[Ann of Owlshire]

 

 

“If you're reading this, you must be in dire need of a change. The same thing happened to me, long ago. I'd lost sight of what mattered most in life... real connections with other people and nature. So I dropped everything and moved to the place I truly belong.”

— Grandpa's Letter

 

Welcome to RL Stardew Valley! We're now in mid spring and as usual I'm behind on all my grand ambitions.

 

Briefly, an Origin Story: I'm a 44 year old American woman living on a 10 acre woodland property in rural England I call Owlshire with my partner, 6 y/o son, bouncy golden retriever, and a flock of plucky rescue hens. I work fulltime in games development, and as a family we enjoy nature and playing games.

 

Health/Energy

/

 

Less is More

For this challenge I'm going to continue a slow and gradual reduction in portion sizes at meal time. I don't calorie count or measure because I find it too tedious to maintain, so this is going to be a hard one to track, but basically it comes down to asking "could I take a little less?" at meal times and trying to find the right balance.

 

Exploration

 

 

With spring in full swing, I realized during the last challenge that if I wanted to increase time in the garden, I would need to reduce time spent on my lunch time walks. So I shortened and some days have been skipping those walks to facilitate that. I'm no longer getting 10k steps/day, and I've decided to be okay with that for now. I only have 24 hours in a day.

 

Still, sitting is the new smoking as they say, so I'm going to still maintain a goal of 21 miles/week.

 

Stardew Living

 

The Farm

It's spring! The vegetable beds are in order, and two of them have myriad seeds in them and some are actually growing tiny things.  I've been doing second (and third) rounds of seeding and succession planting. It's been a cold, wet, slugtastic spring so far, and so things are not as far as they might have been in other years. I have sunflowers, tomatoes, courgettes, and marigolds in the potting shed waiting for the weather to warm up. 

 

I've been doing more flowers this year. I've got three new roses potted around the house, planted primroses, put in tulip and begonias bulbs, have been trying to get a wildflower area going... ha ha. My success rate for keeping flowers going is very low, but I never try anything by halves!

 

Basically, I just want to make sure I keep up/continue on my gardening goals, which are mostly tracked in my journal.

 

Crafting

 

I only mended one thing during the last challenge, but at the moment my heart is still in knitting and after going to Wonderwool last weekend (shout out to @Sea-to-sky), I've refreshed my spinning wool stocks. I want to have done at least 5 of these things:
[ ] Finish my jumper

[ ] Finish the spin languishing on the wheel

[ ] Start a new spin

[ ] Start processing the fleece I got

[ ] Use my blending board

[ ] Start a new knitting project

[ ] Mend at least one thing in the pile. Seriously, it could be a button.

 

The Wizards Tower

I've been studying with a pagan group on and off for almost 5 years now, and I have a goal to finally finish the first level by the autumn (and then carry on into the second level, which I hope will not take me nearly as long to get through). This means I need to keep on top of my lessons. For this challenge, I'd like to have completed lessons 15 and 16, and have began progress on 17. (The level is 21 lessons.) 

 

Festival

TBD

At the end of each season in Stardew Valley there is a festival--I'm using this as my challenge celebration. I haven't decided what it is yet, and that's okay.

 

Community

My ability to keep up with any form of social media/online community is usually limited to one and I find crossposting exhausting. So I'm going to try for at least once weekly updates and to keep up on a few threads here. If you want the Owlshire photospam, that's currently happening on my resurrected Instagram.

[Ann of Owlshire]

Week 0 Plan

 

The chickens are coming! 

 

Our initial flock of six chickens is now down to two after losing another in the weekend (we've been steadily losing them since autumn). They were rescue hens so this was within expectations, and I'd planned to refresh whatever numbers were needed to bring the flock to seven after our trip to Cornwall in June. However, chickens are flock creatures and I didn't really want to get down to one lonely old girl. So I made some inquiries, and new young chickens are being collected this Saturday! These ones are 12 weeks old, already living outside and should start laying in a few weeks. We have just enough time before our holiday to get the two flocks integrated into one which will make getting chicken-sitting on our holiday possible.  (Chickens are surprisingly territorial and vicious, if you just release unknown chickens together it quickly turns into the Hunger Games.)

 

So this week is preparing for the new arrivals.

