Normal Life Updates – The Peasant's Manor Farm

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.

Christmas Report 2023

Time for an early winter’s nap. We had the kids around last night and this morning for our Christmas celebrations. They have grown so much and are learning the importance of family over gifts and that is very gratifying. Still, we shared gifts and time last night and today. They have gone now, and we had a little while to relax a bit and enjoy the quiet. The evening drew closed in single digit temperatures. Now that winter has come, we are feeling more like the normal cold we experience this time of year. The autumn will always be remembered as the warmest we have experiences so far.

I got the girls and Missus each an alpaca blanket. The boys each got an external hard drive with all the photos I could find on my computer from their early days back in England. They are old enough now not to squirm and complain about how embarrassing the photos are. They were very happy about it, and both expressed excitement and anticipation for the contents of the drives. I am thrilled to have given them the photos and let them have their memories from those days before. The older one said he didn’t really have any proof that he grew up in England till now. What a laugh.

Our oldest also said he might like to have a go at building a dining room table for his house. I’ll have to keep an eye out for a decent type of wood to make it from. It would be nice to find him something other than poplar.

The day is over now, and tomorrow we will celebrate Boxing Day before we get back to normal for the season. I am looking forward to that! I also will say, I looked at Facebook for about a minute or two. No interest in that. So, I checked out again.

Next thing to come along now is the New Year. We are a quarter of a century after 1999. That is amazing! I really cannot even believe it.

Off to sleep now.

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.

Firewood and Car Trouble

I was feeling wonderful today, so I got out and worked on the firewood that needed cutting and splitting. I was nervous about the chain on the saw because I know I did not sharpen it evenly. Still, it cut fantastically, and I was able to get through the logs with great speed.

Once the logs were to length, I picked them up with the tractor bucket in threes, then use that to table them next to the log splitter. The splitter is right next to the bunk, so every piece was put right into it when it was done. It took a lot longer than I would like to have for the amount I split, which is due to the speed of the log splitter. I could do with a faster one.

After the splitting, I went in and Missus and I washed the dishes and dried and put them away. I helped her out with some of her artwork after that. She finally went for an afternoon nap, and I rested before picking the girls up at the bus stop.

I had a nap after getting the kids home, and just woke up. I am looking forward to what I an get at tomorrow if things persist. I had a nasty bout of me rheumatism on Saturday, but today was one of those, “So this is what it feels like to feel normal,” kinds of days!

We are down a car thanks to the design of the engine block on our Ford. It started off by overheating. Then it continued and did it more frequently. I am all done with that because I have turned it in to the salvage yard rather than pay the $9,000 they wanted to repair it. So, because of this, my 15 year old daughter and I are meant to go to the city on Friday for a doctor’s appointment then go car shopping.

Nearly Done with the Rounds

I got out today kind of mid-morning and started splitting the rounds in the Service Yard. Got a break when the kids came over to pick up our grandson from us where he had spent the night. That was good times as always. After they left, I got in a short nap and went out later in the evening to get at it again. I think I could fill the bucket on the tractor three more times, maybe four and that would be it.

When I finish the rounds I am on about, I will be picking up all the little pieces that are from branches and from mill slabs and sorting them out in the woodstove bunk or in the fireplace bunk, as I keep two separate collections of wood because each appliance can take a different length of wood. I also prefer to budget what goes into the fireplace as it does not produce as much heat, and us used more for ambiance than for heating with. Who’d want to burn up their firewood on a fireplace and not have enough to get through the winter and stay warm with the woodstove, which definitely produces more heat?

I am fixing to get the wood covered soon and get milling the logs out back, too. I still need a couple of cords of firewood, but it is not a complete disaster now that our son helped us split up as much wood as he did. I think I could get to it before the snow starts falling as long as I put my effort and mind into it. I might get the splitting done tomorrow, but there is another chore to get at then.

I need to finish that rabbit hutch, which will require planing a board down tomorrow. I want to do it in the electric planer and get the thickness just so. I’d like a nice finish on this hutch, with the hope it will last many years to come.

I have wood set aside in the shop to make a butcherblock style top of our kitchen island. I admit it is poplar, but that is what I was able to find for free down at the dump where I get my firewood. I have heard of people finding black walnut down there, but I have yet to actually see a log. So, the poplar will do. I am still trying to figure out if I will do a smooth finish on it or give it the scooped plane finish with a scrub plane. It would make it interesting and fairly easy to repair cuts and scratches on. I’d plane everything down to a consistent thickness with the power planer and then glue up and add the scrub plane finish, then top it with some Odie’s oil. That’s what I am thinking at the moment, anyhow. I think I would aim for a two-inch-thick top. I am pretty sure I have nine-quarter heavy. If memory serves me. Or I could walk out and measure it. Nah. I’d get sucked in when I would rather go to bed soon.

