Author: The Lord of The Manor

The Original Weather App

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

I am looking at the screen on my tablet and seeing that the weather information being provided by my weather station seems inaccurate when compared to the original weather app, the sky. I checked the computer, and it has got the same rain data as what has been uploaded to the internet. It shows nothing for rainfall accumulation over the past 24 hours. Now, I know that cannot be right. It has been raining! The weather station I follow that is down in the south end of the valley, a little over 20 miles as the crow flies, is showing rainfall accumulations of just under a tenth of an inch in the same time period. They get lake effect precipitation down there, but still, I would think that with the amount of noise I have heard on our tin roof, we would have registered some rainfall. I’ll have to get a ladder and go see what is blocking the collector, or if the little tipping spoon is stuck. All of the other data is coming in, so that rules out a dead battery.

Last night when I went to bed, there was a decent lightning storm overhead. I’d like to say I watched it for a while, but I tend to fall asleep when my head hits the pillow. Luckily, I am up at six in the morning this morning, and there is another one hovering above. Rain seems to have woke me up this morning.

According to the forecast, I have till Monday at the latest to finish cleaning the chimney. But I have already cleaned the top portion from the roof, including the spark arrestor, and everything down to the 90 in the masonry. I just need to vacuum the 90, and brush the black pipe from it to the stove. I also replaced the gasket on the door, a lot easier job than I thought it might be before I had ever done it. The worst of it was cleaning up the old silicon from the shallow channel the gasket sets into. So apart from about eight or nine feet of pipe, we are ready to go with the stove, and next week’s lows are meant to reach down to the mid 20’s. The mornings at least will want for a fire to warm the house. The midday sun never overheats the downstairs on this house, except in the hottest of summer days. Old Man Winter, on the other hand, holds a mighty grip down here without the aid of a fire to keep us warm.

Finally, I am awaiting the arrival of my new lathe for the workshop. It made it to Chicago, and has apparently stopped in transit there. Today is the third day the transport company’s horse has rested. I called them yesterday, but the agent could only attach a memo. She said then she expects it will be delivered on Tuesday. Sooner the better! I am eager to get to work! There is a lot to learn. There is a lot to make! I have pieces lined up in the shop that I want to replicate. Those will help prepare me to start making my own, and then replicate entire furnishings from days gone by.

Finally, weather being what it is, suddenly, I guess it is best time for me to get the firewood pile finished. Maybe we will have a more normal winter? ’17 was rough. That one gave us a lot of snowfall. Cache Valley wise, it is due for another.

Woodshop Talk

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

Nothing beats time spent in the workshop with my eight year old, making a cabinet together that will sit in the main bathroom to hold a pack of TP at a time, ready for when the roll in use runs out. It is a pragmatic item that will have use in our home. It is also a good practice item for us, before getting on to bigger and better things. Little Miss had a great time when I clamped down a piece of rough cut cedar fence picket and turned her loose on it with the scrub plane. We went back into the house at 8PM, and funny enough, she decided to go to bed early. Said she was tired. Said the plane work wore her out.

Our little cabinet is made of pine, from a 5 1/2″ by 8′ knotty board I had kept spare in the barn. I put a back on it, in a dado I made with the router plane, and using a piece of Masonite that came as part of the packing for our oven. That kept things simple, and should add stability. I will build a door later today, to keep the cat from shredding the paper inside the cabinet!

I glued up a drawer front for the kitchen drawer above the oven. I also finished the drawer box yesterday. I am happy that the wood for the side rails on the oven frame have settled well enough to shape as needed and affix to the wall. I need to do that, and make the crown of the frame to match those over the doors in the house.

I may have ordered a lathe yesterday, too. Finally! I just got a notice that it is shipping. So I ordered the turning tools off eBay, as I was unsure if the lathe would be in stock. Apparently, it was. Now I’ll be able to turn bobbins and spindles and the like for Missus to keep her llama fiber on. Missus quite enjoyed working on her $35 mini-lathe, despite it barely working for her. I can’t wait to see what she will do with a big, proper lathe! I can’t wait to see what I will! Hopefully it will also attract the kids to it as they all come of age to. Two of them are grown and moved out. This can give them something to do when they visit, and a chance for them to make presents for their significant others. I’ve got all kinds of ideas, haven’t I?

Things are in motion. If we are able to sell or not, it does not matter. I am getting to old to put my life’s ambitions on hold any longer. Time to do what I want to when I grow up. I am lucky to be able to!

It is time to go get a day started, and get done a few things that need doing!

