Firewood Gathering – Page 3 – The Peasant's Manor Farm

So Nearly Spring!

It is almost Spring! Along with the recent time change, the weather is acting accordingly. There are geese in migration and there are other birds showing up, though I have yet to see my first Robin of Spring. The temperatures are warming up with higher daytime highs and nights that are not nearly as cold as they once were. The days after the time change come to sunset later than before, giving us more time to do our evening chores and walk the dogs without having to carry a light. Mud season seemed worryingly early this year, and I wonder if the ground will dry up before the sun warms the ground enough to start the pasture grass and trees. But we will have to wait and see on that still, as the dead grass from last year is now fully exposed, and nothing has even hinted at the blossom.

I have a couple of things on order from eBay and from a reputable antiques replicator that specialized in 18th century products. The first is a corn sheller from the late 19th or early 20th century. I want to grow and dry our own corn to give to the chickens. The one I have on order is in excellent condition. I hope to see it put to good use. From the replicator I have a cast iron cauldron, for fun, and a colonial candle mold, to make candles for my replica tin punched lantern that I received for my birthday. I am really excited about it! I remember first seeing one pictured in a history book in high school and swearing then that one day I would have one. Well, my birthday was finally that day! It looks as new as a Colonial American would have seen it the day he bought one in the 18th century. When the mold arrives tomorrow, I may just melt the wax in the cauldron and make me some candles. I will have everything I need to do it! By tomorrow evening I will be lighting the lantern for the first time.

There is a lot to rearrange here on the farm to carry on with plans we have talked about lately. Missus wants a shop to sell things from. I want a workshop to make things in. Both require a lot of work, and to accomplish them, I think we will need to arrange the layout of some of the internal fencing differently. We will also have to put some animals over the road permanently. In other words, I have a busy spring ahead of me. On top of it, there is the usual with firewood gathering. I need to get a lot of it before it warms up too warm to do such hard work. The splitting can be done any cool morning on the farm. But gathering is away, and just for that reason is inherently more dangerous. But while I am splitting, I can easily take a break, get a drink, and so on. Much safer as it is at home. It also does not require a long drive, so can be started and worked on any day of the week, rather than the days there is no school for the girls, and so on. We expect to be working wood in a new part of the yard, too, and I have to set up a good workspace. Time to review my workflow.

I have the shop reduced to just things that are supposed to be in there. There is a lot to clean up and find homes for, though. I don’t have the space I need for it all and will need to set up some sort of cabinets or workbench still. I would also like to get a jointer’s bench, if I can. I’d like to be able to work in the shop on nay day there is no power, just as well as on the days there is. There are a lot of ideas floating around in my head that will keep me busy redoing it for the whole summer, I’m sure!

With the nights only getting to the mid 20’s, and the days hitting the mid-forties, the house is lovely and comfortable, and easy to keep warm when it needs it. I am thrilled that there is still wood in the woodpile! It is not all well-seasoned, but in a pinch, it will do!

I am still adjusting to the time change. This may be why I am up so late right now. It is approaching eleven o’clock. It is best I get to bed. Tomorrow will no doubt be a bust day! The repairman for the dryer will finally come to replace a part in it. That has been two months in the ordering. I’ll be glad to get it in and be done with it.

Final Run Till Christmas!

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.

It’s Going To Rain, And Other Musings

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…

Listing Animals

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!

This Week On The Farm

This week we got some work done while the weather was cool. We did not do any specific projects, just some general work here. I suffered some sciatic pains, so that kept me from doing much for three days. But on Thursday I got a call from a farmer neighbor to come help him get hay from his field into his shed. I drove one of the trucks for a couple of loads, and took over the loader tractor when his daughter had to go to work. Yup, she was running it like a champ at sixteen years of age. I told her it was amazing watching her girl-power that thing around like an old pro.

Friday was a tired day, so I fought off the tired by going to get firewood. I expect this to be the last load of the spring, as the weather is getting awfully hot now. Now it is time to cut wood to length, and split it and stack it during the cool parts of the day.

We have been mulching flower beds, the herb garden, and the gothic garden. We have fought hard against weeds and grass that regrows where we try to clear and plant anything, including the vegetable gardens and the raised beds. Nothing seems to have worked, so we are giving up on much of it and putting down plastic and mulch to try to defeat it once and for all. Failing that, everything will be put into containers and kept on mulch beds. This place has always been fortunate where grass is concerned. I have burned holes right through the lawn, and within two years, it has recovered itself and looked like nothing has ever happened.

I took down the last of the raised beds in the front yard. That makes room to widen the parking on the driveway, and finish the circle drive we decided on a few years back. That will be completed once and for all when I get a tractor to do the job with. There is no doing that job by hand!

I planted the potato crop a little late when I did that this week. But it is fine since Missus likes New Potatoes. I am okay with that, too. as I suspect our growing seasons are getting longer anyhow, they will have time to finish up in the autumn. Enough, anyway! I put in a whole garden patch full of russet potatoes.

