Our Farm Animals – The Peasant's Manor Farm

March Has Arrived, Spring Comes Soon!

It is snowing lightly today, and too cold to be outside for just about anything unless it is urgent or necessary. This morning one of the kids messaged and asked if he could come down and use our driveway to change his oil. He said the car was running funny and he thought it might have to do with him neglecting it. I asked how long it was since he last changed it, and he said 8,000 miles. Well, I don’t know if that is why his car lost some power coming up the hill, but I am pretty sure it will be much happier about its life in general for him changing it! Okay, he went way too long, but it was good to see him do the job all on his own, as it was the kind of work he never took interest in when he was younger and still living at home. Better late than never. It was especially good to see him at it rather than me! Oh sure, I handed him the ratchet, and helped him find a few tools, but he was the one on the ground, in the snow and cold.

It struck me as funny that it was only this morning that I checked our truck for its due date for the next oil change, and I was excited to find out it was not today! I have got some 800 miles left, which I’ll bet I can stretch till spring, and warmer weather! Suits me right down to the ground!

Missus asked me to go get her drum carder out of the craft cottage this morning. I don’t know what she has planned for it, but while I was out doing my chores, and helping the offspring keep on eye on his oil as it dripped out during the oil change, she cleaned it up and made it look nearly new.

I was also assigned the job of making a few more of the wire coilers she needs to wrap wire on to make chain male loops. They consist of a rod with a small hole at the far end, and a handle that helps her grip and avoid pain in her hands. I drill a hole in the rod and give it any finish work required. Then I make the wooden handle on the lathe, and drill a hole in the end of it for the rod to fit down into, tightly. Done right, it does the trick and when I am done, she will be able to make different sized loops in her wire. Good enough! I made a handle two weeks ago, and can put it to task on this job, and it will be fun to make some more.

This week is fairly free for me to work on the business. Where it is too cold to do anything outside, I can do some computer work, and things in the house. A nerve is pinched in my shoulder and hurting all the way down my left arm, so it will likely be computer work for today, though even that hurts. Painkillers first!

It is coming up time for the clocks to spring ahead. 2A.M. on Sunday morning, March 10th is when to set the clocks ahead one hour. I guess that means that where I have been noticing light in the mornings when I wake up to take the kids to school, we will not have that anymore till the days get longer still.

Late in the ten-day forecast the temperature guess is 50F! That’s short sleeve weather here in Cache Valley. I am hoping this year it will also mean I want to mess around with the cameras and make some YouTube videos. Maybe watch out for that. Meanwhile, I will surely be enjoying the warmer weather, as I have looked forward to it because of how low our firewood started out this year. This house does not really need a daytime fire going when it is sunny, and the temperatures go above 35F. Open the front door to the porch, and enough heat comes in from there to take care of everything for the day. 50 will certainly exceed that and make the whole experience more pleasant. I can switch off the wall heaters, and that will cut the electric bill. No more worrying about if the pipes under the house will freeze. Shop days and milling days will be unrestricted if the rain and especially the lightning stays at bay. But even on a rainy day, that does not slow the shop work down! None of this is to show any sort of enthusiasm on my part, at all. No. None. Not at all.

My tractor is already approaching 500 hours. Seems high. I wonder if the meter reads correctly. It seems crazy that it has gone that high. I should dig out the old stopwatch and give it a test. It probably is correct though, as I have always held to the idea that if I was going to spend the money to buy such a tractor, I best use it. I can’t imagine how high the hours would be if I could plough with it!

Before I call this post done, I thought I better mention that the chickens have started laying again. I think it looks like about two of the birds that have got going. I will have to collect all of the eggs then set up a reminder to do it each day to get them fresh. I’d like to make some serious changes to how we raise chickens here on the farm, and really get selling the eggs. What we do with these old birds is just the beginning of figuring it all out. I need some more time out in the coop to come up with some ideas, and to figure out how to set up for a free-range flock to keep the costs down and the health up.

2024 Begins!

Happy New Year!

