Practical Makes

Practical projects and crafts

Author: Louise (Page 1 of 6)

Projects for 2025

December 8, 2024 /

So, if there’s a new year coming, there should be new projects to plan for!

Sewing

There’s definitely plenty to sew…first up, the sofa slipcover. I have two cushions done so two cushions to go and then the main part of the sofa. And then really, I should do the other sofa too… It’s not exactly fun sewing but it’s a big improvement! Mostly it’s very careful geometry and then cutting and sewing and measuring big bulky pieces of fabric. So, not fun, but worth it…

I also want to make chair cushions, specifically ones with wool padding. This I think would be fun. I want to learn how to make good wool cushions and small chair cushions seem like a good place to start.

I also want to get back into sewing clothes. I have fabric for a dress for me and fabric for clothes for the kids. That’s fancier sewing (so harder) but also more fun. Here’s hoping that the tiniest child will be old enough for that to be workable. I like sewing clothes and when I can do it regularly I can make them pretty efficiently and I can adjust patterns to fit way better than clothes from the store.

Also, making your own stuff (as long as you have time to stay good at it) is a great way to be more environmentally friendly. You have to go more slowly when you make your own clothes. The hardest part is just finding good quality fabric, otherwise they wear out faster than I like or fade too quickly.

I also want to sew small fun things for the kids for their birthdays and Christmas and things.

Embroidery

So this year I made bookmarks as Christmas presents with different pictures for everyone. Next year I want to embroider a cool Christmas picture because it looks awesome and fancy, I think I have to work my way up to that though…

I also want to make nice embroidered napkins using some of the extra green linen I have. I think it’d be fun to have fancy napkins for holidays and birthdays or just to be fancy sometimes. The goal would be to make 8, that way we have 7 for family get togethers plus an extra.

I’d also like to come up with some other fun embroidery for holiday gifts (I think the bookmarks were a pretty great idea!)

I’d also like to embroider clothes, like make a solid colored dress and embroider the color or cuffs. That sounds really fun.

Knitting

Well, there’s going to be sweaters for the kids. I’m currently deciding between making another set of cardigans or a set of Bumble sweaters. I’ve made those before they’re warm and stretchy and comfy, so good for kids.

I’d also like to knit flip mittens/gloves for the kids kids and me, and maybe as other gifts. That’s going to be a lot fancier knitting, so we’ll see!

That and I’d like to finish the blanket I’m knitting. I’d like to make a few more wool blankets over the next few years. The kids are big enough now they can hijack the ones we’ve got, so I think it’s time to add a few more.

Garden

Well, this will be a big project this year or more accurately big projects. There are three big things, getting the main vegetable garden into production for real this year, planting a whole lot of native flowers in the front (and back and elsewhere) and fixing things up so there are good paths connecting parts of the yard and cleaning up the area that was under the pine tree that came down this year.

So those aren’t really complicated projects, they’re just big ones.

The vegetable garden will be pretty straightforward. This year I’m going to plant:

Hot peppers
Jalapenos
Slicing tomatoes
Cherry tomatoes
Cucumbers
Peas (probably snap)
Onions
Bush beans
Lettuce and salad ingredients
Pumpkins (and mini pumpkins!)
Summer squash
Winter squash
Basil
Potatoes
Tomatillos
Bell peppers
Garlic
Dill
Parsley

I’m also going to try to start as many as possible from seed. I think the plan for that is to not start them too early. The last few years have had cold springs which just makes everything a mess trying to keep seedlings from over growing their containers.

I’m also going to try and start perennials from seed for the front. That’s going to be:

Echinaceas
Rudbeckias
Asters
Coreposis

Plus probably some annuals:

Cosmos
Zinnias
Marigolds

Ideally the whole front will be flowers and herbs and some vegetables in a few key places and the back will be a big vegetable garden.

