Old Barn Treasure

 

We have several old barns on our property, and over the years they have provided me with many junk discoveries. It seems like each layer of stuff we remove reveals more and more buried - literally - "junk treasure". 

And when others see "junk", I see beauty. And art.

Like these old doors. The screen door makes my heart go pitter patter!! I plan on ripping out the screen and putting chicken wire on it, and adding hooks and things for a back drop/display piece for my booth when I get to go on the road with my stuff; or in a shop, etc. Heck, I could even use it in the house. :)

Then there are other two doors in the same pile; both really narrow. I suspect they're a double door unit for a wide doorway. I've been making plans with the handy Hubbs to make a corner cabinet/shelf with them. They're perfectly chippy and shabby, I probably won't do a thing to them except clean them and poly them to hold the paint down. And the old door handles! Love those. 

I am a hopeless junk addict. What kind of crazy person gets this excited about junk?! Yeah, me. 

Ha. 

A Regular While

Southern expressions are quaint and sometimes puzzling; especially if you haven't lived here for long. I'm a Southerner born and bred, so I am used to it. I use these expressions myself without even thinking about it.

My talkative, older neighbor came by  the house this afternoon to drop off some squash and zucchini from his garden and we discussed plants and recipes and canning for  awhile.

He was explaining to me how he goes about canning stewed tomatoes.

"I bring them to a bol (with a southern accent, 'boil' is just one consinant, pronounced without the 'i') and I turn down the heat an let em cook down for a regular while, then I hot pack the jars and can'nem."

A Regular While basically means "an appropriate amount of time", varying according to whatever it is you're doing, or where you might be going.

For stewing tomatoes for canning, A Regular While of simmering is about 20 minutes.

For driving distances, A Regular While is open to interpritation.

If you're from someplace else, but have been living in the South for A Regular While, you might be considered an honorary Southerner, like my husband, who has been living in the South for 12 years.

The neighbor and I shot the breeze  about getting the deer out of his tomato patch,  methods of cooking okra, how I like my brand of canner, Kevin's work schedule, hay field yields for the first cutting, and of course, canning stewed tomatoes. Before I knew it, an hour had passed.

Or, I should say, A Regular While.

The Road

The Road goes ever on and on
    Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
    And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
    Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
    And whither then? I cannot say.

- J.R.R. Tolkien

Hick Chick.

My sister and I had a bit  of  fun in the hayfield after we returned from a baby shower to help the rest of the family pick up hay bales on the farm.

Yes, that is one of my husband's collection of International Harvester tractors.

And yes, I have driven it.

The back tires are taller than I am, and it intimidates the heck out of me, and I don't drive it very often - but a farm girl's gotta do what a farm girl's gotta do.


Dress: Marshalls. Purchased for my Grandmother's funeral three years ago. I cannot put on this dress and not think of that day. 
Belt: Thrifted
Shoes: Jessica Simpson, thrifted. 
Necklace: Vintage. Milk glass beads. 
Ring: Vintage 60s, Etsy

Morning On The Farm

A mid week day off from work = strawberry jam, gathering eggs, smelling the flowers...... and trying to relax a huge headache away.

Crazy Stuff I Did As A Kid

When I got to work at 8:30 this morning, it was already 70 degrees out; sunny and pure gorgeous. My place of work is a private home perched on a huge hill out in the country; surrounded by cow pastures and the Dan River beyond. There is a red Radio Flyer wagon on the porch, and when I saw it, I had the sudden urge to get in the wagon and go careening down the hill as fast as it would take me.... like I used to do as a kid. That got me thinking about all the crazy, and sometimes dangerous things I did growing up.

I spent my childhood in a rural, farming community of North Carolina; and we did "country" things to amuse ourselves. This was 20 plus years ago.... so my sisters and brothers and I didn't have cell phones and iPads to play games. There was not Facebook and Twitter, and my parents didn't believe in video games. Or TV. We watched movies (on VHS!) but that was it. My parents were old school; and my Mom was a hippie holdover from the 70s, so they believed in the power of imagination and the health benefits of playing outdoors.

