Winter is still upon us

Shortly after 7AM this morning I stepped outside on the verhandah and snapped this photo. It was then -13C and with the wind blowing NW28km/h with gusts to 37km/h that pushed the windchill factor to -23C. Brrrrrr!!!!! Sure glad I've kept those longjohns handy! {g} There was light snow falling when I took that shot which can't be seen, but it sure is coming down now! Makes one very thankful for food, shelter and clothing when the storms surround you doesn't it?! A storm of a different sort was one that our family went through back in October 1999. As you will remember, my son, Eugene, is a fisherman and nowadays he is lobster fishing. Back in 1999 he worked aboard a dragger and on October 21st of that year he survived a shipwreck. While surfing the net a few nights back I stumbled upon this story and gasped as the first picture came to view and I saw my son in the life raft with a fellow crew member and their Captain sitting on the second life raft. Praise the Lord that the three men were alive and unharmed! Still, it stirred this mother's emotions greatly once again. Just click on The Rescue for the story.

CQ Block in progress

Heather says that it may still require a bit more . . . . like some leaves around the three center flowers.

CQ Block

This crazy quilt block was one that I pieced and handsewed some time ago for DD, Heather. Will have to find it later today and take a completed picture to post. I have never used a machine on any of my blocks. No one would want to view the mess I'd make with a machine, believe me.

Our wind warning is discontinued for today but there are still a few strong gusts out there yet. The ground is bare again, for the most part, with flurries possible for the next couple of days. It won't be daylight for another hour and a half when we can view the world and make a decision on todays activities. One thing I must do is make icing for the cake I baked Heather last evening. We have a Happy Birthday Girl here today. Maybe a picture later . . . :-) . . .

A bit of poetry from your name

Found this fun idea over at Quiddity and thought I would join in too.

Dream, and continue on my Love,

As the threads of our lives

Weave a beautiful tapestry,

Now, and forevermore.


This is my Dream . . . . Premier's Dream Weaver . . . . the very special Basenji Girlie who has been sharing my life since February 21, 1998. The 'dream weaver' part of her name was suggested by my DH as it had been a 'dream' of mine to own another Basenji after having had one back in the late 60s/early 70s. Ironically, her mother's name was Hillstar's the Dream Maker. I really think this little girl was always meant to be mine.

Thanks for the poem idea Jane.

More from the Chestnut Pipe . . .

Home Customs

In addition to brewing home remedies on the kitchen stove, ink, dyes, soap, paint, paste, and glue were also prepared in the home. These domestic recipes and skills were passed down to the next generation and still remembered by some mothers and grandmothers, fathers and grandfathers.

Soap Making

Soap making was an important household activity. In a wooden tub beneath the dry sink in the back entry, bones and scraps of fat were collected to be boiled in lye into hard tallow soap, "taller soap." For soft soap, cracked bones and marrow were dissolved in a tub of lye, making a soft, viscid solution that was used to scrub wooden floors and tables.

Gurry soap was made in the fishing villages from barrels of fish offal, saved by the fishermen to grease the skidways beneath their boats when winching them ashore. The lye was leached from wood ashes that were soaked in a barrel with a hole in the bottom to drain the lye. The gurry and lye were boiled together until the mixture would float an egg or a potato, when it was "strong enough" to make hard soap.

Paint

Paint for houses was made of red and yellow ochre, slaked lime and oil, and was mixed with fresh skimmed milk if it was to be used indoors on walls and woodwork. A man who lived at the Hawk, near Clarks Harbour, remembered using red ochre mixed with oil to paint his house, and painted the roof shingles with seal oil and red ochre. A good paint for houses and fences was a mixture of rosin melted in oil, added to milk and slaked lime. Another paint for the roof was made of fine sand, ashes, and slaked lime, mixed with oil. It was applied to the shingles with a wide brush - first coat thin, second coat thick. For those who lived in Jordan Falls, a good source of red ochre was "up the tote road west of the river."

Many houses and outbuildings were whitewashed with slaked lime in which glue from a fish skin was added. For white paint, quarts of white lead were stirred with oil in wooden tubs.

