Yesterday or Today? Maybe Both...

So, I have said before that I think I was born in the wrong century. I like to hand quilt, cook, garden and build stuff. I love that I picked an entire big bag of swiss chard, collards and romaine right out of my backyard garden today. I love that there are little peas forming on our plants and the okra is just starting to peek through the dirt. I love that my daughter woke up this morning under a blanket I made myself. I love to cook a full meal and make my own strawberry jam.

I do hearken back a bit to the “good” old days, but need to remember that there were both pros and cons to them.

Pros: No makeup, you didn’t hear people refer to their quilting companions as their “besties”, and no Justin Bieber. Cons: Having to boil many kettles of water for your kids’ weekly baths (gag), no movies, and no giant coffee mecca (gasp!).

While I like to perpetuate some old-fashioned practices, I learned this week that I really don’t wish I lived in another time.

We’ve had one of those “Texas” Aprils. The kind where it’s freezing and you’re covering the garden one minute, (remember the last blog post?) and it’s pushing 90 degrees the next. Seriously, weather? How many times can people really use the phrase “Well, that’s Texas weather for you!”? Clearly they can use it a lot of times.

Just for fun this week, our remaining 27 year-old AC unit decided to throw in the towel. Like really throw it in. Not like the other times when the warranty company has recharged it, slapped a band-aid on it and we moved on. It was D-E-D, dead. Consequently, the ambient air temp in the upstairs was a crisp 88 degrees. Ahhhh….sweating yourself to sleep…

I am not into sleeping in a sauna and neither is my family. Back in the old days we would have built our house to take advantage of the crosswind and breezes, not just stuck it wherever it would shoehorn in with the rest of the houses. We might also have a lovely sleeping porch.

We have no lovely sleeping porch, so downstairs we all trooped. Splayed out all over the living room like a dysfunctional slumber party. We have been doing this for several nights now and we all are over it.

Even the seven year-old said, “Can I sleep in my bed soon? That air mattress is really making my back hurt.” So imagine the back pain of we who are not seven. We are doubly spoiled due to our recent memory-foam acquisition. That mattress is awesome. Way better than hay or horsehair, I bet. Hmmm…seems like modern day wins another round.

Obviously modern times are better in so many ways. I like healthy, organic meat and dairy. While the old days were full of it, I would not have enjoyed the procuring process. I like to feed chickens and would love it if we could have some here for all the fresh eggs. On the flip side, my chickens to show up in my fridge already deceased and featherless. Not sure I could stomach the in between bits.

I like to crochet and knit things for fun, but having to knit dull, coarse yarn into necessary items might take the fun out of it. Perhaps not, if there were no DVR-ed episodes of NCIS or Cougartown to watch in the waning hours of the day. Maybe knitting boring yarn into socks was high entertainment at the fireside. Who knows?

Back to the AC mess. When it comes to modern day living, I think that I like the good stuff and hate the bad stuff. Novel concept, right? I’m a rocket-scientist (nobody would have used that phrase back in the day). I love my air conditioning and refrigerator. I love having electricity power my sewing machine instead of my foot.

I hate working behind a desk in an office without windows or with windows that don’t open. I love working outside in the dirt or inside at my craft table. I hate cleaning and think there was probably a lot less of that going on back in the day, with smaller houses, less stuff and no indoor plumbing…well, that last part is a serious one-up for 2013. I do like the indoor plumbing.

While there was backbreaking work and many children to keep up with (yes, probably more than I have now), there was also a simpler life. In light of recent horrific events, that seems even more idyllic that it probably was. However, there was a greater reliance on God to provide and a stronger family emphasis. Neighbors came together to bring meals, care for children, finish a barn or bring in a crop. We are blessed to have neighbors and friends who do help in so many ways, but not everyone is so lucky. It isn’t the pervasive nature of our culture anymore.

Then again, along with today comes doctors who can keep my kids healthy, schools where girls can be educated and go on to college, cars that can run us to the grocery store when something is needed. All good things. I have to think my counterparts hundreds of years ago would have enjoyed those.

I guess when it comes down to it, you should be happy wherever and whenever you are. God put you there for a reason. Embrace what you have now and borrow a bit from the past. Try to make your life the best you can make it. In the immortal words of the great philosopher Billy Joel:

"The good old days weren't always good,
 And tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems."

Oh, and be thankful for the AC!

Oh Punxsutawney Phil, You Prankster!

Not only have I been sewing this week, but I have been sowing as well. I actually believed the Groundhog, and his associates-the actual meteorologists- when they said it was Spring. It is April 10th, after all. So I put in my worm-weather garden. Ha!

