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dragonlady7Family visit was lovely. Stayed at the farm, spent a bunch of time at Mom and Dad's house. Older sister was up from Maryland with the three kids, but no husband or dogs. We had a big St Patrick's Day dinner but really it was a birthday dinner for Mom-- Elder Sister had made a cake and her kids had decorated it and they'd brought it along with them.
I had already arranged to take Friday off; I didn't want to drive all that way and arrive late at night and then have to leave. Dude took Friday off as well, but he'd been off all week because he was sick, so. He did not take Monday off, even though we discussed it back and forth and I said I was, and he said he probably would too; come Monday, he was like "why are you home" and it was as if the conversation never happened. I can't prove it did, of course, but. This is a thing that bothers me, lately; I know I have a very bad memory so I do a lot of journaling and writing reminders and researching ways to work around my mental disability and such. He just "has a bad memory" and so it's impossible to expect him to remember things. He used to hassle me all the time to get therapy and medication and such, and yet. His limitations are just limitations and he feels there's nothing wrong with him.
I think that's a little unfair, but whatever. Anyway!
I think I've discussed the journey there, I know I wrote a long entry when I couldn't sleep Saturday morning. I was up earlyish Sunday morning too but it wasn't as bad. We left Sunday afternoon, and paused for dinner in Syracuse. It's always so weird-- that drive is short enough that you can do it nonstop, but so long that when you pause in the middle it's hard to remember how to fit into the normal world, and the waiter's banter bounced off us like a brick wall, we couldn't understand what he was talking about. It's hard to explain. "I'm right in the middle of a four-hour drive, bro, I don't know what year it is."
Anyway. My burger was overdone and the waiter seemed disappointed that I didn't want to send it back; he was trying to get the cook in trouble, which I would deplore only he was right, it was overdone, and the guy apparently does it every time.
I did get to have the conversations I wanted to at the farm-- well, some of them-- the discussion of where I could plant my little flax patch, for one, and the conversation with Veg Manager about dye plants, which he was somewhat enthused about. He confirmed he's never done any natural dyeing but has always kinda been interested; he's done some chemical dyeing and enjoyed it and wanted to get back into it if he ever had a reason, so. Anyway, if I can find Japanese Indigo seeds, woad seeds, and madder seeds... I'm trying to find a place that has both so I can get them all sent together, but striking out. (They all do grow in this climate zone. Regular-ass indigo does Not.)
The good farm news I did not discuss is that they're getting cattle!! When they bought the farm it had a herd of Red Devons on it, and it's set up for them, but they couldn't afford the herd and the previous farmers sold it cheaper to someone else than they'd offered it to them, and that sucked. So this year they've found someone who wants to go in on it with them-- someone who'll initially buy some of the animals, and then come and assist in their care sometimes. What they've really earnestly been looking for is another new small farmer who wants to get a herd but doesn't have land; that would be the ideal partnership, to have this person run their herd on the farm's land and share the work; that would let the other farmer get established, and let them get the cattle infrastructure built up, and let them gradually introduce beef back into their product line, and then once the other farmer had built up their herd and their business they could find their own land, and the farm could then start to invest in their own herd.
That's not what's happening, but it's not too far off, so. Cows are just expensive, is the thing. So the other guy is getting two cows, and they're getting two, for a total herd of four.
I didn't set a date for my next farm visit, which would be a proper week spent there and would definitely count as The Beginning Of The Season. We're into it now; the greenhouse is humming, the germination box is full (there's an old fridge with a heated box of water in it, and you stack flats in there and seeds germinate), there's a schedule on the door and twice a day someone comes in and waters everything-- if not more often. It's spring in there, even if it's cold outside; the furnace is running and the blower's on and it's 20x100' of steamy warmth. And work.
