Category: Rabbits

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!

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.

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.

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!