In addition to riding our Radio Flyer wagon (gift from Grandma who believed in old fashioned toys like those Radio Flyers from the good ol' days) down hills at insane speeds, and very often crashing in a heap at the bottom (those Radio Flyers didn't have the best steering), we did things like.....

- Roll down the hill over and over until we were dizzy and puked, plus covered in grass and dirt
- Roll down the hill in a rusty metal barrel we dug up in the woods someplace (tetanus, anyone?)
- Ride our bikes across the river to the cornfield and play hide and seek in it's 20 + acres. Plus, we ate the corn, and if you've ever eaten corn meant to be cow feed, you know that it can make you sick sick sick. yeah.
- Ride our horses out in a thunderstorm on purpose; while Mom thought we were at the barn cleaning tack or mucking stalls or something
- Race our horses in John Scott's hayfield, helmet-less
- Swim in the farm pond (The memory makes me cringe. It was like a glorified mud puddle. Both my sister and I got ear infections afterwords. Eeeeeeewww!)
- Swam in the creek while it was flooded and barely made it out. We removed our clothes and tied them together, then tied them to a branch, to give us something to hold onto to get back across to the "home" side. (We swam in the creek fully clothed.) I lost my shorts and walked home in a towel
- Walked up the creek a mile and a half to the huge rock cliff in the creek bend, climbed up 15 or so feet, and leapt off into the murky waters
- Jumped off our friends' boat house roof and  into the lake
 - I snuck up and rode the neighbor's horse bareback, and he bolted for the barn. I fell off and one of his hooves clipped my arm - I made my sister swear not to tell our Mom and Dad and never did it again
- Rode horses on the highway and even raced traffic sometimes
- At the park we'd get on the "big swings", pump as high as we could, and then jump off. Man, when your pockets got stuck on the seats, it was a bad fall. I am surprised none of us broke our necks
- Went sledding late at night after the snow had melted slightly and re-froze, making a slicker surface... for hours we would do crazy sledding stunts with the neighbor kids, very often crashing into things and whacking out heads on solid ice. One night I fell off my sled and hit my head so hard I saw stars. I never told my Mom, and chances are I had a concussion from it. Later in my life, when I had  several serious concussions from horseback riding accidents, I remembered that after hitting my head on the ice, my head felt the exact same way as when I hit my head falling off horses over jumps.

My parents aren't to blame! They didn't know what was going on behind their back. I know that If they knew half of the crazy stuff we were doing out there, they would have stepped in with a "How about let's not do that, ok?"
 
I also did normal things like play with dolls and decorate doll houses. Plus, my Mom made me learn embroidery and I spent a lot of time doing that; even as a kid. I loved it. And I read books all the time. So I enjoyed craziness - and normalcy. I guess I have been this way my whole life... the best of both worlds.

It was the best way to grow up - I wouldn't trade it for all the electronic stuff kids do today for the world! There is a lot to be said for a good, old fashioned, country raisin'.  

Autumn Views From Our Farm

We finally got Fall here. One day it was 70 degrees out and I was picking green beans and canning tomatoes. The next day it was 40 degrees and we cut firewood.



Most of the leaves are finally changing but there are still green ones too. And not many have come down yet.




Our pond from the top of the hill


Our pond from the bottom of the hill





Corn Dog. Heehee..........




The pumpkins are finally ripe and just in time, as the frost got the leaves. Next year we're planning a large pumpkin patch for selling to the public (hay rides, mums, the whole nine yards) so we planted these to get a better idea of exactly how long they take to mature.



Bears discovered the pumpkin patch also; and dug their claws into these, then decided they weren't as tasty as they originally imagined.





(Yep, that's a gun in the photo; when we started getting bear activity on the farm Kevin said I had to carry one when I walked on the place, just in case a bear came after me or Dodge. No one is hunting bears here....)

The Poultry Saga: Continued.

As much as I railed about how I was done with poultry earlier in the summer, when I suggested to my husband that we "just buy eggs and chicken meat at a farmer's market or something", he was highly offended.

"You can quit the chickens if you want," he said, with a air of noble loyalty;
"But I will always have chickens. It just wouldn't be the same around here without Roo (as we affectionately call our rooster) and The Girls (as we affectionately call our pesky hens)running around and ...stuff."

