Smoke in the air over our place at 8:30 this morning, August 31, 2021
It is heartbreaking to know that the smoke that hangs over us is from places where forests and towns and homes are being destroyed. I know what it is like to see the glow on the horizon in the night skies, to see the smoke billowing up in the day, making the sunlight look red at midday. I know what it is like to wait, and hope that it does not burn towards town, but to not know if it is going to be safe. But I don’t know beyond that. I don’t know what it is like to lose everything, or to run from hell.
We awoke this morning to this in the sky. It is a pall overhead that only hangs there, menacing if you are old enough to remember clear skies in summer, and days that shone bright, hot, and happy. Things are changing in this world, and not necessarily for the good.
We are looking to move the farm somewhere away from our lovely little mountain valley. But West has not got a lot of appeal when these mornings are blown our way from it. Plus the earthquakes, floods, mudslides, population, and everything else that is there, kind of push me along. I have seen them all first hand, and while it is amazingly beautiful out west from here, it I have been there, and done that. I’d like a change.
One of the kids is starting school right at the moment I am typing this, and I everyone has had breakfast but me. Everyone has their day started, but me. I need to go get something to eat, then get my animal chores done, preferably, before the second child starts class, too. I just wanted to jot down some thoughts, and show this image above.
The girls officially started school today, which interprets as, the younger one had an hour long class, and the older one helped me get her logged in on time and in the right place, and get her papers printed off for her to have ready for class. The older one will begin classes tomorrow, but as of yet, I don’t see either of her electives working out, and we have to get that sorted out as quickly as possible!
I let the work on the homestead go for today, apart from regular chores, in order to focus on the girls and their preparedness.
It is worth noting though, that the chickens are laying about four eggs a day among the new egg flock, the Buff Orpingtons. They are still in the appendage cage next to the egg coop as the pea-chicks are still too small to risk them in the same coop together. They are too valuable to lose to hens that are prone to pecking as a means of keeping order, then pecking an injured bird clean to death once they have ordered it.
All the other animals on the farm appeared to be fine today. Nothing was out of order.
The weather is lovely right now. It is a strange late August! Today’s high was 84°F. That was the high recorded on my weather station. It was reached in the evening, making today a very bearable day for most of it, and the forecast calls for cooling temperatures over the next ten days. Show me where I can live like this year round, and I will show you my new home. When I was a kid, I think we called that California.
I expect this week will remain not busy, apart from maybe when we go get our glasses, or when I go get groceries. I plan to keep week one of school available for the kids as they get rolling in their online classes. Then it is probably out to the woodpile for me. I also have a few animals to try to sell. But most important is making sure they are set for success and we all know their schedules. They also have homework and chores to keep up on.
Today was an easy day. I did not do any work at all. Nothing happened. Not one thing. I mean, I did my chores. I cannot leave the animals to starve, can I? Also, I freshened up the water around most of the farm today, too. After all, I cannot let the animals go thirsty, can I? I drove Missus down to Franklin for a personal errand, too. We picked up milk while we were there. After all, we need milk if all the milk we have is set to expire tomorrow. After we got home, I did some miscellany, such as taking the rubbish from the kitchen bin, and the like. It’s no good being piled over with rubbish, is it?
I did do some work today, after all. I worked in the workshop. I found a nice piece of cherry, 2 x 3/4 inch stock. I used planes and a spokeshave to bring the size of it down to fit into the pipe that we set up yesterday for water monitoring. Then I put markings on it on one side to measure depth from the top down, and on the other side to measure from the bottom up. It should be useful for more than one application that way. For now, I need to measure once a week from the surface of the ground to the level of the water under us. Sadly, that can easily be measured with an eight foot stick, and a foot of pipe sticking out of the ground.
Oh well, the fun for me was working with the planes and shaves and getting a feel for them in a nice hardwood. I set the stick to have a thin flat for the lowest three feet or so, then it transitions to a more rounded shape, before topping off much more rounded. As the pipe is only two and a half inches in diameter, I did not want a huge stick plunging into the water, and displacing it up the pipe and making the measurement apparently deeper. I also didn’t want it to break off in the pipe, so the top is quite a bit thicker, and more robust. Anyway, it work a treat!
Okay! I have a kid in school tomorrow! I better get to sleep and be ready to help her with it in time for class log-in.
Today was somewhat restful. Our grandson was over last night, and had me awake at 5AM. That’s not an ideal Saturday morning wake up! But we hung out a bit and talked, which is great as he is not yet talking fully. Interesting stuff comes out of that kid. When his parents came at noon to pick him up, we took them and their friend who came with them all down to Casper’s to get ice cream and then go play at the park next door. Casper’s is where Red Button ice cream is made, and they have a shop at the factory where we were able to get eight ice cream treats including banana splits and the like for only $22.