 

It's also working more in the garden: 

• Deadheading the primroses and weeding their bed
• Adding more to the massive wildflower bed I'm slowly chipping away on--it requires clearing a section of invasive/unwanted growth, and then getting seeds down, and then trying to maintain those areas while the seeds establish.
• ✅ Feeding the roses
• ✅ Adding more succession/replacement seeding to the veg garden. 
• Starting to harden off some of the conservatory seedlings, particularly the marigolds and sunflowers.

 

Crafting - can I finish the sleeves on my jumper?

 

It's also studying--Lesson 15 has ten steps to it, I'd like to get at least four steps ready this week, maybe preparations for more to follow.

 

[Sea-to-sky]

1 hour ago, Ann of Owlshire said:

I've been doing more flowers this year. I've got three new roses potted around the house, planted primroses, put in tulip and begonias bulbs, have been trying to get a wildflower area going

Sounds fab. We have been trying for a wildflower meadow section in ours but never seem to get round to it. If you shove the primroses in the right place you will be fighting them off. They’re a fabulous flower for shady lawn corners. 
 

1 hour ago, Ann of Owlshire said:

after going to Wonderwool last weekend (shout out to

😄oh wonderful, you went! Was it as good as you hoped? Did you get good stash?

 

super fiber craft goals. I will have to do this at some point when i have more energy. Seems like a good way to kickstart the spinning again. 
 

1 hour ago, Ann of Owlshire said:

Chickens are surprisingly territorial and vicious, if you just release unknown chickens together it quickly turns into the Hunger Games.)

Perfect description. We have had good success with the slight of hand trick where you put the new hens one by one into the hutch at night (ideally when the rest would be asleep). We had mostly peniks and a few silkies, so its possibly breed dependent (silkies are very dense critters) 

[Everstorm]

Following!

[Ann of Owlshire]

10 minutes ago, Sea-to-sky said:

If you shove the primroses in the right place you will be fighting them off. They’re a fabulous flower for shady lawn corners. 

 

That's exactly what I did! It's a mix of garden center variety and gifted wild primroses that were taking over a friend's garden.

 

12 minutes ago, Sea-to-sky said:

😄oh wonderful, you went! Was it as good as you hoped? Did you get good stash?

 

It was fabulous! Thanks for recommending it to me. I got a lot of spinning stash (and one skein of yarn). Should keep me busy for a while  I also talked to some sheep farms about their sheep, as I'm hoping to get a few next year. Need to do a bit more research and shore up the fencing in the fields before I get my shepherdess crook on, though. 

 

13 minutes ago, Sea-to-sky said:

We have had good success with the slight of hand trick where you put the new hens one by one

 

I have not tried that. At the moment I plan on putting the two old ladies in a hutch in the run, with the new chickens having the rest of the area. Then I'll get the new ones into the main coop area at night, and the old ladies I'll probably put into the nesting area (which has a sliding door to the rest of the coop) or in a box in the stable at night. I'd initially thought about the other way around, but given the numbers I've reversed my plan. 

 

I had Silkies years ago! They're totally adorable but not the brightest bulbs in the coop (and that's saying something when we're talking chickens!).

[Sea-to-sky]

27 minutes ago, Ann of Owlshire said:

had Silkies years ago! They're totally adorable but not the brightest bulbs in the coop

Agreed. They are sweet but very dense critters. The pekins on the other hand where like owning feathery jack russels. Too canny for their own good. 
 

So glad you enjoyed wonderwool. I havent been in years but it was absolutely cracking every time. 

[Sovalis]

So excited to see you, Ann! Following of course!

[Laghail]

11 hours ago, Ann of Owlshire said:

I only have 24 hours in a day.

 

This is honestly tattoo worthy. 

[Mistr]

I love your goals. It makes me glad I can watch you do those things and not try to do it all myself.

 

That said, I do have spinning and knitting projects on my fun list. I want to make more blends with my drum carder and spin them. The ones I have made so far are a dream to spin. I also want to see how the pearl-infused fiber spins up. Then there is the fleece on my porch that still needs to be picked and washed. The weather is almost warm enough for me to sit outside in the evening and do that while listening to podcasts.

 

I would love to see photos of your projects.