So I feel as if I have been raising, babysitting, and otherwise supervising fowl all.year.

First, it was my two batches of feed store chickens in the spring, most of whom met a morbid end. (Read all my railings about our chicken situation here.)

Then, when we got into hay cutting in the summer, I did a really illegal thing. Which I have not mentioned before now because I was scared of getting in big trouble for it.

One afternoon while cutting hay, my brother ran over a nest of wild turkeys in the middle of the field, by accident. The hen ran off and didn't return for a couple of hours. My brother, who kind of makes it his business to know all things wildlife, said he didn't expect she would ever return to the nest, since the cover was totally destroyed. He felt really bad about it.

So, I - knowing the risks - collected the 12 or so eggs from the nest, and popped them into my chicken incubator at home. No one expected them to hatch; it is very rare that wild turkeys are successfully raised in a "domestic" environment. But we felt like we owed it to Nature to try to make things right after ruining everything for that hen.

I counted out the days for turkeys to incubate. I turned the eggs twice a day - by hand. I carefully monitored the temperature.

And on the last day, I said to Kevin: "Can you take those turkey eggs and dump them somewhere where Dodge cannot eat them? I don't think they're going to hatch."

And that evening while cooking dinner I kept hearing peeping outside my kitchen window and I wondered why my hens were hanging out there so I walk over to check it out, when I happen to notice there is a wet, newly hatched infant wild turkey peering at me through the window of the incubator. I was dumbfounded. I had defied nature and hatched out wild turkeys in my kitchen! So THERE, wildlife experts!!

We hatched seven.

We told no one.

I never even took photos.

There is a steep fine for keeping wild animals without a proper license and training.

We raised them in a tank in the dining room, just like the chickens; and I did it without touching them or interfering very much as all; because we intended to set them lose once they were grown.

But when they got too big for the tank, and it came time to move them to bigger quarters, they flipped out and one died from the shock.

In fact, one baby turkey died from shock/fright each time we had to re-locate them as they grew. I started to understand why they don't want lay persons, without a license and training, raising wild turkeys and other wildlife. It is a pain in the neck to do it properly, if you're not making pets of them. I told my husband that he and my brother had better not make a habit of ruining turkey nests in the fields anymore; because I never want to raise wild turkey babies ever again.

We finally ended up with three, and we put them in the chicken run and put a roof on the chicken yard to keep them safe. The evil skunk got one; and I finally got rid of the other two, just a couple of weeks ago. When I opened the doors on the official release day, I expected them to fly away into the woods, leaving me standing there feeling all warm and fuzzy about my rare accomplishment and noble efforts to rescue wildlife. Like in one of those Disney, "family" movies. (I still have all these convoluted, idealistic, hopeful fantasies about living on a farm, but it never works out like Disney tries to make you believe.)

But instead they just ran around all frantically; and never went near the open door. For a entire week I opened the doors and finally, one day, one was gone. Then the next day or two passed, the the second one was gone, too. My babies "done growed up", and went to live with the big turkeys! And good riddance. Turkeys are kind of...... dumb. Poor things.

Well all was great, until about three weeks ago when one of my remaining chickens from the Spring batch got broody and started sitting on a nest full of eggs... in the hay baler. Nothing could get her off. So we left her. Most of these attempts do not end well; leaving me with a pile of rotten eggs to dispose of.

But then last week, I came home from work after dark, and walked by the baler on my way to look at something else, and heard that peeping I recognize all too well....
Lo and behold, that Spring Chicken hatched out 8 chicks all by herself. Apparently no one told her that you usually sit on eggs in the springtime. Not right before cold weather.

I did have to move them out of the baler, as the babies kept falling out and complaining loudly. They're safely stowed in a large cage in the yard till they get some size on them. But I am letting the mother raise them, because I am done with raising poultry for 2011!

They really are stinking cute, though. I can't help but gush at them in baby talk when I go out into the yard and see them scurrying around.





Hopefully, this is it for the year for me; and, depending on how many we loose over the winter, I may beg and plead with Kevin to NOT get more chicks in the spring.

*crossing fingers*

I am SO DONE with chickens.

