That Dream is Getting Closer

I've been busy doing research and acquiring funding for my self-sufficient farm. Over the course of the last year I've found many potential properties however they all sold out from under me. This last one seems to be staying which is making me very happy. It's on 7.6 acres and most of it's fenced for animals which saves me a ton of work. Plus it has one of the coolest barns. It does seem like the homes are becoming more suited to what I need them to be.

Like usual I'm getting ahead of my self in the since that I'm planning where everything is going to go to the best advantage. It's got a small pond at the very back of the property that I plan to plant my orchard by, as well as the mushrooms. At some point in the future I may build my earth home there, or at least a small cottage I can rent out. Then a garden and some bees and chickens. In the end I hope to have a permaculture going on.

I should stop for now and work on getting the rest of my funding. I just can't help it that my mind is making plans in my sleep.

True Potato Fruit

So I've done some research and discovered that the balls on my potato plants are the actual fruit. What I have to do is slice the fruit open and remove the itty bitty seeds then clean the slime off so they'll germinate. I can't wait to plant them next spring.

I've got most of my produce pulled out for the season. Already I have two servings of tomato sauce and looking at the amount of tomatoes I just picked I might get two more. I'm even giving away stuff. The last of my bok choy is going to my sister with some tomatoes and snap peas. Peas and tomatoes for Daniel's mother. I'm weeks away from digging up the potatoes!

Between the dog and me I'm lucky to be taking home any peas or tomatoes. For every handful I put in my bag we ate 1. One thing he wouldn't eat was the bok choy. Must be an acquired taste. Daniels not a fan either. Trouper likes

I am being silly as well. I've got lavender sprouting in my window sill. Probably should have started it in the spring but a coworker gave me some seeds a few weeks ago so I was like what the heck!

The Kilt

Okay so it's been a while since my fingers have navigated here. All in all my garden was a success. I've already made two batches of tomato sauce and since I didn't feel like making any more at the moment I brought them all to work for my coworkers to enjoy. I've also had a lot of beans which I've proceeded to make some dilly beans out of. One has jalapenos the other doesn't. I might make some more as my bean plants are thriving. The baby beans are just so cute! I'll post photos later. But again I have a bumper crop and have brought a boat load to work. The bok choy has given me more than I can eat as well though of the three I managed to grow one bolted. Again my spinach bolted! Such a tricky plant. Come the end of this month I'll start digging up my potatoes. I'm excited about that. Of course I know I'll have more than I can eat before they start sprouting.

CRAFTING:

For my cousin I'm making a kilt. I think he should like it. I'm going to attempt to find a silver smith to make a kilt pin with our family crest and locate some tartan that has our colors. It should be a unique and well loved project. At least it will be close to my heart!

The shrug's coming slow. Sadly I'm not really liking it anymore. I will however finish it! Once I finish the other sleeve as much as I can with my pink yarn I'll have to go out and get some in gray. I ran out of that pink and can't seem to find the same dye lot so I opted for another color.

As I'm working through it I've thought of another way to knit it. I'll try that next.

I've almost finished the embroidered bib. All I have left is to attach straps, so I'll need some Velcro and ribbon or make some straps from extra fabric. It's a pain to make but I hope people like it. I'm working on a second one as I wait for the money to hit up Joanns for the Velcro.

Oh boy what else am I working on?! Oh! A wee dress. It's for two little girls ... okay technically it's two li'le dresses. For Mallory it's going to have a butterfly embroidered on the skirt, perhaps many wee butterflies flying up and around the skirt. This idea started when she saw me embroidering the bib and asked if it was for her. Only small children are cute in their selfishness. Then she asked if I could make her one so I told her I'd make a dress for her and asked if she'd like a butterfly.

I have so many projects right now I'm not sure I've listed them all. All well!

REAL LIFE:

In real life I'm teaching myself Japanese. I had been trying to convince a coworker/friend to teach me but that wasn't working out so well. So now I've got an audio book and I'm going to attempt to get onto mango languages and learn it. Then when she calls me ... if she ever calls me I'll answer in Japanese. I'm sure it'll amuse her. She can laugh at my accent or mess ups ... that is of course if she can understand me!

Not to mention that my crafting time is being cut really short. I've got 4 jobs now! It's crazy! Two are serious part time gigs the other two are random odd jobs. My taxes are going to be fun this year! Oh, and my house hunt! I'm so excited to be able to tell my cousin to start looking again!

Photos to come!

The Garden V

Went over to mother's today to play in the garden. Pulled all the weeds along that back by the field then dumped some poppy seeds down. Hope to see a pretty line in a few weeks. Got the idea when mom mentioned how pretty it would be to have a wall of sunflowers. Lacking that yellow giant I opted for the red poppy. Not the same I know! So after all that hard work I caged the 5 new tomato plants that spontaneously grew in the most random places and took a photo. I also pulled another tomato plant and am offering it to a good home. If no one wants it I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it. Really running out of room with all those unexpected plants.

