Tractor – The Peasant's Manor Farm

First Wood Collection of the Year

Things have been busy around here on the old farm lately. I have been doing some cleaning out in the yard to get ready for the season. I also got fed up with the grass at the front of the house, and how the land leans and keeps water too close, so I got into the tractor and sorted that out. Now there is no grass there, and a couple of old water troughs that leak set there as planters. I filled them up and will be putting in some flowers soon. I was ready to get at some work the day before yesterday when there came a knock on the front door.

The knock was the guy who owns the house just down the road from us. He lives in town and was having a tall pine tree taken down in his yard up there. He asked me if I wanted it. Well, that’s a silly question! I went up and spoke to the tree man and specified how I would like the wood cut up. Then I got the trailer the hay was on and took it up for pickup. Sadly, I did not have much luck getting the hay off the trailer in a neat and orderly fashion as I was not sure how long I had till the wood was ready to start piling on. So the hay ended up knocked over in the yard, and of course it rained since. So that’s a bit of a problem! But in the end, the gentleman who owns the tree decided to have a second, shorter tree taken down too. It was under a power line, so it was actually wider in the trunk than the tall one because it had been topped over the years.

So I have all that wood in the yard now. I am thinking I want to do the milling as soon as the ground is dry, then put on Anchor Seal to reduce cracking. That stuff has worked really well on the wood I milled last year. I think a couple of pieces will get milled into large blocks, and the long pieces will be milled into boards. I’ll have to see what the knots in the cant look like! The rounds and branches can be put into firwood, and some of the smaller branches want slicing into coasters and Christmas ornaments for the laser. Maybe there are a couple of signs hiding in there to be laser cut too. I’ll be keeping an eye out.

Spring Cleaning was begun this morning in the kitchen. Some sense and order is being applied to make things more serviceable in there. It was pretty bad. But we made good progress on it today till we wore out, and we will finish it tomorrow, I am sure.

Despite the warming weather, I see two frost days coming up this week. As that is the forecast, and it is always guessed at about two degrees warmer than we actually get in our specific location, I think there may be more. Missus has me warning her each night so she can do any quick saves required.

The kids attend school for four more weeks till they are set free for the summer. I am really looking forward to it! It will be nice to have them about, and to free up the schedule so I can start going out to get wood for the fire and for the mill. It is time for me to start drawing up plans for the woodshed. I have been thinking about it plenty, but I have not put pen to paper on the topic yet. I think I know what I will have to put in place, though it is not exactly what I want. But perhaps I can refigure as I recently found out I am allowed a larger build than I thought without a permit. So, there is that to look at first.

Well, it’s evening here now, and time to get settled and ready to rest for the fight of another day!

March Has Arrived, Spring Comes Soon!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wax Melter and Tractor Chores

So far the test on the wax melter has gone really good. It has melted the wax at a temperature close to what it says on the digital screen. I should put the thermometer in and see how it measures at the bottom, and see if that is accurate. It was off a bit when I measured at the top, which could be expected as there is likely more heat just down by the heating element. I adjusted the temp down and will see tomorrow or the next day how it does, but first, I have it shut off right now to see how it does at reheating a full pot. That is a lot of wax. It has cooled to the point it has solidified, but it is still warm tonight. I can see why one person I either watched or read or met said to put a large pot of wax on a stove in order to keep a room warm after the fire is out. It has been warmer up in that room since I heated the wax up to begin with.

I traded rear implements on the tractor today and scraped the driveway up the side of the house smooth with the box blade. It is not great, but the outcome is better than it was before when I would drive across that area and wobble left to right and front to back over all the bumps in the mud and ice. I also sorted out a pile of mud out by the mailbox and made that area smooth again.

The shop is a bit messy by the door, so I cleaned up in there a bit so I can get to the workbench and do some work there. It is cold, but I think I have a couple of decent days in the forecast to get out and do a few little things.

