all. This year we are going to try this Pot Maker which uses strips of newspaper to make planting cells. In theory it sounds like a good idea but time will tell! I spent some time today with the paper cutter from our bookbinding tools making 3.5" x 12" strips of newspaper and rolling them into cute little planting pots and filling up 4 flats.....3 of white Pima and 1 flat of some very old DARK brown seeds from the first planting we did years ago. We have no idea if the brown will even germinate but we are praying that at least a few of them will since the color was so very much darker and intense a brown than either of the ones we grew last year.

Spring?

Here we are at the end of March and I THINK we may finally be seeing some signs of spring around the hills of Tennessee. I really don't care what "they" say about this winter being mild....it was NOT in this part of the country so phooey on the global warming crud. It's been some time since I posted and even longer since I emailed those few people that are considered "friends". I find it increasingly hard to put a positive spin on all the crud going on in our lives here at the farm and at work so rather than just keep passing on depressing news, I've gone silent instead. Today, however, Susie and I did spend the day getting the years cotton planted in flats so maybe getting outside and doing some work soon will help with the attitude problems that I'm having. As soon as I get the pictures shot of the flats, I will post them as well. We are really wanting to keep better notes this year on the cotton progress and outcome and PRAYING that we will not have to deal with floods again this year like we did last!

The Boy Who Cried WOLF!

No, I'm not going to tell the old story about the boy that cried wolf....this is the story about a bit of commissioned spinning that Susie recently finished. A young man from around here advertised for someone to spin some special "wool" for him which turned out to be undercoat combings from his dog which is part wolf. We met with him and looked the fiber over and Susie took the work. There were almost 6 ounces of fiber that averaged less than an inch in length which proved to be somewhat of a challenge but since Susie can spin cotton and other short staple fiber, she prevailed! Tomorrow we are meeting him in town to deliver the finished 3 skeins which he is taking to his mother to have knit into something for him to wear.