 

 

Lacking my camera I asked mother to borrow her I-phone and took some pics of my lovely blue potato plants. Aren't these flowers gorgeous! I figure even if they don't produce very many potatoes it was worth all the work just to see these. Of course the potatoes are delicious so I hope they produce.

Blue potato flowers

Needs a home

The Old Northwest

 The Old Northwest Primitive Rendezvous is now over! At least for me. It was fun while it lasted though.

So our rendezvous started with me showing up early (everyone else in our camp was late) and picking out a spot to camp. We didn't end up camping were I picked but after the first big storm I was happy for this as the spot I'd originally picked flooded! More on that later. When the rest of my group (Uncle Greg and Philip) showed we pitched the tents near Ramrod's camp ... technically right in front, effectively blocking the evening sun from his camp. Of course with the trees and his camp the morning sun was blocked from ours so it worked out quite nicely.

We had four tents this year. One for each of us and a storage tent. The storage tent worked out well as it left more room in our tents for us to sleep. I might have to come up with a way to set our bows next year so they don't have to sleep with us. We could use the other gun rack but we need a way to keep the bows from slipping off. The tent stayed fairly dry which is good as the guns and powder were all in there. I'm going to make some modifications for next year though. I also hear we might have a fifth tent, a single pole - almost tepee tent if we can figure out how to put it up proper like ... unlike last year!

Uncle Greg got a sign made with the camps name on it and I took a photo of Uncle Ken into Photoshop  and made it look like a painting then printed it on metal. Turned out pretty good and sort of period correct. I still wanna go back with real paint to give it the texture to match. It was Philips idea to package it in sinew to hang.

The Colonel's camp

After camp was set up and we donned our camp clothing the fun really began. This year I was in charge of cooking. Turns out my shopping list was a bit lacking but in the end this worked out in our advantage as Ramrod cooked a few meals for us and he partook of some of ours. We left with no food to take with us! The two noted dinners consisted of Brunswick stew, which Ramrod helped us eat the first night and we finished for lunch the next day. And chicken kabobs which I had to pass out the left overs! These were requested for next years menu! The stew was a bit challenging as it was supposed to stew for over 3 hours but with the temperature of the fire only took some were between 1 and 2 hours.With the kabobs... well let's just say bamboo sticks burn really easily and leave it at that.

Stew stewing over an open flame

Kabobs over an open fire

The chef

 Back to that storm! Our second night there, after having suffered 80 degree high humidity weather a nice cool storm swept the muggy heat away. The sky darkened fast! Clouds rolling in, blocking the sun, all the time emitting loud peals of thunder. Then the lightning became visible and the rain began to poor. By this time Uncle Greg was snoring away in his tent. I was wrapped in his frock knitting and watching the storm come with Philip. The rain stopped for a short time then gushed at an angle. Effectively making our dining fly useless. I quickly tossed my knitting basket into my tent and checked that my back flap was closed tightly and Philip snagged his frock from his tent. Then we waited at the other end of the dining fly. Which BTW if you don't know what a dining fly is it's the canvas covering the fronts of all our tents in the top photo.

Turns out my back flaps were not snug enough as rain came in the very bottom and soaked my ground cover. I got it mopped up and luckily my blankets didn't get wet.

Big bad storm clouds

Storm on the horizon

Then on Tuesday night after the Highland games we had another bad storm. Worse then the first by far! Constant flashes of bright lightning and loud peals of thunder. One lightning bolt at least struck something nearby and a few people had downed canvas awnings. One chap we helped to fix his. It was a pretty sweet storm, that one. If I had a cover for my camera I would have been out in it taking some wicked lightning shots! The other photographer agreed with me. We were both lamenting our lack of equipment during our morning showers.

 The time went quickly this past week. We stayed busy. Moving from one event to the next. Daniel came to visit us on Sunday and brought my bow and a few other things for me as I plum forgot. During practice for shooting the muzzle loader I hit just about every target. Including this chain they had hanging from a downed tree. During the competitive shooting of the same targets but from different angles ... not so much. I think I got 3 targets out of 11. Horrible! However, after getting my bow, trading for some arrows and a wrist guard I tied for 1st place in archery. They dropped me to second based on the amount of missed targets ... I got one so I got second place with 29 points. Got myself a few bulls eyes! So at least I know with a bow I can bring home dinner but probably not with the gun! [watch out buglers my bow is close at hand, easy to sting and I've got a hell of a shot!] I got myself a nasty bruise on my wrist before getting the guard as the bow string slapped my wrist and busted a vain. Swelled up nicely and immediately until my flesh redistributed the blood and fixed the vessel. It's not even sore no more but it sure looks nasty!

