Llamas – The Peasant's Manor Farm

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.

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.

Snow Handling with a Tractor

It’s two degrees above freezing outside right now, gone after 5:30 PM. This winter has been pretty warm. The snow on the ground seems wet, and we keep getting puddles then ice skating rinks all around. I plow the dog walking path, and the top has a new finish on it by morning when the flat snow has melted during the day, then iced over during the night. It’s not the safest environment to walk in. Then again, we have had worse. But as winter seasons go, this is not a cold one, for sure.

So far this year we keep getting little bits of snow. We put in the footprints, then within a few days they are gone. It snowed maybe an inch and a half last night! It was just enough to want to clear it, but not enough to change the world or end the drought. But who knows what the cumulative effect of all this snow will be? We just need it to keep coming!

I am not entirely sure that the tractor would handle a single heavy snowfall. If I had a proper snow pusher or plow blade, then yeah, I think it would do amazing things. But with a loader bucket and a box blade, it has limits to what it can move in each pass.

All the snow clearing burns fuel. The cost of fuel is not very low this year, as you know. And as it keeps falling in these little bits at a time, I get to burn plenty of fuel to keep the place clear.

Between all this, I am trying to establish a snow strategy. Where are the best places to pile it up? How much should hit the ground before I clear it up? What areas should I clear off, and what should I leave? It’s great to have a cab and be able to work any time of day or night and stay warm.

One of the things that has really paid off with the tractor though is the ability to walk around outside without being forced into little foot-made paths that weave around almost randomly. I have full walkways and plenty of room to drive vehicles around without getting stuck.

Feeding has been so much easier this year! I put a bale in the bucket and take it around to where the llamas and horse is and deliver a couple of flakes per animal. By the time I am done with the paddocks with one or two animals in each, I have a final one with three that I can just dump the rest of the hay into. It is dead easy. It means I only end up out of the tractor three times after I have loaded the hay into the bucket. And those three times are very short, and don’t really require a coat. Makes a lovely winter chore list! There are other times I am out of the tractor for longer, but for feeding the goats, and for loading firewood into the bucket to take to the house. The bucket can carry a full load for a 24-hour burn. That never takes too long, so I have hardly been cold this winter compared to previous years!

There is a lot to get doing soon. When my workbench shows up in the next week or two, and I get it set up, I expect it to increase my opportunities to work in the shop. All I need to depend on is being able to warm it in there and being able to find some wood to work with! I can sure imagine a few things to build on it! I can also image being able to clear up and do some more candles.

That’s what is on my mind right now. All that and a bag of popcorn. I think I’ll go get that popping!

December 5th, 2021

Today we wrapped presents for Christmas and cleaned up that mess. Missus was up from 5Am and took a nap after we finished. That is when things took a slightly strange turn. I went out to change the gate from the old fence panel that was on the front of the pasture across the street to a green gate that was on the front fence of the house, but I had replaced with a grey wire filled gate. It was while I was doing this that I noticed a car parked down the road. The car stayed a bit, then drove further down, then turned around and came back up to the other side and parked again. I carried on working, and it came up and turned around close to me, then went down a little and parked again. It then drove down again, and parked. I watched from the house when I finished the gate, and someone got out and seemed to dump something along the side of the road. Then they parked on the other side again and more dumping on that side of the road. The kind of thing carried on for probably 45 minutes in all that I was able to see. During this time, I also saw the man in the car get out and ring the bell on the neighbor’s house, and the woman got out and went into his yard and waved and clapped her hand at our animals behind the neighbor’s house. It was all very strange. They finally left about 11:30AM.

I can tell you they were city people. The guy got out and shook the wire on the electric fence. He’s lucky it is not working at the moment. I think I will get it going again, in case they visit again. Maybe tomorrow.

After I got the gate changed, I took a rope over and chased down the female llamas. I stayed at the middle of the field while turning my attention to the girl who was leading the run. I kept after her till she wore down and finally made a mistake and went into the pen at the gate crossing the canal. That’s when I finally shut her in and put the rope on her. I made it into a harness and led her and the other llama both across the street, the second one just following the first with no lead on her at all.

I moved the trailers to the back of the house along the fence line. They both fit into the space where the big pig used to have her small pen. That gets them both out of the way bit also in a space where they should be easy to put away, and easy to get out to use. I might be converting that old horse trailer into a mobile chicken coop for the field across the street though.

