Another Wicked Good Birthday Thing!

Earlier in the month I told you abut my Wicked Good Birthday Dirt!  As awesome as that was I had other Wicked Good Birthday Things!  Any of you who know me also know that I have a HUGE fabric stash - right? Right!  Well, I got some birthday money to use for what ever  my heart desired and since my son passed and I have been doing more things that I want and like to do - of course I put that money away to use for something special or a rainy day which ever came first.  They both came on the same day interestingly enough! You all know that I have been struggling to be an upright human since my son passed... doing things outside the house is hard right now - everything seems loud and overwhelming.  Right after my birthday my cousin (who has also lost a child early) called and asked me if I wanted to go with her and some of the aunties to a "fabric hoarders estate sale"?  And then she said - you are going!  So I said OK.

Now - I have a lot of fabric and quilting supplies - A LOT!!!!  When the fire was headed our way last year (the sockeye fire) I took pictures of my fabric/sewing/laundry room and my hubby said "Take pictures of the important stuff like the appliances and tv's and the couches!"  and I replied to him "the insurance company will believe that I have all that stuff - they will never believe that I have this much fabric!" Here is a small sample of my stash - before I cleaned it up the other day!

Design wall and sewing tables - design wall is made with a piece of batting tacked to the wall - cotton works best and the blocks just stick to it without having to pin them - its great!

One wall-o-fabric - see what I mean about them not believing that I have that much?

Fabric, books and project boxes.

Under the sewing tables, more supplies for quilting including project boxes.

So when we heard that the lady whose estate we were going to was a "fabric hoarder" we thought - really how much worse than us could she be?  So we only took one car - there were 5 of us but it's an Expedition and has lots of room in the back - right? And off we went on a fabric adventure!

We pulled up to the house and its a rather large split level with a basement apartment underneath - we went to the basement apartment.  Spooky.....Nope!

We walk in and this basement apartment is at least 1200 square feet of fabric wonderland!  

https://www.facebook.com/kennaJL/videos/1135537799816506/

This short video is just a small sample of the wonderland that we encountered here.  Luckily my cousin works with one of this lady's daughters and we were able to get the Pre-sale preview and be first in the room.  I cant believe that her daughters dont quilt - she was a fabric hoarder but she was a fabric hoarder of great taste!  It was fun to see the girls smile at our ohhs and ahhs over the cabric and at one point one of them was on the phone and said "I gotta house full of crazy quilters  you should see this"! I was able to smile some too.

She was so well organized.  She had all her projects in plastic "snap tite" boxes like the ones from Joann Fabrics.  In each box was a pattern and all of the fabric to complete the project, most of the time including the backing!  She also had some of the Rubbermaid tubs full of fabric and all had labels like "green batik, or blue batik"  I got one tub of each!  There were yards and yards of fabric in them.  Good stuff.  We each started making a "pile" of our choices from the stacks of stuff.

Above you can see the Expedition filled to the brim with some of the purchases made at the sale and you can see some of the boxes and tubs that she had!  The Expedition ended up only holding my cousin and the two aunts stuff!  

Above is Cousin Patricia wedging into the back of the Expedition.  She had stuff on her lap for the ride home and she had stuff next to her head that she had to hold in place or it would have knocked her out!

So Cousin and I had to call in the big guns - Bob - my cousins husband came to the rescue in his truck with a cap on the back to pick us and our haul up from the sale.  He laughed when he realized that only my hoard would fit in the back of the truck - luckily it was an extended cab so cousins stuff could fit in the back seat of the truck! 

As we were leaving one of the aunties said "well that cleaned out a little bit of the stash" and one of the daughters said "yes - now we can go out to the Connex and get some of the other stuff to bring into the house"!  All organized the same way!  I could not compete with this woman as far as a fabric stash goes - I have a long way to go!

 It was a really fun outing and I got some great things that I will be featuring on here soon - including some ideas for some new quilt designs - stay tuned for that.

Wicked Good Birthday things!

You have all heard me lament on the poor quality of the soil here at Wicked Raven Farm - it is bad.

Below is a photo of what most of the ground looks like in the yard here.

It is bad because of the Millers Reach Fire that happened 20 years ago.  The fire burned so hot that it burned off all of the topsoil and organics and left us with just clay and sand with a 3" layer of ash in between. 

Here is an expanse photo in the front of the house - away from the lake.  The previous owner had made all of this grass but we have let it go and we will be planting orchard and herbs here - eventually filling the space.  We do mow it when it gets long but that takes a long time as we dont water this side.  It cracks in the summer just as if there was an earthquake.