So-- anyway, we got back late Sunday, and I had yesterday off because I figured I'd need to unpack and do laundry. This was not an incorrect assumption. I was busy all day, though there were two stretches where I sat for a moment on the couch and my various surfaces were claimed by the cat, who I think was quite stressed while we were gone. She seemed fine, but I was brushing her and she had a lot of dandruff, which is a stress signal. So I have been trying to be extra sweet to her even if she's been driving me crazy.
She may be getting old and cranky enough that we shouldn't leave her alone for weekends anymore. I don't know what we'll do, though. We can bring her over to Dude's mother's house for longer stays, but right now is peak shedding, and his mom's allergic. I don't want to resign myself to never having Dude go anywhere with me, though. So... we'll see.
I did get a bit done yesterday but not as much as I wanted to. Three loads of laundry, and I managed to round out one of them by throwing in some of the fabric I reclaimed from the granary loft. I brought all the stuff to make wall quilts there, and then didn't do it last year-- well, to be fair, I did a bunch, I just didn't finish, and then when I was looking for materials this winter I couldn't find them and the reason is they were up there. So...
I laid out a few things, washed a few things (there's one set of sheets to cut up that came from a CSA member who's a massage therapist and she brought them over clean and I used one, but the ones still in the bag strike me as still smelling pretty strongly of massage oil, so I figure I should wash them a couple more times. That's why she got rid of them, I think, it's not really possible to get them totally clean no matter how you wash them. They'll be fine in things, but I'm not going to sleep on them, lol. I don't feel bad about cutting them up even though they're not worn.
That's the thing-- I'm not just being cheap, I'm really trying to reuse fabric. It seems wasteful to take a new-manufactured thing and cut it up to make another thing. I'd rather take something that's no longer useful or suitable in its current iteration and try to make something useful out of it.
Unrelated aside-- on Instagram I follow a lot of people who sew, and many of them are plus-size, and there was a big kerfuffle over indie pattern designers not offering plus sizes, and a ton of excellent discourse resulted (i know! it was good though!) and it was all heartfelt but well-articulated and so on. It was lovely! And I followed a bunch more people from it, and now my feed is just full of lovely people of all sizes, many of whom sew or knit and post about fashion and such, and I love it.
Meanwhile, I also follow a farmer instagram where the lady who runs it is definitely an aspirational lifestyle Influencer, she gets sponsorships for luggage and shit and takes her kids to France and so on, and yet mostly talks about her tiny farm in Vermont, and I think the farm itself is more of a hobby lifestyle because I have yet to see them sell anything. Anyway! She takes lovely photos so I've left her on my feed; I followed her because of some giveaway ages ago.
She started up a new giveaway, and there was a long preachy thing in Stories about how TERRIBLE fast fashion is and what an environmental problem the fashion industry is and how we should all own fewer things better-made. Sure, that's fine, it goes along pretty well with a lot of the sewists on my feed! But then she went into the giveaway thing, and.... I didn't have to even click through to know this, but I did so I could confirm it. Two companies were participating. One had sizes that went up to a 44" bust, which is like. I mean. I was a 44" bust in my 20s, so it's at least, like. I can imagine it. I believe the average American woman is a size 14/16 and that's usually around a 44-48" bust, depending. So it's like... we make clothes that anyone average or smaller can wear. Sure, fine.
The other one?
Their size chart had no inches, and the largest size was labeled as a size eight.
I have never in my life worn a size eight; by the time I was in adult sizing I was already larger than that.
Their clothing line caters exclusively to women significantly smaller than average.
That is the antidote to fast fashion: fuck you, fat people. Just ignore that bodies come in different sizes and shapes. Oh, they had an extra XXS option catering to size 0 and 00, you betcha! But their XL was size 8. That's incredible. I've never even seen a company like that.
