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Fun Times at the Farm

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Fun Times at the Farm

Fun Times at the Farm

On Friday I wrapped up the last of my camps with Montgomery College, hastily packed up my belongings, said goodbye to my lovely hosts, and swung around the beltway in DC to pick up Sweetness and Light.

For those of you who have begun following me in the last year, the monikers Sweetness and Light have little meaning, as I haven’t written about them recently.  Sweetness and Light are the name of two girls that I was a nanny to for four years – from mid 2010 until mid 2014, when Mr. Turtle and I moved to Richmond.  I began working for the family when I moved to DC – underemployed and still with the shine of college.  Sweetness was three, Light, just over 10 months.

Now, Sweetness is a precocious eight and Light is going to be six at the end of this month.  In the time in between, their parents have become more than friends, their family has increased by one (a 20 month old boy, now), and my employment has deepened into a friendship.  About once every four months, Sweetness and Light come for a sleepover, and since I was “in town” anyway, it made sense to “borrow” the girls, and bring them home for a few days.

Light rocking a ball-cap.

So what might have been a relaxing weekend unpacking and decompressing from camp became a joyful visit (perhaps relaxing might not be the word I’d use, but invigorating might fit).

Well, perhaps it was relaxing for Sweetness.

This was a particularly special trip, as we got to take Sweetness and Light to the farm.  Sweetness got to drive the riding lawnmower, we took rides in the antique jeep (without seatbelts!), and went to the James River to “ride the rapids,” fish and swim.

On Monday we returned to Ashland, and I dug out the camp materials for one last reprise, and we did needle felting to make pillows in honor of Mr. Turtle’s birthday, in a week.

Now the girls are gone, and it’s time to get back to the grindstone.  There’s updates to the website, design subs to create, patterns in a backlog that need to be written and edited, and camp stuff to unpack and find homes for.

Come next week, I’ll be trying to get back into the grove of blog-posts that are more informative that update-ish.  I’ve also got a bunch of patterns that have come out in the last four weeks, so I’ll spend some time highlighting those!

Other Stitchings – Embroidery

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As I mentioned before, Michael and I spent New Year’s up at the Farm.  We invited a few friends, including the friend I’ve had the longest, my best-friend Becca.  She was one of the bridesmaids at out wedding, and I’ve known her since I was 9 years old.

Becca and I riding in the back of the Jeep

Becca is amazing.  She’s smart, articulate, and willing to challenge people and make the them think.  So when I was trying to think of a bridesmaid gift for her, I wanted something was representative of our history, and something that was hand-crafted.  Something that showed thought and intention as well as love.  (As I’ve said before, there are few people who are knit/crochet-worthy for me, and fewer still who I’m willing to do other crafts for.)

I decided I was going to do some embroidery for her, of our old camp logo.  Chimney Corners Camp and Becket Camp are a sister and brother camp in the Berkshires, and the camp where both Becca and I grew up.  The camps both have lovely logos now, but the past logo was of a lake-scene, three paper-white-birches, a sailboat and pine trees.  In a very simple sense, it was actually a scene you might see in part of camp, while hiking around the lake.

There are many older staff members who are very attached to the old logo (some even have tattoos of it!), so I knew it would be the perfect thing to embroider.

Originally I only planned to do the outlines of all the different elements, and then color the rest in with crayon and iron it.  This method is how I normally do embroidery, as I have strong negative feelings toward working fill stitches.  So I did that on the pillow, even ironed on the color so it looked nice, and then decided that the pillow really called for everything to be filled in with stitches… everything except the paper birches, which would remain the white of the pillow.

Well, I was working up to the Nth hour, and had to wrap the gift just before we left for the wedding.  I told myself I’d get a picture of the pillow once Becca opened it… and promptly forgot.

But Becca is amazing, so she brought it to the farm for me to take a picture.

And in the joy of seeing friends, I forgot all about taking a picture of the pillow until she was leaving.  She was patient enough to remind me as she packed herself out of the farm just as the daylight was making its way over the field.

Embroidery, Chimney Corners Camp, Old Logo, BCCYMCA
Chimney Corners Camp Old Logo

Isn’t it pretty?