On a positive note the turf here grows wonderful little alpine beauties like the pussy toes (left) and the alpine azalea (right).  Only because the soil is bad for other plants and perfect for these ones!

 One of the wonderful things I was given when my son passed away earlier this year was 7 trees to plant in memorial.  5 apple and 2 Cherry,  They are from a local grower here in the Big Lake called Fire Apple Orchard and they have a "U-Pick" orchard with at least 150 trees.  My wonderful co-workers went together and made a fund to purchase the trees.  Part of the trees will go to the school to add to the orchard there.  So far at the school we have two apple trees and lots of choke cherry - one of which has died and we are thinking of replacing it with one of the new cherries or else an apple - well see when the time comes what will go in the space best - anyway - I digress - the reason I bring it up it that when it was time to pick the trees up from the farm I had no place to put them - I was out of good dirt!  So my parents picked them up for me and are housing them at Snowfire Gardens until spring when - ta dah!  I will be able to use my birthday dirt!

When my parents were out over the summer this year and saw all the work I have to do to put in just one tree they agreed that I need dirt.  And yes - that is what the sunset looks like in Big Lake in October!

SO for my most recent birthday - its so fine to be 49 - they got me a pick up truck load of composted soil.  It is beautiful!  It smells like great dirt - you know the smell - that summer, just right, black, moist soil smell!  This particular soill happens to be from Susitna Organics here in the Matanuska Valley.

We covered it with a tarp and unloaded it onto some old boards so all the good nutrients wont leach away over the winter and early spring.  I will have good dirt to put my new trees in!

I have used some of it already this fall to mulch the Peony's and some of the other plants around the farm as well as add a layer of late fall nutrients to the apple and cherries. My sister came out and helped us put the leaf mulch down while her daughter was at a birthday party.  Perfect! It is a good thing that I was able to do that too as we have had no snow to speak of and the plants would have suffered otherwise!

The kids at the school asked about my birthday gifts and they laughed when I said "Dirt"!  Im really happy to get dirt for my birthday - I hope you get some too!  I did have another birthday treat that relates to quilting and Ill tell you about that next time!  Stay tuned!

A Matter of Perspective

It has been with a heavy heart lately that I have dragged myself through the day.  My oldest son has passed away and I have been sorely lacking in any type of motivation for anything, including writing and gardening.  Hence the long period of time between my last post and this one.

 I "get through" things now - gatherings, work, events, etc.  Crowds are not very fun - they are too "peoply" for all of us most of the time.  Cooking still soothes me and I have started doing a little gardening again although it is now winter here and everything is frozen solid and has a dusting of snow.  The greenhouse is still producing some green tomatoes though and that is something.  I planted garlic this fall - this will be a first winter for garlic here at Wicked Raven.  Ill update you on that in another blog.

My son was 23 years old.  I know that there has to be balance - life and death - as any farmer/gardener knows, but in terms of humans, his span on the planet was so short that is seems that it is out of balance.  He died of a rare condition that caused regular medication to cause his body to become toxic - acute toxicity.

650 people came to the memorial service and it was as good as a memorial service can be.  Lots of love in a building and lots of people holding other people up.  Lots of great memories and sweet stories of a young man trying to do great things.  Our community came out in force to support our family.

Above is the line waiting to get into the memorial service - the line went out to the main road!

Below is the balloon ceremony.  It was awesome to see all the messages to Rye float up to the heavens and give the people releasing them some release as well.  It was a beautiful day and a beautiful ceremony.

My perspective has changed on how life should be.  We question just about everything now and wonder at its importance in our lives.  Some things just arent important now; or they can wait while we do other things that make memories or feed our souls.  We let Reed fish more, and make more time with friends, and we have made more time with friends and family as well.  I am quilting more and reading books I want to read.  Our new motto is "Love your people" alternated by "We are badasses for getting out of bed",  Sometimes we dont make that one - but the love one we are rocking most of the time.

There is crying and we have to do hard things that we never thought we would have to do.  Hang the last pictures we ever took of our son and know that we will not be replacing those ever.  Choose an urn for the ashes of our son.  Put away things and go through things and wash that entire load of dirty socks! He didnt live with us - he was grown and on his own, but I think that he didnt wash socks - he just bought new - there was literally a load of laundry that was just dirty socks.  It makes me smile now, but it made me cry when it came in the door.  It has been 9 weeks and we are starting to have more good days than bad - I dont cry EVERY day on the way to work in the car, and I dont cry EVERY night or as often in my sleep.

