Author: The Lord of The Manor

Christmas Report 2023

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

Time for an early winter’s nap. We had the kids around last night and this morning for our Christmas celebrations. They have grown so much and are learning the importance of family over gifts and that is very gratifying. Still, we shared gifts and time last night and today. They have gone now, and we had a little while to relax a bit and enjoy the quiet. The evening drew closed in single digit temperatures. Now that winter has come, we are feeling more like the normal cold we experience this time of year. The autumn will always be remembered as the warmest we have experiences so far.

I got the girls and Missus each an alpaca blanket. The boys each got an external hard drive with all the photos I could find on my computer from their early days back in England. They are old enough now not to squirm and complain about how embarrassing the photos are. They were very happy about it, and both expressed excitement and anticipation for the contents of the drives. I am thrilled to have given them the photos and let them have their memories from those days before. The older one said he didn’t really have any proof that he grew up in England till now. What a laugh.

Our oldest also said he might like to have a go at building a dining room table for his house. I’ll have to keep an eye out for a decent type of wood to make it from. It would be nice to find him something other than poplar.

The day is over now, and tomorrow we will celebrate Boxing Day before we get back to normal for the season. I am looking forward to that! I also will say, I looked at Facebook for about a minute or two. No interest in that. So, I checked out again.

Next thing to come along now is the New Year. We are a quarter of a century after 1999. That is amazing! I really cannot even believe it.

Off to sleep now.

Hydraulic Fluid & Etc.

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

I pushed it off till the end of the day, but I finally changed the hydraulic fluid in the tractor! I have been a bit nervous about it for some time. But when it came to actually doing it, it really was not hard at all. So that is done and seems to be working great. It is at the highest possible level before it is considered overloaded, but I can either remove a bit, or even let it be for a bit and see how it pans out. I may pull a little through the transmission drain, a small one under the middle rear of the tractor and let just a bit escape. It depends on the weather, and if it is reachable without getting into more mud than I had to today just to do the fluid and filters.

So, in total, over the last two days I have changed the oil, the oil filter, the fuel filter, and cleaned the air filter, then changed the hydraulic fluid filter and the high-pressure hydrostatic filter, and the hydraulic fluid on the tractor. I also topped up the coolant/anti-freeze. Only things left to do is put a piece of cardboard in front of the radiator and get winterized diesel for it. Oh, and finish cleaning the glass. Oh, and maybe look at changing out that front axle fluid.

I also got up on the roof today and cleaned the chimney. As usual, that went easy. I came down when it was swept all the way down and cleaned out the stove pipe and the stove, and the bend in the chimney. It was pretty easy, especially as I have everything set up for an easy clean. I even know the one wrench I need up top is a 7/16ths inch box end. At the bottom a slot and a Phillips screwdriver do the job of getting everything apart on the stove pipe. Again, easy!

We did a bunch of pre-Christmas cleaning today. I also went to the store and got more stuff for the big day on Monday. Also made sure to have everything needed to get through with the stores being closed an extra day over the weekend.

So, today was a really good day! I cannot believe I got through it without much pain at all. I cannot believe how much I got done, especially as compared to my normal run of the mill day. Usually, the arthritis has me stopped by the time I would have finished my part in the house cleaning. In fact, I did take three Advil towards the end of that. I guess it really helped.

5AM Thoughts

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

The temperature took a dive last night into single digits. I am still fighting with the too recently split firewood burning a bit too cool for the weather. I mix it with wood that is drier and burn them together. The wet wood dries out and burns after the dry wood and is there to light the next load. It’s not great, but I am keeping an eye on the chimney situation ready to clean as necessary. The house was a little chilly when I went to bed last night, but by early morning it had warmed up ten degrees outside. There must have bene cloud cover that came in.