Playing at the park was good fun with the kids. I knew grandson was not going to chase me around in the soccer pitch, so I picked him up, and carried him to the middle where he would have to chase me back. It was all good times from there as everyone got involved in running about and racing each other. Only thing was, I made the mistake of running a race against my two daughters. Everyone in the family assumed I never run, till I did, then they found out I do. Or at least, I can, just fine. I just hope they don’t come to expect that from me more often!
We came home and packed up all the stuff that had been piled onto the dining room table, and got it boxed for an eventual move. When the time comes, we don’t want to be swamped with it. We would rather just have a few personal items and the furniture to pack, and the rest of the decorative and less often used stuff already boxed and set aside. That said, still no nibbles on the property over the road. I don’t know if that is because the agent handles them, and only forwards the serious offers, or because there is no serious lookers at all.
My farmer friend came by with his backhoe and dug the hole for me to put in the water monitoring spout, which is just a 2 1/2 inch black drain pipe. I have to test and measure the water below the surface much the same as one would check the fuel on an old Farmall tractor. Only it has to be surface down measure rather than bottom up.
I split a bit of firewood on the log splitter today, too. The wood I split was all for next year’s pile. It is still wet. I need to cut down to length the wood intended to finish off this year’s pile. More than half of this year’s wood is cut and split and stacked, with only a bit to go to hopefully have enough. If not, no worries! There is always that pile I have been setting aside for next year, in a pinch!
Tomorrow we plan on a quick clean up in the library and the panty, which should go easy. I have some water to top up for animals. Then I think it will be an easy day. We’ll just see what takes us along.
We are out of eggs, but we have chickens. Can’t beat that!
Remember the other day when I said I would take the deck off the mower and cut the weeds in the vacant llama pen? I did that today. Now I just need to take the deck off again to get the mower out again. I finished the empty pen, then opened the fence between the pens and cleared all the weeds from the pen Mystique is in. With both pens nice and clean, they look a lot better from the road, and from my point of view! Also, they are ready to take in llamas should the land over the road sell soon.
Our farmer friend forgot to come by yesterday to help me put in the water monitoring pipe I need for keeping the records on our water level under our place for the septic system. It was my fault for forgetting to put in in when we filled the test hole the other day. I will have to see if he can come by this weekend or early next week to help out, at his convenience, of course.
Walking the yard and having the stumps removed has been amazing! The yard looks so much better now! Especially where Old Blue was out front. That was a 65 foot Colorado Blue Spruce that left a large stump out front. Now it is just a bad memory. It was too big a tree to have that close to the house!
The young peacocks are growing just fine so far. They are about seven or eight inches long, and learning to do a little flying now. I cannot tell the gender yet, but they both have crest feathers sticking up on their heads. They are still too small for me to put the chickens back in with them. Who knows, maybe the chicks would leave them alone just as they do the partridge, but I cannot risk it. I don’t want to end up with one being pecked to death! When they are about the size of the chickens, I will probably give it a go. I want the chickens back in their coop by Autumn, or mid Autumn, well before winter. It’d be nice to have the new flock laying in their laying boxes, rather than on the ground.
That’s about all for now. See you again real soon!
I got up and made breakfast for Missus; beans on toast, topped with fried eggs. It is a long way from her favorite Full Cooked English Breakfast, but it is a part of it, and it sure is good! After feeding the goats and the llama, I sat out back on the granary step with the girls and talked with them a bit, till our son and grandson came by. We sat a bit longer, enjoying the young cats popping up out of the grass like popcorn along the back fence! They would go one and two at a time in a pounce, then out of nowhere, three at once a couple of times. It sure was a sight!
We took the soda cans to town to recycle, then over to our son’s house to check out is dodgy stairs, which I accidentally broke while trying to realign one of the risers. The runner on top fell through! Decided that needed to be fixed right away, so we wet to the hardware and he bought some nails. I got me a new Fiskars hammer to replace the old Estwing I have not been able to find for months now. I am sure not happy about the missing hammer, but this new one is a 20oz. roofing hammer, and I quite like it. It would not hurt to have a few different types of hammers, so that is something I should consider looking into getting. But there are so many tools I need still… so many!
After we fixed the stair, and checked out a few of the other ‘features’ of his house, we came back down to ours, and took some boxes out to storage, then rested and talked a bit.