And the former pine tree will be nice grass. I think if we take the edging out and put down at least some grass seed it should take care of itself, based on how quickly the grass got everywhere else…

Canning and Food Preservation

Food preservation plans are like last year but more. I’m hoping to try a batch in the pressure canner since I want to learn how to use that. And I want to add more pickles and tomato sauce. And actually can the jam as we get the fruit. Plus canning just straight fruit too. And add some pre-made stuff like salsa and ketchup. Just a few goals. 🙂 So that’s:

Tomatoes, whole
Tomato sauce
Pizza sauce
Salsa
Ketchup
Peaches
Blueberries
Applesauce
Pears
Plums
Strawberry jam
Raspberry jam
Grape jam
Apple butter
Plum jam
Blueberry jam
Pickled hot peppers
Dill pickles
Canned corn or peas or beans

And I want to keep doing roasted tomatoes, probably freezing at least some beans, corn and peas until I know if the canning works and freezing some fruit. I also want to do a better job dehydrating herbs and catnip this year.

And set up good cold storage for potatoes, onions, garlic and squash. We have ok cold storage, but we can make it better I think.

New Skills – Felting, Quilling, Soap and Candle Making

Then there’s new skills! I want to be able to learn to felt wool to make fun things for the kids for gifts and also make wool cushions. I want to learn quilling to make cards and things. I want to make lotion I can use and candles for fun and gifts. And if I can make those then I should be better at making more household items, cleaning mixes and other things….

Home Projects

And there’s still stuff to do here for the house, there’s the last two areas of carpet to replace, lots of bookshelves to make, basement work spaces to set up, the greenhouse to set up, doors to put on the kitchen and closet storage to improve.

So that’s at least a year’s worth of things to do.

Thinking about the new year

December 4, 2024 /

It’s December and to me that always feels like the time to think about how has this year been and what do I want to try to make happen next year. I really like to know where I’m aiming to go on New Year’s Eve, kind of like being at the start of a race or the top of a hill on a bike, ready to go.

So how was 2024? My main goals were to find good ways for us to interact with the wider world and go places were my main goals. And some of that happened and some of it didn’t. Life likes to have surprise challenges after all. We didn’t go as many fun places as I’d hoped (tiny children + immunocompromised state + health things to manage = a whole pile of hard to overcome each time) but we did go places. And we’ve done all the big family things I’d hoped. Not always in the ideal way but we made them happen.

And the kids had a lot of playing outside and reading books and just good kid stuff. And we didn’t drop family traditions, which definitely matters. So yay!

Next year’s goal, more swimming and working on our yard and more hiking.

One silver lining to things this year was that we ended up picking up projects and things I wouldn’t have thought we’d be able to do. There are 200 lb of tomatoes plus some pickles and things all successfully canned and hanging out in the basement. Which is awesome!

Next year’s goal is to take that and make it more, can the jam as we get the fruit, and can fruit and veggies directly. And double the tomato sauce, because really good tomato sauce on hand is the best. Also, canning isn’t at risk if we have a power outage, which is a big deal.

One thing I tried to do this year was add more of the world at large to what I think about and what I see and do. And….yeah….I only managed some of that, and honestly I don’t think it works exactly for me. The world is headed in other directions for awhile and there just isn’t enough contexts where someone like me can participate for that to be workable. It’s not like I want to give up on the world it’s just that I need to be ok, and I need my family to be ok and honestly I need to be functional.

The efforts of the Everything-is-Fine! crowd and the Everything-is-Doom! crowd and the efforts of big companies pushing both of the above just doesn’t work for me. So I’m going to look for online communities I can be a part of which works for the health stuff and the immunocompromised stuff. Hopefully some low key ones where there can be participation but at a level I can manage. This was a thing I did more as a teenager and in college, but parenting and working and health things don’t leave a lot of time. Also being an introvert applies to the Internet too. Got to be something out there though!

Some of the seeing the world was good though. Just have to find a way that works for me. I got to go to a couple of bookstores and an antique/thrift store. I want more of that (when workable) and more going outdoors, both here and hiking. Some of that is hard with kids, but hopefully we/I can add more of that next year. Part of the hard part is people are stressful (I mean, they’ve always been stressful on some level, but the fact that they could wreck my health or life at any moment really takes that stress up to 11…) but I’m sure I can find places to go and ways to do it that work.

And I think for my projects, yarn, books and things like that my new challenge will be finding ways to get the things I want from places that exist here. I think that will help with focusing on my community here and make sure if I’m getting things it’s things I really want and need which is important for environmental and sanity reasons. If I can source a very high percentage of my food from here I should be able to do something similar for fun stuff. 🙂 This is probably made easier by the fact that “fun things” are books, yarn, fabric, garden seeds and plants, puzzles, board games and the occasional video game. So seeds, plants and wool textiles are definitely available here and made here! There’s a local bookstore and game store and puzzles are certainly around a bunch of places so that covers a lot of ground. Fabric is harder, especially since I want fabric for clothing, that’s probably going to involve going online. There are fabric stores here but they’re really mostly for quilting. And I like quilting, but clothing is my favorite.

