Farm Tools – The Peasant's Manor Farm

March Has Arrived, Spring Comes Soon!

It is snowing lightly today, and too cold to be outside for just about anything unless it is urgent or necessary. This morning one of the kids messaged and asked if he could come down and use our driveway to change his oil. He said the car was running funny and he thought it might have to do with him neglecting it. I asked how long it was since he last changed it, and he said 8,000 miles. Well, I don’t know if that is why his car lost some power coming up the hill, but I am pretty sure it will be much happier about its life in general for him changing it! Okay, he went way too long, but it was good to see him do the job all on his own, as it was the kind of work he never took interest in when he was younger and still living at home. Better late than never. It was especially good to see him at it rather than me! Oh sure, I handed him the ratchet, and helped him find a few tools, but he was the one on the ground, in the snow and cold.

It struck me as funny that it was only this morning that I checked our truck for its due date for the next oil change, and I was excited to find out it was not today! I have got some 800 miles left, which I’ll bet I can stretch till spring, and warmer weather! Suits me right down to the ground!

Missus asked me to go get her drum carder out of the craft cottage this morning. I don’t know what she has planned for it, but while I was out doing my chores, and helping the offspring keep on eye on his oil as it dripped out during the oil change, she cleaned it up and made it look nearly new.

I was also assigned the job of making a few more of the wire coilers she needs to wrap wire on to make chain male loops. They consist of a rod with a small hole at the far end, and a handle that helps her grip and avoid pain in her hands. I drill a hole in the rod and give it any finish work required. Then I make the wooden handle on the lathe, and drill a hole in the end of it for the rod to fit down into, tightly. Done right, it does the trick and when I am done, she will be able to make different sized loops in her wire. Good enough! I made a handle two weeks ago, and can put it to task on this job, and it will be fun to make some more.

This week is fairly free for me to work on the business. Where it is too cold to do anything outside, I can do some computer work, and things in the house. A nerve is pinched in my shoulder and hurting all the way down my left arm, so it will likely be computer work for today, though even that hurts. Painkillers first!

It is coming up time for the clocks to spring ahead. 2A.M. on Sunday morning, March 10th is when to set the clocks ahead one hour. I guess that means that where I have been noticing light in the mornings when I wake up to take the kids to school, we will not have that anymore till the days get longer still.

Late in the ten-day forecast the temperature guess is 50F! That’s short sleeve weather here in Cache Valley. I am hoping this year it will also mean I want to mess around with the cameras and make some YouTube videos. Maybe watch out for that. Meanwhile, I will surely be enjoying the warmer weather, as I have looked forward to it because of how low our firewood started out this year. This house does not really need a daytime fire going when it is sunny, and the temperatures go above 35F. Open the front door to the porch, and enough heat comes in from there to take care of everything for the day. 50 will certainly exceed that and make the whole experience more pleasant. I can switch off the wall heaters, and that will cut the electric bill. No more worrying about if the pipes under the house will freeze. Shop days and milling days will be unrestricted if the rain and especially the lightning stays at bay. But even on a rainy day, that does not slow the shop work down! None of this is to show any sort of enthusiasm on my part, at all. No. None. Not at all.

My tractor is already approaching 500 hours. Seems high. I wonder if the meter reads correctly. It seems crazy that it has gone that high. I should dig out the old stopwatch and give it a test. It probably is correct though, as I have always held to the idea that if I was going to spend the money to buy such a tractor, I best use it. I can’t imagine how high the hours would be if I could plough with it!

Before I call this post done, I thought I better mention that the chickens have started laying again. I think it looks like about two of the birds that have got going. I will have to collect all of the eggs then set up a reminder to do it each day to get them fresh. I’d like to make some serious changes to how we raise chickens here on the farm, and really get selling the eggs. What we do with these old birds is just the beginning of figuring it all out. I need some more time out in the coop to come up with some ideas, and to figure out how to set up for a free-range flock to keep the costs down and the health up.

Hydraulic Fluid & Etc.

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.

Snow on the Mountains! Peachick!

I am sat down with a hot cappucino at hand and lip, and am reflecting on the day I had today. It was a good one! I have nothing to complain about. But there are comments.