Maybe I’ll just do a smooth finish. Who knows?

I finished most of what I needed to do in the trailer for Missis to use as her little shop. I’ll have to make her some more quarter round, I am sure. I also need to frame in a pegboard that is next to her register desk. But those are easy and won’t inhibit her from getting the thing done and open. Hooray!

Kids and Firewood

Today was a fantastic day on the farm. Two of the kids were down to the house with their wives. It was great to see them all! It was well timed too, in the sense that it was rainy today, and there was no working outside. We also had a delivery today that required us to take the front-most door off the house, and it was good to have help with that from our second, even though he was hopping along on a bad ankle.

So did I do anything sensible and go out to the shop to work, as it has a roof on it, and rain is no excuse? No. I did not. It was a restful day instead. We put a fire in the woodstove, and I worked on an “About Us” for Missus’ website. It is hard to get the text together to tell a story about us when one must decide what to include, what to exclude, and what to emphasize and what to only mention. There is a lot to our story, but not all of it is relevant to the business or the ethos behind it. I think what we need people to do is come to the “About Us” section in order to ‘get it’ on what we are all about. I will try a draft later with that in the front of my mind and see what I can come up with.

With the rain coming down yesterday and today, I have been off from the firewood work. I have got the trailer empty of it, and once I take out some garbage in that, I will be ready to go out back and fill it again for more stacking. It is important I get that pile of wood out by the sawmill cut down and split so I can see how much we actually have, and how much more I need to go get. The bunk is still less than halfway full, and that is a concern. But I will say this of it; the wood is mostly up to length, about 19 inches. The lengths are consistent, and because they are, the stacking has gone better this year than any gone by. I have several rows stacked up to just more than 6 feet high, and none of it wobbles like it is going to tip over. I think when the wood out back is split up and stacked, the bunk for winter will be about 3/4 of the way full, not necessarily including the middle aisle, which I normally don’t fill, but this year plan to because we always seem to come up just a little short.

I am trying a new burn in the stove this year. I am putting in two cookie cut pieces at the bottom, then stacking some split logs on top and doing a top-down burn. I tried it today. It went on for maybe eight hours before I put in more wood on top of some of the charcoals. It lit right up and burned on nicely. The point of it is to get a longer burn time out of the wood, especially for those overnight fires that keep the chill off the house and keep the pipes from freezing. It was promising today. I have seen a few people on YouTube lately that recommend a top-down burn for longevity, though they don’t agree on the way the wood is stacked for it. The primary difference being if the split logs are packed front to back or side to side in on top of the cookie pieces. I went front to back, perpendicular to the air inlet pipes because that direction fits the long logs better, and I am not going to recut the whole pile I have outside this year. I could cut shorter one’s going forward though. But then I would have to take long ones for hot burns and shorter ones from elsewhere in the bunk for long, fast burns.

The weather is clear tomorrow and beyond. It is time to get the work done I owe Missus in her shop, then get this wood done!

Back to School

We have been so busy getting so little done lately. Sometimes that’s how things seem to go. There is a lot that needs to be done, and there is a lot that we are doing. But does it feel like we are getting caught up? No. I guess that’s just the way things go.

We got the girls registered for their respective schools yesterday. Our youngest has not been in public school before, and the oldest has not been in for the last five years or so. Hopefully this is a good choice for them. We got them into a district next to our catchment area where the classes will be smaller and they should have the opportunity to know everyone well, and for their teachers to give them the attention they should be getting in an educational setting.

So that is the close of an era for me. I have had a kid at home for homeschooling every year since 2006. Seventeen years! Now, at 52, I have to get things together and figure out what I want to be when I grow up. I have till a week from next Monday.

Also yesterday, I went out to check the feed in the chicken coop, and saw there was a dead peachick on the floor. The mamma bird was not sitting on eggs anymore by the door. Why she had to nest right in front of the door escapes me. I saw her in the back corner of the run, and walked over. Every bird scattered but her. She stayed sat. I hated to do it, but I got her to get up and reveal a day-old chick. The other appeared to be three or four days old, at least. So, to prevent another loss, I gathered the chick and took it into the house where we set up a box and put it in for the night. It will have to be caged separately to prevent it being run down like the other one appeared to have been. I can see it going out again in a couple of months, when it is big enough to stand up to a flock of chickens. It only needs to be as big as a hen. The hens usually don’t bother with the peafowl the way they will do bullying another chicken. As much as I hated to separate the mother and chick, there is no better way.

My latest shop project has been a simple one. I have assembled a stitch pony so I can do some leatherworking at the work bench. It is a simple one, designed to clamp under the force of the bench vise. All I have left to do is get some tacks and put some leather pads into the jaws of the pony, then I can use it freely.