Anyhow. I'm going to someday launch my sarcastic blog where I pose with the ridiiiiculous XXS clothes I found at the thrift shop that I then cut up and make into something that fits my super-normal body. (If this is opaque to you, just look at literally the entirety of, say, cottonandcurls's blog, or really any Influencer of that ilk, whose entire premise is Look At How HILARIOUSLY GIANT this huge garment I bought from the thrift store is! I will take a HILARIOUS picture of me inside it! Can you imagine someone FREAKISH enough to fit into this no we won't even imagine, such a creature would be a MONSTER, we won't even acknowledge that this garment was made like this on purpose, we're just going to approach it from an angle that this is a huge waste of fabric to have a dress be this big, look again at how FUNNY I look holding it out with my hands to show how HUGE it is on my SLENDER FRAME. Now I have cut it up and made something to fit my GLAMOROUSLY THIN body, even though the garment I made preserves none of the features that made the original garment cute, and could have just as easily been made from flat yardage of fabric or like, a sheet. Ha ha ha! Buy ads on my site! Aspire to my prowess! I am thin and most people can't tell the difference between thin and fashionable anyway!!! Read all of this in a voice that has absolutely fucking zero self-awareness and you've just about got most of the refashion blogging world down pat.)
I've digressed, it's too late to save it, lol. Oh well. Onward!
I had already arranged to take Friday off; I didn't want to drive all that way and arrive late at night and then have to leave. Dude took Friday off as well, but he'd been off all week because he was sick, so. He did not take Monday off, even though we discussed it back and forth and I said I was, and he said he probably would too; come Monday, he was like "why are you home" and it was as if the conversation never happened. I can't prove it did, of course, but. This is a thing that bothers me, lately; I know I have a very bad memory so I do a lot of journaling and writing reminders and researching ways to work around my mental disability and such. He just "has a bad memory" and so it's impossible to expect him to remember things. He used to hassle me all the time to get therapy and medication and such, and yet. His limitations are just limitations and he feels there's nothing wrong with him.
I think that's a little unfair, but whatever. Anyway!
I think I've discussed the journey there, I know I wrote a long entry when I couldn't sleep Saturday morning. I was up earlyish Sunday morning too but it wasn't as bad. We left Sunday afternoon, and paused for dinner in Syracuse. It's always so weird-- that drive is short enough that you can do it nonstop, but so long that when you pause in the middle it's hard to remember how to fit into the normal world, and the waiter's banter bounced off us like a brick wall, we couldn't understand what he was talking about. It's hard to explain. "I'm right in the middle of a four-hour drive, bro, I don't know what year it is."
Anyway. My burger was overdone and the waiter seemed disappointed that I didn't want to send it back; he was trying to get the cook in trouble, which I would deplore only he was right, it was overdone, and the guy apparently does it every time.
I did get to have the conversations I wanted to at the farm-- well, some of them-- the discussion of where I could plant my little flax patch, for one, and the conversation with Veg Manager about dye plants, which he was somewhat enthused about. He confirmed he's never done any natural dyeing but has always kinda been interested; he's done some chemical dyeing and enjoyed it and wanted to get back into it if he ever had a reason, so. Anyway, if I can find Japanese Indigo seeds, woad seeds, and madder seeds... I'm trying to find a place that has both so I can get them all sent together, but striking out. (They all do grow in this climate zone. Regular-ass indigo does Not.)
The good farm news I did not discuss is that they're getting cattle!! When they bought the farm it had a herd of Red Devons on it, and it's set up for them, but they couldn't afford the herd and the previous farmers sold it cheaper to someone else than they'd offered it to them, and that sucked. So this year they've found someone who wants to go in on it with them-- someone who'll initially buy some of the animals, and then come and assist in their care sometimes. What they've really earnestly been looking for is another new small farmer who wants to get a herd but doesn't have land; that would be the ideal partnership, to have this person run their herd on the farm's land and share the work; that would let the other farmer get established, and let them get the cattle infrastructure built up, and let them gradually introduce beef back into their product line, and then once the other farmer had built up their herd and their business they could find their own land, and the farm could then start to invest in their own herd.
