Author: The Lord of The Manor

Final Run Till Christmas!

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

With the Thanksgiving weekend over, we are on the final run till Christmas, then New Year’s, and the long drag through winter. In January the seed catalogues will begin to arrive, tempting us with plants to grow over the summer. Then when spring finally comes, we will be out from under the snow, and thawing the cold out of our bones. But none of it comes till we slog through winter. Spring doesn’t seem that far away right now, but it never comes quickly when I find myself outside day after day, dark evening after dark evening, cold as can be as I do the chores and keep the poor animals alive that live right through the cold seasons that I struggle to go out in at all.

This weekend we talked about the state of our youngest daughter and her social wellbeing while she homeschools. She does pretty good, but she does get lonely for friends, and often wants company from us when we are busy trying to keep our family afloat on our daily tasks. Missus said to me that she doesn’t know why she didn’t think of it before, but the girl needs a dog. So, we discussed breeds and such, and decided on something close to a Beagle. We are not particular about pure breeds, so we looked and found some Beagle, Australian Shepherd mixes for sale only a couple of miles from our place, just over the Utah state line. I got a reply Saturday morning that if I could come within the hour, I would be able to pick one up before the seller goes out for the day. Right on that!

I brought him in tucked inside my jacket, and Missus took him off me and dumped him on our daughter’s lap. Do I need to tell you how a nine year old reacts to a puppy being dropped in her lap? Probably not.

The dog was a good boy on the way home, and a good boy all the way up to town a bit later to get him some supplies, feed, and leash. The only trouble was that he was sick in the car, and spent the day being pretty quiet, and mellow. I then noticed by late afternoon that he was kicking his leg similar to a horse with colic. So, I talked to Missus about the state of him and was soon out the door to pick up his sister from the guy who sold him to us. He has been perfect since.

That is how we got two dogs this weekend. They are nine weeks old, so that would put them around September 25th as a birthday. He is a good boy and she is a good girl. My daughter named her dog Spot, and I took our older daughter with to get the girl, and I told her, I don’t care the gender, my Beagle is going to be called Snoopy. That is how we got a boy named Spot, and a girl named Snoopy!

Tonight, as the weekend comes to a close, and we begin that final run towards Christmas, the two dogs are lay on a stuffed dog my wife had up on our bed, sleeping sweetly, and close to each other. I think if dogs could smile, that is what I would see on their sweet little faces right now.

I picked up some firewood with our oldest on Friday. As he loaded his jacked-up truck, he was moaning, “get a big truck they said. It’ll be fun, they said.” Pretty sure we both slept well that night. The wood is wet, and will have to hold out till next year, barring we don’t run out of this year’s wood. I guess we’ll see.

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

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.

Weather Reporting Fault

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

The Weather Station is working just fine, but the computer that transfers the data from the station to the Internet reported a fault. There were clusters going bad on the drive, and it wanted me to replace the drive when I could. I ordered an SSD drive, and now I have to work out how to mirror the original drive onto the SSD. I have tried a couple of methods that were supposed to be straightforward, but have turned out not to be because of drive lettering, and trying not to conflict with the C: drive of the computer I am attaching to. There were no SATA ports available in the Weather Computer as it is an all in one form factor, which I chose because it runs on low wattage, and takes up little space and only a single wall outlet. It was a good idea three years ago!

I am now trying a device that mirrors the drives inserted in it automatically, but seems to take days to do so. I remember using it once when I got it new some time ago, and it was the same schtick. It’s been running for 12 hours and does not even show 25% progress on the indicator lights.

I’ll update again if this works or not.

Where Have I Been The Past Few Days?

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

Over the last couple of days I have been focused on making sure of the girls in their home schooling, and generally either hiding from the rain on rainy days, or splitting up some of the firewood on sunny ones. I have given the lathe a break while I wait for a part I buggered up on it, and a tool to repair the part it attaches to, which I could replace, if they were in stock with Laguna. Well, not a huge deal, but I will not turn on it till the part and tool arrive, because I don’t want it to turn into a huge deal.

Meanwhile, I ordered Missus her Christmas present, but it is the kind of present that one must speak to the recipient about before committing to buying it. Currently she has got a Cricut, and makes lots of things on it. In a couple of weeks she will have a GlowForge and will up her game with it, and hopefully with an Etsy store where she will be able to sell things made from those tools, as well as her handmade art. She’s looking to start a side hustle. I’m looking to see to it that the rug under her is a red carpet.

