When I rolled out of bed this fine Sunday morning, it was pretty clear rom here to the mountains. But there was a low mist visible, and I remarked to Missus that it looks almost like we have our fog back. Within half an hour or so, we did! It is one of the things I have always loved about where we live!
The first time I came to Cache Valley for longer than a quick visit, I was taken by the fog, the “pea soup mornings;” as I called them then in a poem I wrote for my then girlfriend, now wife. The fog was thick, and the mornings mystical to me. Mountain fog is not the same as the coastal fog I experienced in my youth in California. It doesn’t seem to reliably roll in and roll back out again, the way the coastal fog would seem to do. Instead, it has to sort of burn off, or dissipate, when it feels the urge to. It also seems to often come with the sun, such as this morning when the wet ground seemed to have produced it in the first place as the sun came over the mountain.
It’s chilly, not cold, but after a vote, I put a fire in the stove, and can see it’s warm glow from where I am sat typing this. It is time to get to work on that firewood pile for winter, and finish up the cutting, splitting, and stacking. There is not enough prepared yet! It is time to consider going down to get more for our supplies, in case we do stay here next year, too. I also can start looking for wood to turn on the lathe! The weather is changing early this year, I think. I’ll check my weather station records to confirm it. If I am wrong, that usually puts my mind to rest. I think we are predisposed to think the current year is generally worse in some way to the previous ones.
Days like today remind me of what it is I love about living here in Cache Valley. They remind me of an old friend since gone, who would look overcome with love and warmth and joy when he would speak of the place. He grew up here, and told me long before I ever came here that it was the most beautiful place on Earth. It may not be, quite, but it is the most beautiful place that is not set aside as a preserve, and where someone could actually live. I wish so much that he was still here to enjoy it! I would love to have his company here, and a friend here.
I walked out to get the firewood, and was immediately struck by a phenomenon I have never before seen. There was a rainbow in the fog just distant, and the diffusion of light between me and it made it appear white. It was a white rainbow! I have seen circular ones, and I have seen moonbows, and I have seen one on an apparently sunless morning. I still never quite figured that one out. But to see one appear white, with only the slightest hints of any color at all, was amazing.
I am looking at the screen on my tablet and seeing that the weather information being provided by my weather station seems inaccurate when compared to the original weather app, the sky. I checked the computer, and it has got the same rain data as what has been uploaded to the internet. It shows nothing for rainfall accumulation over the past 24 hours. Now, I know that cannot be right. It has been raining! The weather station I follow that is down in the south end of the valley, a little over 20 miles as the crow flies, is showing rainfall accumulations of just under a tenth of an inch in the same time period. They get lake effect precipitation down there, but still, I would think that with the amount of noise I have heard on our tin roof, we would have registered some rainfall. I’ll have to get a ladder and go see what is blocking the collector, or if the little tipping spoon is stuck. All of the other data is coming in, so that rules out a dead battery.
Last night when I went to bed, there was a decent lightning storm overhead. I’d like to say I watched it for a while, but I tend to fall asleep when my head hits the pillow. Luckily, I am up at six in the morning this morning, and there is another one hovering above. Rain seems to have woke me up this morning.
According to the forecast, I have till Monday at the latest to finish cleaning the chimney. But I have already cleaned the top portion from the roof, including the spark arrestor, and everything down to the 90 in the masonry. I just need to vacuum the 90, and brush the black pipe from it to the stove. I also replaced the gasket on the door, a lot easier job than I thought it might be before I had ever done it. The worst of it was cleaning up the old silicon from the shallow channel the gasket sets into. So apart from about eight or nine feet of pipe, we are ready to go with the stove, and next week’s lows are meant to reach down to the mid 20’s. The mornings at least will want for a fire to warm the house. The midday sun never overheats the downstairs on this house, except in the hottest of summer days. Old Man Winter, on the other hand, holds a mighty grip down here without the aid of a fire to keep us warm.
Finally, I am awaiting the arrival of my new lathe for the workshop. It made it to Chicago, and has apparently stopped in transit there. Today is the third day the transport company’s horse has rested. I called them yesterday, but the agent could only attach a memo. She said then she expects it will be delivered on Tuesday. Sooner the better! I am eager to get to work! There is a lot to learn. There is a lot to make! I have pieces lined up in the shop that I want to replicate. Those will help prepare me to start making my own, and then replicate entire furnishings from days gone by.
Finally, weather being what it is, suddenly, I guess it is best time for me to get the firewood pile finished. Maybe we will have a more normal winter? ’17 was rough. That one gave us a lot of snowfall. Cache Valley wise, it is due for another.