The animals got fed, the firewood brought in, and the only thing oreally out of sorts was a little extra chore today when I drove over to where I check on the llamas across the street and also looked for the source of some gunfire there. We don’t allow hunting on our property, but sometimes around here, people don’t really respect that, so I have put up signs which have fallen down and I have to go out and see what is up when I hear gunfire. Whomever it was turned out to be off our place, and from the sounds of it, shooting a .22 caliber. While I was sat at the roadside I scared a couple of pheasants up, which I suspect was what they were after. In the end, I never saw the hunter.

It’s 8:30, the kids are having more fun than any kid should be while doing dishes, and the cats are going nuts tearing through the house after each other. My goal will be to go upstairs soon to do some learning time, then go to sleep. With the end of the year coming on, I would like to do some resolutions this year for my own good. Those will include more shop time, and more time milling and making candles. Let’s see what kind of a business I can make out of those, shall we? On a down side, it feels like another cold is coming on. And I am not the only one in this house to feel it. What a season it has been!

Hydraulic Fluid & Etc.

I pushed it off till the end of the day, but I finally changed the hydraulic fluid in the tractor! I have been a bit nervous about it for some time. But when it came to actually doing it, it really was not hard at all. So that is done and seems to be working great. It is at the highest possible level before it is considered overloaded, but I can either remove a bit, or even let it be for a bit and see how it pans out. I may pull a little through the transmission drain, a small one under the middle rear of the tractor and let just a bit escape. It depends on the weather, and if it is reachable without getting into more mud than I had to today just to do the fluid and filters.

So, in total, over the last two days I have changed the oil, the oil filter, the fuel filter, and cleaned the air filter, then changed the hydraulic fluid filter and the high-pressure hydrostatic filter, and the hydraulic fluid on the tractor. I also topped up the coolant/anti-freeze. Only things left to do is put a piece of cardboard in front of the radiator and get winterized diesel for it. Oh, and finish cleaning the glass. Oh, and maybe look at changing out that front axle fluid.

I also got up on the roof today and cleaned the chimney. As usual, that went easy. I came down when it was swept all the way down and cleaned out the stove pipe and the stove, and the bend in the chimney. It was pretty easy, especially as I have everything set up for an easy clean. I even know the one wrench I need up top is a 7/16ths inch box end. At the bottom a slot and a Phillips screwdriver do the job of getting everything apart on the stove pipe. Again, easy!

We did a bunch of pre-Christmas cleaning today. I also went to the store and got more stuff for the big day on Monday. Also made sure to have everything needed to get through with the stores being closed an extra day over the weekend.

So, today was a really good day! I cannot believe I got through it without much pain at all. I cannot believe how much I got done, especially as compared to my normal run of the mill day. Usually, the arthritis has me stopped by the time I would have finished my part in the house cleaning. In fact, I did take three Advil towards the end of that. I guess it really helped.

First Snow 2023-4

This morning the snow is already on the ground the morning as I write this before sunup. The forecast calls for 8 inches over the weekend. I saw it out the front door a little bit ago, and now I am back in bed. I am still under the weather as far as the cold goes that has been going around the family. Nobody is really on top of it, except maybe our oldest daughter. She is doing fairly well. The rest of us are the dead walking.

I don’t think the snow is deep enough to use the new snow pusher on the tractor to clear it right now. Looks like it will be later. It’s a great day to have a cab on the tractor!

The new wax melters are out for delivery today. I cleaned out the burned wax from the new crock-pot and will be turning that in at the kitchen once it is washed up and ready to go to food service here at home. If the new wax melts are as good as they are meant to be, then the blue crock will go out of service too. I have one that genuinely keeps the wax melted at a temperature that does not discolor it. That one will be used for making beeswax food wraps. I look forward to getting that started later today if the delivery comes early. It should.

Firewood and Car Trouble

I was feeling wonderful today, so I got out and worked on the firewood that needed cutting and splitting. I was nervous about the chain on the saw because I know I did not sharpen it evenly. Still, it cut fantastically, and I was able to get through the logs with great speed.