The sun is setting outside right now, and I have not seen the farmer with his backhoe today. No worries! I am kind of glad! Seems like a nice day to finish off with a restful evening! I think I detect an early night coming!
No nibbles on the field yet, though we have had lookers drive by slowly. It sure would be useful to sell it. We could get a couple of things done on the house, then list it. Meanwhile, just a day at a time, and a bite at a time.
As per the things I said yesterday that I needed to do today, I got some of them done. Not everything, but a number of things are finished for now, or at least in progress.
I spoke with the propane company about getting the concrete blocks they have to put under the propane tank and lift it up out of the dirt. I’d like to at least do that, if not paint it before we move off, eventually. I was going to put a new one in, till the price skyrocketed for one. We have a little over $900 in credit with them, and that is about how much the cost of a new tank went up by in the last month, and I am not wasting it all just on a price increase. Blocks under the old tank! That’s enough for me!
I cleaned and seasoned several pieces of cast iron today, then wrapped them and put them in the moving box. Seasoning stinks, and I really should look at moving our countertop oven to the garage or something to do the rest of it. Our stovetop sets at the right temperature to season the inside of a pan on it, if I let the pan warm up for about five minutes. I season with olive oil, so that smokes nicely about 550 degrees or so, which is just about where the pans get to on the medium setting.
I set an appointment for the girls and I to get our eyes checked and prescriptions up to date. We will order new glasses at that time, too. It is at Sam’s Club, so maybe we will get a rotisserie chicken also! I will be investing in scratch resistance when I get the new glasses! My goodness, these that I am wearing went terrible pretty fast!
The girls tried to join their meet and greets for school today. The younger was set for 8:45AM, and the teacher had sent a bum link, then never said what went wrong, but she did send an e-mail an hour or more later that didn’t even acknowledge the missed meeting. What a class act! I can’t wait to see what this one is like! The older girl had an evening meet and greet, which turned out to be for the parents of students, not the students themselves, which could have been mentioned in the e-mail invitation, but it wasn’t. Well, the school has a week to get their act together. Maybe next week will be better. I thought today was the first day of school till yesterday. Just one more thing they have not been clear about. Yes, a week to get things together! It ought to do them some good.
My farmer friend delivered two bales of hay this evening. They are 4x4x8 foot bales. Right now that would have cost us $300 for the two, but he gave them to me in trade for the work I did the other day helping him clear hay off 250 acres of his fields before the rain came the next day. He’s a good man. I am really glad to know him. He will be coming back tomorrow to dig a 8-10 foot hole in the back of the house for a new septic system test. He will also help get up a stump in the front, which means I can finally have a level yard up there! I should bring up the little aspen stump next to the side of the house, too. It is a pain to avoid with the mower. It is rotting pretty good, so I could probably knock it down with my chainsaw. But if the guy is here with a backhoe… We talked about plenty of other things too. The world would be a better place if everyone had a farmer friend like this guy. We’ll see if he can get his old backhoe running!
If Mr. Farmer gets his backhoe running, then tomorrow is digging day. I should start out with getting the paperwork filled in for the county inspector. Then we can get the digging done, and I need to try to lift the end of my propane tank with the high lift jack, and see if that is enough to get it sorted for the new concrete blocks under it. If not, I will need to call Mr. Farmer back another day after I get the blocks delivered.
The next day is eye appointments. After that, it is probably good to call packing time.
I did find out from the President of the local water board, who also happens to be my farmer friend, that if anyone wants to buy our field and hook up to the local water, it is going to be a month or so before they expect to issue new water connections, as they are flow testing the current supply source. Someone can always put a well on, or buy now and connect to municipal water later when their house is built. I need to let the realtor know the situation.
The llamas looked alert this morning, so I started watching, thinking maybe the neighbor’s horses got into our field, but I cannot see well below the canal, and the weeds growing up along the canal path this year. Then a human head bobbed along, and it did not look right to be the neighbor. I had a meeting set to start on Zoom for my daughter’s school, and did not have time to chase a trespasser! So I went upstairs to see if I could see better from the balcony. From there I noticed Sverro’s truck parked at the corner of the field on the other side of ours, so figured he has lost control of one of his animals while picking them up. Sverro is the man who leases the field next door to ours on the other side.
Sverro is pretty good about being aware of our animals, so I did not worry about him. But I did talk my eight year old through what the llamas were doing and how I was able to tell there was something amiss on the field. I suggested to her that I would normally have to go now to chase off a trespasser.
To that, she replied, “Let him get his animal off the field first, then go chase him off.”
“I don’t have to worry about the way you think,” I told her. “You are just fine!”
