Category: Special Update

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.

august31

I got the truck ready last night to go down and get a load of firewood, so I could get up, drop the girls off with the school bus, and head right down to town this morning. As I tooled down the highway, I realized that this was the first time I have taken the trailer out since putting a sign on it with the web address to this site on it. “The Peasan’t Manor Farm .com” is more or less how it reads. I was just a little nervous about announcing myself in public like that! There is still a little shyness in me.

After collecting most of the logs I found suitable for splitting and burning, I went up in the the wood collection place thinking of seeing if anyone else in there wanted some help loading their trucks. After all, with my winch set-up on the truck and trailer, I still had some energy and and was not sore, so I wanted to go help someone else out. I got up near a guy and his wife that had pulled in, and he walked towards me with a smile and said, “I know you!” I mused for a second to think where I might have met him, but nothing sprang to mind. Then he continued, “Well, I don’t know you know you, but I have read your blog. You have that little place out in Fairview?”

He was right and I very was surprised! Well, without giving out too much for the sake of his privacy, it was good to meet you and your Missus today, Mr. H!

We had a good chat, and I was happily surprised to realize he was wearing a hat with Vandenburg AFB and a little picture of the Space Shuttle on it. I spent a bit of time out that way myself as a local resident when I was younger, so that was a fun conversation topic.

When I got home, I was very happy to see Missus and our No. 2 had got her windmill together and it was stood up in her herb garden. I had a little break then got the trailer off the truck and pulled it to the back with the tractor and unloaded it. Two of the pieces were short enough to split, so I got at it, and found they were likely maple, so that was pretty exciting. There were a fair few ants on them, so I loaded them in the tractor bucket and took them around to the shop to spray them lightly. I have them still there, and if the wood looks clear tomorrow, I will put it in the wood pile for winter.

Today was a great day, from meeting people to just plain tolerable temperatures. I got some stuff done, and I had a relaxing afternoon. Supper was a spicy shrimp curry! Mr. H asked about what I am doing on the lathe lately, and I am thinking I need to do an update on everything soon. The simplest answer though is that it has been a hot summer and I have honestly had to avoid the hot places to keep conscious. The temperatures are breaking in the forecast though, and I expect to get more done now. I am about to nod off to bed, and I smell rain. Roll on September!

Troubles Getting Things

Does nothing work right now? I have tried to order a set of mower spindles for the mower deck on the riding lawnmower. I ordered a pair from Walmart because I could get three pairs of them for the cost of one pair off the manufacturer’s website. Walmart’s website is still showing it as not delivered, but the tracking button leads me to the USPS website, and that shows it as delivered and left on the front porch in Boise, Idaho, which is not where I live.

I got hold of the obviously foriegn chat to secure a refund, then I went to Amazon and ordered two more spindles for about the same price. I hope since Amazon has a track-record of delivring correctly to out house, they will show up soon.

The parts are so cheap compared to the manufacturer that I don’t know if I am getting weak knock-off’s, or if the manufacturer is way over inflating their prices. I am going to have to find that out the hard way, infortunately.

Meanwhile, while all this is going on, I am watching the economic summaries of what is going on with other countries, and where the US is decoupling with China, and China has a severely crashing housing market, and there is Russia and its sanctions, and the German economy is not growing, there is a severe economic forecast on the horizon. While the US stands to do well over-all, I think we should expect a serious influx of immigrants as many other countries will be affected by the recession this will kick off. So, however wrong it feels to try to order parts now, I think things are not going to get better anytime soon. It’s the best time ever to be settled on our little farm.

Oh, and as a final, weird little side note; Hurrican Hilary is meant to make landfall in southern California Sunday night. One of the most densly populated parts of the country it about to get hit with torrential rain, howling wind, and everything its dirt-made mountains need to really raise havoc. It’s like the train is approaching the site of the broken rails on the track, and there is nothing that can be done to stop it before a crash. This stands to be not a pretty sight.

Today might be a free to work day for me. I really only have one thing left to get done to move major repairs along on the farm. Yes, I am still having troubles getting someone to show up and replace our septic. I need to get in touch with the company that currently holds a copy of our permit and has promised to get back to us. Other than that, I have been milling boards to repair the barn, and need to finish getting those set up. I may also start milling some boards to put around the front windows of the house where the old ones were taken down when siding was put up. We took the siding off the front porch, and now have to replace those.

