Circles and Such

 I'm still spinning. Combing, dizzing, and spinning are calm activities.
Plying, dying and wrapping the yarn into skeins are exciting activities.
These two skeins are in an avocado dye.

 On the other side of the stove my homemade chai is reducing.

 Instead of throwing out this celery stump, I'm growing it in the windowsill. I did one last fall and now have a large celery plant, waiting to be transplanted into the garden this spring.

 I can't take much credit for the Bee Balm that is my small business's best seller. Everybody loves it and wants more. I'm shipping five tubs off to New York City today.

 The concoction below, however, is a new product: Healing Herb Ointment. It's a bit greasy, and it smells earthy. But oh-my-goodness ... is it full of good stuff!

 In addition to all these lovely oils and butter and wax, it's infused with plantain, yarrow, and dandelion.

My baby thyme plants are growing.

 One more circle from my house -- this large plate. My mother gave it to me. It was gifted her by an elderly lady whose parents were missionaries in China long ago. The plate came from them, and who knows how old it is and where it came from before that.

 If you don't follow my other blog, here are a few shots of the nearly-finished kitchen. All the shelves are up on the stove-side!

 One more long shelf will go up on the sink-side (below). But the shelves are full now, and the kitchen looks homey.

 Our local thrift store is rearranging for spring, but I found these jars amid the chaos. Those are 1/2 gallon Mason jars, at 50 cents apiece. I was chuffed, as the British say!

Otherwise, farm life is slow now because it's still cold. Freezing temps (just barely) at night, and windy during the day, and cold. I'm eager to put all these herbs in the ground ... but not yet. Not yet.

More Empty Nest Behaviors

I now know what The Empty Nest feels like. Hmm. New, different, wonderful but sometimes a bit empty and quiet. I enjoyed the first week or two, throwing myself into moving furniture and clearing things out, setting up my oh-so-fun craft room. Today is the first day I've sat around thinking, "Hmm. What do I do now?"
Anyway, before this pondering, I did finish some curtains for the other little house, AKA Julia's old room:

 They give privacy but allow some light in.
And a new one for the door:

I also, at last, made a simple skirt from this chicken-themed fabric. I'd bought it to make an apron, so (as you'd guess) the skirt has ended up shorter than my preferred ankle-length. I plan to buy some muslin to make a built-in underskirt or slip, that will hang longer.

Cute fabric, huh?

 I finished a rather unusual weave:

 And for the first time in a very long time, I went to Prayer Shawl at the Methodist Church on Thursday! It was delightful to see my old yarn buddies again and sit and click some needles in their company. I started a basketweave shawl:

The yarn is actually very blue; size 15 needles

 These are NOT our farm pumpkins. We have no pumpkins this year. I photographed these at WalMart.

 Our second go-around with potatoes are sprouting up now:

 And it appears we will have a good pecan year ... we hope. Some of the trees are loaded.

 Lastly, I had a bit of a scare today, walking back from the chicken coop (where Punkin was trying to lay). We'd noticed Ned had a swollen neck (jowel, hanging down below), and we wondered if he'd had another run-in with a snake. Here, they sat in the sun (after the thunderstorm), but notice the foreground ....

 I stepped so close to him! I squealed, oh did I squeal! Thankfully, Ned had already killed him. You can't see it here, but there are flies on him.

This is another one of those yellow-bellied (really orange-bellied) water snakes. They are pretty creepy to look at, but they are not venomous.
So THANK YOU, Ned, for being my protector and killing all snakes on the farm! Oh, how I do loathe the look of them.
Punkin was on an egg-laying strike for about five days, but she appears to be back up and running again. Life is generally quiet on the farm. We do hear from Julia, and she seems to be doing very well at college. That makes my mama heart at ease.
I hope you are enjoying your September thus far! Cooler days are coming!

From Soaping to Farming

For any of you who haven't checked over at my personal blog (Through a Glass, Darkly) lately, here's how Maggie is looking. She's a happy, playful, fearless gal who loves to be outside above all things, and hates being in her crate. She cries. We try not to listen.

Red Robin Farm already has a presence each week at the Oriental Farmers' Market, although right now our sign reads "Red Robin Soaps," a business I've had for about five years now. On my market table today, among other things, I had some Purse Babies.

And some crocheted toboggan hats. But since it was 80 degrees, nobody was looking for a hat.

This is an easy-peasy pattern, so fast, and very adaptable to head size.

From that same hat pattern I adapted a head-band too, and these sell well in the winter.

Today I handed out my very last business card from the batch Adam bought me a few years ago. It said "Red Robin Soaps." So it's time to get on the computer and design some new ones to buy, this time with our farm name. We're using Julia's red robin picture this time, of course!

I also dropped by the local pottery store, Pigments of Imagination, to deliver some more lotion bars and talk about the new packaging. I think I decided on the burlap and twine.

Adam filled in some of his trenches this morning, and we picked up pecans this afternoon. Phew!

Then, I knew I had to make a new soap batch if I wanted to have any more soaps for Christmas sales. I was nearly out of lavender and tea tree, plus I wanted to make "Christmas Tree" and "Warm Cider" scents. So I made a batch of soap.

It's resting now, getting into the gel stage under warming towels.

Here's some lemongrass poppyseed, a favorite.

Adam's wheat and barley are looking quite nice. He needs to buy more pipe for his watering lines. Having even the smallest of farms involves lots of work and lots of waiting.