This is my post from the day of his memorial and I hope everyone can take it to heart and try to do this.  I saw a post from a wonderful woman earlier who said her sink was full of dirty dishes but she was making memories with her kids!  Dishes can wait- kids wont!

"I dont often post terribly personal things but as I am preparing today for the funeral of my wonderful son I cannot help but remember with the really good times that we had mixed in are the times when I was unkind or spoke too harshly to my son. It wasn't often but it was there. There were times that I should have done things differently as a parent or guided him differently - maybe I should have let him do more "hard stuff" - I do not know. What I do know is that I beg all of you parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, or cousins - brothers from another mother even - make sure your people know that you love them every day. Love them with their flaws and faults and enjoy those - relish the quirks- they are what makes us human and will someday give comfort of memory to someone. Love your people. Hold them tight while you try to give them wings. Love your people."

Blessed be!  Badass be! 

The Red Carpet - or Maybe its Green!

We are always looking for ways to keep down weeds here at Wicked Raven Farm, and we are also big upcycle/recyclers here too.  We dont have carpet in our house except on the one set of stairs but we do use throw rugs in some places around the house on the wood floors.

Occasionally, one of the carpets gets ruined, a bloody nose, dog barf - you get the picture - and we have to replace it. We hang the rugs over the clothes line or a railing or a pallet stack to get hosed off or rained on a bit to clean them off before we use them (especially the barfed on ones)!  Once they have aired a little you can cut them to any size you need.  

When my friend took out her carpet to put in wood/laminate floors, we saved the carpet rolls that came out so we could re use them as mulch between rows in the gardens.  It helps keep in the water and keep out the weeds.  

The above is a pile of carpet strips ready to go into the rows and you can see one throw rug already between the rows of black currant berry bushes.

I use a utility knife to cut the carpet into the size I need to fit between the rows I have.

Above photo shows the rows of the berry garden with the carpet in between.  Obviously there is still some weeding that has to be done!  Yikes - we let this area get a little out of control while we were working on other areas - its a never ending battle!

This rug has been on the porch of what we call the "brown shed" because its brown and we also have a white one.  It is growing moss now and it will be moved out to the garden rows soon.

It takes a good many years before the carpet breaks down and has to be replaced in the garden.  Some of mine has been down for about 10 years now - when the weeds start to grow up through it (happens after a while no matter what you use) just pull it up and flip it over - just like new - new carpet mulch that is.

I have also seen folks do this as a mulch around trees by making a circle of it and using it like a Christmas tree skirt - lay it around the tree and then put a pebble layer over that - it keeps out some of the slugs and keeps in the water and it also gives a good mow around area for the trees - makes life easier if you have to mow.

Next time you have a bad carpet experience - turn it into a good one by reusing it in the garden!

Happy Fall! 

Wicked Cherries

July was a bit of a rough month here at Wicked Raven Farm!  I nearly decided to quit being any kind of a farmer at all!  The garden at the school was vandalized twice and we lost a good bit of produce, but luckily only a few plants were too damaged to recover, I pulled my collarbone out of joint in June and didn't let it rest so now it aches whenever I do anything at all,and my Wicked Cherries all got gone.  I showed you in earlier blog about training strawberries into flats to expand the row (the little garden vandals rode their bikes through the flats and damaged a lot of them), and how I used fencing rounds to protect the cherry trees (read on - it was rough), but here is a way to grow cherries from seed easily over the winter to expand your orchard!

These are Carmine Jewel Cherry seeds - saved for me by my dad, Doug Carney at Snowfire Gardens.  They have a few of these cherry trees and they put on a TON of cherries each season and they are so good.  Tasty in a pie or right off the bush, and they are cold hardy as well.

I started with a 3" deep flat of good compost mix soil.  I found a corner of one of our garden beds that we had already harvested the produce out of  for the season and I buried that flat in the soil there to the rim.  I had about 25-30 cherry seeds that I planted in there about an inch deep.  I did add a couple of decent sized rocks to keep the wind and the pets from tipping the flat.

The above photo lets you see what the whole bed looks like - moose eaten broccoli and all!  I didnt even grow broccoli this year, we never get to eat any of it anyway!

Once the seeds are planted and buried in the flat, just leave it until spring and see what pops up!  I had 18 plants come up in this flat, and out of those 15 survived to transplant either into pots or into the orchard area.  They are currently about a foot tall in the orchard area.

Above photo is one of the Carmen Jewells that came up this spring in the flat of seeds!  Awesome!

