Category: Mud Season

The Last Tuesday of March, ’24

The garbage bins did not get picked up on Friday, and I did not want to let them sit another day as they were full, so I loaded them into the trailer along with the aluminum cans and any other rubbish that I could fine about and readied the trailer for a trip to the dump. To travel in the county with solid waste, one must cover their trailer with a tarp to help prevent anything blowing out on the roadways. I had to change the hitch on the truck from the heavy load hitch to the light duty one. Once that was done, I aligned the trailer to the hitch, lowered the tongue of the trailer, then locked the clip, only to find that the locking clip was missing. It took a bit to find a reasonable substitute, then I took off and went right to the farm store to get a replacement for the missing clip.

Once that was sorted out, I went to the dump to drop off all the garbage and throw out some of the debris from the truck. That went quick and was easy. I checked with them if they would do firewood, but they did not offer it. I didn’t bring any oil or anything, so it was easy and off to the salvage yard.

At the salvage yard it was also even easier. There was a guy there to help out! 56# of cans netted me $20. Nothing else there, I was right back home to help out with some of the tax work we needed to get done before soon. It was after we finished that for the day that I got out and did some chores.

I fed the livestock and removed the trailer from the truck as well as moved the trailer back into the house yard so I could secure it within the gates.

After all that, I was beat and needed to sleep off some of the arthritic pain and such, so I talked the kids into a DIY supper and letting me have a bit of a nap. It didn’t last long, but it was enough to knock the edge off, and that helped. Now it is time to do an evening and hopefully relax ready for tomorrow. More to do then, of course!

Hey, the weather was amazing today. It sleeted several times, most of the time I was outside for the first half of the day, as fate would have it, but it was on and off, and looked amazing interspersed with sunlight. What a show our mountain valley put on for us today! It is muddy out again, and I sure miss the dry earth we had last week, but it is not deep mud, so that is a great thing!

Not Winter-like

Taken just last week while waiting for the girls to come out to get a ride to the bus stop for school. Not cold enough to snow overnight.

These winter nights get down to the low 20’s, mostly. But there is seldom snow. We have had rain overnight lately. The days light up and the temperatures come to the high 30’s and sometimes even the mid 40’s. I have said for a while that this place would be more tolerable if the temperatures were more like Denver when I was growing up near there in the 1980’s. This year it has been trying it on.

Snowfall has been minimal. What has come down lately has melted quickly, and the older stuff from earlier in the year has left some remnants, especially where the snow has been piled up from clearing driveways. Rain and snowmelt has kept the ground muddy. I worry about the tractor getting stuck in the mud, especially in the Service Yard and the area of the driveway right in front of it. Water has trapped there, and the mud is deep.

So this winter’s conditions are such that the firewood is lasting despite being a minimal pile, but the ground does not support outdoor work due to this being an ancient lake bottom. A few days have got warm enough to put a fire in the stove in the shop and work out there on a couple of small projects. Based on the time of year, it won’t be too long till I can easily be out there daily. It certainly doesn’t feel right for having just passed mid-winter a little over a week ago. That is what makes everything a bit uncertain! Really, we could dive into typical cold weather or be inundated with typical spring snow.

I had a look online yesterday for arial photos of our place and found some as early as 1956. That showed where a couple of buildings once were on our property. I’ll be using the information to do some metal detecting later this year. There was one out on this side where I have found some metal last year by the northwest corner of the garden space. There was actually two across the street. One looks like a garage right about where the gate is now. I’ll like to look again to see how far from the roadside. In the 1956 photo the swale at the bottom of the pasture at the back of the property across the road was fresh dug with nothing growing on top of the piles of excavate. It was only by the 1974 image that the house was set on a single acre of land this side of the street. The property over the road has evolved a bit over the years with what looks like a small dwelling and a stand of trees right across from the house, but at the back, by the canal. It’s all interesting stuff, and I am glad I happened upon the sites that host these photos.