Today’s Been Cool

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

With a cool day on us, I took it fairly easy today. I did a run to the dump to drop off some boxes and junk that needed to part ways with us, then ran to the store a moment. After that, it was home again, and lunch and then the girls had class and I took off out back to sort out something.

We have a bunch of really ratty old windows from the 80’s, aluminum frames and double panes with massive water stains between them. They were beyond hope, and beyond ugly. Not worth putting to use anywhere, even a greenhouse. So, I shot them. My youngest wanted to be out there to watch it happen. Well, I have a fairly powerful pellet gun for sorting out predators that can’t be sorted out any other way, and I know better than to foolishly have a kid running around while shooting. So I took care of breaking out the glass from the aluminum frames with the pellet gun while my youngest was in class. I still have not told her, either. Most of it was tempered glass, but there were two panes from large old sliding doors that would not break, and the shot unexpectedly ricocheted off it like one in an old west movie. I was glad she was not there for that! I’ll clean up the glass tomorrow and get the aluminum up to the salvage yard soon.

I did some practice work in the woodshop tonight. I did some dovetails and I made a concealed mortice and tenon joint. They are rough, but they are better than my first attempts, and not as good as the next ones I will do.

The weather will be cooler tomorrow. I better go shut off the frost free hydrant so it does not get inclined to burst on us where the water is stopped in the water timer attached to it. No good having to fix a busted water pipe right now!

Picking Sticks

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

Missus has me working on picking sticks for her loom. That is another way of saying that she asked me for one, and I made it the way she wanted it, and now I am thinking up ideas for some other ones and figuring out what elements would improve upon the original design, and what would not. The picture bellow is of the one I just finished for her. I was thinking that the hooks would serve for fishing a loose string, and the thing could travel through the shed easily, and be brought back just as easily by putting it on its side. I also think that putting it on its back would allow it to form a bridge that would prevent the warp from sliding off the ends while she is throwing a shuttle through the shed.

The latest picking stick on the bench, ready to turn over to its owner.

As for the hand carved Antiquary Artisan “AA,” let’s just hope she does not want another of those done! I never was good at carving my initials in a school desk!

Time to think up the next thing to put on the bench.

Autumn On Us

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

Autumn is here! The first part of Autumn till around Thanksgiving is one of my favorite times of the year. Spring is pretty good, too! The weather is casually gliding into the season now, with forecasts promising us perfect outdoor working temperatures all the wat through the next ten days! That’s what I love about the two seasons between the extremes here in Cache Valley.

Missus found a table loom on the local classified site with a floor stand included. She was happy with the price, and I certainly was not one to question it, with my only superficial knowledge of their costs. So when she did, I called on it and thinking it was at the south end of the valley began to negotiate picking it up before I realized it was more than two hours away! Luckily the lady selling it was instantly willing to meet me half way the other evening, and so I grabbed the girls and we jumped into the truck and headed out to Ogden, Utah.

So, Missus has now added a four shaft loom to her growing collection, and she stays busy learning what she needs to know before she puts a warp on it. In the meantime she has put a warp on her little loom (about a foot wide) and is using up scraps on it, and has begun a fantastic looking project on it that admittedly may end up a dish cloth. I am just thrilled to see her getting into a hobby that she is enjoying, that will produce results from our llamas, and that she is getting fully tooled up for to work end to end. She has the llamas, the shears and the tools to prepare roving, spin it, and now weave it into something. That’s a long haul, and requires a lot! She has waited a long time to get set up to this point.

I have a couple of tools coming in the mail myself, one of which will be delivered today and will allow me to properly finish a dovetail joint made by hand. I do need to get a tool to let me properly copy and set up an angle on the dovetail, or even a dovetail set-up marker. Those will be soon, I’m sure. But for now, I have enough to at least practice some cuts, and with the results I got the other day, with inadequate tools and doing it my first time, I am confident I will be knocking out dovetails in no time. I’ll also be able to make box joints, too! I have the router setup to do all this, but it feels like a cheat, and there is a lot of setup which can go all wrong before I realize it has. I found I would rather do them by hand for now.

I want to make a pie safe. It won’t leave my mind. It is sitting in there, teasing me, and it wants me to include the elements of our convenience cabinet in it. That is to say, we would be able to hold foil, butcher paper, and cling film in the top and distribute it out from there as needed. I am also thinking of a pull out surface under the top to give extra workspace as needed in the kitchen. So, it would be a take on an old style piece of furniture, with some new twists.

