Acorn Cottage Artifacts

01:59 pm: Tuesday's tip
My bicycle has tires full of slime. This makes putting air into the tires really difficult. I have a hand pump, the kind that looks like something from a Roadrunner cartoon, and finally I have been able to use it. While the slime supposedly keeps you from getting a flat tire, I have found that air gradually leaks out of my tires anyway. Someone told me, when I was asking at a bike shop about kickstands, and how to inflate slim-ey tires, that if I simply moved the valve-spigot thing towards the top of the wheel, the slime would slide towards the bottom and the air would be able to enter the tire...(I have been struggling with getting air into my bike tires for three years)

So, I tried it. This morning. And it worked. My bike tires are now not so squishy, and I decided to ride my bike to work today. It was a noticeable improvement. I had a job today that is only about 2 1/2 miles from Acorn Cottage, and so for the very first time I rode to work. And home again before it got too hot. I am very proud of myself. I wish that some of my other jobs were bikeable, or walkable. But they are not.

08:55 am: Not sleepy, but still sick
I have slept, and slept, and cleaned my kitchen, and slept, and baked some waybread, and kept drinking broth and ecinachea tea.

If I could go to the doctor, I would.

I cough like there is something that needs ripped from my lungs, like the winter I inhaled hot cereal and spent months coughing bits of cream of wheat back out, like someone with asthma. The last time I coughed like this I tore the muscles in my ribcage.

If I could go to the doctor, I would.

I've never found a home remedy for coughing that worked, for that matter I've never found a cough syrup from the drugstore that worked. This is probably just a gorram virus of some stripe or another.

If I could go to the doctor, I would.

09:05 am: Perhaps the rhinovirus wants to live here now
When stress is unrelenting, the body says stop... I had already lost my voice, and now I have the coughing and the crud. With all the tears, one would think that anything in my head would be washed away, but no, now I feel truly craptastic...

I remember years ago, I took a homeopathic first aid class, curious after a remedy cured "blood poisoning" overnight on a camping trip. (Well, it was the seventies, but I did have a very swollen leg, with red streaks running up towards my knee) One of the theories the practitioner talked about, was that dis-ease moved from the spirit, to the mind, to the body, as part of the process of healing; interesting concept, which has remained in my mind as another way to look at how stress allows us to become ill.

I'm going to take it pretty easy today. There are two cases of organic chicken-soup-in-a-box on the pantry shelf, so I'm good as far as nourishment, and I have an interesting sewing project in case I feel at all energetic.

I just wish that my body had chosen a way to deal with this that still allowed me to breathe...

05:48 pm: crocs are evil crap
The damn things have no traction

I have relegated my Crocs to use only in my backyard, when it is dry.

I wore them one day last week while working cleaning house, and my foot managed to land in the one tiny not-dry patch on the kitchen floor, sending me skidding across the floor into the doorframe. My lower arm is still nauseatingly painful to the touch. 

I don't learn, I forgot and put them on today. while preparing breakfast for me and the dog, I again skidded, this time on a tiny patch of water splashed from her drinking bowl, and ended up doing an alarming sort of split in the middle of the kitchen, sending the fortunately empty saucepan flying across the room, and crashing down directly on one kneecap.  Which is bruised, but not broken (hurts much less than the arm)

I wish that Keen made clogs in my size... their shoes have traction

I know that stress makes you absent minded and clumsy, but this is a bit much.

12:50 pm: Birthday wishes
To the dazzling and multitalented  trudchen  - Many many happy returns of the day! May the year to come bring you as many joys and as few sorrows as possible!

11:14 am: Tuesday newsday
The great worm bin experiment is working, though not exactly as simply as the way I had hoped it would. You may recall that I built a "flow-through" worm bin for my kitchen a while back. I have really enjoyed having the convenience of the organic dispose-all right there in the kitchen, and unless I tell folks what it is, they think it is a rather unusual looking waste basket. No smells, and not messy.

