Our Farm Animals – Page 3 – The Peasant's Manor Farm

Beef Cows

Yesterday I went just up the canyon and bought off a guy four Holstien beef steers that he had listed on the local online classifieds. They turned out to be on average three weeks old, so they should wean around the first day of autumn. We have fed them once now, and I think it is fair to say which one I think is going to die before we get to raise it. He is a brown and white cow, and he has as much interest in his feed as a Jersey. He fell over a couple of times while trying to eat, too. It could be that he was not interested in the change of feed, as the dairyman I bought them from said he has been feeding the cows milk every day from his herd. I have milk replacer, and I don’t think it would be near as good, from what I can tell of it.

The next real trick is going to be getting enough hay to last them the winter. Along with the llamas and goats, there is going to be a real need for it around here. Lucky enough, the llamas and goats are all grown up and won’t require more than they eat now. But the cows will grow and will want more in the early spring than they do at Thanksgiving. On the other hand, come late spring they will be able to go on the back pasture, and hopefully finish out on that, which will be good for both the cows and the pasture.

On another note, my hand is itching where it was stung by a wasp the other day. The swelling was not near as bad as it could have been, based on previous stings. I sure don’t blame the wasp for it, as it had me dead to rights when I went to move that log and put my hand right on it. I think I’d have done the same.

I need to pick up some animal feed today and work out how I am going ot get the hay I need over winter. It’s going to be an expensive year with the extra mouths to feed, and the high cost of hay. I think though that those costs will be passed on to consumers come next year, when they are being absorbed into meat prices. So, I don’t think it is a bad move to have these little guys starting to get ready for the freezer this year. I expect some of their cost to get picked up by others in the family that have expressed an interest in having meat, too. Maybe they will help with the cost or the work in bringing home hay?

So Nearly Spring!

It is almost Spring! Along with the recent time change, the weather is acting accordingly. There are geese in migration and there are other birds showing up, though I have yet to see my first Robin of Spring. The temperatures are warming up with higher daytime highs and nights that are not nearly as cold as they once were. The days after the time change come to sunset later than before, giving us more time to do our evening chores and walk the dogs without having to carry a light. Mud season seemed worryingly early this year, and I wonder if the ground will dry up before the sun warms the ground enough to start the pasture grass and trees. But we will have to wait and see on that still, as the dead grass from last year is now fully exposed, and nothing has even hinted at the blossom.

I have a couple of things on order from eBay and from a reputable antiques replicator that specialized in 18th century products. The first is a corn sheller from the late 19th or early 20th century. I want to grow and dry our own corn to give to the chickens. The one I have on order is in excellent condition. I hope to see it put to good use. From the replicator I have a cast iron cauldron, for fun, and a colonial candle mold, to make candles for my replica tin punched lantern that I received for my birthday. I am really excited about it! I remember first seeing one pictured in a history book in high school and swearing then that one day I would have one. Well, my birthday was finally that day! It looks as new as a Colonial American would have seen it the day he bought one in the 18th century. When the mold arrives tomorrow, I may just melt the wax in the cauldron and make me some candles. I will have everything I need to do it! By tomorrow evening I will be lighting the lantern for the first time.

There is a lot to rearrange here on the farm to carry on with plans we have talked about lately. Missus wants a shop to sell things from. I want a workshop to make things in. Both require a lot of work, and to accomplish them, I think we will need to arrange the layout of some of the internal fencing differently. We will also have to put some animals over the road permanently. In other words, I have a busy spring ahead of me. On top of it, there is the usual with firewood gathering. I need to get a lot of it before it warms up too warm to do such hard work. The splitting can be done any cool morning on the farm. But gathering is away, and just for that reason is inherently more dangerous. But while I am splitting, I can easily take a break, get a drink, and so on. Much safer as it is at home. It also does not require a long drive, so can be started and worked on any day of the week, rather than the days there is no school for the girls, and so on. We expect to be working wood in a new part of the yard, too, and I have to set up a good workspace. Time to review my workflow.

I have the shop reduced to just things that are supposed to be in there. There is a lot to clean up and find homes for, though. I don’t have the space I need for it all and will need to set up some sort of cabinets or workbench still. I would also like to get a jointer’s bench, if I can. I’d like to be able to work in the shop on nay day there is no power, just as well as on the days there is. There are a lot of ideas floating around in my head that will keep me busy redoing it for the whole summer, I’m sure!

