Feral Fox back to the Country

Feral fox has moved back to North Carolina, and couldn't be happier about it. Back outside of the Asheville area and helping out with our friends' farm, who are raising sheep and heritage birds. As our farm work has started again, working on jewelry has come to a halt due to a lack of work space right now, but I a am eager to get back to doing it, and trying to figure out a space to continue. In the meantime there is nothing up on etsy.

                                                              (view from our porch)

But we have been very busy. Moving sand getting settled is always a chore, and on top of that there has been lambing and sheering and hatching been happening since the spring has arrived.

                                                                   (sheering day)

 I am very excited to start spinning wool again, and despite the lack of fiber care, there are a couple fleeces that are going to be great to spin.

                                                      (Black Mama and her white baby)

We have also been mushroom and ramps hunting this season, its been so hot so fast he haven't found that many but it has been nice hiking in the woods regardless. Hopefully I will be posting more, and making for things in the near future to also be posting up on etsy. Happy spring!

New Jewelry

I have been slacking putting some of the new stuff that I have made as of late up on Etsy, so I thought I would give a little preview here of what I have been working on this summer. Let me know what you think.

These are dangle earrings with 3 copper pieces hanging from separate antiqued brass chains, and brass ear hooks.
 

 This is a necklace that is made from 5 sea urchin tentacles, carefully drilled and strung onto a antiqued brass chain. It lays really great on, I'm very excited about this necklace.

A simple necklace made from turquoise colored beads, and deer skin leather, hanging from a brass wire base.

   I made a variation on the copper pendant necklaces, and made wood pendants, and I think that it looks really great, especially with the natural dark color of the wood.

Summer Harvest and Ravioli

      Summer harvesting in Montana has finally begun! Sure we have been harvesting lettuce and arugula and some speedy radishes for a little while now, but we finally are starting to pick some sage, and thyme and putting nasturtium flowers on our salads and celery and the sugar snaps are now just becoming edible! Tomatoes have started to form and I have enough basil now to actually make some pesto or dry some to can tomato sauce this fall. And we are swimming in greens, collards and kale. Our chard and beets are not looking so hot. It could be a mite, or it could be a soil deficiency, the rest is raging. Its great to be able to eat out of the yard. I'm hoping we have cabbage soon too, and we planted a lot. Cole slaw and kimchi  will hopefully soon be in the fridge.

     I decided that I needed to start making pasta to use and store up some of the goodies from the garden. I  used a basic egg noodle recipe, which is 2 C flour and 3 eggs, which makes enough for about three good eaters (which my house is). Mix that and let sit, while you make filling. I bought a little thing of goat cheese and mixed that with ricotta and salt and pepper, then I have added chopped arugula and lemon, or arugula and garlic and green onions. This last time I put in garlic scapes (which is the flower shoot from the garlic, before it flowers) and green onion, chopped up really fine or put in the food processor with the cheese mix. I then took sections of the dough and rolled them out by hand as thin as I could (or you could use a pasta roller, which I now want desperately), and cut long strips with a pizza cutter, then cut those strips into equal sized squares.

put a table spoon or so of filling on one square, and take an equal sized square and put that on top. Then take a fork, and pinch down all around the sides so they stay together.

The scrap pieces you can cut into strips and put them in the freezer for egg noodles whenever you need them. To cook, drop them in water boiling water till they float to the top, which only takes a few minutes. You can freeze the rest for later when you don't feel like cooking. I like to just put butter and garlic and salt and pepper on mine, but they are also great with a  pesto sauce or tomato. I really want to get some pancetta or prosciutto in butter or olive oil with some garlic and salt and pepper for a sauce, but I have not tried it yet. I am trying to find some creative ways to store up some some of this years harvest. I just put up some cilantro mole, which could be one of my favorite things on earth. Any suggestions?

 

Thanks Missoula!

 


The Made fair is over, and it was a really great event to be a part of. Thank you so much to everyone who stopped by to chat and for their support and feedback. It turned out to be a great day. I am hoping to start doing the Peoples Market off and on for the summer, starting in July. It was really great to join in the craft community in Missoula and get to see all of the really amazing things that are made here. I hope to also do the Christmas time Made Fair as well. Thanks again to everyone!

Missoula Made Fair!

The Missoula Made Fair is coming up on the 26th of June (next Sunday). I am very excited to participate in it, and will have a lot of new stuff to sell, from bolo ties to bracelets to earrings and necklaces. There will be 75 craft vendors and also food, beer, and music! Lets hope for good weather.

Projects as of Late

Suit Case Chair

I have been checking out a lot of crafting and decorating books at the library, and I have been trying to decorate my living space creatively to feel motivated every day and to feel like it is a place that I have created and be proud of it. I found this idea in a book on reusing materials, to make a chair out of an old suitcase. I love the look of old suit cases, and this was a really cool idea to keep them around, and the only thing we bought new to make it was screws. We took an old suit case that we liked and picked out some scrap fabric from the thrift store I thought would go wellwith it. While we were there, we also grabbed some old foam seat cusions (instead of buying upholstering foam), a white sheet and a foam pillow with a padded case. We went to a resale store and bought some chair legs that had been taken off of its previous seat. The other supplies we needed were four 2x4s cut to size (2 for the bottom and 2 for the top), and 2 flat boards (ply wood would work here) cut to fit in the top and bottom of the suit case. We improvised on a lot of our materials, what we already had, and what we found for cheap, the total making cost was about $13 total. Assembly was a task, but we were only using hand tools except for a drill, a skill saw would be a peach for this project. We screwed the two 2x4s in place on each side spacing them out,then screwed the legs into them. Next, we cut the foam seat cushions out to fit on the board, and placed the foam pillow on top (all this could be replaced with upholstering foam) and used a staple gun to upholster the bottom seat, and then just set the upholstered board on top of the 2x4s. We upholstered the board to fit the back, using a white sheet as fabric, and a padded pillow case for the back (you don't need to use very much padding for the back),and then slid that into place. Then your all done! you can add rope or cord on the sides to keep the back from falling, we just leaned it up against a wall. I love this chair. There was also a version of doing just the bottom for a little bench or a foot rest, or one with no legs for an animal bed, both I thought were great ideas.

feral fox