A Legacy of Love

In a family the size of ours there is almost always a new baby coming along and we are spread out over a pretty large space sometimes so the baby wont always be able to meet his or her relatives right away or even ever sometimes!  So we have a family tradition among some of our people that helps the new arrival to have a connection to the family and to their ancestry.  We make family quilts.

We start with squares of white or off white material and use iron ons or we trace pictures out of coloring books to get the picture on the fabric.  We have done all sorts of themes - animals, equipment, flowers, mickey mouse, Pooh, even race cars or Mater!

We send out a block to anyone who tells us they would like one.  Sometimes we have to limit it to say 20 blocks because we have had 40 people say they want to do one.  We give everyone a due date to have them back by and they go from there with embroidery.  We did have one quilt where none of the folks were  able to embroider and they did paints and wax crayons that they set with ironing.  It was also beautiful! We have also at times used pieced blocks between the embroidered ones so that more people could participate (that made a twin sized quilt instead of a baby quilt).

 The above photos show one of the quilts that have both embroidery and pieced blocks.  Everyone signs their blocks either with permanent pen or with embroidery stitching.  Sometimes, when the child doesn't get to meet the person who made and signed the block, for whatever reason, it gives a point of reference for the family to get out the pictures, show the child who that was and how they are connected to that person and let them feel the love!  It is a great way for the child to have a memory of someone they didn't get to meet!

Above left shows a single block that has had the borders sewn on already.  Above right shows the quilt blocks being staged - it took some time to figure out where each block needed to go to balance in this quilt as we had a lot of different styles of embroidery.  This quilt is for a little guy who will be from a hunting family so he gets a wild game quilt.

Above shows the quilt after the blocks have been sewn together and I am now working on putting the binding on so it can be delivered to the mom by the time the baby gets here.  There is a soft flannel on the back and it will be a warm comfort both from the flannel and from all the love that was put into it by his family!

Its that time of the year!

You can probably tell by the sporadic nature of my posts that it is THAT time of the year!  Yes folks it is Hockey Season!  My youngest still plays hockey both league and high school levels - at the same time!  So - as most farmers slow down in the winter - my pace sometimes picks up!

I love hockey - I love the work ethic and skill that is required to play a sport with 3 inch pucks, hockey sticks and boots with blades on them.  The amount of work that is required to stay in shape and "keep the hands" so that they can "put the biscuit in the basket" and "dangle the goalie" is nothing short of super human!  I get tired just watching them!



Some people say Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year - and sometimes I agree, but sometimes I think that hockey season is the most wonderful time of the year!

So cold and crisp inside the rink and the camaraderie of all the parents who are hoping for the win but never begrudge it to another team - especially its players who are working (almost) every bit as hard as mine!

We have more than one team at any given time and so the kids all have friends that are on a team with them that during high school they have to play against and try to win - it is hard sometimes to score a goal on your cousin or to have your goal denied by that same cousin!

Tournament time is wonderful - hard hard work but wonderful all the same - eight groups coming together for the love of the game!

That doesn't mean I dont dream of summer!  Stay tuned - I am looking at seed catalogs in my spare few minutes that arent taken up working or on the road - we will be trying ghost and fish peppers this year here on the farm.  Ill (try) to keep you posted!

Mad is a Momma Moose!

The moose here at Wicked Raven are sometimes out of control and I am pretty sure they are trying to make me quit farming completely at times!  You have all seen in prior blogs and probably on Facebook that the moose eat just about everything - and they love the fruit trees!  I told you last year about using the mattress deconstruction to protect a few of the apple trees - as I started to deconstruct a few more mattresses that I had this summer - the neighbors came over and commented that they hardly "redneckednized" the place what with all the crap everywhere and why didnt we just put up some real fence?

This is one of the momma moose that have been trolling for trees in my yard - the two calves are just outside the picture - I couldnt get them all in!

We can't afford to fence the whole 5 acres, and it would be really hard to have that many gates - we would have to have about 8 gates to make it be useful and semi easy to navigate through the fences so.... enter the hubby with a brilliant idea!

We got two rolls of this fencing - 50 yards each - it cost about $1.00 per foot.  Total cost to do all of my trees (15 total so far) was less than $200.00.