First, I managed to keep the snooze button on any anxieties pressed till 6:00AM, then got up and got a good start after getting well rested. That made a nice change from the normal routine I follow! Then I took the girls to their school bust stop. After I came back, I got ready to face the day in the firewood yard down at the dump in the city. It was sprinkling a bit before I left, and on the way down that picked up to a decent rain. Breakfast at McDonald’s did not give it enough time to clear, and before I knew it, I had my snacks and drinks picked up and was sat in the woodyard, dreaming of those sunny summer days. Well, let’s be fair! I hate those sunny summer days for their heat, so I got out and got to it.

The first two logs I picked up were of a yellowish wood with white bark, and a decent smell of honey. I cannot identify it for sure, so I won’t try to say. I also got some willow, I think. It had the right type of bark and white wood, but there were no sprouts of any kind, so it may have been different. After loading some 3,000 pounds of wood I decided that was enough for the day and took off. I was not too sure of the weight till I hit the scales on the way out, so I decided to leave before I overloaded the trailer. Turned out I had a bit of room to spare. Not much, but some!

While loading wood I tried out the little device I made to fit over the top of the trailer’s front, top rail, and has a hook under it to hold the snatch block that the winch rope goes through. I built it because the chain never stays in the right position. This device worked perfectly, and made the whole job a lot easier because I was nto spending so much time preventing the rope from dragging through the second rail. That wears the rope severely. I have already broke one.

Happy with my device, and with my wood haul for today, I came home to help Missus with several things she had going on, then unloaded the trailer. That is a process that does not go perfectly, and I am still working out some kinks, especially to do with getting the log tongs to grab hold and let go when I want them to, as they are not mechanically driven.

I helped with a couple of short jobs while Missus was making a shepherd’s pie for supper, then went and got the girls from their bus stop. It was on the way there that I noticed that there was snow on the mountains! This is the first I have seen any for this year, and it sure made me want to go get more wood and get it all cut and split!

After a lovely meal, I went out to feed the chickens that I remembered were out of food. That’s when I found that another peachick has hatched, and the poor bird was getting tumbled by the chickens. I grabbed it up right away, and brought it in to Missus, as the peafowl are her project. It is now sat across the room from me under a heat lamp in a wash tub with a bit of wire mesh over top of it. It sure is noisey, and I think, quite healthy. We did not have luck with the lest couple that had hatched, so we are really hoping and trying to get this one off to a good start.

Now it is about an hour till bedtime, and I still have to get the rubbish out to the curb for pick-up tomorrow. Apart from that, I would like to relax a spell. It has been a busy, and really quite exciting day!

The Great Goat Escape

On my way back into the driveway from taking the girls to school yesterday I came around past the West gate and saw something out the corner of my eye. It was the billygoat taking a run at the Ford. Luckily he was tring to take out the wheel and not body panels. I went after him to get him to stop. Going after him is not a run and a chase. It is a gentle walk, and follow. He went through the electric fence and into the llama pen. That was good enough for the time, and I got a look at the fence on his pen to see just what had gone wrong.

The goat rubs himself against the fence as though he were trying to scratch himself, which maybe he is, and the fence slowy curls upwards over time between the posts, and from them where they are not pinned at the very bottom. To prevent this, I decided to attach some old hog fence from the pig days on the farm to the horse/goat fence on his pen. I attached it with wire to the fence and used it to curl the goat fence down again. The hog panel is very rigid and ought to stay from curling itself. As long as it keeps the goat fence from curling, then I should not have trouble with the goat escaping that way anymore. This project required I also repair the fence between the goat and the dog. They have been travelling freely from pen to pen for a few weeks now, and it has never been high enough a priority to worry about it.

Oh, and also, something that could be of benefit in the future for metal fence: I have a wire feed welder on order. It should be here on Thursday or so. It will be coming along with a Honda motor. My plan is to build a Cyclekart as a means of learning to weld, or at least as a purpose to learn it and try to do it fairly well. Watch this space. The welder is a multi-process welder, so can do stick, Tig, and Mig. I’ll be happy to do some flux-core wire feed. But the other options are there when needed, and to learn. I will probably send the current stick welder off with one of the kids. I have some repairs and upgrades to do on the trailers in the meantime, as well.