Well, this has been a pretty Doom & Gloom post. Not to be a worried old man, but just to chronical what is going on that will undoubtedly affect everyone, and our little homestead here, too. Next we muster up our way forward.

Transitioning to a New Life

Two weeks now since the last day Missus reported into The Man. We are cut loose and flapping free in the wind. It is kind of nice. At the same time, it is scary, and it is a lot of work. We are trying to sort out some things in the house to clean it up and sort out livability. There are also workspaces to sort. Overall, it is not the worst situation we have been in.

Missus left the corporate world two weeks ago today. Since her volunteer departure we found out there have been layoffs. She feels it has been a good thing for her to go free on her own. The first benefit has been the extra time to work on the house and try to get things in order that have been put off due to lack of time while she was mentally and physically focused on her job. Despite the time, there is still a lot to do even two weeks later, thanks to there being so much to do! But we are keeping at it, and hopefully we will have things under control before too long. The heat is picking up, and that is not helping, but maybe we will switch over to a night shift to do things when it is cooler and sleep in the day, since now we can!

The scary part is of course keeping up with income. We have an egg to live off for a bit, but that won’t last forever, and who wants to give it up for an extended vacation when we could get earning and keep the egg? There are things here than need fixing, and the expenses with those also need to be taken from that egg, so it does add pressure to get earning before too long!

We have most of what we think we need to get the farm and business going. There are a couple of things left to get, such as a fridge for the eggs to sell in, and some other things along with them, should we choose to. The places we need to do the work we need to are pretty good. I have my shop, and it is almost ready to go up and running as it is. I would like to sort out a bit of an air system to remove the rubbish from the machines. Missus has her craft cottage, and the worktables in there to do what she wants to accomplish.

We moved to the US from the UK back in late 2010. We were dirt poor back then. We are better off this year than ever. That has come through our work and through some losses. It has all come at costs to us. We hope to be soon providing goods and services that will be a benefit to others, and at a fair price to keep us going too. As I said, this is not the worst situation we have been in, and now we hope we are well footed to move forward.

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.

The Mud Situation

The weather relaxed this evening, though we are meant to wake up to snow again tomorrow morning. I got out a bit this afternoon and hada go at the start of the driveway towards the backyard with the tractor. I was able to smooth some of it down and make it almost passable. But the quicksand bed is still there, lingering half way back towards the backyard.

The middle of this photo is a bed of quicksand. As soon as I drive the tractor past where my footprints lead up to, in it goes. I suspect that it is deep enough to bury even my back wheels if I get into it.

So the drive is much smoother and more stable now leading up to the patch where I get that sinking feeling. I was able to scrape some of the earth that had been pushed out to the side of the drive back into it with the box blade. I then smoothed with a backdrag. I was even able to get back to another pit at the entry of the Service Yard, but that is only a place where I have to drive past, and quite close to the pit, I might add. I don’t think I will be going into the Service Yard for some time yet, as there are a couple of quicksand pits in it.

The water here is the first place I lost my tractor into the mud.

The water inbetween the gates is the spot that brushes so close to the main driveway, and also threatens to swallow my tractor whole.

Here is the water from the previous picture and the driveway area that I was able to smooth out. It is a close call as some of the drive had been collapsing into the water, but a bit of fresh, relatively dry dirt was able to shore it up some.

Finally, once I can get the tractor to the back of the property, this is what awaits me where the animal feed has been kept. There is no good way into it till the water recedes from the farm behind our house. Every approach to the hay has been waterlogged and the tractor has sunken into it. All I can do is get close enough, then hand carry the bales to the loader on the tractor and carry it from there.

This is all a mental note to self not to put the hay back on the garden spot again. I need to gravel the drives, and the spots I intend to park and move about with the tractor, and I need to gravel a spot to rest the hay on. This place has clearly not worked!

End of February Update.

It is definitely still winter here at the farm. We have good chances of snow for most of the coming week. Looks from the weather radar that whatever does come will likely have to form, as nothing closer to the west coast seems to be heading our way. It was warm today, though! We got up to 38F according to our weather station.