We have three 110 foot garden hoses on order to solve watering issues for the time being. I will put in a new frost free hydrant one day. Again, when a new tractor with backhoe arrives! Just one more of the many jobs I anticipate doing!

On Saturday, my primary job was removing weeds in the pastures across the street. I also put in the top wire on the fence that separates the front paddocks. That is the final assurance that the male llama won’t jump the fence and have his way with his sisters. I need to put a fence in at the back pasture to separate it into two paddocks. Maybe it would be good to divide the paddocks once again, eventually. I would like to see us doing rotational grazing with permanent paddocks. Then we can do better field management and hopefully get the grass in tip top shape.

The farmer I worked for this week came by on Saturday to deliver two bales of hay for our goats and the old llama that remains on this side of the street. We sat on the front porch of the granary and talked for a while. He is an interesting guy, and knows his work. It is always good to talk to him, and to learn what he knows.

During the coming week I need to get some mulch to finish the bed in front of the house. I also want to see about some gates that would better suit the front drive, and move the ones we have to the canal access. That would finally put a good gate across each end of the canal access that would be easy to open and close, keep the animals safe, and allow me to hang No Trespassing signs directly on the gates. There are people around here who assume that because the canal path goes through our property, so can they. It is not the canal’s property, and I do not have to grant access to anyone but the canal company’s people. I don’t think it is a general disrespect that leads people over our land, just an unawareness.

You may have heard that there is a drought in the Western United States. It is true. We are expecting temperatures in the 90’s for at least the coming week. I checked our weather station, and it was 97 this afternoon with a humidity level of only 1%! The place is a tinder box! I am sat with my kids right now, fans running, drapes drawn, the place as cool as we can keep it with no air conditioner. I have seen old trees from around here that have been cut down, and they show in the rings that prior to around the turn of the millennium, the weather in the valley was wetter. I should confirm that on the weather records! It would be interesting to know for certain. I wonder what the future holds? After a year of Covid, I am less certain and more determined to make the best lives we can on our little farmette.

Giving Up On The War Against The Grass

We are uniquely cursed here on our place. We have grass growing here that I cannot remember the name of, but it is a blended type that when cut short serves as a wonderful lawn, and when left to grow long serves as an equally lovely pasture. It is a curse because I have burned holes through it with burn pits, I have tilled it to death, and I have even in the distant past used grass killers on it in places. In every instance, within two years of letting up these attacks, the lawn has been back, and by the start of the third year, the place where it happened has been completely indistinguishable from any undamaged part of it.

This is a great place to be if your life is about your lawn, and cheap upkeep, or if it is about grazing cattle, and you want an easy pasture to keep.

It is not so great when your wife wants a flower bed, and so you till and prep and cover and till again, and by the end of the year the flowers have all but succumbed to the weeds, and are followed the next year by a lawn that will choke out even them.

We have put in raised beds with no bottoms, we have put in raised beds with cardboard bottoms, and we have put in raised beds with plastic bottoms, and the grass has come up through and overgrown the tops of the beds. I have pulled raised beds out again, too. I am in the process of doing that, now. The only place where we have succeeded has been where the raised beds have been covered at the top with cardboard or plastic and mulch. We have done a fair job of keeping the grass at bay with those efforts. So that is the direction we are looking now.

So this year we begin anew with a different approach to the flowers. We have a couple of beds where we have flowers coming up through plastic, and mulch all over that. We also have purchased half barrel shaped plastic tubs that will sit on beds of plastic and mulch, filled with flowers. It is not necessarily the look we would like, but then, neither is “pasture choking petunias to death.” It is just too grim.

I have a bed right in front of the house that I would like to till, surface with the appropriate slope, cover in plastic, and mulch today. It is not too big, so that should be an attainable goal. There are five tubs for that space. I am not going to win against the now two Russian Olives growing there, but I suppose I can trim them back till I can get my dream tractor with a hoe, and dig out the stumps.

There is work to still be done in the herb garden, but we have got to the point it could be easily said it is half way done. We were working out a watering solution for it yesterday, then I went with a shopping list to the stores down in Logan, and while I was at one of them, I spotted a pair of copper-toned sprinklers that were about three feet tall, and decorative, almost Celtic, and got those to put up in the garden, along with feeder hoses that worked out really well. I could not decide between a green one and a red one, so I got one of each, and while I had other plans for them, they worked for the sprinklers to the point that the green one now sits across the grass, and the red one across a mulch bed of nearly the same color. I could not believe it.

We have a space under the kitchen window that needs doing, and against the back of the garage where Missus would like a she-shed, or a space where she will be able to sit outside and work in the future. By, ‘in the future,’ I mean after that noisy goose finally dies of ole age! But then, a quick Google search suggests that he may be with us for another 20+ years… Maybe it is time for him to move to the water across the street! Apparently he is not like to leave us anytime soon.