I was so tired after all the messing about with the goat pen, which took my full working day yesterday, that I must have laid down last night, and started to bring up YouTube on the bedside tablet when I fell asleep. I woke up again at almost 5AM and found the tablet in that situation still. It was a great night’s sleep!

Straightlines

Last night I brought my eight newly milled boards to the table saw to put a roughly straight line edge on them, then took them to the shop where I could use a #5 1/2 jack plane to make good on that line. They all stand in the shop against a rafter now, continuing to dry a bit out of the sun, and ready for me to put some more work into dimensioning them. Here is what I need.

The side of the barn in this location is good enough to repaint. There are other places where it would be bad practice to do so.

The boards are about 7 1/2 to 8 inches wide in a shiplap that has an angle at the deep tongue to allow water to flow off. The groove under the bottom lip is not too deep at only 1/2 an inch. It should not be too hard to make the boards into new ones, though I am a bit unsure of how much I can expect them to shrink along the width if I am to work them green and ready them to put up soon. I will of course go to the maximum width I can and put them up, though I may deepen that groove and allow for a bit more overlap, say 3/4 of an inch. I think that would be a no fail solution

When I nail the boards up, I figure it will be best not to put in many nails on the width of the board (top to bottom) so it can shrink. That should reduce the chance of the boards splitting.

The eight boards translate into about seven and a half once linear material is removed with bark on the sides that run too deep to remove when putting in the tongue and groove. Each board is about 9 feet long. I should net about 66 feet of boards, all poplar, to replace the bad sections on the barn. Shiplap should be relatively simple to remove and replace, something I think the old-timers factored in.

At $28.44 per piece, or $3.16 a lineal foot for 7 1/2 inch boards, the total value of the wood I have cut is $213.30. That is before it is shaped. The most similar shiplap sold at Home Depot is $210 without tax for the same amount, though it is sold in packages of six, and I would have to buy two of those, so actual amount is $280. But there would be three more boards. Those would require modifying as they are not really made for exterior use, as they have no angle at the bottom of the tongue and would collect water on a flat surface and rot. They are also pine.

My cost has to calculate the cost of the mill, the percentage of tractor use dedicated to wood milling, and saws and fuel and tools and so forth. I don’t charge me for my labor. Factor in that there is the truck and trailer to go get the wood, too.

What cannot be easily factored in is the most excellence of being able to take a log that was grown locally and make it into the wood necessary to repair holes in the barn. That satisfaction extends to the use of local material, DIYing, reducing waste, using slow growth trees, being old school, using hand tools, independence to a degree, and the development of personal skills.

It’s Amazing How Tired…

A fella can get from driving down to pick up a trailer, then another one. The trip was maybe 40 miles each way, but the driving and maybe the stress takes a toll on the old body. It is the arthritis playing me up, for sure.

But the point is, Missus has a new trailer to take to the Farmer’s markets, and I got one to put the tractor on.

A nice box trailer with a ramp on the back to make a mobile shop for Missus to use at the Farmer’s Market’s and out front of the house. This will allow her to set up a shop space without the month-to-month cost that I believe can kill a small business.

This flatbed trailer should help in many ways! It has stake pockets so I can build sides to keep long logs on it, and it has D-rings and ramps so I can load the tractor on it. I’d like to put a winch on it to load a dead car, truck, or tractor onto it.

Both trailers seem good, with solid jacks and decent LED lights. The electrical connectors are great compared to the other trailers I have, and the chains and spare tires are very nice. The rigs feel adequate for their purposes.

So, I suppose at this moment, I can hire out for tilling for spring gardens if anyone needs it. I should also be fine to do box blading, and post hole digging. I don’t really want to do junk haulage and have to pay out of my citizen’s account to unload at the dump for others. But I do want to get firewood and logs for milling on the trailer and bring them around to the house to work on.

So that’s where I think we’re at. We have more projects to handle now, since these trailers need a bit of customization to complete them. And right now, the mud is so bad, I cannot even take them to the back of the house or over to the designated trailer parking to get them off the front drive. It’s storms for the next few days, then we have warmer temps finally passing through! I’ll have plenty to do once the ground finally dries up!

