Rustic Broom Blog

Tag: gardening

  • Fall is Here

    A blog post from September 2023

    It’s fall now, and things are finally calming down around here.  Summer is always a crazy time, working on the homestead, and keeping the broom shop alive simultaneously.  It can be quite a balancing act, gardening, foraging for broom sticks, preserving food for winter, cutting firewood, and of course, filling orders from our wonderful customers!

    Rustic camper brooms drying in the sun

    We planted our garden a little later this year, about the first part of June.  We have cold summer nights, frequently down to 38F, and a short growing season.  Really, it can frost just about any time in the Okanogan Highlands.  But this year the #1 annoyance turned out to be pocket gophers.  Gophers apparently love carrots, because they ate 3 long rows of Nantes while we were asleep.  They next started nibbling on bush beans, which luckily didn’t taste as good as the carrots!

    Early Girls in August

    It’s always amazing the yields we can get from our big patch of weeds come harvest time.  Our spud patch gave us 300 lbs. of Yukon Golds, Kennebecs, and German Butterballs.  The yellow onions were small, yet plentiful and tasty.  The greenhouse kept us provided with ripe Early Girl tomatoes.  We have canned fruit from local orchards, and put away everything we’ve grown in our own garden this year.  It’s a low paying job, that gives you a glowing sense of satisfaction.

    Too many spuds!

    We are gathering firewood now, knowing winter isn’t too far away.  The fall rains will turn to snow, and the ground will freeze hard as a rock – so we gotta keep moving until the woodshed is full to the brim.  How well we enjoy working outside in the forested hills, where we find plenty of dry Douglas fir, lodepole pine, tamarack, and some Englemann spruce for the broom shop stove.  By now we have most of the wood we need to get through winter, but would like a couple “insurance cords” before the roads turn to ice!

    Our pup "Tig" loves to go woodcuttin'.

    We know it’s fall around here by the signs.  The aspens are already showing signs of blaze yellow color.  The turkeys, quail, ruffed grouse are congregating by the creek.  Even our young whitetail deer friends Fuzzy & Wuzzy came home after venturing all summer in the higher hills.  It’s easy to become overwhelmed with gratitude this time of year.  Fall might just be my favorite season of all.    

  • Goodbye Winter — We’re Sad to See You Go

    Blog post from May 22, 2022

    Winter was long again this year, but I have to say it was full of surprise, and numerous challenges. In the north woods, winter is pretty much a year ’round concern. Around here, they say there are two seasons: winter, and getting ready for winter.

    Our shop is heated by wood stove, so we buck a lot of logs in the summer. It’s a team effort. I’m the chain saw man, and Sarah rolls the rounds into the truck. We take a drive into the mountains looking for downed fir or tamarack, which are known for putting out the most heat. We bring a picnic basket, and do our best to make a plain chore into a nice, scenic outting. Before we get started, give me a few minutes to fix the chainsaw…

    It takes about 3 cords of firewood to get us through winter. We heat the cabin with 5, so all-told we do a lot of splitting and stacking. Spring is the best time. The weather is cool, and it’s good to get out. Hot summer weather is for cooking the wood dry — while we sip lemonaide.

    Wood heat is the best way to dry brooms in our shop.  We soak the broom corn to make it pliable for bending and weaving.  A wood fire dries them quick, so we can get them packaged and shipped.  When we’re not busy building brooms or pouring candles, it’s likely we are splitting kindling or stoking the fires.  It’s a style of living that has a lot of rewards, if you can ignore a little pain and sweat.  They say nothing warms your bones quite like a wood fire!

    Wood heat is the best way to dry brooms in our shop.  We soak the broom corn to make it pliable for bending and weaving.  A wood fire dries them quick, so we can get them packaged and shipped.  When we’re not busy building brooms or pouring candles, it’s likely we are splitting kindling or stoking the fires.  It’s a style of living that has a lot of rewards, if you can ignore a little pain and sweat.  They say nothing warms your bones quite like a wood fire!

    The cold of winter aint so bad, really.  There are always a lot of surprises.  Deer come to feed outside our shop windows during the day, keeping us company.  Our yellow dog, Tig, is always entertaining.  Coyotes sneak through.  And once in a while we get a glimse of the snowshoe hare that lives in the thicket by the shop.

    It is a little sad to say goodbye to winter — but we’re always excited for the changes.  Spring means working outside again, making brooms out on the shop porch.  The birds are here, singing their songs.  We’ll plant the garden and do some spring cleaning.  Then — when the mood is right — I’ll try to fire up the old chainsaw, and see if it runs.  Maybe we’ll load the tools, and try to find an easy wood log along side a skid trail up on the mountain.  No rush.  We have plenty of time to get ready…     

    http://www.americanbroomshop.com      

  • The Real Reason We Just Love Making Brooms

    Post from June 12, 2015

    There is a patch of wild rhododendrons that grows in the San Juan Islands.  They grow along the edge of a small lake — where there’s plenty of moisture — protected from winter frost by a dense canopy of Douglas Fir and shore pine.  The birds love it there in the spring.  Trout rise on the water.  Lily pads hover around the margins of the marsh.  And then the wild rhododendron blossoms pop open.  It is a piece of heaven.

    We try to make it up there every year for the bloom.  The place is only accessible by boat, so we have to hope our old outboard stays running long enough to make the 12 mile journey to the secret cove where we hit the beach.  An old trail winds steeply up the hill, but we don’t mind — the pink blossoms are worth it.  Of course, we would never dream of chopping down a rhododendron, just to make a broom.  We go there to relax for the day, get some fresh air & maybe find some inspiration.

    One day last summer, a friend brought me a wild rhododendron branch he had pruned away to clear a trail.  It is hard to find a nice, straight branch like he had.  It was just the right thickness, and not too heavy.  So we took it.  The branch dried for a year in our shop — and yesterday I finally brought it out to make a broom.  Whittling on the bark, I started day dreaming about our secret spot in the islands.  It’s been a little while since we have gone there, and we really miss it.  As I carved out an interesting knot, the rhododendron wood started to really look cool.  I thought to myself, “This branch is going to make a cool broom, and someone is really going to love using it.  And looking at it too.”

    http://www.americanbroomshop.com