Those jobs kept me busy till around 4PM.

After all that, I put the male llamas and horse onto the whole field. They will have plenty of feed available till the snow covers it all enough they cannot hoof it. I will be feeding them sooner than that though.

I did all my chores and went in for the evening, happy to put my feet up and sit with the dog in my chair.

So that’s the llamas across the street for the season and on bought hay.

Also of note, it was as high as 52F today, lovely and sunny and warm. This week there are four days with snow possible. But today and the recent days remain mild and nice.

Yard Rearrangement

Today was pretty warm for the second day of December. It was so nice that I went out and worked on rearranging the garden spaces to ready them for next year. If we are staying here, we are going to change some things around. one specific change will be to put a driveway around the west side of the property to give better access to the shed/barn and make it more usable than it currently is. The drive will come around back, and back out the center drive, or when entering through the center, should allow the trailer to back easily up to the barn, then exit through the west gate. It is not as garden focused, but it will allow us to raise animals and hopefully grow flowers for Missus. The goal will be to grow less food and more creative material.

I’d like to have the llamas moved soon. There is little feed left, and it would be great to get the girls over this side of the street and allow the males and the horse to roam the entire field. If it stays as warm and dry as it has been, there should be no problem for them to access the grass on the back pasture.

I wanted to get the goats up to the front pen ready for sale, but I had a plenty busy day today, and have not got to it. I split one of the llama pens, removed several metal posts and almost as many well placed in wood posts. We used a high lift jack to pull everything out. It was a good chance for our youngest to help out and show off how strong she is!

I think there will be better parking for the trailers we have. The barn will have the garden tools in it, along with some other things. I’d like to say we will be growing things across the street, but the irrigation shares are currently $9,000 each. WE could do with ten shares, if we are to look into the future to when the canal goes underground, which may be within the next two to three years, as I have heard it on the grapevine. It will be cheaper to drill a well!

Our two dogs are training to use the outdoors to go to the bathroom. It is not going perfectly, but they are getting the picture. It’s not bad for their age. We are using the orchard as a space to walk them in. Speaking of walking the dogs, it is almost bedtime, and it is time to walk them now.

I have not been turning as much lately, not because I don’t still love it. I absolutely do! Especially as I have been learning to control the tools, especially the skew, to dig into the wood and take full width bites out of it, and to quickly and confidently remove large amounts of waste with ease. It is a joy to mount a piece of wood on the lathe and find what is hiding inside of it! But the weather is turning cold, and I cannot heat the shop, and I am not fond of working with a handheld tool against wood rotating at high speed with hands that are desensitized by the cold. Hopefully I will be able to clean out the excess in the shop soon and clear way for the wood heater to be lit.

Many decisions are being worked through here on the farm as to our future on it, and what we will try to do going forward. In the summer I gave in to the idea of getting us moved to someplace where there is more rain and less work to do on the house. Here we have land that is separated from the house by a road with daily speeding semi’s going up and down it, especially when they are “homeward bound” to the yard the drivers report to at the end of their shifts. It limits what the kids can do with the place, and really, I am the only one that goes out onto the land with any frequency.

The primary decision that is being made for us is that we cannot sell the land as a build lot because the water company will not issue new water connections now till they sort out their volume issues. One of the source springs ran dry over the summer in our drought. They don’t want to create shortages, and that is sound and responsible water management, a rare thing out here in the West!

With that, we will stay for a bit longer, fix up the house, and run on the land we have got. I am sure the estate agent will be dissatisfied, but with changes in our lives right now being what they are, it turns out it is not a good time for us to move. I have been concerned about moving our animals in winter, and now, in a sense winter is as much metaphorical as it is literal. Forgive me if I don’t get more personal than that. It’s nothing tragic, just personal.

Since the arrival of our GlowForge, the craft room has exploded out of itself and into the library. Doing so has made a lovely office space for Missus to start doing some business from. She has been making and learning her way around the machine, and is getting more confident with it. I have finally ordered a drawing tablet of my own, not for the photography I have been hobby-ing in for years, but to help with some design work for her to sale. I’ll use it for photos, too, though I don’t have to retouch dust the way I used to when I had to scan negatives! The pad will show up on Friday if it is on time. Also arriving this week is a drive clone device which will hopefully get my weather station reporting online again. That’s meant to arrive on Wednesday.

