Mowing along the side of the road is very satisfying. It makes the land look well kept and requires only a little time and effort on the riding mower.
We own land on the opposite side of the street from our house. The house in the middle of this photo takes out a cookie bite from our llama pasture.
In addition to a clean looking place, it helps to keep the weeds from taking over, and lets the grass grow lush, and thick.
Hedwig is our youngest, most eager male llama.
The llama has less motivation to try to get through the fence if there is short grass on the road-side of it. The fence is a five wire electric fence, so it is usually not a problem, but if it grounds out, I may find out about that when I find the llama in the road, which is not ideal.
Two rows wide, this pile of rounds is what I picked up on Friday, giving us a decent little start to the year’s supply of firewood.
I picked up firewood on Friday, and when we unloaded it, it make a pile of rounds two rows wide. I think we must have got 3/4 of a cord or so. I am also cutting into some large trunk pieces laying in the field across the street, finally cleaning it up over there, and giving us wood that is dry, and ready to burn.
I used the riding lawnmower to test a concept, and cut some of the field on the back of the pasture down to three inches in length. It should be easy to find. It is in the form of the word “hi.” Maybe Google will give our greeting to the world this year!
Early last year I was tilling away in a llama pen to try it out as a garden space. We grew some corn in it, but did not have the luck I had hoped for. Anyhow, when I was done tilling, I noticed the pile of hay that had been left on the ground in the gateway, so I decided to level it off with the tiller as I passed through at the end of the job. Well, darn the luck, I hit the jumper wire that carried the current for the electric fence from one side of the gate to the other. That killed a small section of fence between the llamas and where I have their hay stacked a couple of feet in front of their pen. Low priority repair to make, especially as it was spring, and the llamas were just moved across the street.
Fast forward to today, new bales of grass hay are stacked in that spot, and the grass across the street is not long enough to support the llamas at this time. When I went out to get the hay for animal feeding, I noticed a sizeable chunk missing from the bottom bale. Our brown and white llama, Flossy, stuck her head through the fence and partook right there in front of us! Priority repair now!
The fence left of these gates was not electrified because the wire that jumped from the right to the left was cut by the tiller. This is a better view of what my guilty llama was doing, pushing through the fence wires and eating into that bottom bale.
My eight year old got a lesson on voltage and amperage, and what the job of an insulator is as we put in a new jumper wire under ground from one side of the gate to the other. We put tension back on the fence, too, and then turned the electric back on and sat and waited a few minutes till Flossy returned to the scene of her mischief.
It did not take long till Flossy came back to rob more hay. She put her head through the fence, then stepped forward. When her neck finally pressed hard enough for the fence wire to reach through her fiber and into her skin, she twitched a little, then pulled back, put her head up, then shook it. I don’t think she liked the bite of the fence, but she does like hay though, so she tried again with the same result.
This is what a mischievous llama looks like; well, up close, anyhow.
We knew then that it would work, so we packed up our tools and put them away. That served as a first part of little one’s homeschool lesson for the day, and then we came back out to go through her flash cards with her sight words on them. She got through them fairly well, and not once were we distracted by a llama trying to get through an electric fence to get to the hay. That means it is working properly, and doing its job.
Summer’s are hot and working in the garden is miserable in the heat. The cool of the evening does not last long enough before it is too dark, so I have been eying up a lantern to light up the work after dark. Gardening can be done quietly, unlike working with the log splitter, so it is reasonable to want to do it after dark, when it is late. Just take a nap in the day, when it is too hot, and work like mad into the night. I wanted a Coleman lantern, but did not want yet to lay the money out for one.
Yesterday we went into Logan to see the antique stores, and on one of the shelves I spotted a new looking Coleman! And it was less than $20! We had the cash, so we got it, and I have brought it home, looked up the direcions and some how to repair videos that really showed me what’s inside and how to get things working, and between them, I figured out how to work it, and what appeared to be wrong with this one. The man at the shop said it would probably need a new leather in the pump, but by the time I got this thing apart and looked over, and the “fix” done, I realized that even though it was a 1973 lantern, it was in new condition. It looks like it may have been light once or twice, only. It needed new mantles, and I have them coming, but it is doing exactly what it is supposed to be other than being light.
So, I am excited to have this one bought and out of the way! I am also excited to have picked it up, then found others, looking much worse in another shop, for more than twice the price.
1973 Coleman 220H
I wished I looked as good when I was 48 years old! But then again, I don’t think this lantern has gotten as much use.
