Photos from a foggy day

Hello friends! It is a foggy day on the farm. It rained a lot last night, so everything is wet, even the air. It is still Winter Brown here, but green is popping up.

I just wanted to send you a few moments of peace and simplicity from the farm. Fog tends to soften and declutter everything. I love sharing the farm with you, but am so adverse to social media these days, so this is just an impromptu note from our morning with some pictures from our post-breakfast walk….with the briefest of shop news…

Bill is shutting down sock tube cranking for the summer. His 20% off sale is good through this weekend, and then cranking will be by appointment only! If you’d like some of your stash turned into sock tubes for you to knit heels and toes onto this summer, please connect with us ASAP and we’ll get it sorted.

Back to the fog!

It was very important that we walk to the creek today because it’s been raining. Last week, we had to go to check out the ice situation, but this week it will be all about the water level.

We use “The Pipe” as a major benchmark for how much water is in the creek. The Pipe is on the east bank of the creek, south of the bridge. I think it is drainage from tiles in the big field that dominates our street. I don’t like to think about the chemicals it gathers from the management of crops and dumps into our water supply (and aquatic habitat for fish, frogs, turtles, dragonflies…).

This morning, The Pipe is Half Submerged. Within a few days, it will likely be invisible under the swiftly flowing, murky creek.

We haven’t seen any fish yet this spring. I think the water is still a bit cold for them, and we’ll have to wait for the water to clear few a few days after our week of rain before we have any real chance of looking for them again. Pullo dog, however, will keep hoping to find them on every walk.

We’ve been seeing our neighbor’s chickens on recent walks, which is a very exciting development! There are 7 homes in what I consider our “neighborhood,” and two of them started raising chickens last year when egg prices were really high. It has been very interesting having conversations with them about their experiences. There are things that I think must be hard to understand until you experience them, especially when it comes to farming, food prices, and energy flows.

At first, these chickens were confined to their safe coop and fed purchased grain for their entire diet. When our neighbor mentioned how expensive this was (way more than the cost of eggs - even at inflated prices), they asked how anyone could afford to raise chickens.

“Well,” I said, “we don’t feed ours at all for most of the year.” There are trade-offs to pasture-raised chickens - primarily that they are susceptible to predators and their production is lower (if you put less energy (feed) into the system, you get less out). Pasture-raised animals also require functioning ecosystems to provide their food. You need to leave the fallen trees, and leaf litter to provide habitat for bugs, frogs, and mice. You can’t feed anything useful with a monoculture lawn of half-inch tall grass.

There has been much crafting on these dreary days. Most of it is cross stitching, but I do have knitting news too!

I’ve been working on this pair of socks using three mini skeins. It’s a very simple and flexible pattern - just a small lace pattern and then some fun stripes. I wrote up what I did, and posted it on the blog. It is not a full pattern, but just a guide on how you can adapt your favorite sock construction to make a similar sock.

On the cross stitching front, I have been finishing a few pieces and adding them to our walls. (This is actually more complex than it seems, as our walls are all solid brick. Adding a nail involves multiple drills and so much noise! Bill has been so helpful in exploring all sorts of sticky hanger things!)

My birthday (49th!!) is in a few weeks, and I’ll be celebrating by starting a BAP (Big Ass Project - or Big Awesome Project if you aren’t a wounded sailor). I’ve been dreaming about starting The Fruits of Plenty by Modern Folk Embroidery for six months, and my supplies arrived today. If you have a project that you’ve been aspiring to start, let me know! We can stitch together!

Look for a newsletter in a couple weeks about our last shop update until autumn. Your February preorders, and March yarn club are drying by a very cozy fire! Once they ship, we’ll have one more month of preorders.

Until then, be well and safe, friends.