We decided not to do much today. Missus has wrapped up so much in the past week, and her arms and shoulders have been hurting for it. We were also thinking that the girls start school in the morning, but the school has not been great at communicating till I checked back into the calendar today and found that it is not actually meant to start for another week. So, all that rest today was in vain. Well… as they say, hard work often pays off over time, but laziness always pays off now. What is a wasted day of rest?
I worked on the firewood holder next to the wood stove today. It has a box built in under it, and some robust pieces of wood planking on top of that to set the firewood onto. It is meant to hold the wood off the ground so I can reach it without bending down too much. Atop of all that is the cast iron shelves, and it is all set into a corner next to the stove, and between the wall and the built in hutch.
For a long time I was not too sure how I was going to finish the planking as it has firewood thrown on top of it all the time in the winter. It has held up really well as bare wood, especially as it is rough cut fir, and does not show indents from the firewood. So today I used my hand planes to smooth the plank tops down some, leaving a little of the saw marks for the distressed look, then finished them with linseed oil, to give them that almost varnished look, while keeping them easy to refinish as necessary, and waterproof at the same time. They look really good!
My oldest daughter came to me this afternoons and said the boy goats were out. We have two young Billy’s we are keeping in the chicken run, to keep them from the girls. They managed to push the gate open, and leave. The gate is about 18 inches high so that there is a fence along the bottom, which makes it easier for me to get in and out of when the chickens are close as they cannot just walk out, and it is elevated to make it easy to open when there is snow on the ground, too. I went out, and walked around the other goat pen slowly, which pressed the escapees round it, showing me they did not want to be messed with. Kirynie was still in getting shoes on to come help. I grabbed a scoop of corn and put it on the ground in the run, and left the gate open. I put the scoop back, and looked back, and the goats were at the gate, looking in. Just then, Kiry came out the back door and looked up at what was going on as the two goats jumped back into the run, and I stood there cool as a cucumber while they did. She smiled and laughed, as she was expecting to come out and chase them! I walked over and closed the gate, and added an extra fastener on it after, while Kiry laughed, and high fived me for being so effective. I am glad she learned the ways of the wise today.
I have more boxes to put into storage tomorrow. I need the farmer to bring us some hay as we will use the last of it tomorrow morning. I also need him to dig a test hole for a new septic system. I need to fill out some paperwork, and get the county inspector over, too. I also need to set an appointment for the girls and I to get our eyes tested, and buy new glasses! That seems like a good plan for tomorrow! Aside from all that, I can carry on packing boxes, ready to go to storage.
I tried chopping at the weeds in the empty llama pen today with my scythe. They are long, and it is hard to reach through to get their stems and cut them down. I tried fitting the riding lawn mower through the gate, but to do it, I would have to remove the mower deck, and that is just enough of a pain that I am not that interested in it. It would really improve the look of this place if I got those weeds down. Lessons learned here are to use wider gates, and to make the pens goat tight so I can set the goats loos in it to sort out the weeds. I like the way I set the gates up to be able to use only two gates side by side and combine the pens into one, but next time, either way, wider gates are a must! The four foot ones are too narrow to be useful when a machine is required for mowing, or for removing a dead animal.
I’ll probably take the mower deck off tomorrow or the next day. Depends on how busy other things get.
Finally, our oldest has at last asked his girlfriend to be his fiancée. I have heard nothing of a date yet, but that is fine. They have a lot to think about, and a lot to do to take the next step after that. What’s most important is that they do things that make them happy, and at a pace that makes them happy, too. But congratulations to them both for taking this step. Whatever and whenever next is next, at least everyone can know he has designs on her, and is committed to her, and her to him. They have been together too long to doubt it, but this is a step to make it something more.
I tried to get a screenshot, but it didn’t work out as clear as I was hoping for. But to summarize the important information from it, the temperatures over the next ten days top out in the low 80’s! This summer has been a hot one, with the temperatures in the 90’s pretty much every day. For me, that is overheating range, especially when it is in the high 90’s. That’s why I gave up on living in Southern Nevada all those years ago!
Mid to low 80’s is wonderful! That means mornings on the log splitter, afternoons working in the shop, and yard chores done with reckless abandon! Maybe it is time for our house to have cooling system installed, rather than relying on the natural cooling it does on the bottom floor. But when half the house is unbearable for most of the day, it gets limiting. It would be bad all night too, if not for that huge fan I put in the balcony door in the evenings, which clears the hot air out within half an hour. It is three feet in diameter and pushes air like crazy.
