The Retreat

I spent four blissful days at the farm doing only what I wanted to. Heaven. Saturday morning, after a farewell breakfast with the family, I drove up to Park Rapids, stopped at the grocery store to pick up a few things and then, since I only had a van full of dyed fleece, a drum carder, spinning wheel, and 5 different knitting projects for four days, I stopped at Monika's to pick up some "just in case I run out of things to do" yarn. Don't waggle your finger at me, I know I have fiber issues... (click on pictures to bigify)

Sunday and Monday were spent, carding, blending and spinning the "Socks and Mittens" wool I dyed last summer. I had no particular goal in mind, other than to end up with some sock yarn. I used Suffolk fleece from Francis's brother-in-law Dean. I love this fleece for socks and mittens as it does not felt easily, and is very springy and sturdy. In fact, when machine washed and dried, it fulls slightly and makes a nice "cushy" sock.

Tuesday I drove the backroads to Perham to visit a shop called At Loose Ends. This is a cozy little yarn shop in a house that is over a hundred years old and has all those neat little rooms. The proprieter is Lil McRae and she was so warm and helpful! She carries everything for knitting, spinning, weaving, felting, and any other type of fiber art you may want to try. And if she doesn't carry it, she'll find it for you.

Wednesday I sadly packed the van and headed home. I'll miss the farm but I do feel wonderfully refreshed and ready to dive back into work!

Toe Up!

I love to knit socks. I have always knit them top down, meaning from cuff to the toe. I found a cute little pattern for anklets knit toe up in Vogue Knitting, The Ultimate Sock Book and am LOVING it! You only need to cast on 8 stitches to begin. Top down you cast on 64 stitches or so to begin. Casting on is not my favorite part of knitting as I always seem to under-estimate the length of the "tail" I need for the long-tail cast on. I am, however, a wee bit nervous about the cast off of these toe up socks as I tend to cast of tightly. Any thoughts or suggestions?

The yarn I'm using for these socks is Brown Sheep Wildfoote Luxury Sock in the Sonatina Colorway. I like the way it knits.

Last time we were at the Farm I knit my first Moebius using Cat Bordhi's A Second Treasury of Magical Knitting. This was totally fun. I also learned how to do an applied I-cord which gives this scarf a very professional finish! It was so fast and so much fun that I'm going to knit one for each my Mom and Sister for our December tea!

This moebius scarf was knit using Mushisi from Plymouth Yarn. It's a wool silk blend. Wonderful to work with and drapes beautifully. This is the Shrimp colorway.

On another note, I'm leaving this weekend for a personal retreat at the Farm. Just me, myself and I. Much spinning, knitting, and quiet personal reflection will be had and I can't wait. I've also loaded up on the first 5 seasons of House and the first 2 seasons of Bones just in case I get tired of myself .......

The fruits of our labor

We decided to build a couple of raised beds at 3800 Hayes this spring and try our hand at little gardening. After much debate about what to grow and how to grow it we ended up with tomatoes, cucumbers, green peppers, zucchini, onions, eggplant (one plant, not for me, not after the eggplant parmesan dinner that turned into pizza night), green beans, peas, radishes, beets, carrots, spinach, lettuce, dill, cilantro, parsley, sage, rosemary and of course thyme.

In the beginning....

And now, see the tomatoes in the pots against the house and the bean pole, which is also where we planted peas and nasturtiums, and the totally filled raised beds mmmmmmmm.....

I am so pleased! This is what we picked from our garden last night! After sharing some with the kids we have enough left for a couple of salads...lunch will be good tomorrow!

Not there yet...

We don't live at the farm just yet. This is to be our retirement home. When we bought it in 2007 we thought, "Ok, in 3 to 4 years Francis can take early retirement, I'll find a job in Park Rapids, Bemidji, Detroit Lakes, where ever and we'll move up here!" Well, due to the economic down turn, the falling prices of real estate and the hit we've taken on our pensions, we probably won't be moving for 5 to 6 years. Let's pray for a turn around soon!

In the meantime we spend as much time as we can at the farm, fixing up and painting the house, removing dead trees, mowing (there's lots to mow), watching the deer in the pasture. And of course driving the tractor! (Oh yes, that is a RED tractor you see! and yes there is a GREEN one but it's just not as pretty and not practical for hay rides....)

The rest of our time is spent in the Cities keeping up with work and home and church.

The Beginning

In November of 2007, after many, many long months of waiting, we closed on our hobby farm north of Park Rapids, Minnesota. It was love at first sight for me, not so much for Francis. I loved the house and all of the out buildings (especially the Poultry shed) and could envision myself sitting on the screened porch spinning as I gazed at a pasture containing sheep, chickens, llamas, and perhaps a pygora or two or three.... Francis could envision hours and hours of work drying up the damp basement, repairing fallen fences, plowing and re-seeding the pasture, burning brush piles left from pulp logging and mucking mounds and mounds and mounds of horse manure.

The previous owners of this lovely piece of property abandoned it two years earlier for greener pastures in Kentucky. According to our neighbors, they fled in the dark of night, without so much as a by your leave, taking themselves and their horses.

Apparently they had more than 20 horses on this 20 acre, mostly wooded, farm. Approximately 6 acres of the farm is pasture. These poor horses were stalled everywhere on the property and of course they left their "apples" everywhere as well. The floor of the barn is literally spongy with them. There will be plenty of mucking to do!

Anyway, after months of negotiating with the previous owners and the bank (this was a short sale meaning the bank would agree to accept less than what was owed on the farm) we settled on a price and now we own this lovely 20 acres!

It has a beautiful, 3 bedroom, 2 bath home….
a garage.... a barn.... a workshop…. a wood burning shed…. and the magical Poultry shed…..We can't wait to live here!!