Spinning, Books

I've been trying to get some more spinning done than I usually do. I'm working on a BFL/silk blend (BFL being Bluefaced Leicester, pronounced Lester) that's really nice, soft, easy to spin. I already have one big fat skein done (two ply) and tonight finished filling one bobbin's worth for the next skein.

I've also been debating on what to read next. I finished a bio of Rita Hayworth last month. Boy, was she messed up. She was abused physically by her father, then mentally by 2 out of her 4 husbands. Orson Welles didn't hurt her, but he was too concerned with his career. And Ali Khan was too much of a playboy. Her last husband was 40s singer Dick Haymes, who was a drunk and a real jerk.

I have a bio of Lana Turner waiting for me, but I think I'll wait on that for now. I also have a couple of Star Trek paperbacks and the novel Show Boat (that the musical is taken from) that I haven't read yet. Ava Gardner was in Show Boat; I read her bio a couple of years ago. And I've been wanting to re-read the Harry Potter books. So I guess I say "eeny, meeny, miney, moe." I've been working on two coffee-table books - Hagia Sophia and The Tower of London, which I've also just finished up last week. I've found a lot of my books these last several years at the local annual library sales in the spring. Any that I don't want to keep get passed along to my sister or mother-in-law, or are donated back to the library.

Kids, Thanksgiving, Snot

Day two of the Mosheim School Heritage Days went a little better than the first day. I had first, second and third graders visit me this time. Kindergarteners were scheduled during the first half hour, but they didn't show. Then sixth graders were scheduled for the last half hour and they didn't show either. I would have liked having the 5 yr. olds, but didn't miss the older ones at all. The little kids are easier to impress with hand shears, the smell of a dirty fleece, the spinning wheels and the spinning process itself. Basket weaver Diane brought a whole variety of baskets on Tuesday, including one made of whale baleen, some teensy ones, including one made of horse hair and one of telephone wire.

Thanksgiving Day was the same ol', same ol' as far as the food went. DD provided the turkey and potatoes, but I had to cook them, plus vegetables and gravy. I made an apple pie on Wednesday and DD brought pumpkin pies (which were overdone because her oven is hotter than the setting). We told her to get an oven thermometer.

Thursday morning I had woken up with a scratchy throat, usually the precursor to a cold, and it didn't disappoint me. By the time we ate, around 2, I was blowing my nose about every 10 min. Yesterday and today I've been wheezing, coughing, spitting, and napping. I've been sleeping in the recliner the past two nights, partly to stay slightly elevated and partly because I can't be coughing in my sleep right next to DH. He can't afford to catch a cold right now, which brings me to . . .

Spinning, Baking, Counting

Mosheim School Heritage Days is now half over. I had 4th, 5th, and 6th graders come through today, 30 min. per group of 1 or 2 classes, with K thru 3 coming in tomorrow. I asked not to have 7th and 8th graders this year, since last year's crop were rude and visibly disinterested in spinning, wool, sheep, knitting, etc. Even some of today's 6th graders were on the verge of being jerks. I'm looking forward to tomorrow, though. The little kids actually enjoy this kind of stuff. Friend Diane, a basket weaver, participated for the first time. She had a grand time.

I got 3 apple nut cakes and 2 loaves of Anadama bread made on Saturday. Tomorrow afternoon or Wednesday will be apple pie day, probably Wednesday, since DGD will be here. She's off from school and DD has to go out of town, so we'll have her. DD is making pumpkin pies for Thursday and bought the turkey. (Gotta remember to get that out of the freezer tomorrow.)

Countdown, Garlic, Playing Dress Up, Spinning

Lo and behold, the garlic is finally in the ground, as of this past Sunday. That's 3 days later than last year. But the 13th is firmly into the 3rd Quarter of the moon, so we'll see if it makes a difference in how it grows. We have Duganski and Purple Glazer, both hardnecks and both saved from this summer's crop. And we have Susanville, softneck and saved from this summer, and Inchelium Red, also softneck, from new stock ordered this fall. Unfortunately, there won't be as many as I had hoped because we broke the bulbs apart almost a month ago, planning on planting back then. So some of the cloves got dried out and shrunken and were no good to plant by the time we had a chance to.