I recently tried to harvest the worm castings from the bottom of the device, and that part had gotten quite dried out and kind of solid (the top area where the worms live is still quite moist). Also, not all the torn newspaper was eaten by the worms, there were large dried out clumps mixed in with the castings. Not a problem, I can simply re-moisten the paper and add it to the top of the bin. A visitor this winter, who is a Master Composter, suggested that I lay a damp cloth atop the inside of the worm habitat, to help stabilise the moisture and also that would keep down any fruit fly population. (In the winter, at 55F interior temperature here at Acorn Cottage it is far too cold for fruit flies to be an issue, but last summer when it was 85F+ inside the house they were quite a nuisance.)

I think that I may need to harvest the castings a bit more often. I'm also thinking about maybe making a new worm-bag, one that is not quite so long, so that the end of the bag is not as close to the ground (easier access for harvesting. That might require making a shelf to hold the drip catcher, but since there has been little or no excess moisture, it needn't be very stoutly built.I have also fixed a few small things that have been minor annoyances here at Acorn Cottage. After finding a long piece of ball chain on the sidewalk, I got a two connectors and made long extensions for the speed and light switch for the ceiling fan in the bedroom. Now I can turn it on and off without clambering atop the bed. Much more functional.

I also finally Did Something about the side chair in the bedroom. A long ago as-is purchase from Ikea, it had torn black wool upholstery on the back and seat cushions. I had a length of woven upholstery tapestry stuff just draped across it, for the last two years. It took not quite two hours to cut and staple a piece to the seat cushion, and to sew up a "pillowcase" in the shape of the back cushion and hand stitch the bottom edge closed. Much better now, much less like a messy dorm room. Eventually I'd like to paint the wood frame of the chair, but that is not a 2 hour project...
Now if I lost ten pounds that would be a good thing, (I've been working on that) but my beloved Smokey has been looking a bit "different" to me... Her Own Darling Self has indeed been losing weight. I took her to the vet's office to use their scale and she has lost ten pounds since her last vet visit. When you only weigh 95 pounds to begin with ten pounds is a lot  {{ worry}} Collarbones are not a good look on an Akita.

04:37 pm: with a little help from my friends...
(I get by...)

I now have a different monitor, which will hopefully be more reliable.
Thanks to the sweet monkeybung, who drove over the river last night (with charming husband and adorable children), to bring me a monitor and attach it to the Acorn Cottage computer. I think her son Sam enjoyed meeting HennyPenny. Not only that, but having seen some of my refashionong experiments, she also brought me two dresses, a tunic and a skirt that she thought I would like. All prime candidates for new Fjorlief clothing, and in colors that I like. Whoo hoo!

11:23 am: media Monday
sometimes you need help...

09:49 pm: monitor help!
Does anyone out there (relatively local) have a monitor that needs a new home for not too much money? I think my computer monitor may be on its last legs. It has been cranky for months, but now it takes several tries of turning the computer on and off to get it to even light up and display... I'm only a baby geek (can play a little with simple HTML but not much else), and have no idea what to do.   I know I could get one relatively inexpensively at Free Geek, but I have no idea what to look for, and as y'all know, no car. I don't want to go back to using the computers at the library...

02:03 pm: I think I'll like this...
When I saw a cute dress marked down at a community thrift store two years ago, I had to buy it. My favorite colors in a bohemian-hippie batik rayon. There was the small matter that it was about six sizes too small... Since I am quite short, I figured that I could cut some off the bottom, and use that fabric to make the dress wider. I decided that an above the knee tunic would allow enough fabric to re-size it to fit me. So I cut a swath from the bottom, and then sliced the dress straight up the front. Tried it on, and yikes, the shoulders were practically falling off and the back was too narrow still. Obviously this needed greater thought and effort. so I put it in the big box labled "to be re-made" and left it for further inspiration.

Two years later - I need to have some fun things to wear at Oregon County Fair, and I decide black and blue rayon would do. Rather than my initial idea to turn it into a kind of button-up-the-front tunic, I decide that a pop-over-the-head mini dress would work better, and give me just a tad more fabric to work with. In addition, during the interim 2 years, I acquired a serger, which makes rayon a lot less labor-intensive to deal with.

So, I cut a piece of the leftover the length of the front stitch and it in place. Hmmm. Still not quite smooth in the torso, so I slash the dress straight up the back and stitch in another piece, this time cutting it narrower, (since I have more curves in front than in back). That's much better, but there still were some adjustments needed to the center back seam, and quite a large adjustment needed to the two side front seams, since the original dress had no darts.