Candle Making & Etc…

I have one of the crock pots full of wax and heating on the stovetop right now. The candle molds are waiting next to it. I have the wick out and ready to be cut then primed. My ten-year-old is doing her schoolwork, then she will be joining me to learn how to mold the candles for use. It is a part of her Homestead Economics class lesson. When these are done, we have the option of selling them, or using them ourselves. It is the using them ourselves that has me tempted to get some lovely bright candle lanterns from Townsends. Getting enough of them to be really useful would be expensive. But I would like them that much, and that is a thing.

& Etc…

I have not yet received any shipping confirmation on the sawmill. I still have not had any buyer’s remorse, either. I need to figure out where to put it, and I am working on ideas for that. If nothing else, I can put it on the other side of the street and have all the room I need to work all I want. I think if I had ordered an industrial mill, I would. But as a hobby mill, I think I would be more content with it on this side of the street, where I can use it with a bit more ease, and less of the officialness of leaving for work, as I would feel I would do if I were to cross the road.

A lot of my concern is the workflow of the mill. There will be logs to go in, lumber to come out, and off-cuts and sawdust to manage. I would prefer to use the tractor rather than a log deck to load the mill with. I want to stack the lumber straight into stickers, and onto bolsters. I think I have the flow worked out, and the position of things in relation to the mill itself. I guess I’ll have to go out with a measuring tape and confirm my ideas.

& More…

It snowed last night. WE got maybe 2 and 1/2 inches of it! Things were looking like they would clear up, and suddenly we are back under it again. Despite that, it was not a cold night. I burned wood, but not a lot of it. The temperature out right now is 36F. It feels fairly nice. That should tell all about the winter we had, when I was outside a bit ago in a short sleeve T-shirt and feeling quite nice.

According to the forecast, we are in a similar, though gradually cooling state till Monday. After that, the weather will come back up again to what it has been over the last week or so. It looks like we are on track for plenty of spring snow. I have no complaints about that. The more water that gets relocated to our area, the better things like hay prices ought to be. Really, everything else, too.

& A Little More

So, what’s the point of the mill? Part of it is living independently. It’s about being able to make whatever we need here on the farm rather than having to buy everything online. My arthritis is too bad to let me build a saw pit and saw lumber with a big old hand saw, but I can buy a mill, and saw trees down to boards and cants and posts, and whatever else I want. The wood species are a bit limited around here, but since I started splitting my own firewood, I have never run into having none of any kind. I have often had access to rather large logs and even whole trees. So why wouldn’t I want to take advantage of that? Furthermore, there are a few things that Missus wants that I am better off trying to build myself than looking for to buy. A single weaving loom of a certain size would cost as much as the mill did. A few smaller ones would certainly pay for it, too. So why not build it and make several and she can sell some? I also would be happy to operate as a neighborhood mill, making lumber for folks close by who need it. Small neighborhood operations are how the world once worked, and what we want it to come back to. We are trying to get to that.

Sawmill

If I were to open a business with a sawmill, I think I would be inclined to call myself “the Sleepy Sawyer.” It’s a name that makes sense. I think sawing logs is all I would do, day or night.

It is a possibility, you know. I did actually put a hobby grade sawmill on order and could do some light jobs to earn some of the money back. It is hobby grade, but it is large, and has a decently powerful motor to do the cutting. It is a Woodland Mills HM130Max. I did not get the trailer option, but instead got a bed extension that will allow me to cut longer logs with ease.

There is not much to say about it. It is a big bandsaw. I looked at Woodmizer, and I ran through the checkout process. What bothered me with it the most was that as I got to a total with a sensible breakdown. I would then press to the last step before putting in the card number, and it would suddenly raise the charge by $150 with absolutely no explanation of what it was charging me that amount for, and it being past the point of anything that should be charged. Woodland Mills simply did not do that, and charged half as much for shipping. It is made in Canada, so not America, but at least it is on the continent. I think we are allies, unlike all the stuff for sale at Walmart.