There are a lot of things to be done on the farm this year. There are a lot of personal things to sort out too! This Holiday Season is coming to an end for our household, and to be honest, while we really enjoyed the family time, our health in this house has been absolute rubbish. So, the first thing is to see about getting up and about and up to things. There have been good days and bad ones, and clearly, I am going to have to make some adjustments to deal with my changing age. But I have experimented, and I think I know what I need to do. But all of that is on the personal side. On the farm and professional side I will push forward with what we have spent the last few years setting up for, and get this place finished and operational. It’ll be a challenge, but meeting it will pay off, I think.

So, what’s the big plans?

We have got to get this farm running as a profitable farm of some sorts. The immediate thing to do is sell llama fiber, and to make plenty of firewood. There will be byproducts of all that, but on top of it, Missus will be opening her little shop soon for local buyers, and as a basis for her Etsy and online shop. We’ll mess around with products, but our goal is to make enough to get by on or better by making what we want from here on our place. It means to be home manufacturing at a higher level of quality than comes out of mass production. Face it, it is every homesteader’s goal. I will be getting things going at last on The Prospering Peasant, too. I already have the idea for the first proper post there, so check soon.

My projects on the farm will require a lot of work. I have cameras for some basic filming and hope to put some videos on YouTube showing those, and a bit of furniture making. Everything is dependent upon hos I get through this little health crisis I have been having this winter, of course. The arthritis inflammation can derail the whole thing. But I won’t before I get a chance to get started, so let’s take this as it comes. As far as the furniture making idea goes, even if poplar is the only wood I can get access to, building from solid poplar has got to be a step up from the rubbish sawdust wood that people get online. It’ll cost them more, and it will be painted because of it being poplar, but I plan on Milk Paint and the farmhouse style. And then there are wooden spoons and the like.

All of this can really get going come spring. I’ll do what I can in the shop in the cold, but again, arthritis. Meantime I have everything I need to get the candles going in the house. I have a couple of things to work out just before I get an Etsy shop going. There will be several beeswax-based products, including candles, tool-wax, and beeswax impregnated food wraps. The fabric is ready for cutting and dipping! As for the candles themselves, I am starting out with molded candles circa the Colonial American period. I’ll provide either cotton wick or hemp wick candles as requested. I have considered hand dipped candles and for some occasions I perhaps will, but if time is a constraint, those will be the first thing I’ll give up on.

I will also look to get my firewood piled up for the next two years so I can go a year in advance after that. Then I will try to do excess to sell. I’d be happy to do the same with the lumber I cut and don’t use once I am adequately stocked up in advance.

Projects that I need to do are a woodshed, a fuel shed, and it would be good to put the sawmill in something. Once those are done, I think making chickencoops would be a good side hustle. None of these things can happen in a vacuum. But also, again, arthritis. So let’s see how it goes.

Photography is a lifelong hobby of mine. I never quite made a business out of it. It has to be a part of this even if only for the purposes of listing things online. The photography is not to be trifled with. I intend to do that well.

So all this is what I have in mind for 2024. I will be happy if we can get by on our efforts. If we can do better than that, then I will be elated! Look for changes coming to my online presence soon. No more excuses. That is what I intend to be about this year. Life is slipping by too fast to mess about.

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!

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.

Snow on the Mountains! Peachick!

I am sat down with a hot cappucino at hand and lip, and am reflecting on the day I had today. It was a good one! I have nothing to complain about. But there are comments.

First, I managed to keep the snooze button on any anxieties pressed till 6:00AM, then got up and got a good start after getting well rested. That made a nice change from the normal routine I follow! Then I took the girls to their school bust stop. After I came back, I got ready to face the day in the firewood yard down at the dump in the city. It was sprinkling a bit before I left, and on the way down that picked up to a decent rain. Breakfast at McDonald’s did not give it enough time to clear, and before I knew it, I had my snacks and drinks picked up and was sat in the woodyard, dreaming of those sunny summer days. Well, let’s be fair! I hate those sunny summer days for their heat, so I got out and got to it.