With a cool day on us, I took it fairly easy today. I did a run to the dump to drop off some boxes and junk that needed to part ways with us, then ran to the store a moment. After that, it was home again, and lunch and then the girls had class and I took off out back to sort out something.
We have a bunch of really ratty old windows from the 80’s, aluminum frames and double panes with massive water stains between them. They were beyond hope, and beyond ugly. Not worth putting to use anywhere, even a greenhouse. So, I shot them. My youngest wanted to be out there to watch it happen. Well, I have a fairly powerful pellet gun for sorting out predators that can’t be sorted out any other way, and I know better than to foolishly have a kid running around while shooting. So I took care of breaking out the glass from the aluminum frames with the pellet gun while my youngest was in class. I still have not told her, either. Most of it was tempered glass, but there were two panes from large old sliding doors that would not break, and the shot unexpectedly ricocheted off it like one in an old west movie. I was glad she was not there for that! I’ll clean up the glass tomorrow and get the aluminum up to the salvage yard soon.
I did some practice work in the woodshop tonight. I did some dovetails and I made a concealed mortice and tenon joint. They are rough, but they are better than my first attempts, and not as good as the next ones I will do.
The weather will be cooler tomorrow. I better go shut off the frost free hydrant so it does not get inclined to burst on us where the water is stopped in the water timer attached to it. No good having to fix a busted water pipe right now!
I received a report this morning that the last of the chickens in the goat pen is dead due to raccoon. I really liked that chicken, and am sad to know it. I will be out in a bit to feed the animals, and I’ll clean it up then.
I bought animal feed yesterday, with hopefully enough to get through October, apart from hay, which I won’t need for about three weeks or so from now. If so, this will be the cheapest month on record for us for years, ringing in at just under $100. With only two pigs left, and the animals still on the field, the cost is low for the moment, and will be till around November, when I need to get the livestock off the field and start feeding them hay.
With costs low for the moment, I am taking advantage of it and tooling up the workshop to be able to do some wood projects. I started last night making a drawer, complete with dovetail joints. There are a couple more tools coming to help me finish it. Starting it has helped me figure out what I still need, and what is hard to work with, and what will be easier. I want to be able to build a dresser by hand before say, November? Not that I need one. I want to be able to do it. I am really enjoying the hand tool odyssey. It is far less violent than power tools, and it is a lot quieter. It is helpful to make mistakes at a much slower pace, too. I buggered up my first dovetail, and fixed it because I did not want to redo all the other ones as well as it. All good lessons.
The drawer I am making will probably be used in the kitchen where we will soon be putting in a new oven, and I will reset the microwave box above it, leaving a space for a drawer above, below, or between them, which I figure will be great for holding the hot mitts and such, handy for the cooking appliances! There may be enough space when finalized for a second drawer, too, which might be good for stirring utensils and such. I will know for sure when Home Depot bothers to send me a notification to tell me the oven is in.
It was cold again this morning. We bottomed out at 28 degrees! And no, that is not Celsius! I have a fire going in the wood stove, and it is clear that it is time to replace the gasket around the door! I should probably pick that up when I am getting the oven and the wood to finish around it.
Autumn begins tomorrow at 1:20 PM. It is time to get serious about getting the firewood cut and stacked! Lucky I got dry wood in the spring when I was hunting it. It will be ready and fine to burn in a few weeks when we are really needing it to stay warm. The propane tank was filled yesterday. That was a costly thig to do! They charged over $400 for it! We only have a 360 gallon tank! Still, I would like to get both furnaces serviced this year, and running. That would probably be good for time to sell the house!
I tried to get a screenshot, but it didn’t work out as clear as I was hoping for. But to summarize the important information from it, the temperatures over the next ten days top out in the low 80’s! This summer has been a hot one, with the temperatures in the 90’s pretty much every day. For me, that is overheating range, especially when it is in the high 90’s. That’s why I gave up on living in Southern Nevada all those years ago!
Mid to low 80’s is wonderful! That means mornings on the log splitter, afternoons working in the shop, and yard chores done with reckless abandon! Maybe it is time for our house to have cooling system installed, rather than relying on the natural cooling it does on the bottom floor. But when half the house is unbearable for most of the day, it gets limiting. It would be bad all night too, if not for that huge fan I put in the balcony door in the evenings, which clears the hot air out within half an hour. It is three feet in diameter and pushes air like crazy.