With the nights only getting to the mid 20’s, and the days hitting the mid-forties, the house is lovely and comfortable, and easy to keep warm when it needs it. I am thrilled that there is still wood in the woodpile! It is not all well-seasoned, but in a pinch, it will do!

I am still adjusting to the time change. This may be why I am up so late right now. It is approaching eleven o’clock. It is best I get to bed. Tomorrow will no doubt be a bust day! The repairman for the dryer will finally come to replace a part in it. That has been two months in the ordering. I’ll be glad to get it in and be done with it.

Emptied the Trailer

Yesterday was momentous! I got the trailer hooked up to the truck and went down to the thrift store, only to remember then that the thrift store here is not open on a Monday. I wasn’t going to waste the time or the fuel, so I went over to the salvage yard and began sorting the stuff in the trailer onto the ground there for the big electromagnet to pick up and put to use in something new. One that was done, I went to the dump to take care of the rest of what could go from the bottom deck of the trailer! When I was done, there were only a very few items left that I knew Missus wanted saved, and that I was not quite ready to throw out myself. After I got home, I rested from the chores a bit, then took out those few items, and emptied the trailer out once and for all!

Why is this momentous, you may ask? Well, the trailer deck is much lower than the truck bed, AND the trailer has a ramp leading into it! This is something worth everything when one is loading in firewood! It has been tied up with this load of ‘not sure what to do with it’ stuff for ages now, and with this done, I can now easily get firewood (as compared to hefting the wood into the bed of the truck) as well as get more if I should decide to heft wood into the bed of the truck. I might have to plan a trip to fetch wood this week! It would be good to top off against what we have used this year so far and it never hurts to pile up against next year. With our plans in flux and the hot summer we had, this year did not see the accumulation that I wanted, but it is still not too late. On top of that, I need to get wood that will be ready to turn on the lathe come warmer weather, or when I can get the shop heater cleared away from for burning.

The dogs left only one bomb overnight yesterday morning, and I got ahead of them and thought that we may be onto getting them trained to go outside only. Then yesterday evening, they spotted over four places and left two bombs. So much for progress! So when I woke up at 4AM this morning I got up soon after and stayed up to be ready when they woke, that way I could walk them straight away, and probably a couple of times (as it is still early now) to try to get them out enough to not have excuses to mess. You ever have such things running around making noises, and sometimes walking by sniffing as they go? It does not help one’s trust. I feel like the dad in some sitcom, or worse, in A Christmas Story as he looks over his newspaper to have just missed the neighbor’s dogs running through his living room on the way to the Turkey in the kitchen. What’s that smell? My imagination? Good! Incidentally, they spotted once that I could tell, but did not bomb overnight last night! Good doggies! I think it might be progress of a sort.

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.

Final Run Till Christmas!

With the Thanksgiving weekend over, we are on the final run till Christmas, then New Year’s, and the long drag through winter. In January the seed catalogues will begin to arrive, tempting us with plants to grow over the summer. Then when spring finally comes, we will be out from under the snow, and thawing the cold out of our bones. But none of it comes till we slog through winter. Spring doesn’t seem that far away right now, but it never comes quickly when I find myself outside day after day, dark evening after dark evening, cold as can be as I do the chores and keep the poor animals alive that live right through the cold seasons that I struggle to go out in at all.

This weekend we talked about the state of our youngest daughter and her social wellbeing while she homeschools. She does pretty good, but she does get lonely for friends, and often wants company from us when we are busy trying to keep our family afloat on our daily tasks. Missus said to me that she doesn’t know why she didn’t think of it before, but the girl needs a dog. So, we discussed breeds and such, and decided on something close to a Beagle. We are not particular about pure breeds, so we looked and found some Beagle, Australian Shepherd mixes for sale only a couple of miles from our place, just over the Utah state line. I got a reply Saturday morning that if I could come within the hour, I would be able to pick one up before the seller goes out for the day. Right on that!

I brought him in tucked inside my jacket, and Missus took him off me and dumped him on our daughter’s lap. Do I need to tell you how a nine year old reacts to a puppy being dropped in her lap? Probably not.

The dog was a good boy on the way home, and a good boy all the way up to town a bit later to get him some supplies, feed, and leash. The only trouble was that he was sick in the car, and spent the day being pretty quiet, and mellow. I then noticed by late afternoon that he was kicking his leg similar to a horse with colic. So, I talked to Missus about the state of him and was soon out the door to pick up his sister from the guy who sold him to us. He has been perfect since.