Since there is a GlowForge coming, I have been spending time in Inkscape learning how to layout in that. I may or may not get enlisted in the process of running this side hustle, or I may just be able to use it to design a few personal things, or a placard for any furniture I make out in my shop. Whatever the case, I need to at least lay out designs and do basic operations to be of some use in the business.

That’s the most of it over the past few days. Obviously there was Halloween!

The day was pretty normal for us. We did not do anything out of the norm for ourselves, but the kids watched a couple of Halloween themed movies during the day. By evening our youngest complained because we were not going Trick-Or-Treating. So I put my two red lanterns on in the dining room and library, and turned off all the other lights. Missus put together two baskets of sweets in lieu of hordes of candy, then brought out a book and once the girls were settled into their sweets, she began reading Poe in her lovely English accent. I thought it was quite a perfect spontaneous Halloween!

It’s soon time to get our winter hay paid for and delivered. Maybe today or tomorrow will be a good time to get set up for that. This weekend is our grandson’s time over. I still have firewood to split up out in the Service Yard. I could do with getting it all done before winter settles in. If it goes at the rate the last few days has, then that won’t be too difficult a goal to achieve.

That’s about where things are at. The Holidays have officially gotten started with Halloween past us now. Next up is Thanksgiving, then the big one. After that comes the long, cold winter. It’s getting time to button down for that!

Firewood To Furniture

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

Today I split firewood for about an hour, then decided I would be having a lot more fun if I were to take a piece of poplar I split into pieces, and turned those pieces on the lathe. I cut my firewood to about 19 inches, so it was obvious right from the start what I would make. It was just about right for legs for a stool. Maybe Missus could use it at her spinning wheel or loom, if she wants to. It has been a long time for me wanting to try one, and today brought me my chance. I wanted to try crating spindles and then recreating them a couple of more times. So that’s what I did.

A stool does not rock on only three legs. That is a four legged stool. So I wanted to make a three legged one, cutting down the number of legs I would have to duplicate. The firewood was split with the grain, so the legs would have the advantage of strength for going with. As for design, I saw Anne of All Trades on Instagram showing a stool she made, and the spindles were just the style I most love, old fashioned! The seat was natural wood, live edges and all. If it worked for her, surely it would work for me! So that’s what I set out to do, only in the three legged variety. Again, I am using poplar, so I don’t think mine will come out looking quite as nice as Anne’s did, and this is my very first piece of furniture, so that has lowered my expectations as well.

I did not put any real coves or beads. I don’t much care for them, honestly. Strange, for someone who bought a lathe, I know! The top 20% of the legs look like a pawn, and the bottom is long and slender, then flares out just before the feet, which are slender again. It’s simple, and they are a bit thick, but if it works out as a stool for Missus, I want it to be sturdy so she will feel secure on it.

I suppose the most exciting prospect of this little project is that if it works out, I will have build furniture from a couple of pieces of firewood! That’s about as free as the materials get. And if it does not work out, just the parts I have made so far have been an educational experience, and have given me confidence to try again. Another way it helped, I finally found the bevel on the roughing gouge. My goodness! I want from clip-clip-clip to slice-slice-slice, and the debris went from splintery little chucks to real slices. It cut a lot faster, too! I was amazed!

Tomorrow I will probably look for a log I can chop two inches or so off the end of, with a diameter right for the seat, and then turn it on the lathe like a platter. I intend to set it up with a mortise on the bottom, and a beveled gouge outside of that, which will hopefully provide a spot to drill holes to mount the legs into. The bevel should put all the legs at the same angle. Then I will wedge them in, and glue them up extra good! I may cut the tenons on the legs a little longer by turning them on the lathe again, and taking them down the shoulders at the top of the legs a bit more. That may be necessary to give added strength, and also because of the thickness of whatever seat I produce. That’s yet to be seen! But I have a plan if longer tenons are required. Right now my tenons are only about an inch long, which I regret, thinking about it. Nothing I can’t fix with a skew and a minute each on the lathe!

Speaking of eventualities! If it turns out to be too short, I may in the future put a hole in the middle of the seat, thread it, and put a new seat on a dowel with threads on it, and set it up with adjustable height. I guess just one way one can build and then modify one’s furniture!

Missus reminded me that she was looking forward to me making some Christmas decorations, too! She mentioned spindle icicles. I mentioned baubles with spindles, but that I am probably not quite ready for those just yet. I guess I had better learn my icicles! I also want to make icicles that are also whistles. I’d think wooden whistles would be fun! I have made several so far, but not after the fashion of a tree ornament.