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This was going to be a post about how I desperately hoped that spring was around the corner, because I’m reading for this cold to end.

Then I got distracted by a picture of Sweetness, when she turned six, and I spent a good 15 minutes realizing that Light is the age of Sweetness when I first started watching the both of them.

Then I thought I’d do a recap of what has been going on the last few weeks – since it’s been a while, hasn’t it?

But I decided that all that can wait.  I want to tell you a story of some boxes in an attic.

You see, when Michael and I decided to move to the DC area nearly 3 years ago, we weren’t sure how much room we would have in our next place.  Living in Davidson, space was pretty cheap, in a way it isn’t in DC. We would be downgrading space.  So we took many of the non-essentials, and put them in the attic at Michael’s family vacation spot.  Once we move in, we could sort and figure out what else we wanted.

Fast forward three years.  We’ve occasionally gotten some boxes down from the attic (like Christmas decorations and a few things Michael wanted) and we still hadn’t brought home the boxes filled with my books, papers, and things from college.  Last weekend when we were at the farm, I’d HAD ENOUGH.

I carried them down from the attic, and began sorting them, right in the kitchen.

It was a blast from the past.  Letters I’d saved from Michael and my family.  The My Little Pony pictures my roommate and I had colored and put on our door.  Bank statements, and best of all, some of my writing which had been lost in a computer crash.  Here was all my work from my memoir class.  Hallelujah!

And books.  Books that were old friends I hadn’t seen in a long time.  My favorite books from college, some that I wondered if I lost, were there.

Also, when I couldn’t find the glue Michael, and you told me I lost it?  That was there too.

This is where I would normally show a picture of the weekend, or at least a picture of the books, or something, but all the pictures of this last weekend turned out a blur.  I had my settings wrong, and forgot to change them… and well, it was like a blast from the past, when I’d develop a roll of film, and there would be ONE picture that was good.

So I’ll give you the view from the farm porch, not this trip, but it doesn’t change much.

https://www.tinkingturtle.com/2013/03/this-was-going-to-be-post-about-how-i/

We Made out Like Bandits, I Tell ‘Ya

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Michael and I belong to a CSA, Spiral Path, which we pick up once a week from the Silver Spring Farmer’s Market.  Every once and a while Spiral Path will have an open farm day for its members.  It’s a cross between a harvest festival and a good backyard party, and we’ve been wanting to go for a while.  The only drawback is that the farm is 3 hrs away in PA.

However, this last weekend Michael and I had Ray visiting (who has a car that gets double the miles to the gallon that our car does). Coincidentally, there was an open farm day.  We decided to make a day of it, and got up REALLY early (before the sun rose) and drove to Spiral Path.

The drive was well worth it.  There was a fabulous pot-luck, tours of the farm, heyrides and other wonderful events.  Michael and I hadn’t quite realized how big Spiral Path is – they service 2250 members.  Just for perspective, most CSA’s have around 200 members.  Spiral Path is huge, but still very down to earth.  All the growing they do is organic, and you can see the values they hold in every choice they made about how the food is grown and prepared for shipment.  Michael and I feel very passionately about supporting efforts like this, and it’s great to know that we not only are getting great value for our food, but that it is going to a solid business model.

The most lovely part of the open farm day is the goodies that you get for free.  Spiral Path has a chunk of produce that it grows that for whatever reason isn’t considered sell-able – either it has blemishes, is too small, or has something else wrong with it.  Normally they donate the “reject food” to the local food shelter, but when they have the open farm days, they make this extra produce available to the members for free.

Our bounty from Spiral Path (the veggies) and Rock Hill (the apples)

Take a look at our haul:

We took home: 2 pumpkins, 2 butternut squash, 2 spaghetti squash, yellow squash, green beans, eggplant, summer squash, and a whole bunch of peppers, of various sweet and spicy flavors.

Finally, Spiral Path also had a herb garden where members could cut their own herbs.  We brought home mint, sage, and lots and lots of basil (for making pesto).