That is how we got two dogs this weekend. They are nine weeks old, so that would put them around September 25th as a birthday. He is a good boy and she is a good girl. My daughter named her dog Spot, and I took our older daughter with to get the girl, and I told her, I don’t care the gender, my Beagle is going to be called Snoopy. That is how we got a boy named Spot, and a girl named Snoopy!

Tonight, as the weekend comes to a close, and we begin that final run towards Christmas, the two dogs are lay on a stuffed dog my wife had up on our bed, sleeping sweetly, and close to each other. I think if dogs could smile, that is what I would see on their sweet little faces right now.

I picked up some firewood with our oldest on Friday. As he loaded his jacked-up truck, he was moaning, “get a big truck they said. It’ll be fun, they said.” Pretty sure we both slept well that night. The wood is wet, and will have to hold out till next year, barring we don’t run out of this year’s wood. I guess we’ll see.

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.

Where Have I Been The Past Few Days?

Over the last couple of days I have been focused on making sure of the girls in their home schooling, and generally either hiding from the rain on rainy days, or splitting up some of the firewood on sunny ones. I have given the lathe a break while I wait for a part I buggered up on it, and a tool to repair the part it attaches to, which I could replace, if they were in stock with Laguna. Well, not a huge deal, but I will not turn on it till the part and tool arrive, because I don’t want it to turn into a huge deal.

Meanwhile, I ordered Missus her Christmas present, but it is the kind of present that one must speak to the recipient about before committing to buying it. Currently she has got a Cricut, and makes lots of things on it. In a couple of weeks she will have a GlowForge and will up her game with it, and hopefully with an Etsy store where she will be able to sell things made from those tools, as well as her handmade art. She’s looking to start a side hustle. I’m looking to see to it that the rug under her is a red carpet.

Since there is a GlowForge coming, I have been spending time in Inkscape learning how to layout in that. I may or may not get enlisted in the process of running this side hustle, or I may just be able to use it to design a few personal things, or a placard for any furniture I make out in my shop. Whatever the case, I need to at least lay out designs and do basic operations to be of some use in the business.

That’s the most of it over the past few days. Obviously there was Halloween!

The day was pretty normal for us. We did not do anything out of the norm for ourselves, but the kids watched a couple of Halloween themed movies during the day. By evening our youngest complained because we were not going Trick-Or-Treating. So I put my two red lanterns on in the dining room and library, and turned off all the other lights. Missus put together two baskets of sweets in lieu of hordes of candy, then brought out a book and once the girls were settled into their sweets, she began reading Poe in her lovely English accent. I thought it was quite a perfect spontaneous Halloween!

It’s soon time to get our winter hay paid for and delivered. Maybe today or tomorrow will be a good time to get set up for that. This weekend is our grandson’s time over. I still have firewood to split up out in the Service Yard. I could do with getting it all done before winter settles in. If it goes at the rate the last few days has, then that won’t be too difficult a goal to achieve.

That’s about where things are at. The Holidays have officially gotten started with Halloween past us now. Next up is Thanksgiving, then the big one. After that comes the long, cold winter. It’s getting time to button down for that!

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…

Today’s Turn

Today I hardly saw the lathe till evening. I spent the morning with out oldest loading firewood at the dump, then we came home, unloaded it, and split it all up. He was very eager to have dry wood because he has been having troubles burning some wet wood he has at his place. There just wasn’t very much workable dry wood there, though, so I suggested he take some wet wood, then when we got back to the farm, he trade the wet wood for some of my dry wood. I have plenty laying about, and a lot sorted out for this winter. So he did that. I have more for next year, and lots for this at the moment. He left with just over half a cord of wood all split up and ready to burn.

After he left, a guy showed up and took the last two of our pigs, leaving us free of them, and their cost on our feed bill. He went to pay me via Venmo, but my account is still suspended from the first time I tried to use it, so I told him not to worry about it. I wasn’t going to make him unload them after all the work he did to load them, and I was happy to get them off our feed bill, and was planning giving them away anyhow if we didn’t sell them to anyone. I was thrilled to see them go.

So it was a great day, seeing both of the boys, and getting firewood sorted out, and getting two pigs sorted out. I did work on the lathe a little tonight, but the wood is wet, and prone to catching. I was happy to leave it, before it ruined my new hobby.