Paste and Glue

Wallpaper paste was made by boiling flour and water. Homemade glue came from fish skins, cod and cusk providing the best.

Along the old Crowelltown road

As we leave the main highway to reach the old Crowelltown road we must first go through a short section where some woodsmen are gathering their logs together to be hauled off to the mill. Where the old road comes out is quite overgrown so this is the only way to join up with it nowadays. On Saturday morning we had to wait for this tree farmer to finish unloading and move back into the woods before we could continue through. They can certainly move a lot of wood around in a short time.


As we moved along the low section of the road Shel stopped so I could get a shot of this sweeping visa. Snowcovered saltmarsh running out to meet the Argyle River, and the tree covered shore across the river with houses scattered along the village of Argyle Head.





From the low area we climbed up the side of a drumlin and on one we followed an old trail to the top where we sat and admired the view down river.








Back up the trail a ways this old foundation sits in the middle of an old field on top of a drumlin. As I view the ruins and the lone tree sentry, I wonder about the people who lived in this house, and where did they go . . . . Crowelltown was settled by some of my father's people . . . . perhaps this house and property at one time had belonged to some of my ggggggrandparents. (Or however many ggg's back it may be.)

It was a cold, blustery day when we went for this ride and I snapped these pictures. No animals or birds around. I'm certain they were safely off in their little hideaways in the sheltered hollows between the drumlins, seeking protection from the winds.

More from the Chestnut Pipe

Quilts

Patchwork quilts, like hooked mats, were a part of home life. Their bright blocks of squares were sewn together according to a design, such as "crazy quilt," "hole-in-the-wall," "wedding ring," or "Star of Bethlehem," and many other designs. Quilted to a lining, through a cotton or woolen bat, or, as was discovered in Lockeport when a century-old quilt was repaired, through a bat of newspapers, they made warm bedcovers.

Bed ticks were stuffed with hay, oat, or barley straw, or with eelgrass, where oats or barley could not be grown. Thus the old command, "Com' on boy, 'tis time to get in your eelgrass." Those who had hay-filled ticks were told "to hit the hay."

A family in Welshtown used to sit around the kitchen stove on winter evenings stripping fine strips of birch from birch sticks to be used to stuff their bed ticks. In spring, the old crushed birch stripes were thrown away, and the new ones were stuffed into freshly washed bed ticks, starched stiff with flour paste. Over the birch tick was a feather tick. In the winter those high-mounded ticks were warmed with peeled sticks of wood scorching hot from the oven or hot stones wrapped in flannel.

Witherod Baskets

Baskets were woven from long slender rods of witherod and were used aboard fish boats; smaller witherod baskets were used to carry fish ashore. For a housewife, fish could be easily washed in a witherod basket, for the loosely woven strands permitted the water to flow through. The farms of Ohio used witherod baskets when harvesting crops of potatoes.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Please note ........ the Ohio spoken of here is Ohio, Shelburne County, Nova Scotia, Canada. Many place names were brought here by the United Empire Loyalists who settled in these areas after coming from the US.

Windshield view and old info

Before the storm started in earnest, yesterday morning Shel and I went for one of the short drives that we do on a regular basis. I'll put the whole ride together in pictures with a brief description later today. For now here is one picture that I took while on the old Crandall Lodge road in Argyle Head. As the lodge is now under new ownership I can't be sure if this road will still be known by this name, though to us it's how we'll remember it. The storm had petered out by the time it reached us here, after having left most of its snow along the eastern seaboard of the US. DD had received an email from a friend in Portland, ME during the early evening saying that they had only received about 4 inches there. Turned out to be just an ordinary winter storm for us for the most part.

Back home I spent some time with my nose in The Chestnut Pipe and came across some tidbits on subjects of interest to handcraft folks . . . .