We used the survey stakes mixed with some regular pound in fence posts (I think they are called "t" posts)

We made a circle around each tree large enough that the branched didnt stick out and locked the circle together by bending the cut edges of the fencing around itself - sort of looks like a hook and eye when complete.

We also used some of the broken hockey sticks that are composite fiberglass - those things are tough!

Above left is a shot of the winter fence covering.  We also had to put a fence lid on the rounds as the moose are tall enough to stick their necks into the rounds and eat the tree anyway if the lid isnt on!  Above right is the moose creeping up thinking she will get a bite of a cherry tree!

Notice in the above picture how her hackles are all raised up on her neck!  She is not happy to not be able to get to the cherry tree!  She dented the heck out of the fencing around the tree trying to get at it though!  I had to go out and pull it all back into a round shape!  Everything held up though!  yay!

Below you can see the "lid" on the round.  We also put the blue and orange newspaper bags (our newspaper comes in a plastic bag that is sized for it depending on what day it is - Sunday is a bigger baggie - they are plastic tubes basically) and they flap in the breeze and sometimes scare things away!  Sometimes they are necessary so a snowmachine, go kart or four wheeler doesnt run over anything!

Another winter view!  

Word of advice from the voice of experience here - don't try to do fencing by yourself in s stiff wind!  Luckily I had my glasses on or I probably would have lost an eye here!  As it is I have a nice fencing "war wound" on my nose to remember it by!   Hubby had gone hunting and I was just gonna finish the last two rounds that we didnt get done before he had to leave!  I would probably do it again though - Ill never give up!  No matter how mad those moose get!

The fencing works well and it looks nice as well.  Way better than the mattress coils - I am still using them - just not where you can see them from the road!  It was too great an upcycle to not use again! 

Blessed be and I hope your winter is going well!  Keep the farming faith alive - there is a way where there is a will - even with moose around!

Caesars' Brother and a rest for the Butterflies

This summer - as most of you have already read in my prior blogs - was a scorcher here in Big Lake, Alaska - and many of our feathered and flying friends needed a little help to get through it!  

This area near the "brown shed" as we call it, has been bugging me for about two years but I had not had time to do anything about it until this year.  Fortunately for me it is in an area that is mostly shady throughout the heat of the day.  I just needed something to make it a little neater and seem a little more welcoming space as it is one of the first areas you see when you drive in.

 The eave on the shed is perfect for hanging baskets of wave petunia in my favorite purple and lobelia and miniature asters in the round planter fill in the space around without making it look crowded there and without shading the plants around it.

I had started with the bench from Pinterest that I featured in another blog.  The pictures were taken before I had given the bench the re-vamp!  I planted the Caesars Brother iris next to the bricks and of course surrounded it with plastic underlay and stones on top to keep the weeds down.  I left a rather large hole in the plastic here so the iris can expand when it is ready.  Caesars Brother is a beautiful blue-purple iris that almost seems like if you touch it that it would feel like touching satin.  The leaves are more grass like and thinner than his blue flag brothers and Caesar might not be as hardy but it is awfully close - lives in Big Lake without too many problems.  I have another one in a full sun area and it does not do as well as the one in the shadier area - Ill keep you posted on that on the "Thriving on the Farm" page.

The terra cotta pot bottom is the waterer for bees and butterflies!  It is shallow and with some added colored stones and pebbles in it is the perfect resting oasis for those smaller bees, butterflies, and even some of the birds for whom the deep birdbaths dont work!  Its only drawback was that it had to be filled about three times a day when it was really hot out - but the trade off was that I got to see more of the visitors to the space by making trips over there throughout the day!

The "gazing globe" that you see is in reality a bowling ball that I got for $5.00 at the Salvation Army store!  ALways check the sports bin - I have seen a number of various colored bowling balls there - I have a blue one in another location on the farm.  I have never been able to keep a real gazing globe alive - they always get hit with something - other balls, rocks, dog tails or hockey pucks - even a go kart once - so the sturdy bowling ball saves the day and no one can really tell that it isnt glass.

The shed still needs a good coat of paint - on the list for next year but now that I have the bench revamped and this corner done - this will be a space that gets enjoyed all spring, summer, and fall!

Even your most raggedy spaces can become beautiful oasis areas for you and for the wild visitors who come through!  Find your oasis - if you build it they will come!