We are packing boxes. I have been buying boxes down at Home Depot, so we have plenty, and they are uniform in sizes. We have been packing up all the books and display stuff on the shelves around the house. No, the field is not sold, but we don’t want to be suddenly rushed when it does finally get picked up. I guess we are getting too old for that. Anyway, who wants to have to ask for help on a rush job, and then be unhappy with the quality of the packing? So we are carefully and somewhat slowly putting things into the boxes, neatly and thoroughly wrapped.
Meanwhile we shop, too. We are looking East because places are cheaper there, and because rain more plentiful. We are looking for a barn and a couple of out buildings. We could use a storage building too. It would be nice to have a garage separate to all this, but it is not necessary. Missus needs a building for her art, and I want a wood shop. Those would fill the couple of out buildings I mentioned. More than that would be gravy. But what would be really nice to add to it would be a shop she could use as a store to sell from. That would be dreamy!
I am keeping an eye open for a trailer, and we have been talking with the kids about what kind of hell we want to go through when it comes time to drive the car and the truck all the way out to wherever with llamas in tow. We have also talked about the business of coming back for our stuff, and how that would be best arranged, or if it is better to hire a moving company. There are so many possibilities, including me flying back and hiring a U-Haul truck, loading it with the help from the boys, and then driving out East.
Meanwhile, back here on the farm, I have arranged to have a ten foot hole dug in the back yard so the county inspector can come assess the soil, and tell us what to install for a septic system. I paid the county guy already, so that is $300 sorted. Next I have to pay him another $500 for the permit to install a new septic system. Then it is time to find the contractor who is willing to come and do it. A state plumber has to connect the new system to the house, then the county guy comes back for inspection. If it passes, then we can bury it, and away we go. I am expecting this all to run around $10K or so, if it all goes smoothly. I will NOT be hiring the two contractors I have spoken to so far, who have NOT been clear about the process, or helpful at all, in any way. I have needed someone to explain the process, and instead I have got someone who got mad and huffed off because I did not know it already. I have never done this before, and some men are really useless when it comes to helping another man learn how to do something. They can be so degrading just because the second guy does not already know the first one’s job.
Anyway. Also, back here on the farm, this year has been challenging because we knew at the onset that it was going to be one of some kind of change. I have been buying the gates and feeders and waterers for the animals to finish the place up, and get everything looking consistent. The goats have nice feeders and waterers, and the horses and llamas across the street have nice waterers in their grazing pastures. We decided to take a year off any gardening, but the weeds didn’t. Blimey! The llama pen at the front of the yard is higher than me! It is not a show property this year, that’s for sure! I should go see what I can do to it with the scythe.
We got rain yesterday. The rain we have finally got in this last few days has been just about all of it for the whole summer. Everything has greened up so much from it! The pasture is short, but looks so much better for the green! I wish it were longer for the llamas. The back pasture across the street has stayed amazing, as it does every year. That one grows well on leeching from the canal, as it is down hill from it. The back of the house side of the street has been getting the occasional watering from the pivot line on the dairy behind us, so has also stayed green and watered the fruit trees. I really appreciate the farmer there for that! Having only one hydrant on the whole property makes it a real pain in the backside to keep everything watered. Missus has had a couple of hoses branched off from the hydrant and on a timer, so her herb garden and flower garden have been getting regular watering, too. The grass around those areas has stayed nice and tender, so I suppose she can blame herself for me wanting to move to where it is much more rainy. I want our animals to have nice tender grass to feed off of.
We are not sure now of the garage sale. Missus seems to not want to really mess with it. Send it all to charity! Except for the few things that really are worth more than a dime. Those can get listed. The rest can go to the charity shop in one go, and us be done with it. Well, it just proves she is generous, as I would be happy to put it all up at the dump. We have been overwhelmed by stuff since we moved into this place with my grandparents to look after them. They were terrible. She loved to shop at the charity shop, and he could not throw anything away, so between them, they were perfect together. And not in a good way! We are finally to the point everything here is ours, but now we need to reset, and start fresh, and get things down to what we need, and all the excess be damned. Time to reset the situation! And one thing I will look for soon after we move is curio cabinets! The things that are on display should not be collecting mountains of dust!
I could go on and on, now that I am on a roll! But it is getting to half past seven in the morning, and I have chores to do, even on a Sunday. The girls start school tomorrow, and I need to help them figure out their Zoom logins. I get to turn most of their learning to their online academy, and have a year off to focus on this move, or whatever else needs doing. I will be teaching the younger one on her reading, and on her Homestead-Economics lessons. It is suitable. She is my constant shadow anyhow, often arriving to where I am headed next just before me.
So, that is a bit of where we are at, and why. Makes a good weather synopsis, doesn’t it?