After struggling to find a place for all the brand new, old favorite and different varieties of veggies I wanted to put in this year, I decided that a 10’x14' space would no longer cut it. I had already busted out of the garden and built the garden beds out of the drawers and doors, but now it was time to beg additional space from the rest of the family.

I had my arguments ready, my reasons why an expanded garden made sense.

I approached the hubby with my plan casually.

"I would like to make the garden bigger," I mentioned, as he pulled lawn weeds.

"Okay, how much bigger?"

"About double."

"Okay."

I went on.

"It would take in that whole area there, but the fig trees are already in that section so it's not really useable play space."

"Okay."

"So you're okay with it?"

"Yes."

Whew-tough negotiating on both sides!

So, I fenced in the new section and got ready to expand. I pulled weeds, grass and dug holes. I dumped compost and soil and organic humus and edged beds

with reclaimed logs. I planted sweet potato slips (more on those later), peanuts, and green beans and moved the potatoes-in-coffee-sacks project from the upper garden to the lower one.

The hubby helped me move the composter to the new fenced area. I planted sunflowers along the perimeter of the fence to add to the fence height, bring bees, look awesome and be living trellises for vining peas and beans. Later in the year we will have free birdseed as well. So giving, those flowers.

I had to leave plenty of room for the fig trees to do their giant summer expansion thing. So pretty. I plan to move some shade-loving plants under them at some point.

A few weeks back I was fortunate enough to acquire some old, worn-out bike tires. I zip-tied them into a tent shape over the green beans. They should provide some protection (I can drape row cover cloth or plastic if it gets too cold like today when it is raining with a high of 47 and a wind chill of 35 in April!) or to protect if hail threatens. I can also reconfigure the wheels into a tall trellis wall down the road. Recycled and versatile! Perfect.

I found a couple of wire gates at the large home improvement store and put those in at either garden entrance. Easy-peasy, lemon squeezy!

And tonight it all has to be covered. Sweet potatoes, tomatoes, eggplants. None of them like the low temps. The tiny new sunflower and okra seedlings, the potato sprouts. All will die in the cold. Even if it doesn't freeze, I like to give them a little buffer, but we do have a freeze warning so it is much more critical. I use hay to mulch most of my plants. I used to buy it at the wonderful, and now closed, Lewisville Feed Mill. Sniff, sniff. Now I buy hay at the Argyle Feed Store at 407 and 377.

I like to bank a good pile of hay around the guys that hate the cold and it seems to work well. Then after the cold I just spread the hay out and have instant mulch! I was bemoaning that I had to cover all this stuff, breaking out extra towels, sheets, fabric, etc., and the oldest child, horrified, asked, "Are you going to go put those sheets in our front yard?"

"As a matter of fact, I am," I said. 

If you have or know any sixth-grade kids, please drive them by my house tonight and point out the super-embarrassing bedding in the bushes. It would make my week!  

I’m a bit torn because the cold weather is a good thing for the broccoli, chard, collards, peas, lettuce and cilantro I'm still trying to keep growing. This is great because the kids have been eating all that stuff like crazy-especially the middle child who has started a love affair with Swiss chard.  However, the rest of the plants are just struggling to get started. Buck up, little campers, the blistering temps of June are right around the corner!

So back to sweet potatoes...they are a whipping! I started them ages ago inside the house on the kitchen counter. I cut a sweet potato in half, did the toothpicks in the side trick like everyone has done to an avocado pit.

After leafy shoots grew out the top about six or so inches, I broke them off at the potato and put the ends of the shoots in a shallow bowl of water. After a few weeks, roots of over an inch had grown off of them.

When it had been warm for about a week (trickery) I planted them in really loose good soil, with plenty of room to vine and spread out.

Gotta run. I have to go cover everything up. Love this Texas weather! And for a fun side-read, check out this dude's lawsuit against Punxsutawney Phil. Wow.

Calm Before the Freeze

Trash to Treasure-Part 4: I Shutter to Think How Easy This Was

Waiting in the school car line when I wrote this, so sue me if I go too fast...

...or have too many typos...

Sorry.

I thought I'd surprise you with a "Part 4" to my Trash to Treasure series, even though I only pitched three. See how generous I am?!

I made the doll furniture for my youngsters, and then thought to myself, "Self, you made the dolls each a bed but you have no bed."

Myself had a good point. Actually, we just had no bed frame. We had a bed. A new mattress, that is. A MEMORY FOAM bed in a huge king size. Yippee for no more back pain!