I had two scraps left from the original cut off piece. A larger scrap was just big enough for two moderately sized patch pockets, and the narrow scrap left from the back gave me a piece to bind the center front edge and attach it securely to the rest of the neckline.

Though this is a lot shorter than my usual dresses, it is really comfortable, and I'm thinking that I can wear it over leggings, or a slightly longer skirt, and in the winter, as a layering piece in the style of my favorite designer Gudrun Sjoden

10:45 pm: shades of Tom Terrific...
Given the reality of life at Acorn Cottage, there is a lot of creative use of salvaged materials here. I decided to see if I could get a little further on the HennyPenny summerhouse project... (having mown the weeds down in the open back part of the yard, I want to move her into a chicken tractor for the summer, to give me a chance to deal with the VERY TALL and shrublike weeds in the current hen yard, which will need to be cut down with loppers rather than my weedwhacker).

I've been gradually putting together a small chicken tractor from the remnants of her original "homeless chicken" house. It still needs corner bracing, and a nice solid perch, but the biggest head-scratcher was that it needed a nest box.  I've been cogitating on this for several weeks now, and today, having been thoroughly trounced by a studio project that was being extremely uncooperative, I had an idea for something completely different in both scale and materials, a project that may be the most goofy-looking thing I've built since I was a childI was inspired in part by this article on simple nest boxes, and also by the nest box sizing suggested here.  I had initially thought of reusing an old kittylitter bucket, but was having some aesthetic qualms about looking at that all summer, when I saw a large black plastic flowerpot. Hmmm. the lid from the kittylitter bucket fits tidily just inside the flowerpot... It didn't take too long to cut a hen sized doorway into the side of the plant pot. But how to keep her from standing atop the nest box, with  disagreeable consequences. I had tried out several possible materials to make barriers, when I realised that I could cut the bottoms out of two plant toting trays, and wire pieces of that heavy plastic grid into a conical topper for the lid, which was also wired tightly to the lid. 

I often use bits of wire to connect things in the yard. All my small hen waterers have wire "harnesses" that wrap around the bottle and make a loop at the top so I can hang them in convenient places. (The big 3 gallon galvanised waterer just sits on a stack of bricks at a good height) And I've wired the panels of the chicken tractor together, as well as attaching the roof supports to the sides (a large hinged panel of heavy wire fencing, with the edges crimped back for reinforcement.

The whole contraption looks pretty kludged-together, but my final inspiration took it over the edge into the ridiculous - the top of the cone, where all these cut chunks of mesh come together, was really rough and awkward, so I added a plastic funnel to make a smoother "finial" and help hold the shape together. Now it looks goofy, in a way that reminds me of the Tom Terrific cartoons that I watched in the morning as a very small child. 

It is worthwhile to remember that clever thinking and scavenging will get you pretty far, when the piggybank is pretty empty

07:11 am: bang bang maxwells silver hammer
The house across the alley is getting a new roof. How do I know... they started tearing off the old one at six in the morning!   Just not possible to sleep through man conversation and hammery scrapey thumpy noises; maybe the universe is telling me that I should get up earlier. Harumph! (and apologies to all of you for whom that is the normal wakeup time)

06:09 pm: In which we find out that lots of flowers isn't always a good thing...
If you remember, early this year I was all excited to get a new fruit tree for Acorn Cottage; I got a dwarf Bartlett pear from Friends of Trees. I was a little concerned at the disparity between the small root ball (about 2 to 3 gallon) and the over six foot tall tree. I was delighted when the tree was covered with blossoms in the spring, and thanks to the neighbors beehive, it set many little pears.  I cut most of the baby pears off, as all my reference books say not to let trees fruit the first year. Well, it turns out that all those blossoms and fruit were not just for pretty, they were a sign that the tree was really stressed. Then came that week of really hot weather last month. I recently noticed that my new tree was looking unwell, the leaves were turning brown, but only on the underside. I have been good about givng it water, and looking online I couldn't match the symptoms to any obvious pear diseases...