We will reshape our farm this coming year. It will have to be if we are to make it a business rather than just a lifestyle. I know the kids were eager to move away closer to water, and I was eager to get closer to where it rains, and further from the Western fires and the constant haze in summer, and the droughts. For now, we have to anticipate working with what we have got. But that’s okay. If we can procure the right tools, and do the right things, I think there is still a lot of potential to unlock here!

I sold a goat on Friday. It was our little Billy. I have a couple of does I will put up in the front pen by the dog and sell next. Once the ones go that Missus is happy to part with, that ought to put the hay consumption under control. I still have the livestock on the field across the street and anticipate doing so for a couple of more weeks, till snow covers the ground and they cannot forage anymore from it. Perhaps when I move the girl llamas over here, I will let the boys run the whole field freely with the horse, and feed them as they please. I just need to move the feeder back up next to the fence so I can drop feed in easily from outside it. I expect I will use the truck as a delivery method again this year. The mower tends not to get around too well in the snow, or start well in the cold. I worry about our oldest female llama. Her hips are bad, and she is struggling to get around. It might be getting time.

The chickens are laying at about an egg per bird per every second day. We can get rid of all our eggs, and in a matter of two days be ahead again. I need a sign for the front of the garage that reads “Eggs & Things For Sale.” Maybe by spring.

It’s Going To Rain, And Other Musings

We live sort of center of this map above, and that big blob of rain is headed right for us. It is 43 out right now, so there is no threat of snow at the moment. Looks to me like it wants to make up for all that did not fall over the summer.

All week the forecast has shown us that starting today we would get five days of rain. That has been steady in the computer modeling that makes up the forecast, so I think it is something we can rely on. I best head up to the shop today to get some tarps for the firewood pile, lest it turn cold and we need to get a fire going to keep warm. It’s no good having wet wood!

The girls are both up, our grandson is over, and the kids are having a calm morning just about to put a show on. Grandma is going for a nap, and grandpa is too tired to do much because of all that got done yesterday.

When we were out getting wood, I noticed a piece that was put up high on the pile that was about 3/4 the size of the truck we drove, a jacked up Dodge Ram, and that it was precarious. I told the kids to stay away from it, and one I had to tell twice. Then Jordan, our oldest, and I took some wood from near it to the truck, and a noise caught our attention. That massive trunk took a tumble. We’d never seen one tumble before! They are usually stacked better, but someone irresponsible has been running the loader they use to pile the wood up. There were a few that have been placed in odd positions unlike the normal piling that they do down at the dump. It sort of negated one of the reasons I like getting wood there, normally. Not having to fell trees makes it a lot safer than going to the forest to get wood. But that was not one of those safer trips for sure, and I am thrilled to pieces that I noticed it and got the kids away before it took its tumble.

While we were out yesterday, my chuck arrived at the house. I can now drill with the lathe! That’s it! It’s whistles for everyone! I’ll probably help a lot when making narrow containers, too. There are definitely a few ideas rolling around in my mind that I look forward to trying. I have a piece of elm on the lathe right now that is too wet to keep working, so I am letting it have some time to sort itself out. I had been thinking of making a ball out of it, but maybe that is a good shape, and I can put a glass container down the middle and use it for Missus’s flowers. It is light on the outside, but walnut colored down the middle. Those two tones would look great with a burst of color sticking out the middle of them!

With the pigs gone, that opens up a space at the back of the llama pen that I can do one of a couple of things with. One is to open it up for the llamas, obviously. The other is to put a fence at the back of the llama pens and divide out a driveway to give another entrance to the property. That would be good for hay deliveries, and bringing in firewood and the like. Maybe. It just requires a little fencing and some gates. Especially as it might be good to put gates at the back of the pen for access to loading and cleaning at a bigger scale than we are able to do now.

We still are looking at moving house. I want to keep going on a few things in case that falls through. I don’t want to put life on pause for something that doesn’t materialize. There is a guy who owns a piece of land near us who is thinking on buying ours. He has to try to work something out with someone adjacent to us, though, because he wants both pieces of land to have clear access from our place all the way down to the corner. If that goes, or someone else buys, then that will set the wheels into motion.