Ink and Homemade Dyes

Good black ink was brewed from inkberry, Ilex glabra, and from maple bark. The same berries were used to make black dye, as was alder bark. Seaweed was gathered for a brown dye, and for yellow, onion skins were boiled. Lichens gave various dyes: "cockles" from maple trees provided a rich brown colur; old man's whiskers, a light sand or beige; rock cockles, light brown; and the stiff, shell-like rock lichen, a deep rose. Navy-blue dye was boiled from logwood brought from the West Indies in homeward bound vessels. To set the colours of homemade dyes, either a small lump of rock alum, salt and vinegar, or urine was added to the dye pot.

The natural colour of yarn spun from the wool of brown sheep was known as "heather" or "burnt"; "clouded" yarn was strands of yard dyed different colours.

Spinning and Weaving

In some homes there were looms, spinning wheels and "winding blades," to wind yarn into skeins. Cloth was woven for clothing and blankets, and for rugs to cover the bare floors. A single strand of yarn as it came from the spinning wheel was known as "open-banded"; for two-ply yarn, it was "double-and-twist"; for three-ply, "treble-the-three." Yarn spun from wool sheared from sheep that roamed their home pastures was known as "homeste'd"; clothing made from the yarn was known as homeste'd clothing. Those who remembered their grandmothers weaving yards of heavy cloth for pants and coats, remembered "plain weaving" had two threads; "swansdown" had four threads. Women went from house to house spinning for two cents a skein and weaving blanket cloth for seven cents a yard. One young widow, in Brass Hill, "buckled to" and made a living for her children weaving rag rugs. They were laid on the floor of the front room over a layer of oat straw. "Ingrain" carpets were woven in a pattern "one colour on top; another beneath," red above, gold beneath.

Mats

Mats were hooked of wool or of rags. Heavy rag mats were hooked on crocus bagging, the coarse burlap of oat or middling bags. A sturdy scatter mat for kitchen floors was a "sheeny mat," a "hit-and-miss," hooked of bright coloured rags, each row a different colour. A favourite design traced on burlap to be hooked in wool or finely cut rags, was of roses, thistles, and shamrocks within a border of scrolls, and against a "main" or background of grey, sand, or brown.

A coin mat was made with circles of flannel traced around coins that were feather-stitched in various designs onto squares of woolen cloth. The squares, feather-stitched together with a backing of blanket cloth, made an attractive bedroom mat.

Painted canvas mats were made for back entries and sinkrooms. Flour and cold water were mixed and boiled to a smooth paste that was brushed over the canvas. When dry, it was painted with odds and ends of house paint, with brightly coloured designs, bursting red roses, scrolls and geometric patterns, or a ship in full sail. Sometimes, yellow or red ochre paint was painted on the canvas as a background for the design.

Snow warning for tomorrow

Not a blizzard actually, but lots of snow. Thought you might enjoy the little cartoon, and hopefully by posting this it will also push into place the earlier posting I sent today. We'll see ...........

Have a nice day/night wherever you be. :-)

Books

I love 'em! It's the simple truth ............ I love books! Good books! Books that reach out and draw me into them. With a heavy snowfall warning for tomorrow, and I'm aware of four books within my range of vision just sitting here looking at the screen, I don't think there will be lack of entertainment if I'm housebound tomorrow. Now, wasn't that said with my tongue firmly in cheek ........ me? housebound? with a 4 x 4 Jeep sitting at my backdoor. Still, I'd rather stay off the roads unless there's a need when the conditions are not great. You're probably wondering what those titles are .......... give me a minute to move my little notes to myself and I'll tell ya. Let me see ............ The Chestnut Pipe, Folklore of Shelburne County by Marion Robertson. I had been reading this out loud to my DH and DD ....... a bit each evening about a month ago. We had some chuckles and a few real good belly laughs from that one. Then there are the two books that are a compilation of short stories and poems and thoughts written by women from the High Plains. They have tugged at my heart, caused me to cry, and made me smile through my tears. Sisters in this journey through life. Leaning into the Wind and Woven on the Wind ............. edited by Linda Hasselstrom, Gaydell Collier & Nancy Curtis. They have a new one out called Crazy Woman Creek. I must remember to get myself a copy someday. They are keepers. Keeping busy with the books, or keeping busy with some handwork, there won't be any reason for being bored. I'm not certain I understand how some can be bored. Overwhelmed with so many choices of things to do is how I find myself these days, but never bored; and there's always spring cleaning, when the mood hits. I wonder if any of my spinning friends would like to buy some unique angora dustbunnies? They're going at a super discount price! {g} My computer clock has just turned to 7AM. It will soon be time for the rest of the house to awaken. Oh! You were wondering what that fourth book was ............. Why, it's Maxine ....... Yelling It Like It Is ...... I love Maxine! She reminds me of my paternal grandmother.