The tractor is running low on hydraulic fluid. It has a leak in one of the pistons on the loader. Honestly, it is a little depressing. Who wants to have to put it in for service. How long will they keep it for? But at least I know why the bucket has been drooping or reacting a little slow, I think. I think I know. I don’t know for sure, but when I tightened the hose to the piston, it acted a bit better. It just continues to leak, and I think I may be a bit tight on the crush washer and want to have a tech service it correctly. Maybe they can do it onsite. Or maybe they can just take the loader, if they have to. Then I can continue to use the rest of the tractor here for some jobs. I think I am a bit spoiled having had that tractor to do my heavy lifting for me!

Well, it is nearly 3AM, and I need to get back to sleep. Or at least try.

Do I Need to Tell You?

It is hot! Summer weather gets a bit unbearable at this time of year. I think there are places where the temperatures have exceeded their normal range by a bit, and records have been set. Our highs have been a bit more in line with the norms of the past decade, though I have not looked in the records to compare. It seems like fairly normal hot weather. So why would I be moaning about it then? I suspect that it is because summers in say, southern Nevada, get hotter, but winters stay much warmer. If the lows barely break into the freezing range, compare that to our winter low of -21F this year. Our total range has been closer to 120 degrees F in total. I am not speaking for anywhere else, so much as just saying that the reason I am feeling overheated may be because of the severity of our temperature swings throughout the year.

This coming week we have a lot of work to get done! The weather will give us a break, and it should be much more bearable for a bit, so we will be taking advantage. We have really got to get a few last pushes through in order to get our home-based businesses started. We have things to organize, and we have some cleaning to do. IT is time to see about things like windows on the house, too. I have a bit of work to do around the old chimney to try to prevent a leak where it meets the roof. I hope to see a man come by to offer a price on getting our septic redone, so we can get the yard into a state we can live with. There are many projects to get done!

My personal push needs to be to get the shop in a working state, with all the workbenches cleared off, and the tools organized and put in places. I have the likely last of any major purchases on order now. It is a set of blades for my plough plane. I’d like to do more than just build, though some of the blades will help with that, but also be a bit decorative, which some of the other blades will accomplish.

About that firewood…

I have a happy setup established with the trailer, a winch, and the tools required to bring home logs just shy of ten feet long. Those are great for the mill, and produce some scraps for the firewood pile. I also need to get some proper splitting rounds to add to the firewood pile. It has taken longer than I hoped to get the collection tools gathered and working properly, and while I can work in the mornings when it is still cool, it heats up quick and puts a damper on getting the job done in a day from collection to putting everything where it belongs here ready to process. It is best for me if I can do that. Hopefully a little break in the temperatures will turn into a long break, and I can get down to get more wood soon. It is always one of the things that is hard to get my head around; going out in such heat to get firewood! One has to keep in mind just how cold it really gets here in the winter!

It is getting pretty close to time to eat! I am off to have a lovely Friday evening and enjoy the company of family before we spend our last weekend as people who are not in a hurry running our own businesses.

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.

The Day Has Arrived!

It is with tremendous satisfaction and great happiness that I can now announce that the day has arrived! We are finally set to see temperatures up in the forties and fifties. The forecast at the moment shows a few days that will dip in the mornings to below freezing. Apart from that, we look set to have actual springtime weather! The fields around us are still frosty and white, and covered in a fair amount of snow. I have heard some farmers are complaining about a late start to the year, and how that may affect hay prices. I have also heard it said that this is how winters here used to be. Seems conflicting. But as the precipitation we have had seems to have put a dent in the drought conditions, I sure welcome it! Hopefully the reservoirs will hold enough I can recklessly grow a garden this year!

A note on precipitation, I notice the forecast shows none of that coming at all. That is a real change from recent weather! We could use the chance to dry out! The ground is saturated, and the water table is high! It is showing itself around the house, right in our own yard! So I am happy to see a break. Mud season has been hell this year! I can barely get my tractor back to get hay from the stack. We have new trailers that are stuck in the front of the house due to the mud, too. I could not possibly drag them back to put them away. But that’s okay. There is some work yet to be done on them before they are ‘put away.’

Even though it got cold last night, I woke up to a morning when the pools of water around us are steaming, and hopefully showing signs of evaporation in the sunlight.

Missus is squeezing in some time during work hours at home to do some spinning on her spinning wheels. I have to say, she has really improved so far this spring. She has gone from art yarn to something narrow and consistent in its appearance. I am pretty proud of her! I hope she is well proud of herself, too!

It is grandson’s weekend over, and he has spent the night a day early due to his mother and father’s involvement in a friend’s wedding. Right now, it is time to go fight with him over his attitudes about getting dressed in the morning. Oh, the joys and trials of being five!