Category: Antiquary Artisan

Chores and Errands on Wednesday

Yesterday (Wednesday) was busy with errands and some cleaning and some paperwork here on the farm. I had to run into town to get copies of a couple of receipts and pick up a couple of things at the store. Finally, I ran down to the thrift store in Smithfield and picked up an auction winning, then take the kids to get some ice cream at the Fat Boy factory in Richmond.

I helped Missus with some of her work in the little shop-in-a-trailer out front. I also did some clean-up with the tractor out back on a debris pile I accidentally made out of a compost pile. There is some good soil at the bottom. In between the soil and the debris was some dirt I could use to fill low spots in the driveway. There is still more work to do out there on that pile. But I got some of it sorted.

I brought up some firewood for today as it is meant to be wet and a little cooler.

It was enough to keep me busy most of the day. It was interspersed with a few mandatory breaks to keep the arthritis pain at bay. Lunch was provided by Subway.

It’s very early as I write this. I am not sure yet what today brings. I won’t be working out in the muddy yard if the precipitation is what the forecast predicts! The tractor rips the yard up pretty bad when the earth is muddy. I am trying to cure that problem as it is. There are errands to run again, and Missus may need some help with a few things. Failing that, I would not complain to get some time cleaning up in the shop a bit. There are some, shall we say, organizational issues. Let’s see what the day brings!

2024 Begins!

Happy New Year!

There are a lot of things to be done on the farm this year. There are a lot of personal things to sort out too! This Holiday Season is coming to an end for our household, and to be honest, while we really enjoyed the family time, our health in this house has been absolute rubbish. So, the first thing is to see about getting up and about and up to things. There have been good days and bad ones, and clearly, I am going to have to make some adjustments to deal with my changing age. But I have experimented, and I think I know what I need to do. But all of that is on the personal side. On the farm and professional side I will push forward with what we have spent the last few years setting up for, and get this place finished and operational. It’ll be a challenge, but meeting it will pay off, I think.

So, what’s the big plans?

We have got to get this farm running as a profitable farm of some sorts. The immediate thing to do is sell llama fiber, and to make plenty of firewood. There will be byproducts of all that, but on top of it, Missus will be opening her little shop soon for local buyers, and as a basis for her Etsy and online shop. We’ll mess around with products, but our goal is to make enough to get by on or better by making what we want from here on our place. It means to be home manufacturing at a higher level of quality than comes out of mass production. Face it, it is every homesteader’s goal. I will be getting things going at last on The Prospering Peasant, too. I already have the idea for the first proper post there, so check soon.

My projects on the farm will require a lot of work. I have cameras for some basic filming and hope to put some videos on YouTube showing those, and a bit of furniture making. Everything is dependent upon hos I get through this little health crisis I have been having this winter, of course. The arthritis inflammation can derail the whole thing. But I won’t before I get a chance to get started, so let’s take this as it comes. As far as the furniture making idea goes, even if poplar is the only wood I can get access to, building from solid poplar has got to be a step up from the rubbish sawdust wood that people get online. It’ll cost them more, and it will be painted because of it being poplar, but I plan on Milk Paint and the farmhouse style. And then there are wooden spoons and the like.

All of this can really get going come spring. I’ll do what I can in the shop in the cold, but again, arthritis. Meantime I have everything I need to get the candles going in the house. I have a couple of things to work out just before I get an Etsy shop going. There will be several beeswax-based products, including candles, tool-wax, and beeswax impregnated food wraps. The fabric is ready for cutting and dipping! As for the candles themselves, I am starting out with molded candles circa the Colonial American period. I’ll provide either cotton wick or hemp wick candles as requested. I have considered hand dipped candles and for some occasions I perhaps will, but if time is a constraint, those will be the first thing I’ll give up on.

I will also look to get my firewood piled up for the next two years so I can go a year in advance after that. Then I will try to do excess to sell. I’d be happy to do the same with the lumber I cut and don’t use once I am adequately stocked up in advance.

Projects that I need to do are a woodshed, a fuel shed, and it would be good to put the sawmill in something. Once those are done, I think making chickencoops would be a good side hustle. None of these things can happen in a vacuum. But also, again, arthritis. So let’s see how it goes.

Photography is a lifelong hobby of mine. I never quite made a business out of it. It has to be a part of this even if only for the purposes of listing things online. The photography is not to be trifled with. I intend to do that well.

So all this is what I have in mind for 2024. I will be happy if we can get by on our efforts. If we can do better than that, then I will be elated! Look for changes coming to my online presence soon. No more excuses. That is what I intend to be about this year. Life is slipping by too fast to mess about.

Laser Therapy

We picked up a GlowForge about two years ago now, and Missus has been happily cutting away with it since. But GlowForge has its problems. For a long time, the materials they offer have been very high priced, and often out of stock. They have very proprietary parts for the machine. Also, they have the software to run it on the cloud, rather than local. The user gets put into a queue just to process a project and run it on their own machine. Internes Access totally required. I could also add that the camera never lined up properly, so when they advertised on the outset that one could laser etch the case of their MacBook, I can tell you I would never have tried it because I could not be assured of proper alignment.