Me shooting Philips old 45 muzzle loader

I participated in what is called a 'round robin' were people sit around a canvas and trade their goods. It was terribly fun. I'm glad Philip and Uncle Greg convinced me to try. I used my jams and other crafts as trading goods and got myself a few items I could use at rendezvous and a few to trade again next year. I even sold a few things and got myself a commission while there. Either people really like my stuff or they are a sucker for a pretty face! ... or both!

There was this bow maker set up this year. I noticed him working on a bow when I walked in that first day. I told myself I would go back and milk him for all the information I could ... turned out he was very willing to comply. He's even willing to come out to my house and spend days working with me on building my own bow for the other parts of the tree I wont be using. We'll see if I need him to do this. I took extensive notes and with the book I rented from the library and this knowledge he gave me I hope to have a long bow by next year. I'd read the book just before going to rendezvous and had a vague idea of what to do but it's so much easier to understand when you can see it in person being made. He even gave me the dimensions for his string jig.

While camping we also got the Strawberry moon. It's the full moon in June and it was the closest it's been in a while to the Earth. HUGE! I'm so happy I got my new lens so I could get a good photo of it!

Full Strawberry Moon

And a side note:  my garden markers are still not done! LOL! Maybe by time I start harvesting I'll have them done!

Garden Markers

Rendezvous 2013

Yay! It's almost time for Rendezvous! I've got a few more days to finish getting ready as well as finish my last few commissions. Things seem to be going wrong though. Last night as I was preparing to make my jam our water had to be shut off due to a water main failure. Fun right! Our poor neighbor came home to a flooded front room. It's back on now and my Balsamic Strawberry Jam is done. Now all I need to do is label it and put the pretty little toppers on then pack it away for the Old Northwest.

Hand sewing the cap

I managed to convince Daniel to finish the money box for me. I had this simple idea of turning an old cigar box into a money box and Daniel just flew with it. I'm not surprised though as he made me the cutest jewelry box years ago. It's not entirely what I was picturing ... it's better! It originally was for craft fairs but since I'm trying to sell at Rendezvous I figured I should bring it along.



Inside the box with lid open

 

Inside the box with lid closed

Starting in 1/2hr I begin teaching wee little people how to knit. Granted a lot of those 'little' people will probably be taller than me. Any who! They will each get a packet ... as long as there are less then 12 people in this class we're all good. I ran out of material for the packets. Then they get to use the knitting needles but since the library purchased all them and it was pricey they can't keep those. Should be fun. I'm going to have everyone sit in a circle and knit.

Knitting 101 packet

THE GARDEN:

IT'S GROWING! OMG. My potatoes are getting so big and are so pretty with their blue foliage. I've only seen a few corn so I will have to pop some more seeds in to thicken the plot but the beans are shooting right up. I lost a few beets and none of the carrots grew so I'm taking all my seeds out to fix this problem. We've gotten plenty of rain and sun so I'm expecting crazy changes every time I go out there!

Garden twig markers

The Power of Thought

Like everything else in my life, I have to keep motivated in the things I wish to do. It really is harder than it sounds. For instance it's possible to sculpt my body to a wicked shape, I know this because I've done it in the past. Ripped abbs, toned thighs, sculpted glutes and lean arms. Then I graduated high school, went to collage for graphic design and completely stopped working out. In comes my loose, sagging musculature. But knowing it's possible, wanting it back and actually working hard for it are all a little different.

I've found though that if I believe something it tends to be/come true. If I feel a certain way people tend to treat me this way. All my psychology books say it but attempting to train my mind to think and thus act a certain way is not so easy. After thinking a way for years it's so easy to fall back into the same EASY habbits again. Change is hard no matter how much we want it does't change that fact.

Now I'm listening to a new book, 'The Psychology of Achievement' by Brian Tracy. He's not saying anything I already didn't know but he's reminding me that I want this change and remotivating me to go for it. I hope this time to stick with it. I do still write the things I wish to be on the bathroom mirror right after my shower when it's all steimed up. Things like 'I am courageous, I am serene, I am wise, I am loved' I'm sure you get the point. Write down and think or BELIEVE what it is that you wish to be. The kind of person you wish you were. Sure you don't believe it yet, not trurly but give it time. Keep telling yourself and act/pretend you are this person. Soon enough you wont have to try but will BE. I AM CONFIDENT! I think for me it's starting to work but I don't do it enough. Just have to keep reminding myself. Those times patrons try to get me to lose my timper I find myself taking a deep breath. Here is where I need to tell myself that I am serene. I am confident.

This sort of reminds me of a favorite prayer.
'Lord grant me the courage to change the things I can,
Serenity to accept those I can't,
And the wisdom to know the difference.'

I used to say this or think it everytime I felt depressed, or wanting change. I guess it would be an example of powerful thinking.