This began as a venting facebook status this morning and morphed into a tirade.....

 I think I am going to make this farm a fowl - free farm. And let me explain why.

 When I moved in here, I had visions of an adorable farmette, complete with a clothesline and chickens and veggie  and flower gardens. You know, like you see in all the magazines. Cute.
 
 So we made our "chicken park" out of a tiny log cabin builgins (built in the 20's and originally used to store canned goods, etc.) and tall steel dog kennel panels. And I had visions of going out in my sundress and vintage floral apron, and collecting large brown eggs from nest boxes where fat and fluffy hens had deposited their daily fruit; like all farmgirls do in the magazines and movies, and books  and such. Awwwww.

 Pfffffttt.

 So we got some eggs from a friend and I incubated them; they hatched, and I had about 20 chickens. They were all killed a few months later by foxes.


 Then our friend gave us over 20 game chickens, and plumed heirloom birds with fancy feathers and whatnot. They were so neat looking. In one night, all but two or three were killed by the foxes. Or skunks, or coons, or whatevers. But we're pretty sure it was foxes.


 Last year, I bought 25 more chicks from the feed store. When they were old enough,  I let them go free ranging all over the place, and one by one were picked off by foxes, skunks, or killed in the road ("why did the chickens cross the road?" was a very legitimate question asked in my house).


It was so quaint, I thought, to see my chickens puttering about the place; so "farm-y" and "cute". But it stopped being so "cute" and became downright annoying when they started scratching holes in all the mulch in the flower beds, and digging holes around all my plants, and worst of all, pecking holes in my tomatoes and other veggies in the garden.

 I didn't see "cute" feathered fowl when I looked at my chickens, I saw chicken and dumplings. And chicken salad. And chicken divan.

 There were eggs.... healthy, 100% organic free-range eggs from happy hens. When I could find them. "Free range" meant hunting for their nest day after day, until I finally found it; hidden away in some dark hole in a brush pile, or in the back of the barn where you have to climb over a mountain of junk to get to them; or under the barn where you have to find a hole in the floor and hope your arm is long enough to reach the egg pile in the corner, just barely out of range or your grasping fingers. Then, once you discover the nest, the spiteful, conniving hens move their laying spot to a new top secret locale, just to be mean.

 And, because of the fox killings that had gone on in their cute little log cabin hen house, they didn't like to go in of their own accord. They decided that the thing to do was roost on my front porch furniture. So every night I had chickens or varying numbers perched on my white wicker porch furniture. And my white wicker porch furniture was covered - and I mean covered - in chicken doo. And every night we had to pick them up and carry them to their coop, and secure the doors and windows. Every night.

 One night, during the nightly visits from the fox in which they managed to get one  bird per night for a whole week, I decided to let the chickens stay on the front porch and I was, by God, going to bait that fox and shoot him. We kept the front porch lights on and slept on the sofa in the front room and waited. Just as I thought, about 3:30 am, I heard the chickens make a commotion on the front porch. I jumped up ahead of Kevin, grabbing the shotgun we had sitting by the front door. I was going to put and end to the fox issue once and for all. I've never shot an animal before, but I was totally prepared to shoot this one. I was sick and tired of buying and feeding chickens just to feed fat foxes on a nightly basis! By the time I jerked the door open and brought the gun up to shoot, that evil fox had dragged a hen, screaming and squawking, across the road and into the tobacco field, where her squawking abruptly ended, and the fox disappeared with his dinner into the darkness; leaving me with nothing to shoot at. Plus, it's illegal to shoot across a highway. I bet that no good fox knew it, too. Stinker.

 The four chickens that survived the foxes last year lived through the winter and gained my good graces. This spring, I declared that they would not be free ranging anymore, because of the damage they did in the gardens last summer; so we kept them locked in their chicken "park", and my garden was safe and life was great.
I was overcome by the cuteness of the spring chicks at the feed store in the early spring; and I broke down and bought 20 chickens. Cute, fluffy little yellow balls of adorableness; populating my cute, adorable chicken accommodations. I already had folks asking to buy eggs when they started laying. More visions of quaint farm scenes formed in my mind - but I hastily pushed them aside. I started getting over the "cutesy farm" thing a while ago; along with the fantasy of farming in a floral apron and sundress - the first time I got on a tractor to bale hay, and ended up having to fix the flywheel on the baler all by myself with two wrenches and a bolt in the middle of the hayfield on the hottest day of the year and got home at 10:00 pm covered in hay, sweat, and axle grease. 
There is really not very much cutesyness in farming; no matter what you may see in magazines. Trust me.