The other thing I want is to focus on here as in what’s around me and what I’m doing here. Which at the moment means my home and the space directly around me. I have lots of projects and a big yard to turn into gardens and happy spaces to be. And I have food to make and books to read and skills to learn to make and do more things. And movies to watch and games to play and kids and cats to hug. And really, the world at large is constantly trying to push it’s way to the center of my attention and really I don’t want that. The Internet or the world or companies or ads or whatever always seems to want more attention and more focus and worry and thought (and presumably more money as a result of that) but it eats up so much there’s nothing left for what I want especially after work, parenting, health stuff, paperwork, chores and the rest. So I want to turn off the distractions and just be me for a bit. Hopefully get to read books I like and make things and focus on here.

I’m not going to hide from the world and the terrible things that are out there. I have a couple of reliable news sources that update 1x per day to read and there’s public radio to listen to and magazines to read which are great sources of information (yay science! and textiles! and history! and gardens!) But it doesn’t need to take over everything I think about because I have people to take care of and things I need and want to do. And there’s a lot more happiness and fulfillment from that!

Holidays

December 1, 2024 /

I’ve decided this post should have the sunny picture with the blue skies. The other was snow with dawn just coming out of the gloom. Sunny blue skies seemed like the best choice to focus on though.

There are 3 weeks between now and the holiday break. The holiday break is 2 weeks off this year, yay!, but there’s a lot of ‘looming concerns’ in the wider world. So….yeah.

But home is nice. Home has cats cuddling in sunbeams (sudden, actual cold weather will do that!) and tiny children with cozy wool blankets and piles of books. And there are gardens to plan (really, actually for real this time!!!) and small projects to do and it is fine here.

I think that’s the most important thing to focus on and make true. It doesn’t have to be perfect or flashy or anything, it just needs to be fine and content and happy. Those are what I want to work on.

Small children mean big projects and ideas are not super feasible (except canning 200+ lb of tomatoes, or replacing the floor or other things that were huge to do and then disappear in to a new, but better!, status quo). But small and medium projects can happen a bit at a time and those are good.

Maybe we can replace some remaining bits of floor, build bookshelves and canning jar shelves and I can recover another two sofa cushions.

And there can be fun kids things, get a tree from the tree farm, decorate cookies, drive down and see the lights downtown at night make gingerbread houses out of graham crackers, watch the nutcracker and other good things.

And for all of us, read lots of books, make tasty things, make small projects, pet cats.

There, those are good holiday goals. 🙂

Oh, and all the holiday gift making is done and it’s only December 1. I win this year.

Season change

November 22, 2024 /

It’s that time again, fall is ending, officially and probably in terms of the weather. It feels kind of like there were mostly just lots of encores of summer, but I guess officially it’s fall and all we have a few weeks of it left.

So time to prepare a new pile of books for the upcoming season! Some previous books return, some I’ve read before but not recently and a whole lot of favorites. The world is not a great place so it’s time to re-read some favorite series. Plus some for projects and/or skills to learn. Those are always good ones too.

So for reasons that are probably obvious the current emotions are exhaustion and rage and how-do-we-deal-with-this and a tinge of despair looking at the size of the various dooms looking over the horizon and it’s hard to plan or look forward to or prepare or work towards anything. But…giving up doesn’t work either? So I guess I’ll just look at the horizon outside of my window and not that big one over there with the giant monstrosities lurking at the edges and do my best. Because I have to get up each morning and things need to get done and getting those things done will help whether a giant monster wanders over here or goes somewhere else and I just have to watch it destroying things on the news.

Food Preservation and Gardening

Winter involves no food preservation! Or planting stuff to preserve! It is going to involve going over plans for next spring and hopefully actually really making it happen this year. The smallest will be 3 so it should be easier right? It’s not really a fun sort of planning since most of the what-to-plants are clear and it’s about getting the basics to work again, not about having fun experiments. But hey, this year we had tomatoes and peppers and it worked. Also our herb plants really took off so there have been lots of fresh herbs. Now it’s just getting the basics all going in the same direction again. And if we can do that, then there can be the fun parts of gardening. And we did make lots of space up front which will be flowers or vegetables or both, so there’s that too.