So, what’s a fella to do with a sawmill? Well, the first plan is to go get some wood for it. I have that all sorted out so long as the status quo has not changed. Then I need to build it a house. If I am successful with that, then a house for the log splitter would be great. Then the wood that I intend to saw and dry will require a house, too. As will the logs I intend to split. If that does not give me enough practice on sawyering, then I am not cut out for this at all. Ideally, I will then begin to collect lumber for future projects. All the sawdust will go to the compost bin. Scraps will go to the woodstove. That includes branches and the like. Lumber will be available to sell, or to use in my woodshop on furniture and other projects around the house. I like to think of myself as similar to Maddox Restaurant which has next month’s meals standing in a field that is only separated from the building by a butchery.

Is it my dream sawmill? For the price it is. What it lacks in hydraulics, my tractor has. It has an electric start. I have added a piece that raises and lowers the blade head with a motor rather by a had crank. Reviews have said things like “this is by far the best upgrade I have done to my saw,” and “saves a lot of shoulder pain.” Given my state of arthritis, I think it best to go ahead and do that. I added some blades, and the tools to sharpen and set the blades. With the extension on the bed to make the cut capability longer, I think I am pretty set for having spent the same as the second to entry level mill at Woodmizer. Plus, it promises to ship from the warehouse in about a week, whereas Woodmizer says three weeks or more. That should get me to work by the time spring becomes real.

So my next big task will be to empty the trailer out and go start collecting the wood I intend to put on the mill. Maybe excess lengths would be a good place to start collecting next year’s firewood. I will need to build a foundation for the mill once I figure out where I can put it and not disrupt Missus at work, and access the sides necessary to do the work from loading, cutting, unloading, storing, and cleaning up the sawdust. It would be ideal to cut and spray the dust straight into the compost heap. I have not got any of that worked out yet, and the mill may end up across the street.

End of February Update.

It is definitely still winter here at the farm. We have good chances of snow for most of the coming week. Looks from the weather radar that whatever does come will likely have to form, as nothing closer to the west coast seems to be heading our way. It was warm today, though! We got up to 38F according to our weather station.

The SDR Radio I got the other day worked as expected. I got it running that day and played around with it, then delivered the second one to the desktop computer upstairs but did not yet set that one up. It’s fascinating how it can read or see the whole spectrum, and portions of it visible at once to tell where different signals are and have a hint to what kind they are. FM Radio signals are amazing, especially where they have digital encoding on both sides of the frequency. Even stations without that digital encoding are amazingly powerful compared to the rest of the spectrum. I will have to work on reception and an improved arial.

The tractor reached 200 hours yesterday. That’s just shy of five months! I cannot believe we are coming up to five months of ownership already! It still seems new to me. Most of its work here has bene snow clearing, but as soon as the weather breaks to spring, I think it will see a total shift! I may move big snow piles into the orchard just to get the trees started for the year. I may have to move a lot of hay off the garden and start it for tilling. I want that space tilled four or more times prior to planting in May and June. There will be post holes to dig, too. I am going to have to reset some fencing and clear some old areas out. Then there is the firewood. I don’t expect to muck about with that this year, since I want to be two years stored by autumn, and since I want to have a load of wood to work with. I hope to see this whole area of my chores severely altered to what it has been in previous years.

I got the second GoPro camera that I have been thinking about. If I am going to do a YouTube channel, then this setup I have is good enough to do it with. I would benefit from a lavalier mic, but I have a separate sound recorder that can also do the trick for now. I’ll have to give it a try. I am having a card reader delivered so I can put one on my laptop and one on my desktop to unload videos and edit. I have tried out the GoPro cloud, and I am not terribly thrilled with any of it, apart from the discount they offer to users while shopping. I’d rather keep the filed local, I think. Then I’ll only upload final cuts to the Internet. I have yet to see any real advantage apart from having apparently all the space I need to keep every crap video file I make. That may turn out to be the seeds of a problem. But who knows? Maybe in the next few weeks I’ll get a video created and uploaded to the channel again.

Mondy is anticipated to be the day we have our deli slicer delivered. I have been wanting a proper one for many years now, and we have what appears to be a decent one on the way. It is a Berkel 300 Redline. I am a little worried about it after seeing the shipping details. For whatever reason, it is listed with a shipping weight of 122 pounds. I am having trouble believing that, but I worry that I believe wrong. I guess we’ll see what it is like when it gets here. But honesty, how can a home line slicer weight so much? Maybe they packed it in a wooden crate?