Anyway, back to my chicken issues.

I raised 20 chicks this spring, and when they were feathered out, moved them into the chicken park. A few weeks went by. I started to think I had finally outsmarted the wicked fox and his kin. One morning, I discovered a small portion of the chinking between the logs in my log cabin hen house ripped out and one of the little birds missing. We fixed it. A few weeks later, we found half the young chickens missing and feathers and blood and a body or two - and the boards from the door pushed in. We fixed that. The next day he managed to get in again and kill more..... leaving me with six white leghorns, one red one, and my four grown birds from last year. It's been several more weeks and we've made some improvements to the chicken park; and thought we had this licked once and for all.

 No such luck. This morning Kevin found one of my lovely big red hens from last year - the most faithful of the egg layers - dead. The fox had somehow slipped in a crack around the door; ate his meal, and escaped; unable to drag the meal with him, since he slipped in such a small crack......

 One of the other hens escaped when Kevin went in, and ran up here to my garden, where she proceeded to eat holes in every single one of my almost ripe, big, juicy tomatoes that she cold get to.

 I have done everything short of electrifying my coop to keep varmints out; or making it from solid, reinforced steel and shatterproof glass like some sort of maximum security prison cell.

 At this point I am thinking it is easier for me to go to the farmers market in town and buy my eggs from now on. 


Anybody want my chickens?

Auction

My husband goes to farm equipment auctions quite frequently. Occasionally, I go along, because there is a certain "something" about these events that draws me.
And because, he asks me to go along with him.



This particular one was a consignment sale (as opposed to a farm liquidation sale - which depress me.) deep in the Virginia boonies - Charlotte Courthouse, VA. The courthouse building there was designed by Thomas Jefferson, and it is where Patrick Henry first gave his famous "Give me liberty, or give me death!" speech.



Anyhow. AHEM....

There were about 1000 people at this sale. There was a huge representation of the Amish community, also - the Ladies were serving up food in a huge white tent. OH! The food in that tent - it was coming out in streams, on paper plates and bowls, by the hoards of people flocking in there for whoopie pie, home made breads, cake, cookies, sandwiches, soup, coffee, numerous other pies whole and by the slice, candy - everything. I found myself unable to resist buying a couple of the most fluffy, light, perfect lemon-filled jelly doughnuts. And a whoopie pie. And.... well, unhealthy foods I will not mention here. If you have ever sunk your teeth into an Amish delight of any kind.... you know what I am talking about. ESPECIALLY the doughnuts. Look, I had an Amish girl give me the recipe for doughnuts one time, and I made them - sort of. But they're still not the same as the real thing. And that is ALL I have to say about Amish food at this time. My mouth is seriously watering just thinking about it..... Moving on.....



I attended my first auction with my husband just before we were married, and was amazed at how these things are not just a sale of farm equipment.... they're like a social event.



There is something so quaint, and so sold fashioned about some of the sales I ave been to. Like the one today, for instance. It was so cold - and windy, and miserable all morning. Yet, 1000 or so people came anyway. It reminds me of how it must have been in days gone by - a community gathering you didn't want to miss, because they didn't happen very often. Events like this must have been the highlight of rural folk's social life. I know, I know - us simple minded country folks; we don't get out much! :)

There is a sea of trucks parked in a field - kind of like the county fair! Farmers don't come alone - they bring their families. Wives, Kids, pets....


(This dog's name was Brutus. Like my cat. He was such a cute dog.)

.... They come in droves; and stay all day long.



Friends; neighbors; extended family all meet up and spend the day together, selling, buying, getting a great deal, talking, catching up, bonding, sharing a doughnut and a cup of coffee. I was even more "transported" to a simpler time of long ago, when I saw the horse drawn buggies pulling in and out.