I've been debating with myself whether to get into reenacting. I'd go with a Colonial time period, I think. There's plenty of opportunities around here for Civil War reenactors to play, but can't see myself wearing hoops, although I could be a field hand, I suppose. Davy Crockett Birthplace State Park is nearby and is set around 1786 (which is when Davy was born). And Martin's Station, in Wilderness Road State Park in Va. is set in 1775, when Daniel Boone was moving people west. I have friends at both places who "dress out" (I think that's what I've heard the Crockett folks call it), so I could easily get pointers. I've looked into the various parts of the costume and know someone who sews period pieces. Right now the cost is the main thing preventing me from jumping in. A shift I could make myself, and probably petticoats, too, but I don't think I'd want to attempt a jacket/gown/short gown. And then there's the stays (that's 18th C. lingo for corset), without which I'd be considered a trollop, I suppose. I do already own a long, wool cape from my Hippie days (NOT) around 1970, that I think might not look too out of place. And I'd have to find suitable shoes. So there you go, I'm not even half dressed. Something ELSE to save up for.

This coming Monday and Tuesday are Heritage Days at Mosheim Elementary and Middle Schools. I'll be doing spinning demos for the kiddies. I may have mentioned this before, but the 7th and 8th graders were bored to tears by last year's demo, at least that's the way they acted. I guess it's not cool to show an interest in spinning at that age. LOL I'm hoping I don't have to deal with them this year. I have all my "stuff" ready to go - part of a raw fleece, some clean fleece, samples of different wools and other fibers, fiber preparation tools, and a few things I've made from my handspun yarn.

Allergy shots tomorrow. Yippee skippy.

Photographic Nightmare

The Full Hunter Moon (plus one) is climbing and Cygnus the Swan is high overhead, flying along the Milky Way. I like the winter constellations like Pegasus (the Great Square), Orion (the most obvious constellation in the sky), and then later, Leo (that's mine). Occasionally I get ambitious and try to find the Andromeda Galaxy (just off one corner of Pegasus in the constellation Andromeda, hence the name).

Yesterday, DH and I spent about 4 hours at his mother's, going through her photos. ACK! Very little organization. She has about a dozen albums, but they're those "magnetic page" ones. Half of them open up as you turn the pages because they don't have enough static and the other half have STICKY pages, so once something's in there, it's IN there. A terrible thing to do to photos, especially the older ones that I'd like to scan. And what's not in the albums is in photo envelopes, file folders, regular mail envelopes, boxes, etc. in a plastic storage tub.

So yesterday's time was mainly spent going through pictures and asking MIL who was who, if I didn't already know, and writing names on the backs. Oh brother! Her memory got worse as the afternoon wore on. Somebody she said was Joe Blow at noon became John Doe at 3 pm in a different picture. If it was obvious to me that she was wrong about a name, I just left it off or put a ?. We brought two tubs home with us and last night I started going through and sorting out duplicates, photos from different time periods (it's easy with dated pictures), and some other categories. Today, I continued the same. I'm still not done.

And nothing personal if you, dear reader, are the same kind of person, but MIL saved every stinkin' card - birthday, Easter, St. Patrick's Day, Valentine's Day, get well, retirement, Secretary's Day, you name it - she ever received, not to mention wedding invitations, programs, tickets, hospital bracelets (her own, not her son's), shreds of ribbons and fake flowers from wedding favors, newspaper articles about some neighbor's kid or somebody she worked with, etc. We are gonna have one helluva bonfire when she goes.

One good thing that has come out of "The Great Photo Roundup" is that I've found some old pictures of MIL's maternal grandmother. Here's one of them.
I already have a bunch of her father's mother. I've been e-mailing to a 2nd cousin of hers (who is actually DH's age), so as I scan them, I send them to him. There are also some of DH's father as a youngster and teen and of his grandfather, which I'll be passing along to DD and DGD. DH is voluntarily estranged from his father - hasn't had contact in about 40 yr. - but DD would like to know more about him and his family, so I've been working on that genealogy, too.

Mostly Spinning

Nov. 5 - The Bradford pear trees in the surrounding yards, as well as our own, are getting to that "Red Sails" lettuce stage - red on the tips of the branches and green at the base, so they look like giant heads of leaf lettuce, like the trees at the shopping center a few weeks ago. And the gingko trees in town have finally turned bright, pure yellow.

I've finally finished one bobbin of the wool/silk blend I'm working on. On to number two, probably tonight after supper. Sheesh, it's only 6:40 and it's already getting dark. Time to close the chickie girls in for the night.

