Homestead Happenings

Some goings on from my last post:

My husband and son put up an antennae for their ham radio. We have started preparing the garden for next spring. I’ve got several crafting projects going, and am starting to plan a yarn and needle arts guild. Halloween happened, and our granddaughter got a nice surprise from her mother for her costume, and we are now signed up with a 4-H group in the area. We will be working with chickens in 4-H. Don’t have any yet, but she wants black or blue chickens. Lot’s going on around here!

Up Up and Away!

My husband and son have been busy putting up an antennae for the ham radio. First they pounded 8 feet of rebar into the ground for a ground for it. Then they used a manual auger to drill a hole to cement in the mast, the antennae was assembled, and up it went with the mast. The mast can bend like a lever so that it can come down when they want it too. His first contact with this antennae was on the east coast our fair country, from us on the west coast!

Readying to Garden

One of the things we have been doing to ready the garden, is purchase a chipper shredder so we can shred the leaves to put on the garden. Here is a picture of us using the shredder. Unfortunately, it kept clogging very easy, and was taking a long time. So the next day we raked the leaves into rows, and ran over them with the lawn mower. There was a little difficulty, because someone had raked some wire into the leaves, and the mower had to be stopped, and cleared of the wire, which had wrapped around the blade of the mower. We still have a lot of brush and small trees to chip up, so we will find out how the chipper works with that.

Then, when it was shredded, we put some cardboard in the garden, and covered it up with leaves. There wasn’t enough cardboard or leaves for the whole garden. I will soon buy some compost to put over the grass, and cover it with landscape tarp to let it mellow. Hopefully, this will get a lot of worms busy!

Crafting Time

I’ve started several crafting projects. one is pajama’s for my husband. The first set had a pattern with frogs. I’m currently reworking the waistband of the bottoms, as I didn’t do a step of sewing the seams down in the waistband, so found it difficult to get the elastic bands to go in, as the fabric in the seams kept blocking the elastic as I was moving it through:(.

I’m also spinning some fiber into yarn. I’m pre-drafting the fiber, and winding it loosely onto a distaff (I’m using a wooden spoon for my distaff), then spinning from that. Here is a picture of it.

Ive been washing some yarn my daughter-in-law was going to throw away, because it smelled bad.

I’ve decided to make another sweater for my husband to match the one I have. I ordered the yarn, and got the pattern from Love Crafts. The yarn came today in the mail!

I’m also planning to make placemats for Thanksgiving. I bought the pattern off of ETSY. Sorry the picture is sideways.

We had a good Halloween. My granddaughters mother knit her a Hogwarts scarf, and my granddaughter made a wand at the library during a crafting session. That completed her costume for Hermoine in the Harry Potter series books which she is “obsessed” with at this time.

We also painted our pumpkins this year, instead of carving them. They all seem a goofy lot, just like us!

Let’s not rush over Thanksgiving, but let us fully enjoy the season where we give thanks to God for His presence in our lives.

The Lord bless you, and keep you. May he make his face shine upon you, and give you peace.

Grandma.