Once the logs were to length, I picked them up with the tractor bucket in threes, then use that to table them next to the log splitter. The splitter is right next to the bunk, so every piece was put right into it when it was done. It took a lot longer than I would like to have for the amount I split, which is due to the speed of the log splitter. I could do with a faster one.

After the splitting, I went in and Missus and I washed the dishes and dried and put them away. I helped her out with some of her artwork after that. She finally went for an afternoon nap, and I rested before picking the girls up at the bus stop.

I had a nap after getting the kids home, and just woke up. I am looking forward to what I an get at tomorrow if things persist. I had a nasty bout of me rheumatism on Saturday, but today was one of those, “So this is what it feels like to feel normal,” kinds of days!

We are down a car thanks to the design of the engine block on our Ford. It started off by overheating. Then it continued and did it more frequently. I am all done with that because I have turned it in to the salvage yard rather than pay the $9,000 they wanted to repair it. So, because of this, my 15 year old daughter and I are meant to go to the city on Friday for a doctor’s appointment then go car shopping.

Moving Wood Processing to the Service Yard

What can I complain about muscle sore. It is so much easier than the pain in the bones due to the arthritis. But I am chronicling days without it, so today I was muscle sore. To make it a bit easier, the heavy work I did today was all in the tractor. So it was pretty easy. Don’t get me wrong. A person gets tired from driving a tractor. The go pedal is quite a bit stiffer to push down than a car is, and there is a lot of steering in a tight space like I was working in. It does wear a body out.

Today I started moving the firewood from the back by the mill to the Service Yard. Most if it looks like it is cut, though there are some smaller rounds that do need to be cut to length, and some slabs from the mill. There is a decent pile out back still, but it is going to have to be put into the bucket and carried up as I am not intending to do a land transfer. The bucket picks up too much dirt, and the pallet fork drops all the long slabs and little rounds left out back. It is to be manual labor then.

I’ll have help again tomorrow. I can either ask him to help with the loading of the wood out back or have him run the splitter and I go get the wood out back. But the strategy is meant to include me lifting the logs to the splitter table with the tractor. Save backs. I could also use some help with the table saw and/or the planer to get that wood finished for the rabbit run. Tough choice with a rainy week coming up, and I want to have the wood piled and covered as soon as possible. I also want the rabbits covered in their new home as soon as possible, too.

I will be finishing this blog post up in a moment, and it will be 6:30PM, then it is off to work outside some more. I can get an hour or two in before evening rest. I am eager to get this sorted out so I can get to work on other things, such as setting up blanks for the lathe, or milling some wood to build a fuel shed and a woodshed, and even a new chicken coop or an open front shed for the tractor implements.

I look forward to milling the wood in the back for more than just making lumber. I am eager to get the practice in so I can open up a small milling service and hire to the public. Might as well make a little money!

Well, off to work!

A Lovely October Day Working

It has been a day of work and family down on the farm today. Our second son came by and helped out with the wood again, and it was very welcome help, for sure! There was a distraction from getting started, and I should have seen to it before we walked out to the log pile and started the splitter.

First things first, I sent the kids off to school. After coming back from meeting the bus I back dragged the driveway where there is a bit of mud in a couple of places. Always good to have a flat drive, and the weather promises to be in the 60’s and 70’s this week.

The distraction was the cardboard in the trailer. I suggested we could either throw it out on the ground temporarily, or we could go up to his place and get all his cardboard, take it all to the recycling bin, then come back with an empty trailer and get started on the wood. He took that option. When we got to the bin with all the cardboard a whole heap of wasps started circling one of the big boxes from his house and confused us because he has kept is cardboard inside, and it has not been there that long. Made no sense that wasps would build a house so quickly this late in the year. I grabbed the box and tossed it in the bin, nonetheless. It was only then that I realized we would be stopping into the salvage yard next door to drop off the broken microwave that I had dumped in the trailer at the very beginning of loading it a week or so ago.

At the salvage yard the guys there were friendly and helpful as always. When asked if we wanted it weighed, I passed as it was not going to net enough to walk in and collect on. There is only so much worth actually dealing with.

