First Frost = Lots of Work!

 This is the time of year I need to take a couple of weeks off of work to deal with the fall harvest, we are overwhelmed with fruit and veggies.  Until the frost hits we can pick when we want, but after the first frost all of the veggies have to be picked and dealt with.

 One of about 8 apple trees, and the same amount of plum trees. Everyone we know who wants fruit has fruit and we still have a ton to deal with.  The leftovers keep the deer fed for a while though.

 The frost just melts all the plants in the garden, they look so sad now.

 Last week-end I made 11 pints of salsa, dried apples, made apple sauce, and a plum apple sauce. Plums and apples go really well together.

Didn't forget my favorite guy, he ended up with an apple pie, one of many I'm sure!

Not Bad for an Amateur

My daughter wanted a "smash" cake for her sons first birthday party, so of course I was elected.  Then she said she wanted it to be the Cookie Monster...............that took some thought, but I think I did ok.....

Glad I just used a cake mix and didn't go all out with something from scratch, it did become a "smash" cake too, then all the kids liked getting cookies off of it.

Matching Blanket

The hat a bootie set I made a while ago was ordered with a matching blanket, finally got this done and delivered.

 Sometimes you don't have to have a difficult pattern, simple can look very nice too.  This is a simple little shell stitch, just like the hat.  2 double crochet, chain 2, 2 double crochet in the same stitch, skip 2 and repeat.

Town Lions

In downtown Pomeroy, lurking in the alley are a couple of wild cats, just driving through town you'd never know they are there, lurking in the shadows......................

 This is Jonesy and Harry (not too harry now). They live behind the shops and help keep the mice population down. One of the shop owners kind of adopted them, poor pathetic kitties.  It takes them a while to trust anyone, but have finally started coming up to me for a petting now and then.  Harry (the yellow one) had to have an eye removed years ago and is missing a few teeth, but seems to be getting along pretty good. Their hair is so long and was so matted, that the shop owner decided to take them in for a hair cut, figured they'd be more comfortable in the 90-100 degree weather this summer.

My Kind of Place

 I've been wanting to get pictures of this place for a long time now, wish I could say it was ours!  But this is the Artisan Art Gallery just outside of Uniontown, near Pullman, basically out in the middle of no where.

 The Barn is great, but this is what I absolutely love, the fence, how cool is that?!

 I wonder how long it took to find all of these wheels.........................and then put them together..........

It goes all around the whole place. Maybe next time we'll stop and check out the art!

Tiger Swallowtails

I have to admit the husband is getting pretty darn good with the camera.................we were just sitting in the yard watching the chickens when we noticed these beautiful butterflies come into the flowers, he had the camera and was up snapping pictures within minutes of their arrival.

Spring at The Byrd Farm

Love this time of year.............but with it comes a lot of work!  Enjoy the spring.......

Outdoor pillows

A friend came up with another idea for feed sacks, and I'm so glad she did. I am loving these outdoor pillows:


 
 It's not a fun "fabric" to sew on but the results are so worth it....

Knit and Crochet

This was a commissioned project I just finished.  It is a great summer hat and socks for a newborn.  She was looking for a lacy summer hat and booties, but most are just too warm for summer.  And booties usually just don't stay on babies feet. This is what I came up with and I think she really liked the finished product.  I like it so much I will be making some sets to sell this summer at the Farmer's Market.

The hat is crocheted in a small shell pattern, and the socks are knitted with the same shell pattern crocheted around the top. The little pink crocheted flowers and leaves just finish it nicely.

My Own Birthday Cake

I had such a hard time figuring out what kind of cake to make myself this year. Chocolate is always my first choice, but this spring chocolate just seemed too heavy, besides I had just made my all time favorite German Chocolate Cake for my nieces birthday a couple of weeks before, so I was on the lookout for something light.....

Then I remembered this great cake I had made a few years ago for a friends wedding. White cake with white chocolate mousse filling and sliced fresh strawberries, perfect!