That's not what's happening, but it's not too far off, so. Cows are just expensive, is the thing. So the other guy is getting two cows, and they're getting two, for a total herd of four.
I didn't set a date for my next farm visit, which would be a proper week spent there and would definitely count as The Beginning Of The Season. We're into it now; the greenhouse is humming, the germination box is full (there's an old fridge with a heated box of water in it, and you stack flats in there and seeds germinate), there's a schedule on the door and twice a day someone comes in and waters everything-- if not more often. It's spring in there, even if it's cold outside; the furnace is running and the blower's on and it's 20x100' of steamy warmth. And work.
So-- anyway, we got back late Sunday, and I had yesterday off because I figured I'd need to unpack and do laundry. This was not an incorrect assumption. I was busy all day, though there were two stretches where I sat for a moment on the couch and my various surfaces were claimed by the cat, who I think was quite stressed while we were gone. She seemed fine, but I was brushing her and she had a lot of dandruff, which is a stress signal. So I have been trying to be extra sweet to her even if she's been driving me crazy.
She may be getting old and cranky enough that we shouldn't leave her alone for weekends anymore. I don't know what we'll do, though. We can bring her over to Dude's mother's house for longer stays, but right now is peak shedding, and his mom's allergic. I don't want to resign myself to never having Dude go anywhere with me, though. So... we'll see.
I did get a bit done yesterday but not as much as I wanted to. Three loads of laundry, and I managed to round out one of them by throwing in some of the fabric I reclaimed from the granary loft. I brought all the stuff to make wall quilts there, and then didn't do it last year-- well, to be fair, I did a bunch, I just didn't finish, and then when I was looking for materials this winter I couldn't find them and the reason is they were up there. So...
I laid out a few things, washed a few things (there's one set of sheets to cut up that came from a CSA member who's a massage therapist and she brought them over clean and I used one, but the ones still in the bag strike me as still smelling pretty strongly of massage oil, so I figure I should wash them a couple more times. That's why she got rid of them, I think, it's not really possible to get them totally clean no matter how you wash them. They'll be fine in things, but I'm not going to sleep on them, lol. I don't feel bad about cutting them up even though they're not worn.
That's the thing-- I'm not just being cheap, I'm really trying to reuse fabric. It seems wasteful to take a new-manufactured thing and cut it up to make another thing. I'd rather take something that's no longer useful or suitable in its current iteration and try to make something useful out of it.
Unrelated aside-- on Instagram I follow a lot of people who sew, and many of them are plus-size, and there was a big kerfuffle over indie pattern designers not offering plus sizes, and a ton of excellent discourse resulted (i know! it was good though!) and it was all heartfelt but well-articulated and so on. It was lovely! And I followed a bunch more people from it, and now my feed is just full of lovely people of all sizes, many of whom sew or knit and post about fashion and such, and I love it.
Meanwhile, I also follow a farmer instagram where the lady who runs it is definitely an aspirational lifestyle Influencer, she gets sponsorships for luggage and shit and takes her kids to France and so on, and yet mostly talks about her tiny farm in Vermont, and I think the farm itself is more of a hobby lifestyle because I have yet to see them sell anything. Anyway! She takes lovely photos so I've left her on my feed; I followed her because of some giveaway ages ago.
She started up a new giveaway, and there was a long preachy thing in Stories about how TERRIBLE fast fashion is and what an environmental problem the fashion industry is and how we should all own fewer things better-made. Sure, that's fine, it goes along pretty well with a lot of the sewists on my feed! But then she went into the giveaway thing, and.... I didn't have to even click through to know this, but I did so I could confirm it. Two companies were participating. One had sizes that went up to a 44" bust, which is like. I mean. I was a 44" bust in my 20s, so it's at least, like. I can imagine it. I believe the average American woman is a size 14/16 and that's usually around a 44-48" bust, depending. So it's like... we make clothes that anyone average or smaller can wear. Sure, fine.
The other one?