Nov. 6 - Well, I did get some spinning done last night, almost three hours' worth. That's not as much as it sounds like, though, because I'm spinning it quite thin. It's between 1/3 and 1/2 a bobbin-full. I have an Ashford Joy that I use for spinning singles and an Ashford Traditional that's mostly reserved for plying. Ashford wheels are made in New Zealand. The Joy is a folding wheel that's easy to transport to guild meetings, demos, my SIL's house, my front porch, or wherever. I have it adjusted to spin at an 8:1 ratio, that is, it puts 8 full twists into the yarn with just 1 revolution of the drive wheel. That way I can spin faster without treadling faster. The Traditional is set up for a 6.5:1 ratio, since plying doesn't need to be spun as tight as the singles. I also have a plying flyer and bobbin on the Traditional so I can ply the two bobbins of singles together without having to stop halfway and empty the bobbin. The only time I put the normal size flyer/bobbin on the Traditional now is if I have a spinning student, though, come to think of it, that's not REALLY necessary. It's more an aesthetic thing.

Tonight I'll be putting the girls to bed at 5:45 instead of 6:45. Time to start getting light-deprivation syndrome. LOL

Using a pig

Oh poop! I forget to put the October 29th activity for Howell Farm on here. It was blacksmithing. They may have had the farrier there too, to reshoe the horses. If the horses on a farm in 1900 just did field work and didn't travel over the roads too often, they may not have been shod, just trimmed periodically, which would have saved the farmer some money (or time, if he did the trimming and/or shoeing himself.) Since our horses often do wagon or carriage rides on the farm lanes, which are dirt but are pretty hard, and on the blacktop/macadam roads surrounding the farm, they are shod. During the winter, they will have calks, kinda like giant snowtire studs, added to their shoes for traction on frozen or icy ground.

This coming Saturday, the 5th, is one of my favorite activities - Bacon, Sausage, and Scrapple Making. A Mennonite family from Lancaster Co., PA, is kind enough to do their pig butchering at Howell Farm. The pigs, usually two, are killed, gutted, and sawn in half lengthwise at their farm the day before. The family, usually three or four siblings, their mother, their spouses, and some of their children, arrive around 8 am and set up their work area on a couple of picnic tables covered with plastic. They show where the different cuts of meat come from, how to cut a ham properly, what part of the pig the bacon comes from, etc. As the men cut the various pieces, the women wrap and label them and put them on ice. The woman also do some of the trim work (see below about scrapple, cracklin's and sausage).

When the work area is set up in the morning, two fires are built for two big iron kettles. Initially, water is added to each kettle - a little in the lard kettle while it's warming up so it doesnn't burn or crack, and a lot in the scrapple kettle.

Contrary to popular belief, scrapple is NOT made from lips and a**holes. LOL When the pig is gutted, the liver (and possibly some other organ meat) is ground and cooked. Then when the pig is cut up, other meat scraps are collected, ground up, and added to the kettle with more water, along with the liver, etc. This cooked meat is called the pudding. Flour, corn meal, salt and pepper are added. I can't remember if anything else goes into it or not. The flour and corn meal thicken it and it's spooned into loaf pans to cool and set up. This is the ONLY scrapple I'll eat. I do not touch the store-bought stuff. Ergo, I haven't had scrapple since around 2001.

Into the other kettle goes any and all fat trimmings, some with a little meat still attached. This simmers away all day and renders the pure lard out. The solids that remain are a little bit of heaven - cracklin's - not to be confused with chittlin's, which is fried intestines. Ewww! The hot, liquid lard and any solids are slowly ladeled from the kettle into the sausage press, which has been cleaned and lined with several layers of cheesecloth. Then any liquid coming through the spout is caught in storage cans about the size of those popcorn cans that are around at Christmas time. After most of the liquid lard has come through on its own, the lid of the press is turned down and more liquid is squeezed out of the solids. The disk of solid fat and meat that's left is then pulled out of the press, dumped out on the table, broken apart and salted. Tastes like bacon, but better.

Some of the meat is cut small and set aside for sausage. When it's all been cut, a big meat grinder is brought out and fastened to one of the tables. The grinder is powered by a belt run by a one-cylinder donkey engine or "One-lunger," the same one that's used to power the ice cream maker in the summer. The meat is ground, then seasonings are mixed in and it's ground again. The sausage is packed into a sausage press, casing is added to the spout at the bottom, and while one person turns the wheel to press the meat down, another person stoops in front of the press with a big basin or tub and gives the sausage an occasional twist as it emerges and fills the casing.

Visitors are allowed to sample the cracklin's and some of the scrapple (since it's been cooked). By the end of the day, every scrap of meat and fat is off the bones and has been used somehow.