We are packing boxes. I have been buying boxes down at Home Depot, so we have plenty, and they are uniform in sizes. We have been packing up all the books and display stuff on the shelves around the house. No, the field is not sold, but we don’t want to be suddenly rushed when it does finally get picked up. I guess we are getting too old for that. Anyway, who wants to have to ask for help on a rush job, and then be unhappy with the quality of the packing? So we are carefully and somewhat slowly putting things into the boxes, neatly and thoroughly wrapped.
Meanwhile we shop, too. We are looking East because places are cheaper there, and because rain more plentiful. We are looking for a barn and a couple of out buildings. We could use a storage building too. It would be nice to have a garage separate to all this, but it is not necessary. Missus needs a building for her art, and I want a wood shop. Those would fill the couple of out buildings I mentioned. More than that would be gravy. But what would be really nice to add to it would be a shop she could use as a store to sell from. That would be dreamy!
I am keeping an eye open for a trailer, and we have been talking with the kids about what kind of hell we want to go through when it comes time to drive the car and the truck all the way out to wherever with llamas in tow. We have also talked about the business of coming back for our stuff, and how that would be best arranged, or if it is better to hire a moving company. There are so many possibilities, including me flying back and hiring a U-Haul truck, loading it with the help from the boys, and then driving out East.
Meanwhile, back here on the farm, I have arranged to have a ten foot hole dug in the back yard so the county inspector can come assess the soil, and tell us what to install for a septic system. I paid the county guy already, so that is $300 sorted. Next I have to pay him another $500 for the permit to install a new septic system. Then it is time to find the contractor who is willing to come and do it. A state plumber has to connect the new system to the house, then the county guy comes back for inspection. If it passes, then we can bury it, and away we go. I am expecting this all to run around $10K or so, if it all goes smoothly. I will NOT be hiring the two contractors I have spoken to so far, who have NOT been clear about the process, or helpful at all, in any way. I have needed someone to explain the process, and instead I have got someone who got mad and huffed off because I did not know it already. I have never done this before, and some men are really useless when it comes to helping another man learn how to do something. They can be so degrading just because the second guy does not already know the first one’s job.
Anyway. Also, back here on the farm, this year has been challenging because we knew at the onset that it was going to be one of some kind of change. I have been buying the gates and feeders and waterers for the animals to finish the place up, and get everything looking consistent. The goats have nice feeders and waterers, and the horses and llamas across the street have nice waterers in their grazing pastures. We decided to take a year off any gardening, but the weeds didn’t. Blimey! The llama pen at the front of the yard is higher than me! It is not a show property this year, that’s for sure! I should go see what I can do to it with the scythe.
We got rain yesterday. The rain we have finally got in this last few days has been just about all of it for the whole summer. Everything has greened up so much from it! The pasture is short, but looks so much better for the green! I wish it were longer for the llamas. The back pasture across the street has stayed amazing, as it does every year. That one grows well on leeching from the canal, as it is down hill from it. The back of the house side of the street has been getting the occasional watering from the pivot line on the dairy behind us, so has also stayed green and watered the fruit trees. I really appreciate the farmer there for that! Having only one hydrant on the whole property makes it a real pain in the backside to keep everything watered. Missus has had a couple of hoses branched off from the hydrant and on a timer, so her herb garden and flower garden have been getting regular watering, too. The grass around those areas has stayed nice and tender, so I suppose she can blame herself for me wanting to move to where it is much more rainy. I want our animals to have nice tender grass to feed off of.
We are not sure now of the garage sale. Missus seems to not want to really mess with it. Send it all to charity! Except for the few things that really are worth more than a dime. Those can get listed. The rest can go to the charity shop in one go, and us be done with it. Well, it just proves she is generous, as I would be happy to put it all up at the dump. We have been overwhelmed by stuff since we moved into this place with my grandparents to look after them. They were terrible. She loved to shop at the charity shop, and he could not throw anything away, so between them, they were perfect together. And not in a good way! We are finally to the point everything here is ours, but now we need to reset, and start fresh, and get things down to what we need, and all the excess be damned. Time to reset the situation! And one thing I will look for soon after we move is curio cabinets! The things that are on display should not be collecting mountains of dust!
I could go on and on, now that I am on a roll! But it is getting to half past seven in the morning, and I have chores to do, even on a Sunday. The girls start school tomorrow, and I need to help them figure out their Zoom logins. I get to turn most of their learning to their online academy, and have a year off to focus on this move, or whatever else needs doing. I will be teaching the younger one on her reading, and on her Homestead-Economics lessons. It is suitable. She is my constant shadow anyhow, often arriving to where I am headed next just before me.
So, that is a bit of where we are at, and why. Makes a good weather synopsis, doesn’t it?
