I have not been turning as much lately, not because I don’t still love it. I absolutely do! Especially as I have been learning to control the tools, especially the skew, to dig into the wood and take full width bites out of it, and to quickly and confidently remove large amounts of waste with ease. It is a joy to mount a piece of wood on the lathe and find what is hiding inside of it! But the weather is turning cold, and I cannot heat the shop, and I am not fond of working with a handheld tool against wood rotating at high speed with hands that are desensitized by the cold. Hopefully I will be able to clean out the excess in the shop soon and clear way for the wood heater to be lit.

Many decisions are being worked through here on the farm as to our future on it, and what we will try to do going forward. In the summer I gave in to the idea of getting us moved to someplace where there is more rain and less work to do on the house. Here we have land that is separated from the house by a road with daily speeding semi’s going up and down it, especially when they are “homeward bound” to the yard the drivers report to at the end of their shifts. It limits what the kids can do with the place, and really, I am the only one that goes out onto the land with any frequency.

The primary decision that is being made for us is that we cannot sell the land as a build lot because the water company will not issue new water connections now till they sort out their volume issues. One of the source springs ran dry over the summer in our drought. They don’t want to create shortages, and that is sound and responsible water management, a rare thing out here in the West!

With that, we will stay for a bit longer, fix up the house, and run on the land we have got. I am sure the estate agent will be dissatisfied, but with changes in our lives right now being what they are, it turns out it is not a good time for us to move. I have been concerned about moving our animals in winter, and now, in a sense winter is as much metaphorical as it is literal. Forgive me if I don’t get more personal than that. It’s nothing tragic, just personal.

Since the arrival of our GlowForge, the craft room has exploded out of itself and into the library. Doing so has made a lovely office space for Missus to start doing some business from. She has been making and learning her way around the machine, and is getting more confident with it. I have finally ordered a drawing tablet of my own, not for the photography I have been hobby-ing in for years, but to help with some design work for her to sale. I’ll use it for photos, too, though I don’t have to retouch dust the way I used to when I had to scan negatives! The pad will show up on Friday if it is on time. Also arriving this week is a drive clone device which will hopefully get my weather station reporting online again. That’s meant to arrive on Wednesday.

We will reshape our farm this coming year. It will have to be if we are to make it a business rather than just a lifestyle. I know the kids were eager to move away closer to water, and I was eager to get closer to where it rains, and further from the Western fires and the constant haze in summer, and the droughts. For now, we have to anticipate working with what we have got. But that’s okay. If we can procure the right tools, and do the right things, I think there is still a lot of potential to unlock here!

I sold a goat on Friday. It was our little Billy. I have a couple of does I will put up in the front pen by the dog and sell next. Once the ones go that Missus is happy to part with, that ought to put the hay consumption under control. I still have the livestock on the field across the street and anticipate doing so for a couple of more weeks, till snow covers the ground and they cannot forage anymore from it. Perhaps when I move the girl llamas over here, I will let the boys run the whole field freely with the horse, and feed them as they please. I just need to move the feeder back up next to the fence so I can drop feed in easily from outside it. I expect I will use the truck as a delivery method again this year. The mower tends not to get around too well in the snow, or start well in the cold. I worry about our oldest female llama. Her hips are bad, and she is struggling to get around. It might be getting time.

The chickens are laying at about an egg per bird per every second day. We can get rid of all our eggs, and in a matter of two days be ahead again. I need a sign for the front of the garage that reads “Eggs & Things For Sale.” Maybe by spring.