We came back to the house, and I took the trailer with the tractor to the back and set it down next to the end of the log splitter. Then I began the job of picking up the wood with the tractor to set it on the log splitter, rather than lifting it all by hand and back. Most importantly by back! I lift it all in the bucket and then use the bottom of the bucket as a table even to the table height of the splitter.

Son kept his self busy splitting as fast as he could, and tossing the readied logs into the trailer to carry around to the log bunk all in one go.

When it got close to time for him to want to leave to get ready to pick his son up from school I suggested we stop a little early so he could go visit with his mom a bit first, rather than run in, run out, and go. He wanted to do that rather than get in trouble with her.

After it all, I rested a spell as I was still tired from all the work. Happily, I was muscle tired, and the bones are well today. I Am thrilled about that! I got the girls from the bus stop, ate supper, then took a nap.

The evening found me putting water out for some animals that had run low, and getting a couple of huge logs from the front of the service yard, as I might was well get them processed and burned so I can clear up the service yard. It is getting to be a mess in there, and it really doesn’t need to be. Far from!

It’s 8:00PM now, and about time to start looking forward to bed. I need to get ready to do more wood processing tomorrow, and hopefully even get some boards sorted out for the long ends of the rabbit hutches. I have the water carrier ready out front so I can go fill up some more animal troughs. I suspect there are a couple who could use a top up. I am also informed that we are down to one gallon of milk in the house, and that the whole corn in the feed bin is about gone. There are two more jobs to get at as soon as I can.

So that’s it for today. Time for this old man to go wind up his day before bed.

Back to School

We have been so busy getting so little done lately. Sometimes that’s how things seem to go. There is a lot that needs to be done, and there is a lot that we are doing. But does it feel like we are getting caught up? No. I guess that’s just the way things go.

We got the girls registered for their respective schools yesterday. Our youngest has not been in public school before, and the oldest has not been in for the last five years or so. Hopefully this is a good choice for them. We got them into a district next to our catchment area where the classes will be smaller and they should have the opportunity to know everyone well, and for their teachers to give them the attention they should be getting in an educational setting.

So that is the close of an era for me. I have had a kid at home for homeschooling every year since 2006. Seventeen years! Now, at 52, I have to get things together and figure out what I want to be when I grow up. I have till a week from next Monday.

Also yesterday, I went out to check the feed in the chicken coop, and saw there was a dead peachick on the floor. The mamma bird was not sitting on eggs anymore by the door. Why she had to nest right in front of the door escapes me. I saw her in the back corner of the run, and walked over. Every bird scattered but her. She stayed sat. I hated to do it, but I got her to get up and reveal a day-old chick. The other appeared to be three or four days old, at least. So, to prevent another loss, I gathered the chick and took it into the house where we set up a box and put it in for the night. It will have to be caged separately to prevent it being run down like the other one appeared to have been. I can see it going out again in a couple of months, when it is big enough to stand up to a flock of chickens. It only needs to be as big as a hen. The hens usually don’t bother with the peafowl the way they will do bullying another chicken. As much as I hated to separate the mother and chick, there is no better way.

My latest shop project has been a simple one. I have assembled a stitch pony so I can do some leatherworking at the work bench. It is a simple one, designed to clamp under the force of the bench vise. All I have left to do is get some tacks and put some leather pads into the jaws of the pony, then I can use it freely.

The tractor is running low on hydraulic fluid. It has a leak in one of the pistons on the loader. Honestly, it is a little depressing. Who wants to have to put it in for service. How long will they keep it for? But at least I know why the bucket has been drooping or reacting a little slow, I think. I think I know. I don’t know for sure, but when I tightened the hose to the piston, it acted a bit better. It just continues to leak, and I think I may be a bit tight on the crush washer and want to have a tech service it correctly. Maybe they can do it onsite. Or maybe they can just take the loader, if they have to. Then I can continue to use the rest of the tractor here for some jobs. I think I am a bit spoiled having had that tractor to do my heavy lifting for me!

Well, it is nearly 3AM, and I need to get back to sleep. Or at least try.

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.