And I am hoping to start seeds (it might be a try and do it and if it fails get plants year). Here’s hoping it works! That’s more for March or later though.

Sewing

It’s on the list, for real! So that shows some things have improved. I made a Christmas present a few months ago and I made slipcovers for two of the cushions on the old sofa. I have two more to make and then a cover for the frame. Making a slipcover I can wash rather than reupholstering the whole thing seemed the way to go with 3 tiny people and 4 cats. When the tiny people are less sticky and messy then I can be fancier. The first two covers went well, so it’s onward to the rest!

And if that goes ok, maybe there can be sewing clothes for the kids in spring. I still have the fabric for those, and summer dresses for me. It’d be nice…so here’s hoping.

Knitting

I am turning leftover yarn into a blanket. In this case I’m knitting hexagons that I’ll sew together into a sort of knitted quilt. It’s fun and I like it but part of my is terrified I’m ‘wasting’ the yarn. Which, it’s leftover sweater yarn, and everyone has hats and scarves and things and more wool blankets are definitely on the wish list. I think it’ll feel better when I start sewing them together and it’s obviously a blanket.

Having a simple project is nice though and it is easy to move around since it’s just 6-8 inch hexagons.

There are also things to make, small things for the kids, house projects (shelves, basement space set up, etc) and others.

And there’s also trying to do fun and happy things, baking cookies, going and seeing lights, doing the things that make all the rest of this worth doing. Puzzles with the kids (and by myself!) reading, watching silly movies.

So maybe that’s the biggest goal? Keep it all together and set it up to be better and make sure to do the things that make the rest of it worth it.

There, that’s the plan.

Fall is here

November 3, 2024 /

Well, after about two months of getting to see what bread feels like being baked in an oven Fall has actually arrived like someone flipped a switch. It’s dark, it’s currently rainy (for the first time in 2 months!!), many of the leaves have fallen (except for the darn buckthorn…) and all the cranes and geese are booking it north as fast as they can go, like someone who overslept on a day with an important meeting or test.

It’s like the world outside is out of alignment and isn’t sure what to do about it. Like a piece that isn’t seated right or someone with a or a gear that’s shifted. It being November 3 here in the world of human things and not knowing what sort of world I will be experiencing this time next week really, really, really doesn’t help.

But I’m here and we are here and the kids are here and this is the world we have to chose how to live in.

So, November, food preservation is done, we’re getting the yard cleaned up for winter a bit at a time. There were Pumpkin Hikes and pumpkin carving and adventures with the kids. The boys did their Christmas shopping (yes, it’s early, but with the world being what it is, that’s how we need to do it). Our tiniest girl got to toddle around the yard after her brothers and help find candy and treasures during the Great Pumpkin Hunt this year. She has worn her costume every day since. 🙂

I have books to read and projects to do. We’re into making Christmas presents now. I’ve down colorwork knitted cowls for my parents and our tiny girl. And I’ve made embroidered bookmarks for the boys and my parents. That’s been fun. I knit a lot so it’s fun doing a new craft. And I can re-combine or invent the patterns and then embroider them while I’m taking breaks or watching something or listening to something. And fabric bookmarks will be durable so I think they’ll be great!

The other new one I’m hoping to do is needle felting wool and making tiny fuzzy cats for the kids’ Christmas stockings. I have about two months yet. So we’ll see if I pull it off!

Next is food gifts. I’m going to make flavored honey, and hopefully honey roasted nuts. I’d like to try flavored vinegar, but we’ll see… And maybe I’ll give making vanilla extract a try. I’ll probably make chocolates too, and I’ve gotten a lot better at candies! I made honey popcorn balls that were great. I’m hoping to make caramels and peanut brittle and some other things with honey…fingers crossed!

Other than Christmas crafts the other fun project is to make paper holiday decorations this year. The theory being, they’re fun to make and if I make new ones each year I can have fun doing it the way I want and they can’t get dusty and upset the arthritis. And paper can be recycled so it’s not a big environmental cost. I’m also planning to try dehydrating orange slices and making things like that.