The cabinet the oven mounted in is nearly done in the kitchen. I just need to make a drawer, and finish the trim work. I have today’s tool arrival to help with that, and one coming on Wednesday to finish it. We have used the oven once to make cookies, and they came out baked well, and evenly, which is about all we really want an oven to do, so that’s great. Moving the microwave up two inches to accommodate the space for a new drawer in that space has not caused any trouble for anyone in the family since I put it there, so that is good.

The only question for today is, will I work outside in the yard, or inside the shop? There are things to do in both!

Last Day of Summer

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

I received a report this morning that the last of the chickens in the goat pen is dead due to raccoon. I really liked that chicken, and am sad to know it. I will be out in a bit to feed the animals, and I’ll clean it up then.

I bought animal feed yesterday, with hopefully enough to get through October, apart from hay, which I won’t need for about three weeks or so from now. If so, this will be the cheapest month on record for us for years, ringing in at just under $100. With only two pigs left, and the animals still on the field, the cost is low for the moment, and will be till around November, when I need to get the livestock off the field and start feeding them hay.

With costs low for the moment, I am taking advantage of it and tooling up the workshop to be able to do some wood projects. I started last night making a drawer, complete with dovetail joints. There are a couple more tools coming to help me finish it. Starting it has helped me figure out what I still need, and what is hard to work with, and what will be easier. I want to be able to build a dresser by hand before say, November? Not that I need one. I want to be able to do it. I am really enjoying the hand tool odyssey. It is far less violent than power tools, and it is a lot quieter. It is helpful to make mistakes at a much slower pace, too. I buggered up my first dovetail, and fixed it because I did not want to redo all the other ones as well as it. All good lessons.

The drawer I am making will probably be used in the kitchen where we will soon be putting in a new oven, and I will reset the microwave box above it, leaving a space for a drawer above, below, or between them, which I figure will be great for holding the hot mitts and such, handy for the cooking appliances! There may be enough space when finalized for a second drawer, too, which might be good for stirring utensils and such. I will know for sure when Home Depot bothers to send me a notification to tell me the oven is in.

It was cold again this morning. We bottomed out at 28 degrees! And no, that is not Celsius! I have a fire going in the wood stove, and it is clear that it is time to replace the gasket around the door! I should probably pick that up when I am getting the oven and the wood to finish around it.

Autumn begins tomorrow at 1:20 PM. It is time to get serious about getting the firewood cut and stacked! Lucky I got dry wood in the spring when I was hunting it. It will be ready and fine to burn in a few weeks when we are really needing it to stay warm. The propane tank was filled yesterday. That was a costly thig to do! They charged over $400 for it! We only have a 360 gallon tank! Still, I would like to get both furnaces serviced this year, and running. That would probably be good for time to sell the house!

Two Pigs Sold

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

Today the people who bought the pigs the other day came to pick them up. That’s two down and two males to go, which is great, because they cannot possibly become pregnant or get any other thing on the farm pregnant, either. There is no way we get swamped with pigs again! No more worrying about that fence between the pens. And I have moved the two males into the pen the females were in, which is more secure, so no more worrying about the boys getting out! The guys who picked up the girls today said that in a week or two they expect one of their friends to come and get the males from us, too. I will keep them listed, of course, but if he does, that is good enough for me.

I think that per pound, pigs are by far the most expensive animal to keep on the farm. For four small pigs, we were buying eight 80 pound bags of feed at about $16 each per month. That works out to about $128 per month before Uncle Sam puts in his bill. They were eating a little over 5# per day by that reckoning. I am sure glad to have this at least part way off our feed bill. There is enough in the bins right now for the pigs to go a full month from now without buying more. This coming new month will be pretty cheap compared to where we were in the springtime!

After I moved the boys into the girl’s pen, I took their old pen apart, and gave the llama pen more space for now. I am using the old fence from the pen to reinforce some of the weak points in the property boundary fence. I was able to put both of the water barrels into the pen with the boys, and I will repurpose the extra house for the dog to use in place of the one he has had. Hopefully that will be a huge improvement for him!

Finally, a quick mention. The temperatures are going to drop over the next two days, with the highs in the 50’s and the low’s dropping into the low thirties, even below freezing! Nice way to ring out summer!

Listing Animals

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

We are listing animals for sale. I have the pot belly pigs listed, and someone has already said they would like to come pay for them tomorrow and pick them up on Saturday. I will be listing some of the goats soo too. We have a couple of llamas that will need to find new homes as well. Though they are old, or one that is young and needs to breed elsewhere because he is related to the girls we are keeping.