 

 

 

[Silmarilliane]

Here for the chicken updates! Oh, and to support challenge goals too  

[Ann of Owlshire]

Ah, the "You just made big plans in an NF challenge" curse has hit, and I'm down with a stomach bug *weak laughter* 

 

I guess at least I'll be able to get some progress on my knitting and maybe the written part of my pagan studies today. 

[Sea-to-sky]

21 minutes ago, Ann of Owlshire said:

Ah, the "You just made big plans in an NF challenge" curse has hit, and I'm down with a stomach bug *weak laughter

Oh no. Sorry to hear that. Hope you feel better quickly.

[Everstorm]

At least the challenge doesn't start until Monday?  Hope you feel better soon.

[Laghail]

12 hours ago, Ann of Owlshire said:

Ah, the "You just made big plans in an NF challenge" curse has hit, and I'm down with a stomach bug *weak laughter* 

 

I guess at least I'll be able to get some progress on my knitting and maybe the written part of my pagan studies today. 

 

1. deeply sorry about the stomach bug. Ginger tea or ginger lozenges any help?

2. did I know you were doing pagan studies?? OBOD or ADF? Very exciting!

 

[Ann of Owlshire]

17 hours ago, Laghail said:

did I know you were doing pagan studies?? OBOD or ADF? Very exciting!

 

The course I'm working through right now is the Kitchen Witch School. I'm a member of ADF, and I use some of their practices with mine, but I never got far in the Dedicant Path as I've come to realize I'm not much of a reconstructionist pagan. OBOD is on my list to investigate one of these years, particularly as it has a more physical presence in the UK. 

 

 

[Ann of Owlshire]

Sick update:

Spoiler

I am still sick. I may have peaked (I hope so), but I am not at the stage where I am better than I was on Friday (which consisted of sleeping/dozing the entire day except for tips to the toilet. I couldn't even concentrate on knitting or reading or more than a couple of pages or rounds before I had to close my eyes again for a while. By comparison, Thursday, which was pretty awful, was a cake-walk.) I haven eaten nothing since Wednesday but two small portions of rice, which I soon regreted.

 

Mr has taken Enting out for his Saturday morning swim class, I am trying to be upright to hang out with the dog, at least until they return.

 

Needless to say, Week Zero goals, not so much. I've rescheduled to next weekend to pick up our new chickens. 

[Silmarilliane]

I think very fair to take it easy this week if you're ill - hope the peak was the peak and your on the way back to health now

[Sovalis]

I hope you recover soon, Ann!

[athousandwords]

On 4/30/2024 at 5:07 AM, Ann of Owlshire said:

sitting is the new smoking

 

I've never heard that phrase, but googling brought me to this very intriguing article that may just become a jumping off point for my challenge this month. Thanks! ❤️ 

 

Also - love the addition of the Wizard's Tower and Festival goals!

 

On 5/2/2024 at 3:22 AM, Ann of Owlshire said:

Ah, the "You just made big plans in an NF challenge" curse has hit, and I'm down with a stomach bug *weak laughter* 

 

Noooooo! Hope you're feeling better this week! 

[Ann of Owlshire]

Week 0

I mean, Week 0 is a mess because of stomach bug, but let me mention what I have done. 

• Fed/watered the roses
• Reseeded the vegetable bed
• Mended one item
• Finished my jumper
• Turned in Step 1/10 in my lesson.

I'm still sick. Am I improving? I'm not entirely sure on that. So far my family isn't showing symptoms, so yay for that because what I don't really want a cascade of this.

 

Week 1

I'm still sick, so this is mostly speculative:

 

[ ] Finish spin on the wheel

[ ] Check on the vegetable bed (Mr has been doing night patrol for slugs, but otherwise I haven't been able to check my garden, too far away from the house in my condition)

[ ] Prepare for chicken arrival

[ ] Start next knit

[ ] ???

[Ann of Owlshire]

18 minutes ago, athousandwords said:

On 4/30/2024 at 10:07 AM, Ann of Owlshire said:

sitting is the new smoking

 

I've never heard that phrase

 

The Mr says it a lot. Glad it inspired you! 

[Sea-to-sky]

11 minutes ago, Ann of Owlshire said:

Finished my jumper

Yay or finished projects! 

[Silmarilliane]

3 hours ago, Ann of Owlshire said:

let me mention what I have done

 

Good for you focusing on the done things while unwell, always nice to think about what you have achieved if your planned Big Plans are scuppered!