We will have enough to share with family and with the school to add to the orchard there as well!

This tree is a Bali/Evans cherry tree in the yard that bore fruit for the first time this year since I had used the wire wrap and kept the moose out, but as I said earlier, July was a rough month!  I had taken the wire round off of this tree because hubby was having trouble mowing around them, so I was going to make the area a rectangle fence that included both of the Bali/Evans cherries and make it easier to mow around.  Just about the time I got all the tools together that I needed and got the fencing off, a friend came by, she had lost her sister the day before to cancer.  People come first at Wicked Raven Farm, so we made some comfort food and some tea and we watched a funny movie with her to help her keep her mind off her sadness.  I didnt get wire around the tree that night.

The next morning the hubby asked me if I had seen the cow and two calves that came through the yard?  He said they really tore up that birch out by the garden! I asked if he had seen them at the cherry tree?  He hadn't thought to look so off we went to see if it had been hit.

Boy had it been hit!  I was so mad I could hardly see straight, they had stripped off all of the top layers of leaves.  The above photo shows what was left of the cherry.  They did leave me two of the cherries though so I quickly put some wire around it until I could get the project underway again. I thought - Okay - I have two cherries left so we will at least get to try some Wicked Cherries this year.  The tree will grow back and it will all be ok.  The rain began and it poured down - the project went on hold again, but at least it had wire around it again.

The next morning I had calmed down a bit, and as I get up a little earlier than the rest of the folks in the house - especially on a Sunday, I was sitting, drinking my coffee and reading my newspaper when I heard the distinctive cry of the Sand Hill Cranes.  They frequent our yard, and although they dont eat as many slugs as I would like they do eat some of the yukky things.  But this day as I watched them  in relax mode, I saw one of them sneak up to the cherry tree, put his head through the fencing and.... yep - you guessed it - ate the last two cherries on the tree!  I gave up farming for that whole Sunday!  I Googled what Sand Hill Cranes eat? Because I could not believe that he had eaten my cherries and Google says they eat "everything"!!  Of Course!

I am not a quitter though so on Monday after work I was feeling a little better not bitter so I went out to inspect the tree, and lo and behold - a reason to keep going - a lone cherry still hangs on the tree, tucked way back near the trunk.  There is hope for the Wicked Cherries after all!

I had lunch with my mom and my niece on Tuesday of this week and as I was telling them about my rough go at farming, I though I was keeping the language under control but later my sister called me and left me a message full of laughter and said Ellie (the niece) told them about my troubles and at the end of the story added "Now, imagine that story only with a lot of "F" bombs in it"!

Keep calm and Farm on!

All Tied Up!

A few weeks (ok - maybe months) ago, I showed you one way to use those newspaper bags that you might get on your paper.  Where I live I still have a delivery person that brings my paper to a box and the weather is so up and down from rain, snow, sleet, sun and wind, sometimes all in one day!  So the paper company puts the paper in little plastic tubes.

I showed you before (see that blog here) that those tubes can be used to mark plants and keep birds out of beds by tying them on fencing or plant supports and letting them flutter a little - its scary for some of the animals and birds.  Some of them of course don't care.

I always struggle with the recycling part of the bagged newspaper - the paper part is easy to recycle but I often worry that those little bags dont actually make it to a recycle place and actually get recycled into something else.  I have always envisioned them making it to the ocean and wreaking all sorts of havoc with the animals and fish there.  So I found another use for them - and I had run out of Velcro!

First thing to do is cut the bag cross wise to make rings of plastic.  See photo below.

Once you have the rings you can use them as is or break them into strands of plastic and use them to tie up your tomatoes, cukes and anything else that needs a soft touch and a firm hold.

I tie them gently around the plants the same way you would using twine and whatnot.  The plastic has a second useful life and unlike twine, string, yarn and some of the other things it dries easily and doesnt seem to hold onto the dirt even.

If you need a longer piece of plastic, daisy chain them together the way you would rubber bands and you can make a full on rope out of them!

Because we are having a fantastic summer this year my greenhouse is growing amazingly well - I have to re check the plants about every other day and tie at least some of them up again.  To save me having to run all over the greenhouse back and forth to the bins, or from having to stuff a bunch of ties in my pocket, I used some of the bigger bags (Sunday paper), and filled them with the tie rounds, then tacked them up in strategic locations throughout the greenhouse so I always have at least a few ties on hand no matter where I am!

There is always a way to use even the smallest item and make it useful again, and may you always need more ties for your plants!  Grow on!