Until one has loved an animal, a part of one's soul remains unawakened. - Anatole France

It's breakfast time at Wine Brook Cottage. Until the next time ......... take care ........

Sometimes there comes a time ........

.......... when you have to stand up and say what you believe.






In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
- Genesis 1:1

And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. - Genesis 2:7

It's raining again . . . .

Wet-Weather Talk
by James Whitcomb Riley


It hain't no use to grumble and complane;
It's jest as cheap and easy to rejoice. -
When God sorts out the weather and sends rain,
W'y, rain's my choice.

Men ginerly, to all intents -
Although they're apt to grumble some -
Puts most theyr trust in Providence,
And takes things as they come -
That is, the commonality
Of men that's lived as long as me
Has watched the world enugh to learn
They're not the boss of this concern.

With some, of course, it's different -
I've saw young men that knowed it all,
And didn't like the way things went
On this terrestchul ball; -
But all the same, the rain, some way,
Rained jest as hard on picnic day;
Er, when they railly wanted it,
It mayby wouldn't rain a bit!

In this existunce, dry and wet
Will overtake the best of men -
Some little skift o' clouds'll shet
The sun off now and then. -
And mayby, whilse you're wundern who
You've fool-like lent your umbrell' to,
And want it - out'll pop the sun,
And you'll be glad you hain't got none!

It aggervates the farmers too -
They's too much wet, er too much sun,
Er work, er waitin' round to do
Before the plowin' 's done:
And mayby, like as not, the wheat,
Jest as it's lookin' hard to beat,
Will ketch the storm - and just about
The time the corn's a-jintin' out.

These-here cy-clones a-foolin' round -
And back'ard crops! - and wind and rain! -
And yit the corn that's wallered down
May elbow up again! -
They hain't no sense, as I can see,
For mortuls, sich as us, to be
A-faultin' Natchur's wise intents,
And lockin' horns with Providence!

It hain't no use to grumble and complane;
It's jest as cheap and easy to rejoice. -
When God sorts out the weather and send rain,
W'y, rain's my choice.

This is my very first attempt at Crazy Quilting and I thought perhaps I should post the picture before my CQing friends felt that I had 'gone over to the other side' with all the knitting that has been going on around here lately. This practice block is still 'in progress' and I did something too that some say not to do . . . . I put pattern against pattern, instead of having a plain fabric in between. Guess it was the 'rebel' coming out in me . . . but hey, why tell us that in CQing there aren't any rules, and then throw that rule in there?! Personally I think it worked in this case . . . and it is after all my block, right?! And I will be doing it again. {gg}



At the moment I am working on another pair of socks and hope to get some pics up soon of the last two pairs that I finished. In between spells of knitting I am 'forced' to do housework and cook meals . . . . even bake the odd sweet or two. Lately I've made a couple of Washington Pies that didn't last long. Even the crows never managed a nibble off one of those. Poor crows . . . :-( . . . . they do have stiff competition with the ravens, and the grackels (sp?), and the spruce partridges (Ruffed Grouse); not to mention the Wine Brook Cottage house residents who are in line ahead of them. Last April this woodpecker found that he may have to defend his right to peck on this pole for his breakfast. Looks like the 'Glarefight at Poletop' and it seemed a bit unfair as one was working as part of a 'tag team.' Interesting to watch the interaction of the birds; as well as most creatures.

Cya later . . . .