I would be out in the shop working right now, but for the fact it is dark and I don’t want to go rooting around for the wood for the seat in the dark. I would rather see it with fresh eyes in tomorrow’s daylight!

When I finish the stool, I will cut the bottoms of the spindles as necessary to put the stool relatively level. Also, though I originally wasn’t going to do it, I went ahead and coated these spindles in beeswax that I received in the mail today. I was dying to see how the wax would come out. It wasn’t quite as I expected, but I think it will be a durable finish for now, anyhow. The wood was green, though, so I expect it to lose water out the ends, causing them the cheque and shrink. It may be bad, but it is a stool I can always remake, especially where I have got the experience now!

That’s all I have got to say about it tonight. I will be off to bed soon, eager to get up and get started on the seat!

Good Morning Wednesday

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

This week I have been bopping about on the place, doing different things, but never journaling any of them. So here’s a quick recap!

One of the best parts of any week is when grandson comes by with his dad. But when he was here yesterday, I realized that the toilette seat I bought so he could use our potty like a big boy was still in the back of the car. I ran out, got it, and showed him the box, and then opened it and showed him the inside. Finally I let him sit on it on a chair to see for sure what it was for, not to use, obviously. Then I promised him it would be on by the next time he visits. So I did that a little after he left. That’s the high part of the past few days!

There has been rain. We have been on the receiving end of all that rain that went through California earlier this week. It’s never rained hard or been very windy, but I did get new tarps to cover hay and to cover the firewood. I also got a handful of stretchy cords to hold things down, too. This weather may be a fluke, but there is the possibility that with La Nina setting up, and the jet stream waving north and south, we may have a pretty wintery winter. While it is always fun to see what happens, it is always better to be ready for it!

My light arrived for my lathe yesterday. The box was destroyed, the light was damaged, and pieces were missing. It seems like it would be a great light, bright, color changing. It’s real nice other than it looking like they mailed me out a customer return. I sent an e-mail to the shop I bought it through, and they said they usually get back in one to three days. I see…

I turned a couple of whistles on the lathe yesterday to see what I could come up with, and if Missus would like me to keep going at them to put on the Christmas tree and pass out during Christmas as noise-makers. She liked them. I’ll see if I can get them looking seasonable for the holiday. Yesterday was about making shapes, and putting lines around them using the welding wire I picked up this week. Burning the lines in is pretty neat. I have beeswax on order, set to arrive by Friday, I think. Maybe that will make a lovely finish to the whistles? Maybe it will taste nasty.

Those are the real highs of the week. The other is of course the unspoken of hum of happiness that is raising family and being together. I joined the girls in watching the original Star Wars Trilogy. They are carrying on with homeschool. Missus is still working from home. I make her breakfasts and keep her supplied on nutrients and caffeine as needed. I am preparing for winter. There is always a lot to do on that score. I have negotiated our hay for the winter, and will have to get it delivered soon. Aside from that, I try to sneak off to the lathe as I can to get to know it better, and how it works, and how to use the different tools I have. It is a challenge, but lots of fun!

It’s Going To Rain, And Other Musings

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor
The Weather Map As I Write

We live sort of center of this map above, and that big blob of rain is headed right for us. It is 43 out right now, so there is no threat of snow at the moment. Looks to me like it wants to make up for all that did not fall over the summer.

All week the forecast has shown us that starting today we would get five days of rain. That has been steady in the computer modeling that makes up the forecast, so I think it is something we can rely on. I best head up to the shop today to get some tarps for the firewood pile, lest it turn cold and we need to get a fire going to keep warm. It’s no good having wet wood!

The girls are both up, our grandson is over, and the kids are having a calm morning just about to put a show on. Grandma is going for a nap, and grandpa is too tired to do much because of all that got done yesterday.

When we were out getting wood, I noticed a piece that was put up high on the pile that was about 3/4 the size of the truck we drove, a jacked up Dodge Ram, and that it was precarious. I told the kids to stay away from it, and one I had to tell twice. Then Jordan, our oldest, and I took some wood from near it to the truck, and a noise caught our attention. That massive trunk took a tumble. We’d never seen one tumble before! They are usually stacked better, but someone irresponsible has been running the loader they use to pile the wood up. There were a few that have been placed in odd positions unlike the normal piling that they do down at the dump. It sort of negated one of the reasons I like getting wood there, normally. Not having to fell trees makes it a lot safer than going to the forest to get wood. But that was not one of those safer trips for sure, and I am thrilled to pieces that I noticed it and got the kids away before it took its tumble.