The problem with the new, larger mattress is that it came naked. No sheets, no comforter, pillows, skirt or frame. Crazy!

After the expense of the mattress, bedding and pillows, there was a dearth of cash for a frame. That's when my brain drifted to the salvage pile that was in our garage. I knew I had snagged several shutters in the Great Score of '13 and they were all pretty intact. Bonus!

After laying them out on the driveway, moving them around and consulting the creative oracle (Pinterest) I had a decent plan. A headboard!

As I was fleshing this whole thing out, the eldest came out to see what I was doing.

"Making a headboard for our new bed out of these old shutters," I told her.

"Where does all of this stuff keep coming from?" She almost wailed, a very confused look on her face.

"You know how you had to squeeze through the garage like a maze to get out here?"

"Yeah."

"That's where it's all coming from. Oh, and it is all still from that house that was being gutted."

"Wow."

"I know!"

Anyway. I measured the mattress width and then measured the four shutters laid side-to-side. Too short. Blast!

A quick run to the large home improvement store and a few cuts by a super-helpful lumber guy gave me some lengths of 2x4" that would fit perfectly between the shutters.

I had two shutters that had thinner slate and two with thicker. I didn't care. The tops all matched up and the thickness of the shutters was the same. I put the larger ones on the outsides, then a 2x4"next to each, then the thinner-slatted shutters, and a 2x4"in the middle. Perfect size! Well, a little bit wide, but pretty good!

Because the shutters were torn out to go in the trash, the bottoms of a few were broken and the slats were loose. One was splintered. I put wood glue on all of the bottom slats where they joined the frames of the shutters. Where the side of the shutter was splintered, I sanded the wood, squeezed wood glue up into the splintered part and then sanded it smooth after the glue dried.

I unscrewed all of the hinges and hardware so they would fit together well.

I lay the shutters all face down with the boards between them and squared off the tops with a level. The nice lumber man also cut some 1x4" for me into two long boards-the length of the thing. I wound up with four shorter chunks from his cutting-not sure why-and I used those to brace all the boards together.

As you can see, I put the short boards diagonally across each section. I drilled pilot holes in the boards then screwed into a shutter, 2x4" and next shutter. I used deck screws to make sure it was stable. And I already had deck screws, so...

Once I had braced all the joining spots, I put the long 1x4" boards at the top and bottom, drilled pilot holes and screwed them to each piece. Now it was one stable piece.

I flipped it over and sanded the whole thing like crazy. I busted out the tack cloth and wiped the whole thing down.

I picked up two trim pieces at the store as well. One 1" wide, slightly tapered piece. The other was about 3" wide and baseboard-ish. At this point I borrowed three super heavy-duty clamps from my Padre. I ran wood glue down the backside of the thinner trip piece and slapped it on the front of the headboard at the top. I held it in place with small clamps and used my staple gun/brad nailer to shoot brads along the length of the trim piece. The brads and glue together would hold it tight.

I took the wider trim piece and ran wood glue down the back of it. I used the large clamps to hold it in place and brad nailed it down also. I left the big clamps on for most of the day to make sure it stayed tight. I forgot to take pics of this part. Sorry!

Once it was all attached, screwed, nailed, glued, sanded, clamped and dry, I started to paint it. I had several cans of paint already so I started with dark brown and painted the whole thing.

Then let it dry.

Then lightly sanded it.

Then painted it red.

 Then let it dry

Then I stared distressing it. I scuffed it and sanded some spots lightly, some a little more to see the brown through. Some a lot more to see the white through. Some a whole lot more to see bare wood through.  Distressed.

I finished it with a clear coat of polyurethane. Again, I had it, so I used it.

 We let the thing air dry, and after carrying it upstairs and propping it behind the bed, we discovered it is a bit wider than intended, but okay. I wanted to leave it just standing there until we get a feel for how high we want to hang it. We will hang it a bit higher than this but here is the finished product.

TOTALS:

One 2x4" board

Two 1x4" boards

One 1" trim board

One 3" trim board

Paint (the rest I didn't have)

Pack of sanding disks for orbital sander

Total cost: $26

Oh, and here is the second set of American Girl doll furniture and bedding

I made after the last post. The youngest obviously had to have her own set too!

If you were wondering why I was writing this in the car line at school, it was Ben and Jerry's free scoop day. You have to get to school reeeeeally early to get a front spot so we could take off and beat the after-school crowds! Annual tradition!

Ice Cream Hijinks with Friends!