Category: Wood Heat

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.

Not Winter-like

Taken just last week while waiting for the girls to come out to get a ride to the bus stop for school. Not cold enough to snow overnight.

These winter nights get down to the low 20’s, mostly. But there is seldom snow. We have had rain overnight lately. The days light up and the temperatures come to the high 30’s and sometimes even the mid 40’s. I have said for a while that this place would be more tolerable if the temperatures were more like Denver when I was growing up near there in the 1980’s. This year it has been trying it on.

Snowfall has been minimal. What has come down lately has melted quickly, and the older stuff from earlier in the year has left some remnants, especially where the snow has been piled up from clearing driveways. Rain and snowmelt has kept the ground muddy. I worry about the tractor getting stuck in the mud, especially in the Service Yard and the area of the driveway right in front of it. Water has trapped there, and the mud is deep.

So this winter’s conditions are such that the firewood is lasting despite being a minimal pile, but the ground does not support outdoor work due to this being an ancient lake bottom. A few days have got warm enough to put a fire in the stove in the shop and work out there on a couple of small projects. Based on the time of year, it won’t be too long till I can easily be out there daily. It certainly doesn’t feel right for having just passed mid-winter a little over a week ago. That is what makes everything a bit uncertain! Really, we could dive into typical cold weather or be inundated with typical spring snow.

I had a look online yesterday for arial photos of our place and found some as early as 1956. That showed where a couple of buildings once were on our property. I’ll be using the information to do some metal detecting later this year. There was one out on this side where I have found some metal last year by the northwest corner of the garden space. There was actually two across the street. One looks like a garage right about where the gate is now. I’ll like to look again to see how far from the roadside. In the 1956 photo the swale at the bottom of the pasture at the back of the property across the road was fresh dug with nothing growing on top of the piles of excavate. It was only by the 1974 image that the house was set on a single acre of land this side of the street. The property over the road has evolved a bit over the years with what looks like a small dwelling and a stand of trees right across from the house, but at the back, by the canal. It’s all interesting stuff, and I am glad I happened upon the sites that host these photos.

The wood pile seems like it will last till spring. We are not burning as much as we would normally be this year. I am not sure it would be too much trouble to go down and get more wood if I needed to. I am not panicked about it. I do worry about how hot this summer will get, but all we can do is ride it out and see.

Wax, Wood, and Chimney Cleaning

This Christmas really was not about gifts for any of us here on the Farm. Instead, we all seemed to be about being together. As our oldest put it to me in a conversation we had to the side at one point, “it is about being with the people I care about.” We did gifts, but I don’t know that anyone put so much into that as they did getting here and being in the moment together. It’s meant the world to me. Seems the same for all. Now, that’s not to say Mrs. Clause did not put an effort into making the gift opening a big part of the activities. We shopped cheap. There were themed hampers for the likes of cleaning, and movie night, and a date night. As has been his custom, our second son got me a 12-year-old scotch. I told him we would open it when his brother turns up a dad. He laughed. His brother didn’t.

Oldest brother said he would like to look at making a dining room table in the coming summer. I did say that I am not having much luck on finding any fine wood, and the poplar that I can find readily does not finish very well. Also, the wood needs time to dry, depending on how he wants it built. Solid wood requires a year per inch of thickness. His reply, “so it won’t be a quick project, then?” No, it won’t as such. To be fair, we could try to make a sort of kiln, and poplar does dry on the fast end. He was not yet sure of measurements required. Maybe we can get this going anyway. I would like to do some practice on a few smaller projects first.

It is a middle of the night post, and I am typing this at almost 2:30 in the morning. I put some wood into the stove and am keeping the house warm. It is 22F out right now, and the house is staying warm easily. I have the new wax melt running at 500 watts and 160F. It seems pretty accurate at the moment. I just added 10 more pounds in four blocks. It has brought the level up to just more than an inch from the top. I have not measured, but it looks like I could dip 18-inch candles in the vat. I would do well to get up in the morning and make a frame to hang wicks from to dip. I’d like to try it, though I am not positive I will sell them. But they could be a special product.

I have like four or five rows of firewood on the bunk at the moment. I am thinking one row will last about four weeks. I am not too mathematical at the moment, but if that can get us through to April or so, then I think we can easily make it till it is warm. If not, I think it will be warm enough to split off some dry logs from the sawmill pile.

I cleaned the chimney the other day, and found it to be a lot cleaner than I expected it to be. There was flakey soot on the walls, and when it fell down to the bend, it nearly blocked it completely. But it did not. That is about two to three large PeanutButter jars worth of material. It was an easy clean, and surprising. Also, it was a shock just because of how wet some of the wood I have been burning has been.

I am off to watch a video about English Barns now. Then maybe back to sleep.