I have been catching up on some woodworking videos that were posted about two weeks ago by Lost Art Press to YouTube. The shop may be too cold to work in, but I can keep my head in the game. I have also been making candles and perfecting my method for the molded colonial style. I am quite content with the way I have worked out right now. I am able to wick the molds without using something like a wire with a hook to pull it through. It is a simple matter of priming the wick, then wiping it to narrow it take off excess. Then stuff it through the holes at the bottom and push them through. The holes have been enlarged with an auger and they would leak, but putting a piece of wax at the bottom to stuff the hole stops it. It has eased the fiddliest part of the job. I have also got the removal from the molds eased. That is a simple matter of running the molds under hot water to release the candles. Doing that works a treat and does not require any kind of mold release to be sprayed into the molds before. I like that. It keeps the candles pure and clean.

Christmas is getting close again. It feels like it is sneaking up on us again. I have my shopping done, nonetheless. It is card mailing that I am endlessly hopeless at doing. I’d like to make them custom to the farm with a nice image on the front. I’d like to have a pencil drawing of the front of the house and the shop on a white background. Trouble is, I cannot draw that well. Well, if I could. Maybe I can start from a photograph. If I were able to draw it, I would like a standard drawing for the year, and one with a snow-covered roof for the Christmas season.

Lately my ear has been turned to a few YouTubers whose expertise lay in Geopolitics and economics. One in particular specializes on the Chinese economy. For years it has been anticipated that China will overtake the United States in GDP. There have been problems. For one, they have millions of homes started in the country that cannot be finished by the developers. The companies are far overextended in debt and don’t have the capital to finish the work. Loads of people have their life savings invested and are likely to lose it. Factories are not ordering, and foreign investment is running out of the country. The Belt and Road Initiative is failing, which is great. China has been investing in economic imperialism, and building infrastructure in other countries who cannot repay the costs, leaving China in control of the infrastructure there. I am no expert, just learning and being made aware. The point of it all is that there is an opening for more US production, which hopefully opens the market here for small businesses to get started. I’d like to see more garage industry here, with better quality and makers who actually care about their product.

Well, that’s what’s on my mind now. See you in the next post.

Cold and Not Cold

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

Well, what’s it been? Two weeks of this crap? We send the kids back to public school and our reward is everyone comes down with something. I took a trip into town today. First time I felt like going out anywhere other than where I absolutely had to for the last two weeks. It was a bit of the usual. “Hi there, how are you?” Honest answers got responses that “it’s going around.” Of course. But the tales I am told is that there are people going on antibiotics and the like to try to clear it, and that some are throwing up. We have not had it that bad here, so I am thrilled about that. But everyone has a nose that won’t go and a cough that won’t stop. My cough is spurred on by the stupidest thing at the moment. It is just a light click in the lungs. Nothing severe anymore. That’s all gone. But I get this little click, and it irritates my lungs and I go off coughing. I am sure that some of it is also an infection in one of my sinuses. I picked up hay and breathed in a tiny bit of alfalfa on the right side, and have been giving up what looks like infection ever since. Well, that is more than enough of the morbid details.

I have some parts coming tomorrow to do a full service on the tractor. It needs a 400-hour service. Time to change just about everything. How exciting! How expensive. I got some work done in the trailer for Missus today as I had promised her tomorrow. If that is getting interfered with, I wanted to get done her necessities.

I leave in 45 minutes to meet the kids at their bus stop. At least they are going to school.

I am concerned about the amount of wood we have piled up for winter. But is it usually this warm in December? I was out without a coat today and really felt fine. It is meant to be as warm again tomorrow. It will be winter in a couple of weeks, but this is a warm late autumn. It is 45F out right now. Seems a bit too warm for this particular time of the year. But things have been goofy all around lately where anecdotal weather is concerned, which is why I put in these anecdotes. They are entered here as a reference. Then I can check back and see how things were on particular days based on how I felt about them, and not just the hard numbers. Those are always available from my weather station.

First Snow 2023-4

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

This morning the snow is already on the ground the morning as I write this before sunup. The forecast calls for 8 inches over the weekend. I saw it out the front door a little bit ago, and now I am back in bed. I am still under the weather as far as the cold goes that has been going around the family. Nobody is really on top of it, except maybe our oldest daughter. She is doing fairly well. The rest of us are the dead walking.

I don’t think the snow is deep enough to use the new snow pusher on the tractor to clear it right now. Looks like it will be later. It’s a great day to have a cab on the tractor!