We resorted to using big box store materials and reduced the cost of a single sheet of plywood to put into the GlowForge from around $8.00 for a 11″ x 19″ to $1.00. That is a pretty compelling savings! One can put up with lesser materials for that difference.

So, yesterday a new laser machine came into the house, and we have spent today finding it a home. We did not put it into the exact same place as the GlowForge, which we expect to retire soon as we doubt they will be in business much longer as their model seems to be utterly failing, but had to clear it out, and the cabinet it sat on, as the new machine is able to cut materials of twice the size or larger if you use the passthrough ports. And it cost less than the GlowForge did! As I have been setting it up, I have observed that unlike the GF, it is built with off the shelf parts that look like they will be easy and cheap to replace! We are not quite ready to start it up yet, but so far, I am pretty impressed with what we have got to take the place of GlowForge. We still need to get the software for it, which will be downloaded to the local computer, and easy to use without going through company servers. Yup, we will be able to work offline! No delays due to server lags or ISP disruptions.

We are eager to get it running finally and see how it stacks up to GlowForge on an operational basis. But the features I have seen so far, including the much larger cutting platform and the much deeper height as well, allowing the etching of thicker objects, the local software, and the nonproprietary components has given me greater confidence in this platform. Oh, and did I mention we are upgraded from a 40-watt laser to a 100-watt? Yeah, that’s also a thing!

Missus will be putting products into her little shop as soon as she opens up and intends to take custom orders as well. Watch her space at Antiquary Artisan.

Worked on the Trailer Today

It’s meant to rain tomorrow and Monday. It would interfere with work on the trailer, so we got up and got at it today. My main focus was to build on the backing and top of the shelf Missus is using to set the checkout on. I wanted ti to come out pretty good, so I gave it a bit of effort to give it a decent finish. Missus wanted the end that sticks out towards where a customer would come in to be rounded to reduce chances of injury, so I did that. It was a nice challenge for me as I was using a saw that makes straight cuts. (Resaw blade on the bandsaw; some rounding mut not much.) Then I gave it the correct finish with a handplane and finally 120 and 320 grit sandpapers. It came out right.

That’s bee most of my day today. Not the rounded pine board worktop, but the whole shelves to cabinet and then worktop thing. I did mow quite a bit of the grass this morning, and I cleaned up where the memorial garden used to be. It is set in a wagon made from a likely pre 1920’s truck frame converted to hay wagon which has since fallen to disrepair. The earth under the wagon had become hilly and impossible to mow, so I leveled that off with the tractor and made it so the grass there should recover fast, and the area be easy to manage.

Our weather forcast for today topped out at 81F, and over the next ten days it is not forcast to get higher than that. We are genuinely in get things done season! At least for a bit! Cooler outside, cooler inside! So if it rains, I can always go work on the den and get it ready for the cool season, and to do some candle-making and hopefully get started on some leather work, too. I would like to spend the winter doing those things where I have ready access to plenty of heat! The shop is hopeless, and will get too cold to work in for several months.

Finally, it is September now. The summer will end in just over two weeks. I gathered firewood yesterday and the day before. Well, some of it was for the saw. But I always have scraps to burn from that, as I cut off generous slabs to get right down to the lumber and make sure I have good pieces to add to the cordage. What’s more, I always grab a few rounds to top the trailer off and come home with something to split, too. Even when I am gathering primarily for the mill. With the weather cooler, now is the time to get all the last of the wood gathered and split, and some for next year too, if I have it in me to do it, and there is time. I have a yard to clean before the snow falls, and I have a lot of jobs to get done. I won’t list them, just say when I have done them.

Making Paper

I woke up this morning and strolled through the house unable to locate my recently liberated corporate slave. I tried out in her craft cottage, and found her making paper. She is learning at the moment, but is determined to eventually sell home gown and spun llama fiber yarns wrapped with a home made label.

Paper drying on rack. Missus has included some leaves in her slurry to add interest to the finished product, and to gain confidence working with contents other than just plain pulp.

The paper she is working on this morning is practice, and the color and thickness may not quite be right, but as she progresses and works on what to put into the slurry, we hope to have a lovely finish that will take a label stamp.

The slurry is made by blending material then setting it aside to add to water where it loosens up to be collected with the deckle and mold to form individual sheets.

We have plenty of options for future paper to make, including essential oil scented, or with added mint leaves from the garden. She is also interested in commondeering wood from my shop to incorporate starting with sawdust or shavings from the hand plane.

The slurry is collected from the water with the deckle and mold, causing it to form into a useful sheet of paper, and forming it into a uniform shape.

If I do turn out to produce a useful waste that can be used in papermaking, then I hope to produce a lot of it for her! Of course, there is a lot to do with excess sawdust too, but that is a different story!

A finished piece lies next to the one currently being released from the deckle and mold by sponging away excess water.

The paper was then left to dry for the day. Future efforts will resolve a better color and texture as Missus refines her skill in the medium.