the tree is gone

Just giving evidence that we cut down the huge tree in our backyard. The stump is under the snow, the pile of mulch is the mountain of twigs we shredded up, the wood stacked against the back fence is a whole lot of firewood for future years.

inkle loom weaving

For years my mother told me she had an inkle loom made by someone long ago in our family. As the only person in the family likely to ever use it she's been meaning to give it to me and it just arrived this weekend. I looked on the internet and figured out how it worked and this is how my first weaving attempt looks. I was pretty happy with it for a first go. I'm using my handspun wool/silk blend. I actually finished an entire belt in one go (it was a long afternoon).

large tree down

Wow, I skipped blogging the entire month of November! Things continue to roll along here at the homestead. We had that huge tree in the back taken down, and stacked all the wood and shredded up the twigs. Because of the threat of the Emerald Ash Borer the local municipality no longer hands out wood mulch for free. And the tree people we used didn't own their own shredder. So we rented one. I'd have to say, don't bother. It cost money to rent the chipper/shredder, it took ALL DAY to shred up a tree's worth of twigs and the mulch isn't that good. It's "sticky." Lots of big sticks. On the plus side the mulch pile takes up far less room than the twig pile did, but it just wasn't worth the amount of time/effort/expense we put into obtaining that small pile of low quality mulch. What we do have, as result of taking down the tree, it a whole lot more sunshine in the back yard and a very large stack of fire wood. I had a gardening friend come over and we decided where the different plantings are going to go.