The new wax melters are out for delivery today. I cleaned out the burned wax from the new crock-pot and will be turning that in at the kitchen once it is washed up and ready to go to food service here at home. If the new wax melts are as good as they are meant to be, then the blue crock will go out of service too. I have one that genuinely keeps the wax melted at a temperature that does not discolor it. That one will be used for making beeswax food wraps. I look forward to getting that started later today if the delivery comes early. It should.

Wax, Warmth, and Colds

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

Wax working is on partially paused at the moment due to only one of my crocks keeping a temperature that does not burn the wax. My newest crock pot on its lowest setting has burned the daylights out of the block of wax I had put in it and turned it quite dark! That was unfortunate. I searched on the Internet for a wax melter but was not happy with the best I saw as it wanted to be cleaned out every time it was shut off long enough to cool. I finally found one that I could heat up and cool without having to drain it, and it has a temperature control knob that allows me to set the temperature where I want from around 100 to 200 degrees Fahrenheit.

I ordered a large one and a small one and will keep the one crock that runs cool enough to safely heat wax and keep it for a while. That one has been very reliable, which means that as a crock pot, it is probably broke.

Apart from that I have been enjoying the work with the wax. It has been slow because I am limited on what I can do, but I think I will speed up soon, and I may even be able to try dipping wicks to make candles that way, too. I’ll get everything set up when it arrives and go from there. No promises till then.

I have a new printer on the way that will allow me to print color photos and even labels for my candles. I decided I wanted to be able to print a photo from time to time, rather than just putting them up on the Mural. The Mural is great, but sometimes there is a necessary feeling of completeness in having a good old fashioned paper print in hand.

I ran us out of the wood that I had split a couple of years ago and had to resort to this year’s stock. Well, let me tell you, that did not go well. The wood I pulled from the freshest row is so wet that it hardly burns at all. It sure don’t put heat into the house. It is not worth much unseasoned, and would do well to sit a year, but I cannot when I need every little bit I can get to keep warm as winter settles in. Saying that, it seems quite warm this November. Warmer than any year gone by. Today was a short sleeve outside kind of day. (For some reason, it was chilly as can be in the house all day despite the almost temperate weather outside.

So, it is Sunday evening, and I am going to carry on making candles. I do have the one pot, and a mold that I think needs using quite a bit more before Christmas. It is down to the last hour or so before bedtime, though everyone has a cold here right now, and I am not so sure if anyone is going to school tomorrow.

A Lovely Sunday Candlemaking

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

Today was I made a batch of candles among all that relaxing, too. I did a few of the custom molds, and then I decided to take on a batch of the traditional primitive vintage candles. I have enough molds to make 36 at a time. Three of them did not come out, though, so I got 33 out of the batch. The other three had little flaws, like the tip of the candle was flat because there was a bit of wax I could not get out and other way that to try to melt it out with the hot wax of a candle. That did not work, so I put the mold on top of the wood stove after, and what do you know? I have it clean now.

The going rate for a six inch by 3/4 inch primitive beeswax candle is $3.75 each. I will sell the burnt ones for $3.25, and the fancy candles, which have been dipped a couple of times to smooth the surface, for $4.75 each, or so. I think I can get a good finish with only two dips in the hot wax. each dip is adding thickness to the candle, making it harder to fit in a stick, so I will try not to do three, though I know that comes out with a good finish. I may also do the 9 inch ones, as they seem to go for a good price, too. I have been reluctant to honestly because I don’t think of them as practical. But I am not my customers, so I will see how some of those sell. Maybe I should have more than one mold for them.

I have my method down for making the candles. It is not perfect, I think, but it does work, and is easy at every step. I’d like to improve how to secure the wicks and the pouring, as there it a lot of overspill.

So, at the moment I have nearly everything to start an online shop and see how it goes. It is a small inventory, but I can always make more.