A trip to Portland Nursery would let me find out what was wrong with my pear tree...the symptoms were inconclusive enough that the woman at the information desk called for one of the fruit tree experts. He, after looking at my leaf samples under a microscope, told me that it was some kind of fungal infection, essentially untreatable, and that the tree may do better next year once it has more roots. (sigh) The only suggestion was to clean up its fallen leaves this autumn, and not compost them, but throw them away. I hope the tree does recover.

On a more cheerful note, while I was there, I remembered that I needed to repot my baby fig trees, (metal pots and hot sun = cooked roots). They have a large selection of fiber pots that were not very expensive. I actually like the way these pots look, they are a textured dull brown, made from 100% recycled paper, and are even manufactured locally, in Corvallis. The five gallon size, 12" x 13", were $2.99 each.  I like that as my figs get bigger, I can move them into bigger fiber pots (the sizes go up to 16 gallon), and the old pots, if not in good enough shape to reuse, can simply be composted.

My other good find for the day was that my local Goodwill finally presented me with a waffle-maker that both heats up and makes standard (as opposed to Belgian style) waffles. I have been looking for one of these for at least a year and a half, I guess most folks these days don't make waffles at home... But since I have started back on the low-carb thing and I have a great recipe for waffles made from almond meal instead of flour, this is even more welcome, as a way to add variety to my breakfasts.

10:45 pm: Media Monday - brought to you by Westinghouse
For some reason this really makes me giggle. It is such a period piece, and I'm sure that the gal halfway through the film is on something...

03:19 pm: dainty Noro tidbit
Though I had sworn I was not going to buy any more yarn... in early May, before the weather turned hot I ended up going to Twisted with my friend bethpeters3 , where I fell in love with Noro, that yarn from Japan with incredible subtle and vivid color combinations. They had one skein in particular, that had all the colors that I love to wear, but somehow richer and vibrant, but it was only one skein. And Noro Kureyon, though visually beautiful, can be a bit scratchy; I chose some Noro Silk Garden (blended silk mohair and lambswool in a color range that was friends with my one skein), to knit the neck edge part of the shawl

I knew I wanted to make the Feather and Fan Comfort Shawl, but made small, to keep my neck and shoulders cozy in the cold weather. The pattern was pretty easy to follow and I really like the wavy lacey results, the wee shawl has nice drape for all that it is made from worsted weight wooly yarn. The pattern calls for a plain edge with optional added fringe. I decided that while fringe would look messy hanging over my shoulders and chest, a picot edge, with rather pronounced picots, would give a nice funky-hippie look. The resulting edging was not too difficult, thanks to the wonderful source of instructional variations found online, and looks just the way I had imagined... Pinned closed with a silver fibula, it looks just right, like a garment from an urban fairytale.

07:28 am: Why are wet hens mad?
Yesterday we had Weather. Odd weather. I looked out the window in the afternoon and saw brown haze going sideways and roundabout. The wind had picked up all the street dust and was blowing it sideways. The sky was quite dark, and the wind was whipping the trees around HARD. (I'm glad there are no tall trees right over Acorn Cottage). I, of course, had to go outside to see more, and get a sniff of what the air was like. Saw my elderly neighbor Margie in front of her house and went over (shielding my eyes from the blowing grit and dust) to see if she needed help getting her trash cans put away. Made some jokes about being blown away to the land of Oz...

Went inside and pulled the plug on Mr Computer, it was clear that some kind of storm was on the way. Then I called my friend Rois out in Beaverton, who told me that not only was there a thunderstorm warning, but that funnel clouds had been sighted, and I might want to do something about Henny Penny. Eeep!

I dragged the old dog crate into the house, along with the bag of wood shavings, and the small feeder and waterer, and set everything up in the workroom, so I could keep dog and hen separate. Then went to get the hen, who was just plain fussed and didn't want caught. Brought her inside, where she fussed and flapped and spilled most of the water and sent shavings all over the workroom.

She is back outside in her chicken house now. I have a very messy workroom to clean up before I can do any work in there. Fortunately it is clean mess,  water-damp shavings, rather than chicken "mess", since I took her back outside later that night. (We had some rain, and some thunder 'n lightning, and a lot of wind, but nothing untoward.)