The first two logs I picked up were of a yellowish wood with white bark, and a decent smell of honey. I cannot identify it for sure, so I won’t try to say. I also got some willow, I think. It had the right type of bark and white wood, but there were no sprouts of any kind, so it may have been different. After loading some 3,000 pounds of wood I decided that was enough for the day and took off. I was not too sure of the weight till I hit the scales on the way out, so I decided to leave before I overloaded the trailer. Turned out I had a bit of room to spare. Not much, but some!

While loading wood I tried out the little device I made to fit over the top of the trailer’s front, top rail, and has a hook under it to hold the snatch block that the winch rope goes through. I built it because the chain never stays in the right position. This device worked perfectly, and made the whole job a lot easier because I was nto spending so much time preventing the rope from dragging through the second rail. That wears the rope severely. I have already broke one.

Happy with my device, and with my wood haul for today, I came home to help Missus with several things she had going on, then unloaded the trailer. That is a process that does not go perfectly, and I am still working out some kinks, especially to do with getting the log tongs to grab hold and let go when I want them to, as they are not mechanically driven.

I helped with a couple of short jobs while Missus was making a shepherd’s pie for supper, then went and got the girls from their bus stop. It was on the way there that I noticed that there was snow on the mountains! This is the first I have seen any for this year, and it sure made me want to go get more wood and get it all cut and split!

After a lovely meal, I went out to feed the chickens that I remembered were out of food. That’s when I found that another peachick has hatched, and the poor bird was getting tumbled by the chickens. I grabbed it up right away, and brought it in to Missus, as the peafowl are her project. It is now sat across the room from me under a heat lamp in a wash tub with a bit of wire mesh over top of it. It sure is noisey, and I think, quite healthy. We did not have luck with the lest couple that had hatched, so we are really hoping and trying to get this one off to a good start.

Now it is about an hour till bedtime, and I still have to get the rubbish out to the curb for pick-up tomorrow. Apart from that, I would like to relax a spell. It has been a busy, and really quite exciting day!

The Great Goat Escape

On my way back into the driveway from taking the girls to school yesterday I came around past the West gate and saw something out the corner of my eye. It was the billygoat taking a run at the Ford. Luckily he was tring to take out the wheel and not body panels. I went after him to get him to stop. Going after him is not a run and a chase. It is a gentle walk, and follow. He went through the electric fence and into the llama pen. That was good enough for the time, and I got a look at the fence on his pen to see just what had gone wrong.

The goat rubs himself against the fence as though he were trying to scratch himself, which maybe he is, and the fence slowy curls upwards over time between the posts, and from them where they are not pinned at the very bottom. To prevent this, I decided to attach some old hog fence from the pig days on the farm to the horse/goat fence on his pen. I attached it with wire to the fence and used it to curl the goat fence down again. The hog panel is very rigid and ought to stay from curling itself. As long as it keeps the goat fence from curling, then I should not have trouble with the goat escaping that way anymore. This project required I also repair the fence between the goat and the dog. They have been travelling freely from pen to pen for a few weeks now, and it has never been high enough a priority to worry about it.

Oh, and also, something that could be of benefit in the future for metal fence: I have a wire feed welder on order. It should be here on Thursday or so. It will be coming along with a Honda motor. My plan is to build a Cyclekart as a means of learning to weld, or at least as a purpose to learn it and try to do it fairly well. Watch this space. The welder is a multi-process welder, so can do stick, Tig, and Mig. I’ll be happy to do some flux-core wire feed. But the other options are there when needed, and to learn. I will probably send the current stick welder off with one of the kids. I have some repairs and upgrades to do on the trailers in the meantime, as well.

I was so tired after all the messing about with the goat pen, which took my full working day yesterday, that I must have laid down last night, and started to bring up YouTube on the bedside tablet when I fell asleep. I woke up again at almost 5AM and found the tablet in that situation still. It was a great night’s sleep!