If the pigs do go, then we will lower our feed bill substantially, which is great! I welcome that. It is an expensive hobby to keep animals around for fun. Having some money free should allow us to focus in on other hobbies, too. We plan to get back into this animal business on the other side of a move.

This weekend we relaxed again. Missus has a lot of stress at work right now, and needs these weekends to come down from it a bit, and get her head back to Earth. We had our grandson by, too. That is always fun! We did comb the rabbits, and picked and carded some llama fiber.

This week coming will likely see us putting the new oven in, and hopefully getting that trailer in the front yard cleaned out and moved empty into the back. The weather should be cooler, so I really should get the chainsaws sorted and ready to cut some firewood down to size ready for splitting. I keep putting it off for cooler weather, so I won’t overheat doing it.

My spare time is spent looking for hand tools for woodworking. There are a few I want to get so I can get going on specific projects. There are a few specific tasks I would like to be able to do, and while some could be done with power tools, there is just no need for all the noise and danger of power tools for what I have in mind. It is getting time to order a new tool as soon as it is available from the tool maker, so I am getting excited, if you could not already tell. There is in fact one that I am getting when it is available no matter, even if I have to pay it on credit. It looks that useful. It is a tongue and groove router, and in my thinking, it is going to do a lot more than just allow lapping of wood panels. I see it for inserting backs, making drawers, and even making cabinet drawers with. We’ll see if I am right in only a few days after one comes available!

Missus has shown me a bobbin lace pillow that she likes, and I would love to be able to frame the wood pieces of it for her ready for her to put together the padding and cover. I think we can do this. I’ll need to get her some good wood, rather than doing it in pine and having it causing her troubles to do it being a softer, inferior wood to something like oak, which I think would hold pins for the cover much better.

So that’s where we are at on a Sunday night. The school week is about to start up again, and I have more than a few things to do this week, though none as stressful as helping little one through a meeting with her teacher, or getting her set up for testing, as we did last week!

We Sold A Goat

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

We sold one of our male goats this evening! I am glad to have one out the door and only one more male to go. The one remaining is the mostly all black goat, and the one sold was a black and white one. The buyer wanted to use a payment app that I have never used before, so I got that set up while he was on the way over and accepted payment in the prescribed method. Based on what I see on the classified ads, it is a common method, so I am glad that is set up and I can work with it now.

With that all done, and my confidence up on how to do these things, I am eager to get the rest of the animals sold that we need to sell prior to moving. Maybe tomorrow I will get them listed.

In other news, I was out in the shop today messing about with scraps of wood and the hand tools I have. It was good to work with my hands, and it was good to get a feel for the tools, especially the new scrub plane. I also refreshed a really bad rake handle and put some fresh boiled linseed oil on it. I should probably do that to all the tools this autumn.

Today Is A School Day

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

We are not busy today. But we are! Our youngest is in class this morning, then I have a meeting with her teacher this afternoon right after lunch, then youngling has a test that she has to do to see where her reading level is at the moment. Happily, I think she is doing better than she will admit to herself. Her trouble is, I think she realizes that when she admits to what she can do, and she tries a little harder to do it, she thinks she will have to work harder than she does right now. So today we are going to put in place some ideas to help move her along.

There are no plans for our older boy to come by with his son today. He might turn up on his own, but we don’t know and have no formal plan. Grandson will be over this weekend though, and that ought to be fun!

I have decided to commit to my hand tool workshop, and have a new scrub plane coming in the post today. Despite the status through package tracking indicating that it has been in the local city for the last three days, it looks like it is going to show up on the planned time, unless they drop it off with the post office to have them do the originally planned last mile delivery. Package delivery being the highest anxiety I have today, life is not bad.

The scrub plane is a roughing plane that helps get a piece of wood worked down to shape and size fast, as it removes a lot of material. I have had hits too that it can make a lovely rough finish, but I will have to see that when it comes.

Each payday, I plan on ordering one or two tools (depending on the combined price) and building up the workshop with tools needed to make some furniture. I want to be able in the end to cut down a tree and make a dressing table or chair from it with a relatively decent finish to it. All excess wood will go to the heating arrangement on the house. That’s the goal, anyhow. It is a motivator in moving, too, since I would greatly benefit by having a woodlot of several acres.

Well, I don’t like to talk specifically about my goals because that seems like a temptation for things to go wrong, but there we go. Braving the commitment and the possibility to failing and having to admit it is a lesson I need in my school today.