Saturday, October 22, 2011

Projects and More Projects



The Full Hunters Moon was really pretty this year.  I almost felt like howling at it.

I'm really trying to get as much as I can done before the ground freezes.  St. Luke's Summer went by too fast!  The warm weather has vanished and the wind has been howling for several days now.  No more leaves on the trees; even the tamaracks are turning brown.  I finally made it to the lumber yard and bought the wood for several of the projects I've been wanting to build like

Broom Closet

building shelves and putting up organizers in the broom closet so nothing falls on top of you when you open the door, and

New garden box

the new garden box I've been wanting.  (OK, so I still have to fill it up with dirt -- why do you think I want to get things done before the ground freezes?)

Then there is my basement pantry shelf unit.  I'm really proud of it.  Finally I'm able to put all of my canning jars up and off of the cold cement floor and there's plenty room to spare for more jars and pantry items. (I'm still looking to buy about 40 pounds of cranberries.)  It feels really good to be organized.  I have just enough wood left over to make my warping board so I can measure the yarn to string my floor loom.  Hurray!

Pantry Shelves
I have half of one log cabin quilt cut out.


But my biggest achievement this month has been overcoming my fear of and buying



my very own Savage Model 93 .22 W.M.R. rifle!  It has a cool scope and an accutrigger.  I'm taking it over to Dad's tomorrow for some pointers on using it.  Now I won't have to wait for someone else to dispatch chicken eating varmints.  Thanks to Marjorie Wildcrafter for giving me encouragement on the topic of using guns in a correspondence with her a while back.

Today I scrubbed the floors before the aide came to give Lara a bath, then finished butchering the chickens and canned the broth (I'll make a pot of gumbo tomorrow with the meat), baked pumpkins for puree to have for Thanksgiving pumpkin pies, and I cleaned and saved the pumpkin seed for next year's planting. 

With all this work it's no wonder my back hurts!

4 comments:

  1. I hear you on the hurting back .. although I got mine from a long airplane ride this past week. Your pantry shelves are so nice and sturdy! I hope you get all or most of your pre ground freeze chores finished.

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  2. Your basement larder is fantastic, must be a great feeling just to sit back and look at all of that wonderful canned food. I must dig around in the back of the closet and find my old single shot 22 rifle, if I had it with me this summer there would be one less endangered bird of prey when it killed one of my bantam chicks.

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  3. Hi, Mrs. Mac -- Glad to see your trip with the Traveling Sisters was fun for you. I was able to fill the new garden box yesterday, so now I'm working on building my hugelkulture raised
    beds out in the forest garden.

    Thanks, Dale -- I used 2x4 and 2x8 stock for the shelves and built them from a picture I saw in a magazine. I was very proud of myself! I took my gun out to practice and am having trouble with the bullets flying out of the clip and no loading in the chamber properly. I looked the problem up on the Internet and it seems that these are common problems with this model, so I'm not real happy. But, I'll get the gun fixed and will continue my practising -- it is confirmed that I cannot hit the broad side of a barn!

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  4. I love your shelves and how good the jars of food look on them..I know you feel a sense of pride about it :o) Be careful with that gun.

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