The SDR Radio I got the other day worked as expected. I got it running that day and played around with it, then delivered the second one to the desktop computer upstairs but did not yet set that one up. It’s fascinating how it can read or see the whole spectrum, and portions of it visible at once to tell where different signals are and have a hint to what kind they are. FM Radio signals are amazing, especially where they have digital encoding on both sides of the frequency. Even stations without that digital encoding are amazingly powerful compared to the rest of the spectrum. I will have to work on reception and an improved arial.

The tractor reached 200 hours yesterday. That’s just shy of five months! I cannot believe we are coming up to five months of ownership already! It still seems new to me. Most of its work here has bene snow clearing, but as soon as the weather breaks to spring, I think it will see a total shift! I may move big snow piles into the orchard just to get the trees started for the year. I may have to move a lot of hay off the garden and start it for tilling. I want that space tilled four or more times prior to planting in May and June. There will be post holes to dig, too. I am going to have to reset some fencing and clear some old areas out. Then there is the firewood. I don’t expect to muck about with that this year, since I want to be two years stored by autumn, and since I want to have a load of wood to work with. I hope to see this whole area of my chores severely altered to what it has been in previous years.

I got the second GoPro camera that I have been thinking about. If I am going to do a YouTube channel, then this setup I have is good enough to do it with. I would benefit from a lavalier mic, but I have a separate sound recorder that can also do the trick for now. I’ll have to give it a try. I am having a card reader delivered so I can put one on my laptop and one on my desktop to unload videos and edit. I have tried out the GoPro cloud, and I am not terribly thrilled with any of it, apart from the discount they offer to users while shopping. I’d rather keep the filed local, I think. Then I’ll only upload final cuts to the Internet. I have yet to see any real advantage apart from having apparently all the space I need to keep every crap video file I make. That may turn out to be the seeds of a problem. But who knows? Maybe in the next few weeks I’ll get a video created and uploaded to the channel again.

Mondy is anticipated to be the day we have our deli slicer delivered. I have been wanting a proper one for many years now, and we have what appears to be a decent one on the way. It is a Berkel 300 Redline. I am a little worried about it after seeing the shipping details. For whatever reason, it is listed with a shipping weight of 122 pounds. I am having trouble believing that, but I worry that I believe wrong. I guess we’ll see what it is like when it gets here. But honesty, how can a home line slicer weight so much? Maybe they packed it in a wooden crate?

I have very few hand tools left in my wish list now. A shipment arrives also on Monday. It is just a few things, and while there are a couple more planes to be desired, I think I have enough to get a real start in my workshop. Spring will give us access to the barn for cleanup, and to rearrange our storage. I have a permanent wall to fix into the old garage door of my shop. That wall wants a window built into it for some heat and light. Missus has a kiln on order that also wants a home in the shop.

So, a lot is going on this year. I think we will be able to reach closer than ever to self-sufficiency. I have always said that it is a very expensive state to reach. On the upside, I am where I can start building some of the remaining tools I need. I am even considering building my own travishers. I’ll still have to buy the blades, but the handles and bodies will save me around $100 each. That’s not small potatoes. Small potatoes come from my garden.

There you have it! An end of February summary. That’s what’s going on, and where we are at, and where we are going for the moment. I am excited to be at the point in life where I feel like I finally have a life, and all the things that that entails. Having moved country twice and other events that have left me with next to nothing, it is a hard thing to recover from. But I feel quite like I have arrived. Everything else is just improving things up and building equity. For me, that’s a good place to be. Oh, and I am about two weeks short of my 52nd birthday.

Record Cold

Previously our record cold temperature was -9F. It was set on New Year’s in 2019, I think. Since the weather station keeps the all-time record readily available, I cannot look up the second coldest, and third, and so on. That got bumped recently to -11. That record was set a couple of weeks ago. I was kind of proud of it. But even more recently, during a cold snap that hit us this week, we hit a new all-time record of -21F just yesterday. The forecast called for it, then set us up to immediately get into a warming trend that would bring us back up to normal temperatures in just three days or so. I trust lawyers and weathermen just as much as I trust car salespeople. Especially as much as I do sat here now at around 2:00AM the next day, monitoring the temps and our water pipes. An hour ago, we hit -23. It went up since then to the old record of -21 when I got up feeling the briskness in the house. Typically, one can expect the coldest part of the day to happen around sunrise. That gives us about five hours or so to reset this record again.