I'm not much of a cake decorator, but I AM all about taste!  I think next time though, I would split my layers so I could get more filling into the cake, it's not a real sweet filling so it would work out great, and I always have leftover filling, so that would be no problem either. 

The cake if from Martha Stewart, Perfect White Cake it takes 9 egg whites, and since we have an over abundance of eggs right now...........................

The filling I adapted from Martha Stewart, but I can't find her recipe to link it too, so I'll just post what I did. When I followed the recipe from her site the first time I made it I had a ton of leftover, so since then I have cut it down by half and now by 1/3. Seems like everytime  I make this recipe I change it up a little:

White Chocolate Mousse Filling:
1/2 C. powdered sugar
2 Cups heavy cream
1 teas. unflavored gelatin
half a package of white chocolate chips
3-4 egg yolks

Whisk yolks and sugar until thick and pale, set aside
Bring 1 cup of cream to boil, temper into yolk mixture, but back in pan, whisk constantly over medium heat, until thick and reaches 185 degrees, about 10 minutes. Remove from heat add gelatin. Pour hot mixture over chocolate, let stand a couple of minutes, then whisk until smooth and shiny. let cool.

Whip remaining cream, then fold into cooled chocolate mixture. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

I used fresh sliced strawberries, but I think raspberries would be good too, to add between the layers.  Then I frosted with Buttercream frosting.  I'm not much on decorating, but I am all about taste! 

First Felted Purse

I'd been wanting to try felting for a while now, but I've been leery about spending money on wool and then ruining the project.  But I finally indulged myself and knitted a purse using Lions Brand Fisherman's wool, it's made for felting so thought it would be a good place to start.  I learned A LOT from this first project, so that in it self was worth it.  I would use this yarn again, but I wish they had more colors to choose from.  I would take pictures prior to felting too......


This wasn't the shape of the finished project, my sides were too floppy, so I took them in and hand sewed the sides, you can see this on the inside of the purse.  I then used the extra fabric brought inside for pockets. I talked my husband into making me the button from a deer antler, nice.

 

I would also make the straps shorter, I was thinking that the felting would help with the stretch, but it doesn't seem to make that much of a difference, so eventually these straps will be too long.  I won't make the purse as big next time either, A friend said if I had used bigger knitting needles it would have shrunk up more, that will be something to play around with next time.  I think for a first time it came out pretty good, I'm already thinking about my next bag, I think summer colors...............

A Cowl for Christine

My niece was complaining about the cold in Montana, and I'd been wanting to make one of these "infinity scarves" or "cowls", see them called all kinds of things.  Turns out she loves it, and now my daughter and I want one too.........good thing summer is coming on so there's no hurry!


 
 I used some Chenille yarn from my stash and a size N
crochet hook.  Crocheted in front and back post to make squares, and crocheted in the round so there is no seem. It was easy and worked up fast.

Energy Bar

My niece gave this recipe a couple of weeks ago, and I finally got around to making them. I figured I would like them since I like everything that is in them.  The texture reminds me of a Cliff Bar, and I love Cliff bars! You can add all the good things you like to the main recipe:

1/2 C Honey
1/2 Cup Molasses
2 2/3 Cup Oats
1 Cup Flour (I used Spelt)
2 Cups of a variety mix ins: nuts, seeds, shredded coconut, peanut butter, raisins, dates, etc
1 tsp cinnamon ( I just noticed when typing this out I forgot the cinnamon)

Mix all together (kitchen aid mixer works great) should be wet, if too floury add water, if to watery add flour. With wet hands press into jelly roll pan, Bake at 350 degrees for 10 min, once out of the oven cover with another jellyroll pan until cool. Cut into bars.