Wax Works

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

I went out to pick up some hay today. Had a good talk with the old hay man I had used when we first moved up here to Idaho. He’s a good guy, lives down on the Utah side, and has a convenient place to pick up hay when I need it, and when the local farmer does not have any for sale. It is good to have that redundancy. The old hay guy said to just pay him $8 a bale, rather than the $10 he has it posted for. I think he has seen other people have come down and wanted to follow suite. I am glad he did. I would rather buy from him. He has good hay and is a good person.

This evening I have been pouring wax and working on prototypes of how to sell candles to the public. I have added a couple of steps, and now I might refine them down a little if they are not necessary for a good looking candle. What I added was the option to dip a molded candle to smooth it out and make it look a little more elegant. I think it is a trick that would have been just about obvious to any chandler back in the day, and something they would have done in order to improve the appearance of their candles for someone wanting something that looked a little more refined.

I have refrained from dipping cotton cloth as I don’t yet have my pinking shears. When they come, I have a cutting matt that I hope I will be able to use to good effect to make some proper sized squares to dip then sell as reusable food covers. At the moment, I think I will include a free one to wrap candled bought in groups of six. That way the candles are packaged fancy and in something someone can have a sample of with the reminder that there are more for sale online. If someone stocks their whole kitchen by buying candles, what do I care? It will get covered in the cost of the candles!

I also experimented with dipping birthday candles. I started out with a six inch wick, but I think that was too long, and will try something smaller and for a more uniform set in order to create loads for people to buy and feel proud of. I am definitely not happy with how long they have come out so far.

Right! Writing is making me sleepy! Off to bed now! Doing some photography tomorrow, so maybe after heling Missus with hers, I can shoot some of my product for the site.

For now…

Summary of Yesterday

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

It is Thursday morning, and it is raining a little. It has been all night, apparently. I went out last night to get firewood in just before bed, and it was 45F. Really lovely for the time of year it is, and for nighttime. But I went up to bed and just as I settled in, the wind started kicking up and rain began to fall.

Yesterday I got one of the short poplar logs up on the mill and cut into bolsters and stickers. Then I put up an Aspen log and milled it into boards. Most of the output was 6 inch by 8 foot boards, but there are also four sort of 16-inch ones as well. All of them were milled to 1 inch thick. They should come out at 3/4 finished thickness. Then I put them up to dry on the bolsters and with the stickers I had milled.

I helped Missus out with some of her work after the milling, then went to get the girls from their bus stop after school. It was a busy day, and I got a lot done. So my reward was to spend a couple of hours playing a VR game in the evening. It was good and relaxing, and a nice change of pace. I don’t play games much. But I will play one or two once in a while.

This morning is still wet, but as soon as it dries, I should get down and pick up some hay and maybe get that log milled that I put on the mill last night just before changing from the forks to the bucket on the tractor to bring the firewood in. I have some work to do with Missus this evening taking photos of products to put on her website. Meanwhile I will be figuring out this farm and fixing the broken joint on one of the kids’ bed.

Off to get my day started!

Firewood and Car Trouble

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

I was feeling wonderful today, so I got out and worked on the firewood that needed cutting and splitting. I was nervous about the chain on the saw because I know I did not sharpen it evenly. Still, it cut fantastically, and I was able to get through the logs with great speed.

Once the logs were to length, I picked them up with the tractor bucket in threes, then use that to table them next to the log splitter. The splitter is right next to the bunk, so every piece was put right into it when it was done. It took a lot longer than I would like to have for the amount I split, which is due to the speed of the log splitter. I could do with a faster one.

After the splitting, I went in and Missus and I washed the dishes and dried and put them away. I helped her out with some of her artwork after that. She finally went for an afternoon nap, and I rested before picking the girls up at the bus stop.

I had a nap after getting the kids home, and just woke up. I am looking forward to what I an get at tomorrow if things persist. I had a nasty bout of me rheumatism on Saturday, but today was one of those, “So this is what it feels like to feel normal,” kinds of days!

We are down a car thanks to the design of the engine block on our Ford. It started off by overheating. Then it continued and did it more frequently. I am all done with that because I have turned it in to the salvage yard rather than pay the $9,000 they wanted to repair it. So, because of this, my 15 year old daughter and I are meant to go to the city on Friday for a doctor’s appointment then go car shopping.