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.

Waving Goodbye to ‘The Man’

It’s already Thursday of the first week of since Missus left her posting working for QuickBase. Missus and I have been working to catch up on things that have not been gotten to due to time constraints on her calendar. With both of us free, we hope to be able to catch up some things around the house, then get into this whole self-employment thing.

Ordering the house means getting things out that we don’t use, and putting things in the new shed that we will still use. It also means organizing the spaces where the old outbuildings are. There is a lot to do! We got a good start on the upstairs, and now the biggest obstacle up there is my den.

Yesterday we took a day to go into town and sort some things out and visit the salvage yard. Wouldn’t you know that before we could go, we had to deal with escaped goats? Could it have been the male? Could it have been the girls? No! It had to be goats gotten out of both pens! Did he have time to have his wicked way with any of them? I hope not! The escapees from the girl’s pen were his daughters! I guess will know for sure come December! Anyway, we got them rounded up and back in and pounded away at the fencing till it was in good enough order hold them for a bit again. Then we left for town.

FedEx is due to empty a truck out on our doorstep today. After that, I will have the packaging to take up to town for recycling and other things to take to the dump. The trailer is already full and waiting!

The house and workshops need a bit more work before we can get fully into this new life we are attempting.

So, what is this new life we are going to try out?

Missus wants to take her artistic skills off and make a bit of money with them. But mostly she wants to share in them with others, such as weaving and spinning, painting, wire weaving, and millions of old-time crafts she has learned over the years. I will be putting the farmland to work and giving a try at chandlery, as a sawyer, and hopefully getting my skills up at some furniture making. That’s a basic summary. I’ll get a proper post up announcing when I have things in order and am getting started properly.

She is now a registered business with Antiquary Artisan LLC, and I am registered too, as The Peasant’s Manor Farm LLC. More to come on that later, too.

Gardens and Goat Pens

It was a very wet spring here. The grass is off to a roaring start as it grows up almost to my knees already. I have put the tiller on the tractor, and got to work on the garden beds, tilling the soil clear of grass and weeds, and hopefully any hope they have had of settling into the space. I have also started clearing animal pens, and moving the hay and other natural contents into the garden bed, and tilling it in.

Our garden space is fair sized, though I would not think of it as large, considering the space our property has. I have animal pens in front of it, relative to the street. And behind it I am squeezing in an orchard, and will soon be setting up a sawmill. The sawmill requires the space to work, keep logs, and put wood that has cut to the side till it can be stacked and dried properly. So that’s a fair amount of space on its own.

I got to work on the pen next to our dog, Bandit. There was a pen in this space, but the goat destroyed the fencing, and it all required replacing with a stronger type of fence. We had originally put in a welded wire fence, but now I am putting up horse fence, which is far more resilient to the efforts the goat puts into its destruction. Welded wire is not worth putting in for any animal larger than a chicken, as far as I am concerned. But we were on a tight budget then, and had to go with what we could afford. I will likely finish the pen today, then I will be moving the buck into it, and letting him live in there. Then all the girls will come out of the pen in the back yard, and move into the pen the buck is in now with the sterile doe. That will give them more room than where they are at, and I will take out their current pen, and make that into a back yard, again. We need an open space in the back for our grandson to run around in. It will also be a step towards just making a lovely space for humans to hang out and give the animals a more defined space of their own in one part of the property. We will likely be removing part of the chicken run, putting in a storage shed there, and I think the rabbits will likely get a space between the sheds where they can have the freedom to run around a bit. But all of that is a mile away, still.

I am not sure if we will garden this year or not, which is a little late in deciding. We need to have a new septic installed, and we don’t yet know for sure where that will go. If it ends up under the garden beds, then it will ruin whatever gets planted. I am sure of being able to use part of the beds, though, so I can see putting in some gourde tunnels. Once the farm is esteblished as a business, which should be today or Monday, the biggest client I have wnats gourdes. That’ll be Antiquary Artisan, my wife.

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.