Other than that the next couple of months are small adventures with the kids as the holidays get closer (driving to look at lights, going for a hike in the woods, watching holiday movies, going to the tree farm, etc). And keeping up with regular chores, and taking a break after the summer and doing small projects inside (and some outside) to make doing day to day stuff easier.

I guess that’s basically the plan all the way through winter.

And then spring will be time to tackle the yard and outside and get a proper garden set up and get the garden ready so we can have a good garden next year.

Hopefully all good plans.

Sunrise

September 29, 2024 /

This week is October! Late summer/early fall was pretty action packed with a month or two of food preservation packed into two weekends. Now it’s hard to decide what to prioritize and plan. It’s kind of like after you finish a really good or intense book/series and you can’t decide what to read next.

Some of the obvious choices are catching up on cleaning and picking up and regular-everyday-chores that got behind. Some are just taking a break to get things away from the edge-of-the-breaking-point physically. And some are making sure to do some of the fun things. October has pumpkin hikes and apple orchards and other good things. For us it will probably also have the taking the kids to do their Christmas shopping and it will have our Great Pumpkin scavenger hunt in the yard. (The Great Pumpkin needs to decide on small pumpkins or luminaries to mark the prizes this year…) Last year it snowed, this year we’ll probably all be in shorts at the rate the weather is currently going.

So for now it’s watching the sunrise and just thinking about what we want to do and when and how. The window up here faces south and so the sun comes up over the neighbor’s trees and slowly paints the tops of ours bright, bright gold on a good morning. It’s beautiful to watch. And it’s a good reminder that sometimes just being is fine too.

As long as the key stuff still gets done around the edges and before and after too. 🙂

So today, probably regular laundry and scrubbing and doing the kitchen. Hopefully fun bonus things like maybe chocolate chip cookies or putting up those shelves in the basement.

The kids get Sunday Morning Cartoons (a mix we make with a weekly line up because that’s a much better way to interact with media). This also means bagels and orange juice for breakfast, which is also something they love. And Sunday night is also Popcorn & Choose-Your-Own-Dinner (as long as it’s simple), which is nice for their parents and fun for them. Sometimes small traditions are as important as big traditions.

Preparing for fall

September 27, 2024 /

Well it’s fall now, it’s still hot, but it’s officially fall. So that’s something. And the leaves are falling and the sunlight is now angled as the tilt of the Earth tilt’s those of us up north away, so it looks like fall at least!

Fall means it’s time to work on projects that will be Christmas gifts. I’ve got the sewing project done for the smallest child (yay!) and I’m working on the holiday knitting projects now. Some for the kids (smallest child’s is done already!) and some for my parents as gifts. So probably 5 in all? But being colorwork cowls they are nice and relaxing to knit so they go fast. If I finish those the plan is flip mittens for the boys. Those will be complicated which is why I’m starting with cowls!

I’ve also got food gifts planned. I have to make sure I get the timing right on those though, since they’re new. The vanilla honey is the only one I’ve tested so far…

Plus the big projects, sofa upholstery, the last of the upstairs carpet replacement, cleaning up the garden, fixing the former landscaping around the tree stump…

Plus the inside projects from my husband, shelving, underbed drawers, etc.

With three kids, one of them tiny, if one of us is doing a project, the other of us is parenting, which is a challenge… Especially since we also want to have time and energy for fun things with the kids…

But hey, there are lots of happy things, and that is good.

September, Otherwise known as July

September 22, 2024 /

So the weather is hot, middle of summer hot, which is not the best. Usually this time of year is in the low 70s, which is comfortable for doing outside projects. Instead we have mid 80s and wildfire smoke aloft. And sometimes less aloft which is a problem… Parts of the sky turn white and orange and everything is hazy up high and near the ground. Even the moon was orange last night like something out of a Halloween story.

So I’m not contributing much to the outdoor projects at the moment. Wildfire smoke and RA aren’t a great combination.

I have a good start on my book stacks though! I re-read The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst, plus The Zero Waste Life, The Year of Cozy and The Clean Mama’s Guide to a Peaceful Home. Some of these, as is probably obvious are project books.