The event ended at 3, and by that time I was pretty tuckered out.  But we weren’t done yet.  On the way home, we stopped by Rock Hill Orchard, and picked up some Empire and Jonathan apples.  Just because it’s the beginning of fall, and that’s what you got to do.  Go apple picking.

Photographs from the farm, and the rare bit of snow we’ve gotten this year:

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My darling fiancee Michael’s family owns a farm in rural VA that they use as a retrat.  Being within a few hours drive from DC, we are sometimes get to use the farm as a getaway from our own busy lives in the city.  It’s refreshing for Michael and I, for different reasons.  While I am pretty much happy living wherever, Darling Michael is a country boy at heart, and happiest in a place where you can’t see your next door neighbor, and it takes a car to get anywhere.

We went to the farm with a couple of friends, and it managed to snow that afternoon.
Naturally we had to play in the snow.

Because Ellie and Rob were with us, we had to make a snowasaurous. (pictured in the back).  Rob decided to make his own dinosaur (pictured in the mid-ground).  I was having so much fun rolling snowballs (which were being used for the two dinnosaurs) that after they said they didn’t need any more snowballs, I continued to roll balls for my own amusement.

I got rather tired.

But I had a lot of snowballs.

Last count I rolled upwards of 22 snowballs.  Some with a little help.

One of the more interesting aspects of the farm is the old equipment dragged into the woods to die.

It is affectionately known as farm art.

Michael took a walk with me in the snow, a grand tradition we try to honor as much as possible.  There he is in his trenchcoat, and one of the myriad of farm hats to wear at the farm.  This is one of his many glares (sometime I’ll do a post about how Michael really only has three expressions, and all expressions are variations of those three).

This is a hurry up and stop taking my picture look, under-laid with an I’m amused but not trying to show it look.

I found a Whoville tree.

Dear Self

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Dear Self,

You have been woefully absent of late, and I have been growing concerned.  What’s up?  I’ve been hearing you’ve been having a rough time of it with traveling lately.

~Jen

Dearest Jen,
 You’re right, it’s been hard to stay with Weight Watchers when I’m taking the train with the boy somewhere every weekend.  Traveling is both a treasure and a pain.  It’s no reason to neglect you, I know, but I know our friendship will not suffer with my distance.

Let’s go through what’s been going on lately: I’ve decided to take my teaching to the next level, and have been arranging for classes at some really great yarn stores.  I can’t tell you all the details yet, but I will be in the upcoming weeks.

I’ve also been taking a really great class with Knitgrrl online.  While it’s been terribly helpful, it’s been sucking up all of my freetime.  You know how that goes.

Yours,
Self

Dear Self,

You aren’t the only one who has been busy.  I’ve gotten a new spinning wheel. It’s a Ladybug, and the wonderful people (Specifically Victoria) at The Yarn Spot ordered it for me.

I’ve been taking really good care of it, and just finished spinning some really nice angora/merino/silk.  Still don’t know what I’m going to do with it, but I’m just letting it breathe right now.  Sometimes after spinning I’ve got to give the yarn a rest before it speaks to me about what it wants to be.  Which is fine.  Now I’m spinning some lovely silk, and I”m alternately cursing myself and really pleased with my results.  This is a drafting technique that doesn’t come naturally to me, so I have to take my time, and sometimes I just want to GO!  I also don’t get into a rhythm as easily as spinning from the fold.

What about you?  What have you been working on?

Best,
Jen

Dearest Jen,

I’ve been working on a variety of things.  I’m working up a sample for a class I’m going to be teaching at Tangled Skein.  The pattern is called Meets in the Middle by Lorna Miser.  I’m in the swatching phase for a sweater made out of Rock Creek Yarn, and halfway through a vest out of Mountain Colors.  Finally, I’m crocheting a Cap Sleeve Top, which will also be for an upcoming class.

I’ve also been able to borrow an Antique Sock Knitter from my good friend Bobbi of Covers and Soles, and have been playing around with that for a neat little demo I’ll be doing with her.


The End result being, I don’t think I’m going to run out of things to work on during the second half of the Chicago trip, which starts tomorrow.  But that’s another story.


Until Later,
Jen

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