Their size chart had no inches, and the largest size was labeled as a size eight.
I have never in my life worn a size eight; by the time I was in adult sizing I was already larger than that.
Their clothing line caters exclusively to women significantly smaller than average.
That is the antidote to fast fashion: fuck you, fat people. Just ignore that bodies come in different sizes and shapes. Oh, they had an extra XXS option catering to size 0 and 00, you betcha! But their XL was size 8. That's incredible. I've never even seen a company like that.
Anyhow. I'm going to someday launch my sarcastic blog where I pose with the ridiiiiculous XXS clothes I found at the thrift shop that I then cut up and make into something that fits my super-normal body. (If this is opaque to you, just look at literally the entirety of, say, cottonandcurls's blog, or really any Influencer of that ilk, whose entire premise is Look At How HILARIOUSLY GIANT this huge garment I bought from the thrift store is! I will take a HILARIOUS picture of me inside it! Can you imagine someone FREAKISH enough to fit into this no we won't even imagine, such a creature would be a MONSTER, we won't even acknowledge that this garment was made like this on purpose, we're just going to approach it from an angle that this is a huge waste of fabric to have a dress be this big, look again at how FUNNY I look holding it out with my hands to show how HUGE it is on my SLENDER FRAME. Now I have cut it up and made something to fit my GLAMOROUSLY THIN body, even though the garment I made preserves none of the features that made the original garment cute, and could have just as easily been made from flat yardage of fabric or like, a sheet. Ha ha ha! Buy ads on my site! Aspire to my prowess! I am thin and most people can't tell the difference between thin and fashionable anyway!!! Read all of this in a voice that has absolutely fucking zero self-awareness and you've just about got most of the refashion blogging world down pat.)
I've digressed, it's too late to save it, lol. Oh well. Onward!
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Date: 2019-03-19 12:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-03-20 04:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-03-19 01:38 pm (UTC)Companion Plants
I have ordered both seeds and plants from them, small family-run operation, very pleasant and helpful to work with.
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Date: 2019-03-20 02:52 pm (UTC)They have some really cool and unusual stuff!
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Date: 2019-03-20 04:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-03-19 01:56 pm (UTC)1. will it fit me?
2. can I machine-wash it?
3. can I afford it?
4. does it have pockets?
5. everything else
So, I have settled in the last few years on a basic "uniform" of leggings and Svaha dresses over a sports bra with sensible shoes, so I can be smart-casual, comfortable, have pockets, subtly show my science/compsci background, and also walk to/from work, run if necessary after a small child, and if I fall asleep at home before I mean to, nothing is digging anywhere really uncomfortable. Also they are generally forgiving of quite wide variations in shape which is very handy.
Like, it is a bonus that they are keen on organic cotton and lack-of-sweatshops, but I would buy them anyway.
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Date: 2019-03-20 04:23 pm (UTC)It's hard not to be bitter about it after a while, but. There are better plus-size offerings online nowadays. But it's left me with the terrible habit of feeling like I *must* buy something if it appeals to me *and* comes in my size, without regard to whether it fits in with the wardrobe I'd like to present myself in. So I have a lot of garments that don't suit me and don't fit into my life, but I can't let go of, because they fit me, and sometimes they don't even fit me but I change size so often that I can't let them go *in case* they fit me in the future. It's a terrible prison, and no throwing out everything I own and buying all new will *not* be eco-friendly, no matter how low-carbon the company in question is-- it's *never* more ecological to generate a bunch of trash and then buy new shit. In no circumstance!
(Ok in a circumstance where you have an appliance that's very inefficient and you buy a new one, but even that, it's gonna take years to balance out in most cases.)
Those dresses look fantastic, though, by the way!!!!
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Date: 2019-03-19 02:43 pm (UTC)actually cows scare me a bit lol
spring is rapidly approaching and I'm not prepared
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Date: 2019-03-19 03:12 pm (UTC)So imagine that but like, a THOUSAND pounds, and also tall! No thanks! I'm terrified of cows!