From The Year of Cozy I finally tried both the marshmallow recipe and the flavored honey recipe. Making marshmallows with honey is a success! Doing a full recipe is way too many, so I’ll be doing half recipes, but it worked, which is awesome. And while it was some effort, it wasn’t a problematic amount of effort, so that will be a ‘special occasion’ treat, but hey, I can make them!, and that’s huge. The flavored honey is a test run to see if I can make it as gifts. I’m letting it sit and absorb the flavor for a week or two before testing it. Hopefully it works!

Re-reading The Zero Waste Life was also interesting. It’s been a little while since I first read it, a year?, six months?, and it’s interesting to see what I’ve managed to improve on. Sometimes it feels like I’m not getting anywhere but comparing the suggestions to where I am now with my projects and systems I’m not doing too bad! Still a ways to go though. Some of the big ones are just stepping up the canning. If we get 200 lb of produce and it’s a year supply it’s realistically going in the freezer or in a canning jar in order to last that year. And if it’s in the freezer that probably means ziploc quart bags. And that means plastic that’s going to be disposed of. Yes, they can be washed a few times, but it doesn’t work well and they tear and even with the best efforts they end up in the trash. Plus it’s plastic, and wow does science seem to suggest plastic is the leaded gasoline of our generation in addition to the goal of not creating trash that hangs around for centuries.

Freezing in glass containers is on the table, but that means having enough containers. Doing say, a few quarts of chickpeas I cooked in quart jars to have ready for salads, is definitely reasonable. Doing 90 lb of blueberries in one weekend, less so. Not to mention it needs to be something that won’t turn into a rock or it will be very hard to get it back out of said container. But you can can them, and I found a post from someone from an Extension office saying a simple syrup with honey is valid for canning. So the plan is to do a trial batch next year. We’re going to need more shelves though. We have a nice set of shelves for canned goods, but not enough for a-year’s-supply-of-most-produce-for-a-family-of-5 number of shelves.

And The Spellshop is amazing. It’s happy and interesting and the circumstances mirror enough of my 2020/2021 experience it helps with a sort of background healing of some of that emotional trauma. Bad Things happened, we had a front row seat to them, and then we packed up everything we could and had a hard, terrifying trip and then we were back in my childhood home. It’s our home now, and I’ve always loved it and I love being here but what brought us here involves Emotionally Complex Memories… especially since the rest of the universe is of the opinion that None of That Happened (either 2020 or the first bit of 2021). And being without a functional body or immune system things didn’t Go Back to Normal for us in 2021/2022 so yeah… emotionally complex memories/thoughts.

The wildfire smoke is (hopefully!) headed another way next week and today, the official first day of fall, a big front should switch us from nearly 90 degrees back to barely 70 degrees but it should be. Walking outside has felt like standing in a bizarre oven this month, it feels wrong and horrible and terrifying. Hopefully we get a break for a bit.

I’m ready for fall, canning happened when the farms’ tomatoes finally, finally, finally came ripe. We now have shelves of whole tomatoes, tomato sauce, pickles, and pickled hot peppers. I think that’s my limit. Next year we’ll add applesauce and learn to pressure can vegetables and can fruit in light honey syrup. And can the jam instead of freezing the fruit (though maybe I’ll drag the frozen fruit out this winter and ‘catch up’).

Sweaters are also done! These are TinCanKnits Trek pattern but converted to be cardigans. The tiniest one will have buttons, when she’s a little older and less likely to taste test them. I have them waiting, they’re silver heart buttons. This was my first time steeking and it went great! I’m doing this every time now! I thought the kids would like cardigans they can thrown on when it’s cold out or they’re playing in the basement. Hopefully they like them!

Next up is the Christmas knitting! I’m hopefully going to make three cowls (Tincanknits Compass pattern) and two pairs of convertible gloves/mittens for the boys. My other Christmas gift crafts will (hopefully!) be embroidered bookmarks (hopefully 6 of these? boys, husband, parents, best friend…). And also my food-as-gifts experiments. Vanilla bean infused honey was amazing so that’s going to be one (parents) and spicy honey (husband) and rosemary honey (parents). Flavored vinegar is also a planned one, though I haven’t tried it yet. Spiced and sweet nuts and candy are also ideas (for husband and maybe parents, we’ll see what works for people?).

Oh and I also finished the softbook for the tiniest one for Christmas. At least the sewing is done. I’m going to embroider her name and ‘from mom’ on the back too.