But today? A duvet day…

Listing Animals

We are listing animals for sale. I have the pot belly pigs listed, and someone has already said they would like to come pay for them tomorrow and pick them up on Saturday. I will be listing some of the goats soo too. We have a couple of llamas that will need to find new homes as well. Though they are old, or one that is young and needs to breed elsewhere because he is related to the girls we are keeping.

If the pigs do go, then we will lower our feed bill substantially, which is great! I welcome that. It is an expensive hobby to keep animals around for fun. Having some money free should allow us to focus in on other hobbies, too. We plan to get back into this animal business on the other side of a move.

This weekend we relaxed again. Missus has a lot of stress at work right now, and needs these weekends to come down from it a bit, and get her head back to Earth. We had our grandson by, too. That is always fun! We did comb the rabbits, and picked and carded some llama fiber.

This week coming will likely see us putting the new oven in, and hopefully getting that trailer in the front yard cleaned out and moved empty into the back. The weather should be cooler, so I really should get the chainsaws sorted and ready to cut some firewood down to size ready for splitting. I keep putting it off for cooler weather, so I won’t overheat doing it.

My spare time is spent looking for hand tools for woodworking. There are a few I want to get so I can get going on specific projects. There are a few specific tasks I would like to be able to do, and while some could be done with power tools, there is just no need for all the noise and danger of power tools for what I have in mind. It is getting time to order a new tool as soon as it is available from the tool maker, so I am getting excited, if you could not already tell. There is in fact one that I am getting when it is available no matter, even if I have to pay it on credit. It looks that useful. It is a tongue and groove router, and in my thinking, it is going to do a lot more than just allow lapping of wood panels. I see it for inserting backs, making drawers, and even making cabinet drawers with. We’ll see if I am right in only a few days after one comes available!

Missus has shown me a bobbin lace pillow that she likes, and I would love to be able to frame the wood pieces of it for her ready for her to put together the padding and cover. I think we can do this. I’ll need to get her some good wood, rather than doing it in pine and having it causing her troubles to do it being a softer, inferior wood to something like oak, which I think would hold pins for the cover much better.

So that’s where we are at on a Sunday night. The school week is about to start up again, and I have more than a few things to do this week, though none as stressful as helping little one through a meeting with her teacher, or getting her set up for testing, as we did last week!

The Llamas Looked Alert

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!”

Llama Shearing; Flossy & Shire

Well, it is that time of year again. It is time to get the llamas out of the pen and onto pasture, away from the hay and on fresh grass. It saves us some money on hay, and we can shear and sell fiber. It is a practice I am getting better at, and this is the first year I have got the shears to work since lending them out to a guy who dulled them beyond usefulness on their first use. I have new blades and I have learned a bit more about proper tensioning.

For sure, they are not to be leant out again. Anyone who knows the right way to use them probably has their own, and anyone who needs them likely has their own to use. I need to work on that assumption, and keep them out of the hands of novices.

Now, to be fair, it includes me, when I say novices. But after lending them out to someone before I had ever used them, only to have them returned to me unworkable, was a costly mistake on my part. I never got to learn how they were supposed to feel new, and sharp, so I ended up fighting with them unnecessarily while trying to work them out.

I only sheared two llamas so far today. It has got up to 81 degrees out now, and is a bit much for working with hot fiber and in sunlight. I could do with a shady spot to work on this. but I don’t have one at the moment. Maybe one day.

The exciting part is that the brown and white one has a lot more hair in her fiber mix, and is a bit undesirable as spinning fiber, I think. So this year she got her first ever shearing, and while she fought it, and I had to only do a saddle cut on her, I was able to blend it with the shears so that it did not LOOK like a saddle cut. She will get to have her first cool summer, and we can get a closer look at her blend of fiber and hair.

The black llama would not let me down at her belly for much cutting, so she looks a little unkempt there, but she is shorn well all over the rest of her, so that was again, good!

Honestly, I am not sure how I can get the males to volunteer to come on over for a trim and a shave. They have long, beautiful fiber that is ready for a good cut! I will try later, maybe later this week! At least they are predominantly lighter colors, and will suffer a little less in the heat.

I am no fan of fighting llamas in a small pen, but I don’t have them a setup that would allow me to drag them apart by the front and back legs like some shearers do. I am getting just old enough that it might be a good idea, though.