The wood pile seems like it will last till spring. We are not burning as much as we would normally be this year. I am not sure it would be too much trouble to go down and get more wood if I needed to. I am not panicked about it. I do worry about how hot this summer will get, but all we can do is ride it out and see.

A Lovely October Day Working

It has been a day of work and family down on the farm today. Our second son came by and helped out with the wood again, and it was very welcome help, for sure! There was a distraction from getting started, and I should have seen to it before we walked out to the log pile and started the splitter.

First things first, I sent the kids off to school. After coming back from meeting the bus I back dragged the driveway where there is a bit of mud in a couple of places. Always good to have a flat drive, and the weather promises to be in the 60’s and 70’s this week.

The distraction was the cardboard in the trailer. I suggested we could either throw it out on the ground temporarily, or we could go up to his place and get all his cardboard, take it all to the recycling bin, then come back with an empty trailer and get started on the wood. He took that option. When we got to the bin with all the cardboard a whole heap of wasps started circling one of the big boxes from his house and confused us because he has kept is cardboard inside, and it has not been there that long. Made no sense that wasps would build a house so quickly this late in the year. I grabbed the box and tossed it in the bin, nonetheless. It was only then that I realized we would be stopping into the salvage yard next door to drop off the broken microwave that I had dumped in the trailer at the very beginning of loading it a week or so ago.

At the salvage yard the guys there were friendly and helpful as always. When asked if we wanted it weighed, I passed as it was not going to net enough to walk in and collect on. There is only so much worth actually dealing with.

We came back to the house, and I took the trailer with the tractor to the back and set it down next to the end of the log splitter. Then I began the job of picking up the wood with the tractor to set it on the log splitter, rather than lifting it all by hand and back. Most importantly by back! I lift it all in the bucket and then use the bottom of the bucket as a table even to the table height of the splitter.

Son kept his self busy splitting as fast as he could, and tossing the readied logs into the trailer to carry around to the log bunk all in one go.

When it got close to time for him to want to leave to get ready to pick his son up from school I suggested we stop a little early so he could go visit with his mom a bit first, rather than run in, run out, and go. He wanted to do that rather than get in trouble with her.

After it all, I rested a spell as I was still tired from all the work. Happily, I was muscle tired, and the bones are well today. I Am thrilled about that! I got the girls from the bus stop, ate supper, then took a nap.

The evening found me putting water out for some animals that had run low, and getting a couple of huge logs from the front of the service yard, as I might was well get them processed and burned so I can clear up the service yard. It is getting to be a mess in there, and it really doesn’t need to be. Far from!

It’s 8:00PM now, and about time to start looking forward to bed. I need to get ready to do more wood processing tomorrow, and hopefully even get some boards sorted out for the long ends of the rabbit hutches. I have the water carrier ready out front so I can go fill up some more animal troughs. I suspect there are a couple who could use a top up. I am also informed that we are down to one gallon of milk in the house, and that the whole corn in the feed bin is about gone. There are two more jobs to get at as soon as I can.

So that’s it for today. Time for this old man to go wind up his day before bed.

The Mud is Gone!

The mud has gone from all parts of the yard. Some patches had to be buried to vanish them, but after I did that with the tractor, I let things sit a couple of days and then gave it a go in the garden with the tiller. I was able to till without striking mud or sinking down too mauch anywhere. This morning I tilled the whole garden space again with the back flap on the tiller dropped all the way down, and it levelled the garden pretty good!

We had a gopher digging back in the orchard next to an apple tree. Yesterday I dug down and found the opening to his den and stuffed a pipe into that. Then I closed everything off again around the pipe and stuck the other end of it into the tractor exhaust pipe. I let that run till it was too hot to hold anymore, and then shut it off, pulled the pipe, and sealed the den. No more fresh tailings in front of the den this morning. I suppose that instead of eating the tree’s roots, the tree is going to be fertilized off the gopher.