While we were out yesterday, my chuck arrived at the house. I can now drill with the lathe! That’s it! It’s whistles for everyone! I’ll probably help a lot when making narrow containers, too. There are definitely a few ideas rolling around in my mind that I look forward to trying. I have a piece of elm on the lathe right now that is too wet to keep working, so I am letting it have some time to sort itself out. I had been thinking of making a ball out of it, but maybe that is a good shape, and I can put a glass container down the middle and use it for Missus’s flowers. It is light on the outside, but walnut colored down the middle. Those two tones would look great with a burst of color sticking out the middle of them!

With the pigs gone, that opens up a space at the back of the llama pen that I can do one of a couple of things with. One is to open it up for the llamas, obviously. The other is to put a fence at the back of the llama pens and divide out a driveway to give another entrance to the property. That would be good for hay deliveries, and bringing in firewood and the like. Maybe. It just requires a little fencing and some gates. Especially as it might be good to put gates at the back of the pen for access to loading and cleaning at a bigger scale than we are able to do now.

We still are looking at moving house. I want to keep going on a few things in case that falls through. I don’t want to put life on pause for something that doesn’t materialize. There is a guy who owns a piece of land near us who is thinking on buying ours. He has to try to work something out with someone adjacent to us, though, because he wants both pieces of land to have clear access from our place all the way down to the corner. If that goes, or someone else buys, then that will set the wheels into motion.

But today? A duvet day…

Today’s Turn

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

Today I hardly saw the lathe till evening. I spent the morning with out oldest loading firewood at the dump, then we came home, unloaded it, and split it all up. He was very eager to have dry wood because he has been having troubles burning some wet wood he has at his place. There just wasn’t very much workable dry wood there, though, so I suggested he take some wet wood, then when we got back to the farm, he trade the wet wood for some of my dry wood. I have plenty laying about, and a lot sorted out for this winter. So he did that. I have more for next year, and lots for this at the moment. He left with just over half a cord of wood all split up and ready to burn.

After he left, a guy showed up and took the last two of our pigs, leaving us free of them, and their cost on our feed bill. He went to pay me via Venmo, but my account is still suspended from the first time I tried to use it, so I told him not to worry about it. I wasn’t going to make him unload them after all the work he did to load them, and I was happy to get them off our feed bill, and was planning giving them away anyhow if we didn’t sell them to anyone. I was thrilled to see them go.

So it was a great day, seeing both of the boys, and getting firewood sorted out, and getting two pigs sorted out. I did work on the lathe a little tonight, but the wood is wet, and prone to catching. I was happy to leave it, before it ruined my new hobby.

Today In The Shop

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

I turned today. I tried a bobbin lace bobbin, but I don’t have quite fine enough tools to do something as small as those need to be. Afterwards I tried doing anything I could out of a small piece of scrap left over from my main turn today. That worked out to be a handle of sorts, and if I can get some yarn on the end of it in the form of a pom-pom, I would like it to be a little duster for things like the computer keyboard.

My main turn today was a tool handle for my chisel set. I have got a couple of Lie Nielsen chisels, and they have easily removeable handles which can be changed out for long handles for finer control. The hardest part was getting the conical shape that fits into the chisel right so that it did not wobble on the handle. The new handle will work with any of the chisels, and gives another inch and a quarter in length. I want to do one more, longer, but that will have to come another day.

Then came the exhaustion. Part of it is from being so happy to be turning that I have not been taking time to eat, and part of it is how much time I have spent in front of the lathe. I took a nap this afternoon, and woke up an hour later still feeling it. We had porridge oats for super and it helped, but did not clear the feeling entirely. For safety’s sake, I decided not to try to go out, even though I have more ideas wanting to come to being.

I decided to get the overpriced light for the lathe in the end. It won’t be here for a bit, but I did order it because I keep hitting my helmet on the light hanging over the lathe now, trying to bring it low enough to be useful. I figured that if I am going to see the surfaces well enough to give them a good finish, and if I am going to see up inside bowls and the like, I’ll need a light that is bright, can be brought close, and can easily be repositioned as needed. I guess it shops from the factory warehouse, so it’ll get here when it gets here.

Finally, I have bad news for my family. I have been researching how to make whistles. They look pretty easy.