Out of interest, Peter Sinks hit a low yesterday of -42.56F. Peter Sinks is 20.82 miles from our house at a heading of 70.22 degrees. It holds the record for second coldest place in the lower United States at -69.3F, recorded in 1985. The coldest on record is at Roger’s Pass in Montana which in 1954 recorded a comparatively bone chilling -69.7. Peter Sinks is a geographic feature in the northern Utah mountains near Bear Lake. One can think of it as a sort of dish shape that collects falling cold air in its bottom. Trapped there, the air cannot fall out and dissipate, so as more cold air falls in from the atmosphere, it just gets colder and colder.

2:35AM just passed by, and we hit -24F. That ancient record has been edged out.

When I woke up about half an hour ago, I found the woodstove had a couple of logs in it that were putting up a decent fight against the cold. There was room for some more, so I went out to the stash on the front porch to bring in some more. I had nearly emptied the bunk in the house with the couple I added to the stove. I can only imagine for now that the logs I had found burning away in it were added by a chilly Missus who must have been up recently. The girls and I are sleeping in the living room again tonight, which is the room next to where the stove is. Despite all the stove’s effort, it is chilly in here. Of course, under the massive comforter I have wrapped around me, that chill is not so menacing. I hope the girls have enough blankets to prevent the assault. They both have their heads under, so I would guess they are a little chilly. The older one recently awoke and pulled another over her, then fell back to sleep. I may have to trek upstairs to get them each one or two more.

With the record set yesterday, and our all-time high on my weather station of 104F, that put our temperature spread to 125 degrees. Obviously, that is going to be a bit greater by morning. -25F has already slipped by us in the time I spent typing, and I think it is fair to expect -30 to go by before the sun rises. It is 2:50AM and I think I am going to get up and boil the kettle for Missus’ 3:00AM wake up, get those blankets for the girls and encourage the woodstove to flex its muscles.

I must have put too much wood in the woodstove because it has warmed up outside to -24. Missus is up and quickly on her second cup of tea. She says I used too small a cup for her first. I checked that water was running at a drizzle in both of the bathrooms. I brought some wood in from the stores on the front porch, too. The dining room made it up to 75 when I let the stove run up to the maximum safe operating temperature. Missus’ craft room and office is surprisingly warm for running one of those heat panels and the fan blowing air in from the dining room only to keep it warm. Meanwhile, I continue my temperature record watch party of one. It’s at -23. Maybe I ought to just go back to sleep if we already set the record. Nothing but boring now. What a laugh!

After 4:00Am now, and it has warmed up to -22. Still colder than yesterday. It could go either way from here, but I am going to sleep through it, whatever it does. It is time to go reclaim the joy of being in dreamland. What fun it has been to see this shocking cold! Not from out in it, mind! I am quite happy to remain here in the house!

It is coming up to 10:30AM now. It bottomed out this morning at 6:10AM at -26F. That’s a record on my weather station. Right now, I have the block heater on the tractor so I can try to use the tractor to jump start the truck. That’s how it is today. I hope we will see the temperatures warm up as the forecast predicts it will over the next few days.

A Working Bench

I started the process of ordering a work bench for the shop at the end of December. Then I realized I had ordered the short one on accident, so I cancelled it and looked for the longer one. The shop I had originally ordered from did not have any, so I tried out another shop. That was the next day. I put the longer bench on order and have been waiting since. Today, it finally arrived.

The box was in perfect shape, so that restored my confidence after imagining that the bench was going to come in a manky box, looking utterly destroyed from its long journey. The driver came to the door and asked me where I wanted him to put the box, but I said if he would give me a minute, I could get a pallet fork on the tractor and get it out myself. He was quite excited! Especially as the yard did not look ready for him to run a pallet jack across it. Once I had it outside the door to the shop, I opened it and got the trestle put together with the help of my youngest daughter. Everything went together easily and well. Then came time to put the top on.

I lifted the end of the top, and considered if I could use the dolly to get it into the shop and do a partial lift at one end of the top to the kneel saw table, then up to the trestle with the other end, then slide it up. I lifted it again and sent a message for help. With two grown men lifting the top off the forks and into the shop and right onto the trestle, it took a lot out of us! I think the trestle must have weighed forty pounds, and the top weighed the rest of the 290 pounds the paperwork said it weighed.