I worked in the shop a bit today. The workbench by the south wall is finished for the time being. I only need to get a couple of fixtures and some bulbs to put some lights above it. I am happy with how it came out. I am happy that I got it pretty much the same height of the main workbench across from it, so i can span larger items from one to the other. I do need to get some electric power to it. I’ll be setting up my beeswax melters over there, and an oven to reseason my cast iron, too. That will get the stench of that chore out of the house, and make it easier if I find myself stripping old seasoning off the iron first.

I just have a lot of stuff that could use a home out of the workspace.

Missus is setting up to run an at home business with quite a few possible products. We have got a 60 inch loom set up now, and there are a lot of thigns she wants to make on that. We also have a potter’s wheel and a kiln set up, ready to start throwing. We both have lathes, and plenty of other tools for making all manner of things. I still need to get the sawmill set up. But that will come soon. It is getting time to get firewood going, and some wood to saw. It is also getting time to get the llamas shorn. We have busy days ahead of us!

The kids are finished up with their homeschooling. They will both be going to public school in the autumn. One is accepted to the school we wanted, and we are still waiting for a reply for the other.

This summer brings a whole change of pace for us here on the farm. It ought to be an advanture! With us both trying to earn here at home, nothing will be the same again.

Water Levels Going Down!

It is snowing as I type this. The forcast calls for less than 2 inches total. What’s more, the water in every pond, puddle, and place water can sit on our property has gone down by maybe three inches or so since yesterday. Then, apart from a splash of rain forecast for Monday it is at worst partly cloudy skies for the coming week or more. So I am not going to let myself feel as though we are getting any consequential setbakcs with what will fall. Not to compare this to a glass is half full situation as in our case, the glass is finally half empty, and things are improving as it goes down!

What’s more, I recieved the hydraulic toplink for the tractor this morning. There is some prep work to do to it before I put it on the tractor. It is a simple installation, so it should be easy. That will allow me to change the angle of attack on the boxblade, allwing me to either dig into, or smooth out the mud. I would prefer to smooth it. It shoudl also improve the angle when using the scarifiers to pull rock up on roadbase or gravel drives. Not that I have any, or anywhere near enough.

The winter storm advisory is now replaced with a precipitation alert that goes till 1:00PM, so there’s no telling that will really come of it, but I don’t think much.

The Mud Situation

The weather relaxed this evening, though we are meant to wake up to snow again tomorrow morning. I got out a bit this afternoon and hada go at the start of the driveway towards the backyard with the tractor. I was able to smooth some of it down and make it almost passable. But the quicksand bed is still there, lingering half way back towards the backyard.

The middle of this photo is a bed of quicksand. As soon as I drive the tractor past where my footprints lead up to, in it goes. I suspect that it is deep enough to bury even my back wheels if I get into it.

So the drive is much smoother and more stable now leading up to the patch where I get that sinking feeling. I was able to scrape some of the earth that had been pushed out to the side of the drive back into it with the box blade. I then smoothed with a backdrag. I was even able to get back to another pit at the entry of the Service Yard, but that is only a place where I have to drive past, and quite close to the pit, I might add. I don’t think I will be going into the Service Yard for some time yet, as there are a couple of quicksand pits in it.

The water here is the first place I lost my tractor into the mud.

The water inbetween the gates is the spot that brushes so close to the main driveway, and also threatens to swallow my tractor whole.

Here is the water from the previous picture and the driveway area that I was able to smooth out. It is a close call as some of the drive had been collapsing into the water, but a bit of fresh, relatively dry dirt was able to shore it up some.

Finally, once I can get the tractor to the back of the property, this is what awaits me where the animal feed has been kept. There is no good way into it till the water recedes from the farm behind our house. Every approach to the hay has been waterlogged and the tractor has sunken into it. All I can do is get close enough, then hand carry the bales to the loader on the tractor and carry it from there.

This is all a mental note to self not to put the hay back on the garden spot again. I need to gravel the drives, and the spots I intend to park and move about with the tractor, and I need to gravel a spot to rest the hay on. This place has clearly not worked!