I woke up to a couple of puddles this morning; a sight I have not seen in such a long time! I checked the weather station just a few minutes ago and as it turns out, that was less than a half an inch of rain that came down last night. Maybe it will be enough to green the grass up a bit, and it has been enough of a weather system to cool the temperatures down some. Whatever the case, it is enough to make a little change, and give us a tiny break in the drought pattern.
Last night’s rain was about ten times what has fallen for the first three weeks of July, which had more rainfall than all of June of this year.
The rain that fell overnight last night was ten times what had fallen in the first three weeks of July. The rain from the first three weeks of July was still more itself than what had fallen here throughout all of June. It was such a change that the air smelled musty when I awoke this morning. Musty, from less than half an inch of rain!
The forecast is for a bit more rain over the next few days, then back to dry and warming temperatures. But even when it warms, it is not forecast to go as high as it has been. We have been hitting the high 90’s regularly. The top of the forecast says to expect the low 90’s as the highs, which is great, because I can work a fair bit till it gets that hot out, and even then, it can be managed.
This week we got some work done while the weather was cool. We did not do any specific projects, just some general work here. I suffered some sciatic pains, so that kept me from doing much for three days. But on Thursday I got a call from a farmer neighbor to come help him get hay from his field into his shed. I drove one of the trucks for a couple of loads, and took over the loader tractor when his daughter had to go to work. Yup, she was running it like a champ at sixteen years of age. I told her it was amazing watching her girl-power that thing around like an old pro.
Friday was a tired day, so I fought off the tired by going to get firewood. I expect this to be the last load of the spring, as the weather is getting awfully hot now. Now it is time to cut wood to length, and split it and stack it during the cool parts of the day.
We have been mulching flower beds, the herb garden, and the gothic garden. We have fought hard against weeds and grass that regrows where we try to clear and plant anything, including the vegetable gardens and the raised beds. Nothing seems to have worked, so we are giving up on much of it and putting down plastic and mulch to try to defeat it once and for all. Failing that, everything will be put into containers and kept on mulch beds. This place has always been fortunate where grass is concerned. I have burned holes right through the lawn, and within two years, it has recovered itself and looked like nothing has ever happened.
I took down the last of the raised beds in the front yard. That makes room to widen the parking on the driveway, and finish the circle drive we decided on a few years back. That will be completed once and for all when I get a tractor to do the job with. There is no doing that job by hand!
I planted the potato crop a little late when I did that this week. But it is fine since Missus likes New Potatoes. I am okay with that, too. as I suspect our growing seasons are getting longer anyhow, they will have time to finish up in the autumn. Enough, anyway! I put in a whole garden patch full of russet potatoes.
We have three 110 foot garden hoses on order to solve watering issues for the time being. I will put in a new frost free hydrant one day. Again, when a new tractor with backhoe arrives! Just one more of the many jobs I anticipate doing!
On Saturday, my primary job was removing weeds in the pastures across the street. I also put in the top wire on the fence that separates the front paddocks. That is the final assurance that the male llama won’t jump the fence and have his way with his sisters. I need to put a fence in at the back pasture to separate it into two paddocks. Maybe it would be good to divide the paddocks once again, eventually. I would like to see us doing rotational grazing with permanent paddocks. Then we can do better field management and hopefully get the grass in tip top shape.
The farmer I worked for this week came by on Saturday to deliver two bales of hay for our goats and the old llama that remains on this side of the street. We sat on the front porch of the granary and talked for a while. He is an interesting guy, and knows his work. It is always good to talk to him, and to learn what he knows.
During the coming week I need to get some mulch to finish the bed in front of the house. I also want to see about some gates that would better suit the front drive, and move the ones we have to the canal access. That would finally put a good gate across each end of the canal access that would be easy to open and close, keep the animals safe, and allow me to hang No Trespassing signs directly on the gates. There are people around here who assume that because the canal path goes through our property, so can they. It is not the canal’s property, and I do not have to grant access to anyone but the canal company’s people. I don’t think it is a general disrespect that leads people over our land, just an unawareness.
You may have heard that there is a drought in the Western United States. It is true. We are expecting temperatures in the 90’s for at least the coming week. I checked our weather station, and it was 97 this afternoon with a humidity level of only 1%! The place is a tinder box! I am sat with my kids right now, fans running, drapes drawn, the place as cool as we can keep it with no air conditioner. I have seen old trees from around here that have been cut down, and they show in the rings that prior to around the turn of the millennium, the weather in the valley was wetter. I should confirm that on the weather records! It would be interesting to know for certain. I wonder what the future holds? After a year of Covid, I am less certain and more determined to make the best lives we can on our little farmette.