I’m ready for fall and winter and holidays and consistent plans and schedules. It was a good and bad, hard and productive, and hard to predict summer. We did a lot of great things (a drive in movie for the boys and their dad! I got to go to an antique/thrift store and more than one book store!) and got lots of stuff done (the moldy trees are gone, house changes make things easier/cozier/less-RA-setting-off, we canned-all-the-things) and I got back things I haven’t managed for a few years (sewing, canning, growing-the-darn-tomatoes, a garden that’s mine). So all in all, good, but exhausting. Hopefully fall is good, restorative, and happy.

Fall leaves, Fall books

August 29, 2024 /

Fall is really trying to push it’s way into the end of summer this year. The weather was wet then dry, cold then hot then cold then hot. Outside it smells and feels like fall and every now and then a yellow cottonwood leaf falls, even though it still looks so green, if you look close you can see the leaves changing.

Unsurprisingly, the combination of bizarre weather and small children has not made gardening easy! Also, the mosquitos, so many mosquitos…. So the back garden was a failure (again) but the front garden is actually doing pretty great! We got peppers, tomatoes and herbs this year. Which is a huge step up! We would have gotten cucumbers if it wasn’t for the combined efforts of a very determined deer and some rabbits (sigh). So maybe there’s hope.

Overall, summer has been a success, peas, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, peaches, green beans and corn all got frozen. Peppers and tomatoes are up next, mostly (hopefully) going to be canned. And we need to freeze carrots and stash potatoes, garlic, onions and squash in the basement yet. And apples. With the RA, it has to be local apples, most of the ones at the store have coatings on them which is a minefield if I try to eat them. Apples will be made into sauce and pie fillings and (hopefully) canned. And I’m going to stuff a bunch in a fridge to enjoy as long as possible… So far we’ve done really well with what we’ve picked up and added to our projects! Hopefully next year we’ll be able to step it up even further and add more canning. Canning is harder to do but everything is easier to use if it doesn’t need to defrost. Also, canning jars don’t take anymore energy to stay preserved which is a plus for the energy efficiency goals. 🙂

With all of that the local food goals are going great! And with a side bonus, if we do it ourselves, there’s no cross contamination to set of the RA. Frozen grocery store green beans are a hazard… At least even if it’s more work it also tastes way better? So there’s that. At this point, the non-local things are cooking oil, grains, dried beans, fish and nuts. Plus some tropical produce (citrus, avocados, etc). The nuts and fish we are able to get directly for the most part but the others are hard to improve on. I need to see if I can get the RA to be ok with high oleic sunflower oil (regular is right out, but I’m hopefully maybe I can get the other kind to work) since that would help. Nuts and fish can’t all be local, but I can get those seasonally directly from the places that catch/growth them. Citrus I can improve at least some of that by (hopefully!) catching the citrus truck that drives up here in winter this year. Dried beans and grains is harder. Not much I can do about that at the moment…

We also got a lot of projects for the house done this summer, old carpet got replaced in two rooms, the trees that were setting off the RA came down and we started changing the landscaping over to a garden I can use (herbs, vegetables and fruit near the house and native flowers that don’t need to be as hands on) and are easier to manage with the RA. The basement paneling walls got replaced and we’ve made a lot of progress cleaning and sorting down there, which also helps the RA. So hopefully we’re heading into fall and school with a house that works well for us and that will make the RA easier to manage.

We have two more rooms of carpet to go, and several areas of basement to finish sorting and setting up better, and some doors to change, and lots of shelves to build (books! project places!) but so far so good. 🙂

My other plan for fall is books! (and projects!) I made 3 stacks this time. The garden stack, the inside projects stack and the fun to read stack!

First up is the garden, the goal is to get things set up this fall so next spring everything is ready to go. The big areas are near the house. Where should we put the veggies and small fruit? I have my garden in the front, it’s warm and sunny and there’s space and we have the new space right behind the house. So far I’m leaning towards adding veggies and berry fruit to my front garden, it’s close, I can get out there easily and I can see it all the time, all things that increase the chances of success! We just need to defend it better to prevent a repeat of the rabbit + deer + cucumber snacks problem. The other plan is to put native flowers in the areas we cleared out in the front. The ones I have now have had so many butterflies and other pollinators it’s easy to see why it’s important. If we clear up the spaces that are empty hopefully I can just fill that in with native coneflowers, rudbeckia, asters, prairie clover, false sunflowers and so on next spring.