11:54 pm: Bits and bobs
Today, I came back for doing my morning errands; I'd set out early to try and beat the heat. The post had come, bringing me an unexpected package from my friend hrothgar1 . I was pleased and surprised (gobsmacked actually) to find that it contained, not the thrifted shoes I had guessed based on the lumps inside the envelope, but a tiny cordless drill driver, with all kinds of nifty bits 'n drills. I am eagerly awaiting the batteries to become fully charged so I can play with my new toy!Finally, the copper pipe for the curtain rods has been cut to length, and all put in place. It does look much better (thanks again cathaus  for the suggestion) Of course, now I want to change the curtains, and maybe finish the ones that I'd cut out so long ago. The thing is, I need to come up with some border fabric. The curtain fabric is a taupe-y natural and white linen jaquard in a woodgrain pattern, so something not too busy would be ideal. I have been keeping my eyes open but haven't found the right thing yet. Hence the blue linen. Time will bring the right fabric here eventually, and the new serger, as yet unnamed, will make sewing the curtains sooo much less of a hassle.My baby fig trees are not happy in their galvanised pots, metal pots in the sun make the soil warm. I must come up with some other pots for them, and am leaning towards really like these self watering ones from IKEA. Too bad there isn't a ReBuilding Center for garden things, the tapped out budget necessitates some kind of salvaged artifact, and nice planter pots neveer show up on freecycle...

02:23 pm: happy birthday wishes
Wishing many many happy returns of the day to the kind and talented jillwheezul!
May your birthday be filled with delightful things and times

09:58 am: Tuesday tidbits, and a teaparty invite
There are feral roses in my backyard, against the southside fence. I didn't plant them, and they weren't there when I moved here. My neighbor has none on his side of the fence. Last year they were little things, but this year they're much bigger, and today I noticed that they were blooming. What a great start on one of my side goals, to have cutting flowers from my own yard for as much of the year as possible. I love having flowers in the house, it makes me feel prosperous, in all kinds of good ways.

So, I walked around the shaggy yard and found some other bits to make up this bouquet. There is a huge patch of lambs ears? and other ground covers, on the south side of the house. That area is destined for more garden beds (maybe next year), but for right now I'm just leaving what is there. I like the silvery white plants, and wonder if they would look good (and transplant well) in the parking strip.

While the chive blossom spheres in the herb patch were rather post, my garden sage next to the front walkway is in full vivid bloom. That garden sage is the very first plant that I put in the ground here at Acorn Cottage; it was a gift from my dear friend Bill, and I'd toted it around for years of living in other peoples rental houses, in a great big pot. While I was planting it three years ago, HennyPenny walked up to me and announced that she was no longer a lost chicken.

And I cut back my spindly dill plant, it was already starting to go to seed. I think that buying a nursery start is not the way to go with that herb, perhaps it grows better from seed? (anyone out there have advice that has grown dill? I love the flavor and would dearly love to have it in my garden...)

the pottery pitcher, that I use all the time for flower bouquets in the living room, was a gift from the talented and generous monkeyjunk . I love the beautiful glaze and the rustic carved leaves around the bottom edge. It makes me happy every time I see it.Utilitarian Workwear -  I cobbled together bits of three garments into this "new" jumper. While it won't win any beauty prizes, it is functional and a bit funky.The biggest difficulty is that I made the original overalls about forty pounds ago, and the torso is pretty snug. While I am currently taking action to turn the weight around, the fact is I desperately need clothes to wear now! And since my closet is pretty much empty of anything but party clothes and SCA clothes right now (since I wear those rarely, and my "everyday" clothing, well, everyday) I will wear it gladly, while cleaning house, or working, or while in the garden.

The part of this I really like is that I added extra pockets, the original pattern for the overalls had oddly small pockets, and now, I used the welt pockets from the vest, cut out with a good sized chunk of the vest, to make bigger, double "overpockets". I am of the opinion that useful pockets are a necessity.
My Craft-Tea-Party date this month is Sunday the 21st of June. I know that is the same weekend as both Summits Investiture and Dragon's Mist Defenders, but if you aren't there, you would be welcome here. I am decided that, aside from Country Fair, I'm pretty much not going anywhere this summer.  I want to enjoy Smokey as long as I can have her company on this side of the Rainbow Bridge, and going to events is not fun for her.

10:31 pm: media Monday
Artistry makes a world, with music and creative amazing use of cut paper