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 Anticipated This Week

The weather looms low this morning with an autumn breeze carrying leaves round like butterflies, and the sun reflecting off the bottoms of the clouds giving off a bright light that seems to come from every direction. To the west there is a mountain that is aglow, and in the near distance, a small portion of a rain bow is blasting its color over the view of it as if it were not enough magnificence on its own.

The forecast for today calls for rain this morning, very little. The high is expected to reach 67F. Tomorrow and the next day are going to be cooler, reaching only 62, but the lows climb down to the bottom of the thirties. By Thursday, it’s worse. Yes, we are expected to see snow by then. The Weather Bureau does not anticipate much more than that on Thursday, with it drying up and staying cooler after that, then the possibility of more snow is raised next weekend.

I noticed this morning that the heat did not kick up in the truck, and that the temperature on the engine was a little high. Means it is running low on coolant. I’ll have to pick some up when I go up to town to get tarps to cover the firewood with.

The firewood needs covering before the snow comes. It should be covered now, but the rain that has been falling this morning is miniscule, so it’s really no worry. But I don’t want snow settling onto it then melting away slowly into the wood for a longer stay. No, I will be covering it before Wednesday evening.

I put a small fire win the woodstove just a few minutes ago. It’s just meant to push the slight chill out of the house. I may be tossing in a small fire in the shop stove shortly, then working out there on the rabbit hutch I am making for Missus.

The hutch is nearly framed to hold the cage. I just need to figure out how I intend to hold it in place. I am considering some metal bracket arrangement that will not rot as I am trying to keep any kind of wood out from under the cage, and far away from the sides enough that they cannot chew at it. Seems like a better plan, to me. We’ll see how it all pans out.

I anticipate my new snow pusher to ship in about two weeks. I look forward to using that this winter to prevent too much digging in the dirt along the side of the road where the mail carrier pulls up, and in the dirt driveway to the house and behind. Will it work? I hope so. If not, then I can always hire out to do other people’s driveway either way and make back the money spent. I also suspect I will be up to see the kids in town at their house and clear their drive from time to time. When I do, and the year has pressed on, I will no doubt be putting the bucket on the trailer too, so I can clear the mailbox for them. The snow ploughs push all the snow to the side of the road and block the boxes up there, then the postal service complains and finally stops delivering the mail because of the conflict of these two services. Wouldn’t it be nice if they could figure something out? Especially for the sakes of the elderly who have not got a hope for clearing the mailbox access! It seems silly. Maybe something will come to me. Meanwhile, I half expect that while I go up there, there will be job offers to clear people’s drives for them.

Looks like the flames in the woodstove have gone down. I never did close the door, so it is no surprise. I’ll go put a couple more pieces of wood on, and close the door this time, to control it and keep the fire burning much longer. What a pleasure it has been to enjoy a peaceful morning and write!

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!

More Work Done Today

Today was a good day. I had some help with the firewood again, and we got the trailer topped off then unloaded it into the bunk. I was talked into moving the wood splitter back into the service yard where a piece that is split can be put straight into the bunk after, rather than into the trailer and then unloaded in another arduous task.

My help left after we unloaded, and I got the splitter moved after. I also ran into town and got milk and bread and half & half, and a temporary pin to replace one that was missing on the three-point hitch on the tractor. I got the wrong size, so it is definitely temporary.

I made supper, then got back to work. This time I went out to the wood that has been cut and stacked as lumber and collected a piece to start preparing it for the rabbit hutch. It was pretty bad as far as thickness goes, so I have a lot to remove manually before putting it into the planer. It is way out of whack. But when it is done it will make some fine sides to support the wire hutch.

I worked on the piece of wood for a while. as it is pretty good sized, and I was using it as a practice piece to learn how to do a scooped finish on the surface of the wood as I have got a good plane that does that. It is a plough plane, and has a scooped blade for taking out a lot of material. I think to get a good finish, I would want to plane a board flat and then do the scooping strokes.

It was a good day because I never hurt, which is so rare for me. It is enough to say that. Now it is time for bed!

Kids and Firewood

Today was a fantastic day on the farm. Two of the kids were down to the house with their wives. It was great to see them all! It was well timed too, in the sense that it was rainy today, and there was no working outside. We also had a delivery today that required us to take the front-most door off the house, and it was good to have help with that from our second, even though he was hopping along on a bad ankle.

So did I do anything sensible and go out to the shop to work, as it has a roof on it, and rain is no excuse? No. I did not. It was a restful day instead. We put a fire in the woodstove, and I worked on an “About Us” for Missus’ website. It is hard to get the text together to tell a story about us when one must decide what to include, what to exclude, and what to emphasize and what to only mention. There is a lot to our story, but not all of it is relevant to the business or the ethos behind it. I think what we need people to do is come to the “About Us” section in order to ‘get it’ on what we are all about. I will try a draft later with that in the front of my mind and see what I can come up with.