Did I mention that there were around 1000 people or more there?



There were a few times, the crowd of camo and carhart closed in around me, so I couldn't even see through the coveralls and jeans to know what was going on.



We go to find good deals on things we need on our farm, of course; but half of it is just getting out and being with 1000 other like minded rural farming folk.

This sale was a bit different from others I'd been to; no only because of the Amish element, but because there were livestock at this one! There were two baby bunnies I really wanted, for $8. Kevin might have bought them for me, but before I could even get a photo of them they were sold. There were horses, alpacas, a hog, and sheep, as well.



Who were not very happy about my close proximity to their truck, I must say. They were very suspicious of me, to say the least. And when I visited the hog, she was not exactly thrilled, either. Oh well.

There were also (surprise!) Antiques at this sale!



A whole, glorious tent full of them. But I resisted. We were not here for more vintage/antique stuff for me... we were here for a backhoe.

There were some really tempting very early blue canning jars with bubbles in the glass, and other desirable imperfections in blue jars. I still have never laid eyes on the rumored "violet hue" jars.......



At some point in the morning, I looked up on the hillside, and saw the Amish boys, enjoying an impromptu game of volleyball. It was just so cute.



And at the end of the day, Kevin and his farming partner bought what they were after...



... for an excellent price. So, although I had to get up at a completely unreasonable hour on a Saturday, it was cold, I had no sweet tea all day, I broke my hair elastic and my hair was all over the place all day, I now have windburned cheeks, and I didn't get my bunnies -

It was a fun day. :)

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

Thanksgiving was at MY house this year. Seems like we have a little more room than everyone else at the moment. So on Wednesday Kevin, my niece Lexy and I started the Great Cleaning of 2009 to get ready.
We've been doing the drywall portion of our remodel, and there was dust everywhere throughout the house - even upstairs. (More on that later with some Kitchen Updates.)
By Thursday, it was mostly clean, but I still have not gotten to the upstairs rooms yet and here it is Saturday.
Luckily, I had hardly any cooking to do this year; my awesome Mom, sisters, and sister in law did most of it.
I did get a pumpkin cooked and made 2 pumpkin rolls. (I learned from Kevin's Mother last year that you have to make them in 2's - one for the actual dinner and dessert, and one for Kevin - and his nieces and nephews - to eat all by themselves.) I also made a pecan pie after my sister Naomi called me on Thanksgiving morning and said sis-in-law Sherry's awesome chocolate version wasn't what she wanted. FINE, I said. I'll make a plain one. So I whipped out a crust and turned out the pie.

I also tackled the turkey this year. Kevin and everyone were out in the woods and I was alone in the house, wrestling a 23 lb. turkey. I talked myself through it:
"I can do this. I've watched my mother do this a hundred times. Ok, you slimy bird, I will get you in that cooking bag and into that oven without dropping you....."



My brother Eli had knee surgery the day before; but he was determined to spend the day out in the woods with Kevin. He did it; although he was in a LOT of pain. (I love Abi's face in this picture.) Despite it all, he carved the turkey, and gave me a tutorial on making perfect gravy. I know how to make gravy, but his is special....


Noelle, the potato queen. She won't let me mash them anymore. She's got to do it just so.




My brother Lael's eye is messed up, as he got "jumped" by some thugs at a capture the flag game a week or so ago. He was beat up pretty bad, and they kicked his face; breaking his cheekbone and damaging his eye. This looks pretty good compared to before. So this Thanksgiving, I am thankful that my little Bro is ok and wasn't hurt worse that that! Who knew capture the flag could be so dangerous?


Sneaking my sister's famous lime jell-o salad. Tisk, tisk.





Impossibly adorable Pennell offspring. One wearing Uncle Kevin's tall boots....



A sneak peek at my 1800's log wall! I have worked so hard to strip the paint and whitewash off of it to reveal it's gloriousness....more later.



Custom artwork on my 1920's living room door. Courtesy of Brendan - or Alana? Or, was it Emilie and Ethan? No matter. A little Kilz and a top coat and we're all set. I have to paint that room anyway.

I had a great Thanksgiving! I love and adore my family! Onward to Christmas!