The next tasks were to try it out for a couple of simple things, then get to cleaning the workshop! The place has been a mess, and I have not wanted to deal with it till I got this sorted out to get an idea of the final layout. The shop, being an old garage, I want to close off the car door and turn it into a wall with a window and a door in it, then build a rustic bench under the window to take working pieces of wood while I build on the bench opposite it. Going to plan, it will also be a great place to take some photos on the rustic top and under the window light. Well, that’s the plan, anyway.

Now, about the projects on the plan so far. I want to make a couple of blanket chests for the girls, and I have a few projects in the house that need finishing up. I also want to make a couple of weaving tools for missus, such as inkle looms and eventually, if I can get my head around it, some more complex looms, as well as maybe a drum carder. She has also asked for things like shuttles for the looms she already has. Then comes the furniture. I want to make reproduction pieces of things such as pie safe, and perhaps a Coolgardie safe. I would like to look at butcher block counter tops for the kitchen, handmade, of course, especially as a power plane for such big pieces is challenging. We could use a cabinet for the kitchen that would also work as a good-sized bread bin, since that seems to be a family favorite. Then there is the big goal. Since seeing Anne of All Trades on YouTube working on Windsor chairs, I have had a real hankering to build me a couple of those. I have always loved the styles, and the proper joinery to hold them together. I think that would be a real accomplishment to be proud of. Well, if it comes out half-way decent! Time to learn how to use milk paint! My interests lie in 18th and 19th century designs. With the Sjoberg’s Elite 2000 now sat in the shop, I have my “…official Red Ryder Carbine action, 200 shot, range model air rifle with a compass in the stock, and this thing that tells time.”

The next thing and perhaps final for the shop’s power tool collection should be a band saw. That’d be handy for resawing and preparing stock for the lathe. There are a few more planes and hand tools to get, too. I have the basic sharpening tools on the way to finally sort that out, and to keep the plane irons in top shape. Especially important now that I have a bench to do the work on, and I plan to keep the planes busy. I could use a mill for outside to reduce logs to lumber, seeing as I always seem to have access to logs thanks to the pursuit of firewood.

Am I excited for this? I think so. I am about to embark on a life’s ambition to really get into woodworking and to start building my own furniture, as I am so unhappy with what’s on offer down at the furniture store. I have held off because I was convinced to try hand planes by my Missus, and I did, and soon discovered that a proper plane is easier to use than the old ones I had used in the past, and that I really needed a bench that would hold the workpieces properly while I planed them. Believe you me, with this bench that excuse dies. On I go.

Planning to Come Back to YouTube

Tomorrow I am expecting a new action camera to arrive. It looks like it will shoot the image quality I am looking for, as well as the durability and the MINE-ness I really want. I don’t want to be taking my wife’s camera out, and accidentally breaking it while trying to get a video.

So why get a video cam? Well, I have children who keep getting older on me, and we don’t plan on anymore. So that’s one good reason for it. Another is that I have a couple of videos up on YouTube on the topic of the farm. I would like to add some more. I still have the little action cams I filmed those with, but the mics were never great, and the lenses have a pretty good amount of fisheye to them, distorting everything in the video. Llamas are funny looking enough without that kind of help. Lastly, I am completing a circle of sorts and I have a workbench on order that, once it arrives, should provide plenty of good content for said YouTube channel. I don’t want to miss the setup and getting things going with that. I already got the video editing software, and have it installed. I have a really good digital recorder, too. I can capture sound separate to the action cam as needed. I have great sound editing software, and I have a mixing board for expanded live recording. With the action cam being the only missing link, I thought I would get it, and give it a go.

The content potential here is pretty good, too. I have the Kioti Tractor, and we have lots of animals to look after. I hope things will flow kind of naturally. And if I could reach monetization and get some money back for what I upload, and that money is enough to pay for the camera, and maybe even a little extra, then that would be fantastic. I am probably better off trying to make a little off my hobbies than trying to find a career at my age.

The workbench I ordered is on backorder, and I don’t know if that is due to a standard shipping delay; listed as in stock, usually ships in 1 to 3 days. Or are there still supply chain issues that will hold it up even longer?

Whatever the case, expect even more great video than this…

The company I bought the bench from just got back to me. They are shipping the bench from the manufacturer, expecting 1-3 business days, but it could be longer due to the recent holidays. They said they will reach out to them to find out and get back to me when they know for sure. I think that’s about all I could ask for! I think I will go figure out a potential video format for the videos I plan to start recording this week.