I have very few hand tools left in my wish list now. A shipment arrives also on Monday. It is just a few things, and while there are a couple more planes to be desired, I think I have enough to get a real start in my workshop. Spring will give us access to the barn for cleanup, and to rearrange our storage. I have a permanent wall to fix into the old garage door of my shop. That wall wants a window built into it for some heat and light. Missus has a kiln on order that also wants a home in the shop.

So, a lot is going on this year. I think we will be able to reach closer than ever to self-sufficiency. I have always said that it is a very expensive state to reach. On the upside, I am where I can start building some of the remaining tools I need. I am even considering building my own travishers. I’ll still have to buy the blades, but the handles and bodies will save me around $100 each. That’s not small potatoes. Small potatoes come from my garden.

There you have it! An end of February summary. That’s what’s going on, and where we are at, and where we are going for the moment. I am excited to be at the point in life where I feel like I finally have a life, and all the things that that entails. Having moved country twice and other events that have left me with next to nothing, it is a hard thing to recover from. But I feel quite like I have arrived. Everything else is just improving things up and building equity. For me, that’s a good place to be. Oh, and I am about two weeks short of my 52nd birthday.

Autumn Proper

The first week of November is already by, and I am already starting to lament the thought of that long period between Christmas and spring planting, when the seed catalogues come, and the season never seems to go. Everyone who lives with plants knows just what I mean. As for those with animals, unless they can afford plenty of hay, they will understand the anxieties I have right now about the amount of hay we have on hand, and how well the tarp is staying on it, or not. Anyone who survives the cold with only wood heat and limited access to the wood knows the other anxiety I am suffering right now. I know we could be a lot worse off in so many ways. It is just a part of the agrarian life that one lives with when each year one gets just enough to get by. I hope that during the coming year I will better this situation and get truly ahead.

I have got so much done in the past month since the tractor arrived that I am amazed. I am half done with the land bridge from the main property across the street to the other side of the swale at the bottom of the place. Once that is done, I will be able to wither carry on with the idea of planting trees along there and calling it Willow Bank, or I could let the livestock over to graze at their leisure and have about 4/10ths of an acre more land to feed from. It’s no small thing as that would support a cow for a while. Every little helps. But if we do the Willow Bank idea, it would be best to leave it as an untouched natural space for animals and picnics. Willow trees would just finish it over there, providing shade and play.

I went out to do some work in the shop yesterday but noticed the llamas giving attention to something at the bottom of the property. I could not see what it was, so I went over instead, and found three hounds had trapped a raccoon and were biting and barking at it. The raccoon was in a struggle, but I could not do much to interfere with frenzied dogs who would only ignore my pleas for them to stop and let it be. I checked with some people who I saw on the next property, but the dogs were not theirs. I went back and the raccoon was still alive, but had no fight left in it. I thought the dogs were being fairly inefficient at killing it, then realized what was going on. They had worn it down, then one bit on its throat till it choked to death. It was a maneuver that they could not have pulled off with the raccoon fighting back. It was a sad thing to see, but they were not my dogs and I could not stop them, and I did not want to get tangled up with a raccoon. If there are rabies, then I’d be the final victim. No thank you. I now know who’s dogs they are, but there is not much I can do about them, as they live close enough that unless they are going to keep their dogs permanently locked up, they will always end up over on ours. Also, we have had horses break lose and end up in their pasture before, too, so it is probably best to keep an understanding with these particular people. It was a raccoon. It was not one of my animals. But it does mean that I have limits to what animals I can keep over there, as small ones and waterfowl are probably out of the question. It is best as a grazing pasture.

I am nearly done setting up for a welder in the shop. I need to clean up in there, so I don’t set a fire or cause an explosion. I just need to install some gear I have got in order to plug the welder in, then I need to get some practice in. I have got me some learning to do. I put in all the electrics into the cottage for Missus, and now I am doing a bit of work on the shop. Much of it is done already, and things are working much better in there. For example, the air compressor is kicking on at full power now and runs without tripping a breaker. It sure feels a lot safer without worrying about all the power coming into the shop down a single extension cord from the house! That has also relieved a circuit in the house, too! The kitchen ought to run better, and we have finally closed that window on the front porch all the way. There is the door out there that could do with being replaced, and I think it will keep much warmer in there going forward from that.