BarnHeart

Over the weekend, I read the book Barnheart by Jenna Wonginrich. It is a memoir of a twenty-something with no background in agriculture who desires a farm. And rather than waiting for some distant future in which she has sufficient capital to *poof* a farm into existence, she starts building it now. I loved this book and its message not to wait for some amorphous future, but to start fulfilling your desires now, especially since there's no reason not to start learning now. [This description is awful and sounds like it was written for a second-grade homework assignment, but the book is written by someone with skills and a sense of humor.]

Coincidentally, the seeds I ordered for my garden also arrived this weekend, which is good, since this book gave me an itch. The first year, we lived in this house, we tried growing a bit of this and that, and ended up with a pitiful year. The next year, I decided to focus on just growing lots of herbs. Now having had success with the herbs, I'm going to branch out a little into a few vegetables in a mixed bed using a permaculture technique. Not sure how this will go since we only get partial sun and the landlord apparently likes to spray all non-garden, non-grassy patches with weedkiller. I'm working on building a new layer of organic material in the area by decomposing a large pile of leaves, which I water diligently to get the moisture up. Maybe with the warm winter it will be dirt by spring.

By the way, "barnheart" is a term the author coined to describe a disease that starts out with the desire to get a few chickens and progresses into the realization that it would be even better if these chickens were on a farm with some sheep and a tractor. I, however, am not in danger of having this disease. All I want is a large garden, a few fiber rabbits, and maybe a sheep (I really want a sheep).

The Beautiful Life

This has been a tough week. I've spent most of it flat on my back with a cold. The kind where I can totter around for a little while, but only if I'm willing to lay down for an equal amount of time moving as little as possible.

But there have been a couple of bright spots. Being stuck in bed with a brain that's only half functional leaves a lot of time for reading. I've read about two thirds of Made From Scratch by Jenna Woginrich, a book about small-scale homesteading (the link is to Amazon, but I'm borrowing my copy from the library. I love libraries. They're free, and if you end up with dud, you bring it back, no harm done. And if you really like something and it will be used often, then you can buy it on Amazon knowing it will be a keeper). What appeals to me about this book on homesteading is that it's all about filling your life with beautiful things made by your own hands. That's what I want most in my life. I'm not ready for chickens or bees, yet, but I'm slowly growing my garden and someday, somehow, I think I might get a rabbit or two.

I've also started using Pandora, and finally after all this time, I've found somewhere with the music speaks to me. Contemporary Folk. That's me. Music that makes me forget everything except that the world is a beautiful miracle.

My weird, slightly wilted herb garden, sturdily defended from squirrels and cats.

Hippopotamus

Yay! for buying sprinkles for the first time.

Horray! for the cookie cutter my Dad got me.

IT'S A HIPPOPOTAMUS!!!

Sky on Fire

Finally a finished project!

My BF bought me this beautiful yarn for my birthday a year or two ago, and I finally found the perfect project. This is a pooling colors scarf that really shows off the hand-dyed yarn. It's also my first blocked lace project. I was surprised what a difference it made. It brought out the stitch pattern and transformed it from a lumpy scarf to a smooth, elegant stole.

If you're a knitter, you can find me on Ravelry: vanimaandune

Doings

Black Raspberry-Gooseberry Jelly

Traded two jars of finished jelly for the gooseberries. They're such a pretty shape. They remind me of slightly fantastical hot air balloons.

Berries ready for cooking. I picked the black raspberries myself.

Battle scars.

Frog at Battelle-Darby Creek Metro Park.

In April, I went to the annual Salvation Army fabric sale. I finally got all the cottons cleaned, pressed, and sorted (and put away!). A few of these fabrics were picked up elsewhere, but most of them came from the SA fabric sale and cost a total of $4. Yay, thrifty! Probably not fabrics to make art quilts out of, but definitely good enough for experimenting and learning to machine quilt.

Handspun Yarn

Here is my first yarn spun on a spinning wheel. It's a little odd and lumpy in places, but that's ok. Next time, I'm going to try to spin more intentionally and pay more attention to what I want the final product to look like. #1 on the list is spinning a bulkier yarn, since I would rather knit with something thicker. #2 is trying to get the twist more balanced.

Water Down the Drain

We lose a lot of water down the drain. When I go to take a shower, I usually let the water run until it gets hot. So I lose about a 1/2 gallon of water on every shower. Since there are two of us in the house, that amounts to about 365 gallons per year (assuming one shower each, every day). We aren't living under drought conditions, but that's no reason to waste all that water, and besides it costs money. We're charged about 50 cents per cubic foot of water (1 cubic foot = ~7.5 gallons), which works out to about $50/year. In the grand scheme of things, that's not a lot of money, but again, there's no reason to put that much money down the drain (hehe).

I was inspired by a post on Radiant Things about how she saves water. Now, when we run the water to get the shower to warm up, we catch the water in an old detergent bottle and use it to water our garden. Maybe it only saves us a little money, maybe it won't save the planet, but really, there's no reason not to.