But they're delicious, so. The excitement about the cattle is that then they can start a meat CSA because they've got three kinds of meat to offer. (I haven't talked them into rabbits yet. C'mon guys. I haven't tried hard tho because you know the cost would be that I'd have to kill them. Zack has enough trouble killing birds as it is, and they're not cute or fuzzy. Everyone says it's not worth saving the hides but I can't find reasonably-priced rabbit skins so that's really what I want.)
I am ALSO NOT READY for spring. I'll have to come out to the farm again soon. Aaron gave me the go-ahead to give him dye plant seeds but I'll feel bad if I don't at least come help. I found a source for woad and dyer's knotweed, and madder too! I don't have to hassle my friend to dig me roots, huzzah, but it's gonna take three years to get my own, boo! Oh well.
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Date: 2019-03-19 03:41 pm (UTC)a meat CSA! That's so cool! Rabbits might be a cool idea, but yeah, the killing is ugh but they also are pretty quick to be harvest ready.....
Awesome that you found the seeds you want! I know sometimes finding more obscure things can be hard
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Date: 2019-03-19 03:00 pm (UTC)I saw that rant too, I was a little skeptical. Wasn't it expensive stuff too?
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Date: 2019-03-19 03:15 pm (UTC)I bought some stuff from Pact, which is a site Annie likes a lot, and then they emailed me like, daily, and I finally was like "listen I bought all three things you make that come in my size so you can stop now" and unsubscribed. They make great organic underpants but they only make three of the styles in the 2XL, and those only in one color, and like, they wear well so I won't need more for a while, thanks! I'm all set! I like to wear other colors sometimes and I'll clearly have to buy those elsewhere! At least they had an inches measurement on the website if you looked hard enough.
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Date: 2019-03-19 03:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-03-19 03:33 pm (UTC)Pact is who I was talking about! Unfortunately, I am judging them a lot based on the ad. Talking about how a person can change the world by buying things is not something I really like. I must have to look harder for the measurements, but I actually don't need anymore underwear except maybe some boxers but I'll look at that when I'm not at work. I'm more inclined to buy them from tomboyx, which is like, queer folks underwear haha. Daily emails would be fucking annoying. Actually I'm getting to that point with the seed companies, like omg I'm actually done buying seeds for realsies now.
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Date: 2019-03-19 06:00 pm (UTC)Yeah, Pact is nice and all, and their 2x fits me and I have a 48" hip or so. But like. Three options and they're only in black.
I was looking at Tomboyx! I might order from them, I've just been dithering unnecessarily. I don't think I can sew comfy undies, i've half-tried and it's not gone well.
I hate companies that are like "buy our shit to save the world" when it's like... honestly the most effective thing would be for me to buy nothing at all, and so I'll attempt to do that. I get why that's not their message, that's not going to pay back their advertising costs, but honestly.
Ha, I'm just starting to buy seeds. I only need a couple of things, though. I found one place that has both madder and woad, and Japanese Indigo, and now I'm trying to stop myself from buying a bunch of native forest plants for my fairy garden by the yurt. (it's so shady! but I'm going to cut down a tree so I don't really know what the light level is going to be and I should probably wait until next year to go crazy in there. but OMG I want wild ginger and black cohosh!)
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Date: 2019-03-19 06:21 pm (UTC)Want to hear about my lifetime thrifting victory?
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Date: 2019-03-19 06:59 pm (UTC)I keep being astonished that there's nobody else out there doing refatshions, but it is apparently unknown. I wish I were a better sewist.
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Date: 2019-03-19 08:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-03-19 08:34 pm (UTC)I have learned not to break my heart on thrift stores, there's seldom much in my size there. (Hence the bitterness about the Tiny Ladies Cutting Up EnormoHuge Dresses.)
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Date: 2019-03-19 07:17 pm (UTC)