With the flowers in place in the spots I have discussed, I think that planting season is about done here. If anything is to get root, and flourish it needs to have been in by now, or at least sooner than we can afford more. I can see a couple more trees going in, and I will be putting in the potato starts in either today or tomorrow. I have about 330 feet of potato rows to plant into in 11 rows. I may be out doing that tonight at sunset, or after, when it is cool. I know it is getting late in the season, but that is fine, as Missus prefers New Potatoes anyway.

We have a short, almost cool spell on us till around Friday, so it is a good time to get some mess cleaned up and sorted out. I would like to see the girls and myself picking up firewood down at the Logan City Dump on Friday. I am pretty sure we are all stocked up for the coming season, but I would like to get a trip or two in before summer’s weather is hot in earnest, and then go back down again in the autumn for the rest of the following year’s supply.

Our rejected goat has been staying in the duck run, and making friends out there in the daytimes, and coming into a crate in the house at nights. We are bottle feeding her milk from the fridge, same as we drink. In the days since we brought her in, she has started walking correctly, and even becoming more playful, and she has gotten fatter across the mid section where he backbone was starting to show before. She likes to follow us around in the house. It looks like she is becoming a part of our family! She’ll have to go back out with all the other goats when she is better, and when she is big enough to take a full hit from her mother and either withstand it with no problem, or even deliver it back to her.

More Firewood At A Great Price

I was so worn out yesterday when I woke up, and did not feel much up to going to get firewood. I was up late the night before talking to our oldest as he was down to pick up the two vehicles he had left in our field over winter when he thought he was going to have to move house. It was good to see him, and to catch up! He towed the first one off first thing in the morning, and while he was away, I gathered up the girls and went on down to get the wood anyway!

There are scales on the way in and on the way out at the city landfill, so I was able to weigh the truck and trailer both times, and we had an increase of 3,200 pounds between entry and exit. So I figured that that was my exercise for the day, lifting that into the trailer! Well, almost. I got more than half out again when I got home.

Firewood can be a lot of hard work. But at fifty, I need some kind of exercise, and let’s face it, most forms people participate in bore me with their constant repetitions and gym views. My hips will not allow me to go running, and cycling is bad for me because that one; that one is hard to turn around and go home in time from before the sun sets. I do love me a good bike ride with lots of sun, air, and scenery! Failing that, I will lift firewood, and move it around, which I do enjoy!

The price down at the landfill is still a pretty good one. Free! I will hate the day they decide not to do that anymore. I am remiss telling about it just because who wants the demand for the wood go to up?

I pick up whatever wood I can find there. If it is too fresh, I will just put it on the pile to season for next year. If it is dry, I will put that in the pile to start burning this year. I have the space and set-up to do it. When I cut from the mountains, I loved getting maple wood, because it burned longer and hotter than the other species up there. The heat from the stove could be described as being of a higher quality from maple wood. It felt like it radiated from it better, and more intensely than the other species. I see people down at the landfill fretting over what kind of wood is best to burn, and if they should get this or that, laying about down there. I have been asked what burns the best. My answer is that any of it will burn better than my furniture will! I’ll take what I can get to fill the quota. This is the main heat source in my house all winter long, and I sometimes cook with it, and I can do so many other things with nothing more than a radiant box of fire, that having the wood to burn for the whole of winter is far more important than what kind it is. Yes, I would love it it someone would drop a whole maple grove down there for me to pick up. It is extra work, usually, but it is worth it! The branches and trunks are usually smaller, and require a bit more sawing and splitting, but that heat quality is really that much better. But I will gladly take any heat over none at all. I have been there, done that.

I moved the feeder in the pasture yesterday to get it away from the gate. It was right next to the gate, and the horse would come along and stand there and block the gate, even when there was nothing in it. That got to be too much to deal with, as I want access to the pasture without having to fight her off. She is not of the same disposition she was when she was younger, and even then, it was pretty spirited. But now, her go to response to any interaction is to threaten to kick. I brought with the new lunging whip yesterday, and that made a huge difference! She remembers the sound if that!

If you are not familiar with the tool, don’t panic, when I first moved into the country, I was not either. While it is called a whip, it is never used to strike the horse. It makes a sound that the horse can hear, and it can be directed. I bought a bright yellow one, so it could also be easily seen, and it allows me further reach than trying to run around after the animal. This lets me get control over her better than just standing there openly exposed. She will keep a distance, and the kicking behavior is much less of a threat. It is true she could use a lot of time in a round pen establishing a relationship, but we just don’t have one, so I have to just use the whip for keeping control and maintaining safety. I am no horseman, admittedly, but I have this one old mare that needs me to keep a sound human/horse relationship with her.

So the pasture is clear of the two old vehicles that were being stored in it, just as promised, and right on time, too. I have got to give out kid credit for being a man of his word on that. I doubt he will ever understand just how important that is to me. Folks live and die in my estimation of trust based on their word, and if they will keep it. He said he would have them out by spring, and he did. I am so proud of him for that.

So that is a basic roundup of what has gone on here this week, and what we have been up to. We are going to be sorting out some of the herb garden during the next few days. There is a little shopping to do, and a lot of work! Frankly, I think I would prefer the shopping! But this is the life we lead!