Little Knitted Hat

The other day I was watching Knit and Crochet Today and they had this little knitted hat on there, it was so cute! I've knitted socks and scarves, but I've never tried a hat, how hard can it be?  So I went to the Knit and Crochet Today website to get the pattern, like they said to do................I must be really dense, because I cannot find that pattern there. So I just found a simple hat pattern and made it to look like the one on their show:

 

I thought it came out pretty good, and it was so easy!, A couple of things though, so you don't have the pink and black weird line thing on the bottom, the first row of adding the other color should just be a knit row. and when you add the do wacky on the top make sure you don't tighten the top too much first!  The top is just eye cord looped around.  

I enjoyed this so much I made another simple hat without any eyecord:

I'm so used to the feel of a crocheted hat, I love how knitting makes even the not so soft yarn feel soft and cushy. Now on to my next pair of socks........

A Beginners Knitting Project

My sister in law gave me this pattern the last time I saw her, it's quick and easy, great for beginners:
 I like working on simple projects like these when I'm trying to figure out what bigger project I want to start.

13 Point Washcloth:
Size 7 needles, 1 ball cotton thread
Cast on 16 stitches
Row 1: Knit accross
Row 2: K4, yo, K 10, 2 stitches left on needle, turn
Row 3: Knit
Row 4: K4, yo, K 9, 4 stitches left on needle, turn
Row 5: Knit
Row 6: K4, yo, K8, 6 stitches left on needle, turn
Row 7: Knit
Row 8: K4, yo, K7, 8 stitches left on needle, turn
Row 9: Knit
Row 10: Bind off 4 sts, Knit across remaining sts
Row 11: Knit across the 16 sts left on needle.
Repeat from  Row 2 until you have 13 points, if cloth doesn't lay flat, and one more point for 14 ( I made 14)
After the 13th or 14th point, don't bind off, sew first and last rows together, then draw center sts together tightly.

Ice Storm of 2012

When I was a kid I remember hearing my folks talk about "The big flood of 1960" or "The wind storm of 1965", it goes on and on.  We'll I have one for them now......The Ice Storm of 2012.  Boy did we get hit!  I think there was over an inch of ice on my car that day, work was postponed until 10am, but I called and said I was not driving 40 minutes on ice, wasn't going to happen.  The huge trees in our yard and all around us were covered in ice. During the day you could hear random branches snap and then fall. That evening is when ours couldn't take the weight of the ice any longer and started snapping and breaking. The first one to fall made a huge snap, just like gun fire, my husband and I were in the living room, looked
at each other and braced for the hit.  That one landed right by the front door,
missing the house by inches. 

I think we had a total of 4 huge branches fall that any one of them would have put a hole in the house had they hit, all missed us by inches.  The big event was the branch that fell over the power line to the shop and my moms new place. My mom said it looked like fire works from her house.  The hit knocked the line from the breaker box so it was jumping with live electricity between the shop and the bumper of my car! Then the line heated up and caught the  transformer at the road on fire!

The shop and my mom were without power for a week.  We had partial power that night and found that another branch had fallen on our power line.  We got that cut off, but a crew had to come out and fix the live wire that was hanging from the pole that night, I think we got full power around midnight. We are so thankful to have had no fires or roof damage. I believe our Guardian Angels were working overtime that night! Now all we have left to do is pick up sticks.....

Crazy Weather

Yesterday was 52 degrees out, warm, sunny................

 Today we work up to SNOW and 32 degrees.............

Looks like January has finally arrived, and we are in for winter now.....at least this week!

2012!

Where did the year go? I had such good intentions to keep up with this blog, and my Etsy shop. I have been crocheting like made and posting-nothing..............It was crazy just trying to keep up with Christmas presents and craft shows this winter.

 My daughter wanted me to make a Monkey Hat, so this is what I came up with....simple pattern, easy to make, but now I think I am all Monkeyed out! 

I'm looking for inspiration this new year, hoping to make a few sweaters, and to knit more, but these little hats and mittens are so darn cute, it will be hard not to add them to my Etsy Shop......

So here's to a Happy New Year, I hope yours is full of yarn, grandkids, chickens and a huge garden!

We are truly blessed.......................