The back we need to finish cleaning up around where the tree came out and on the north side of the house. If we get it cleared we can have more play space for the kids and keep stuff away from the air intake vents, which I really need to keep the RA from being a problem. So that will be some additional grass, some probably gravel or mulch or low ground cover. We’ll see.

Yeah, it’s adding grass space, but the front is going to be no-mow in the long term, and similar goals around the fruit trees in the back so it will even out.

Eventually I want to do more native perennials around the pond but if we get the back garden cleared for planting it in spring, the front set up with beds and the landscaping area cleared and the area around the house and the former tree cleared and covered with something, that’s a big list already.

In 5 years though! It will (hopefully!) be an orchard under-planted with low growing native flowers/grasses, a woodland edge with diverse native trees and under-story bushes/plants, a front yard with a big flower, vegetable and berry gardens and no mow sedge in the center and the back will be a grassy area surrounded by native flowers and grasses next to the existing pond and the big back garden for big messy stuff that don’t need much interaction like squash, garlic, onions, etc. Fingers crossed!

So this fall one stack of books is for ideas on how best to do all that.

Stack 2 is inside projects! A lot of these are crafts for Christmas gifts. I want to knit the boys each a pair of convertible mittens/gloves and a scarf/cowl for the baby (now toddler!) and embroider some bookmarks as gifts for my parents. And then I want to actually try felting to make things for the kids (and cats) and make my own lotion. Plus some fun projects like seasonal fun things and continue my quest for a more environmentally friendly and manageable life, which also helps with the RA. Oh, and I want to crochet a wool afghan, since you know, I need more projects…

And last, but absolutely not least! Fun reading! The new Rachel Aaron comes out Oct 1 (Hell for Hire, standing in for Hell of a Witch here), the new Rebecca Thorne also comes out Oct 1 (Can’t Spell Treason without Tea standing in here) and fun favorites like The Spellshop, FFO: The Once King and Yuletide Gems just for some happy fun reading. And then Soonish and A Short History of Wisconsin which are also favorites to re-read but are interesting and fun. And finally You are Here and Winter Hours which is poetry (and poetry like prose) which are heavier reads, but good ones and nice to mix in. A bunch of things I want to read are coming out in spring so those will have to wait for a future book stack…

So that’s fall this year, lots of goals, hopefully a better fall with the RA this year, plus school and tiny people adventures and books and projects. Hopefully it will be a good one!

Summer Books and Flowers

July 18, 2024 /

It’s summer! I meant to write this at the start of summer, which didn’t happen, but it is at least still summer now so I think it still counts. The above books are my summer books (plus some extras I’ve added since I took the picture…).

The bottom ones are planning fun knitting; ideas for the kids and for small summer projects and planning for Christmas gifts. I’ve also got the Edible Landscaping book for helping to decide how I want to change the gardens near the house.

I think I’ve got a good start now! We’ve gotten most of the overgrown old plants (especially the ones wrecked in the April snowstorm) out and now it’s open with more of my coneflowers and space for herbs and vegetables and native flowers near the house. The next big one will be when they come to take out the trees by the house that are dying (climate change is a thing). This process started in January but there have been so many storms we’ve been bumped down the schedule for awhile, but tomorrow should be the day!

Then we’ll have open space near the house and more options for kitchen gardens up close. And I’ll be able to see the back garden from the house, which will make it easier to keep an eye on it…

I’m also hoping to read more sci-fi and fantasy books and poems. I’ve made progress adding fiction back into my reading. Weirdly, fiction is harder than non-fiction when overwhelming parenting stuff. It’s somehow easier to read it in bits and pieces. But life has improved enough that I’ve gotten through several new sci-fi books lately (John Scalzi, Gail Carriger, Rebecca Thorne, Travis Baldree). They’ve all been really fun and I hope to keep it up.

Plus poems and old favorite fantasy books and a climate change book…

And then I found some more, embroidery and quilling which is something I want to learn, more poems and a classic conservation book. And a nice re-read of a favorite history book.

And if I finish all of those, the local used book store had some more. 🙂

Summer is a nice time for reading. Though given all the rain from the thunderstorms plenty of bug spray is required…

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