A Journey of Growth

The journey of growth starts with a seed - a seed can be for a plant or for an idea or inspiration.  Each and every one of us holds the power to make something grow for the good; be it through green plants, music, crafts or love.

I was recently inspired by this video that someone shared with me to just begin planting.  Plant those seeds, plant those trees, teach others how to do it as well!

 http://www.permaculture.co.uk/videos/planting-trees-india

We have been gardening now at Houston High school for about 3 years and we have developed some really great systems for growing and expanding what we have with very little, using innovative growing techniques.  For example we have taken our strawberry patch to new heights - actually we are in the process of taking it to new heights - by using a transplanting/runner growth technique that I got from my dad at Snowfire Gardens.

Our strawberry Hugelkulture produces a ton of berries, and it also makes plant runners that try to go all over the place!  So we started with a 3" deep flat that we filled with good growing medium.  We set them at the bottom of the hills of the hugelkulture bed and we trained the berry runners into the soil.

The runners take root in the flats and then you just snip them off and you can transplant them safely to the spot you want them!  It works slick as a whistle!

 In the above photo you can see we have two flats and you can see where the strawberry plants are growing well already - in the right side of the photo you can see the empty row that we need to fill with berry plants.  The flats will go right into the end of the row.  Next year when this row is full we can start a new row or have some plants to sell!  Win-Win!

This is a super simple way to plant that seed and begin a journey - even if the destination is just to have a full strawberry row!

The Door is Open, broken and catching water!

A couple of years ago (two I think) our garage doors took a hit during a storm and one of them wasn't able to be repaired.  So it was time to replace both garage doors!

Below is the new door but gives you an idea of the panels that I mention.

 All the metal materials (the rails that the doors ride on) and all of the pressboard from the panels ended up in a pile in the yard - a lot of the metal was twisted and bent.  I was able to dig right in and use the panel pieces right away as benches for plant growing in the greenhouse - an immediate upcycle!

Below is one of the benches that I made with a pressboard panel.  Of course covered in the upcycled tinfoil that the Senior class gave me!

The below photo shows the twisted pile of metal that used to be the guide rails for the doors.  I just had to find something I could use them for!  I can't stand dumpster only items so.....

I got my trusty saw and my tin snips and I went to work making a way to catch more rainwater from my barrel system.  I have a great water catchment system set up from the greenhouse and my little shed that I put rain gutter on and directed it into a series of barrels.  But when it is really hot and dry I go through all the water from the barrels in a hurry.  The barrels fill up and then just overflow onto the ground - but I wanted to be able to also use rain water to fill up the barrel inside the greenhouse with that great mineral filled rain water as well. 

Below is a chunk of the metal that I started with.  I planned to create a diversion system to a secondary water tub beneath each rain barrel to give me and extra 50 gallons or so of water.  I know that I have a hose and sprinkler, but the sprinkler spray only waters to an inch or two below the surface and it uses a lot of electricity running the pump to try to get the water to the plants.  Its a way better system to have gallons of water on standby - relatively free that I can pour a good quantity onto the area directly where I need it.

I know it doesn't look like much but just wait!

I used the same sealant that I used to keep the rain gutter together (recommended by my Lowe's helper).  My rain barrels are upcycled soap barrels from a car wash.  I paid $25.00 each for them from the local car wash and rinsed them really well before I used them.  Call your local car wash or watch for them on Craigslist.

I measured and cut a rectangle wedge out of the lowest side of the rain barrel.  I used my tin snips to flap the barrel end of the metal trough (see below) to give the water a good path.  I put a seam of the sealant on each edge of the cut and wedged the metal trough part into the space.  After it was dry I used sealant around all of the edges that touch the barrel.

This way when the main barrel becomes full it diverts it into the lower barrel/tub.  The one below is just a Rubbermaid plastic tub that gives me an extra 20 gallons of water, but even if all you have is a 5 gallon bucket its a good thing!

I am thinking I will put this on the base of an old yard cart that the sides are missing from so that I can roll it to the plants I need to get it to.  

The barrel below has two incoming gutter pipes - one from each side of the shed - that is the reason I did this barrel first - it fills up faster than any of the others.  I plan to do this with all of the barrels I have around the greenhouse and house.  Makes great use of the damaged metal and makes my life easier as well!

Simple and fairly easy to DIY!  See what you have to use that can upcycle into a great catchment system for your farm!

*** There are some states that restrict the catchment of water - please do check the regulations where you live - or be a water outlaw!