With the rain coming down yesterday and today, I have been off from the firewood work. I have got the trailer empty of it, and once I take out some garbage in that, I will be ready to go out back and fill it again for more stacking. It is important I get that pile of wood out by the sawmill cut down and split so I can see how much we actually have, and how much more I need to go get. The bunk is still less than halfway full, and that is a concern. But I will say this of it; the wood is mostly up to length, about 19 inches. The lengths are consistent, and because they are, the stacking has gone better this year than any gone by. I have several rows stacked up to just more than 6 feet high, and none of it wobbles like it is going to tip over. I think when the wood out back is split up and stacked, the bunk for winter will be about 3/4 of the way full, not necessarily including the middle aisle, which I normally don’t fill, but this year plan to because we always seem to come up just a little short.

I am trying a new burn in the stove this year. I am putting in two cookie cut pieces at the bottom, then stacking some split logs on top and doing a top-down burn. I tried it today. It went on for maybe eight hours before I put in more wood on top of some of the charcoals. It lit right up and burned on nicely. The point of it is to get a longer burn time out of the wood, especially for those overnight fires that keep the chill off the house and keep the pipes from freezing. It was promising today. I have seen a few people on YouTube lately that recommend a top-down burn for longevity, though they don’t agree on the way the wood is stacked for it. The primary difference being if the split logs are packed front to back or side to side in on top of the cookie pieces. I went front to back, perpendicular to the air inlet pipes because that direction fits the long logs better, and I am not going to recut the whole pile I have outside this year. I could cut shorter one’s going forward though. But then I would have to take long ones for hot burns and shorter ones from elsewhere in the bunk for long, fast burns.

The weather is clear tomorrow and beyond. It is time to get the work done I owe Missus in her shop, then get this wood done!

1 October, 2023

Last week there was very little firewood in the bunk to begin with. I now have it a quarter full and have a little saga to tell about. The logsplitter was doing pretty good handling the wood I had out there, it’s little Honda motor whirring away, giving me confidence in the machine. But somehow the little lever that stops the hydraulic system in lieu of a detent got caught up, and bent. When I noticed it, I tried to straighten it back out, but while I could get it horizontal, it was still bent latterally, and caught on the end of the hydraulic cylendar on the next return, and apparently caught the seal on it. I did not see it do that specifically, but on the next run it popped the cylendar, and dropped hydraulic fluid all on the ground.

Well, needless to say, this was very unexpected, and it is a repair that is above my pay grade. I might be able to pull it off by replacing the clip/seal, or even the whole cylendar, but it is not something I felt I had time to learn how to do. So I got a new logsplitter whithin two hours or so, and had it up and running right away.

The new logsplitter is rated at 37 tons, the highest I have owned yet, though none of mine have ever been below 32 tons. It has features that I am not super happy with, especially the track the maul rides in. I was loving the fact the now broken one clasped the rail and did not collect debris. I am back to cleaning out debris, and especially watching that the logs don’t get caught between the track and the sides of the maul. That is a great way to slowly break apart the welds on the beam and caust the thing to fail.

Today is Sunday, and that is different. I am taking it off to relax. My muscles have gotten sore this week, but that is because for the first time in such a long time, my bones are not in pain! I have felt what I think most people feel as normal. My muscles can’t keep up because the work I have done has always been limited by the tolerance I have had in my bones. I could only ever do so much before it hurt too much to continue. I have felt well for the last couple of weeks, and before that I cannot remember the last time I was not in pain. I mean, I think there was a time back in 2005.

It’s a bit rainy today with tomorrow and the next day forecast for more. The temperatures will be dropping to just above fire lighting cold. I tell you, I could do with this being our year-round affair. Some rain, some sun, and temps that are okay to work in. Suites me right down to the ground.

It’s the first day of October. By the end we will undoubtedly have snow visiting on the ground readying for a winter-long home. That’s how it goes around here. It turns white by December, and it stays so till mud season… I mean, “spring.”

Snow on the Mountains! Peachick!

I am sat down with a hot cappucino at hand and lip, and am reflecting on the day I had today. It was a good one! I have nothing to complain about. But there are comments.

First, I managed to keep the snooze button on any anxieties pressed till 6:00AM, then got up and got a good start after getting well rested. That made a nice change from the normal routine I follow! Then I took the girls to their school bust stop. After I came back, I got ready to face the day in the firewood yard down at the dump in the city. It was sprinkling a bit before I left, and on the way down that picked up to a decent rain. Breakfast at McDonald’s did not give it enough time to clear, and before I knew it, I had my snacks and drinks picked up and was sat in the woodyard, dreaming of those sunny summer days. Well, let’s be fair! I hate those sunny summer days for their heat, so I got out and got to it.

The first two logs I picked up were of a yellowish wood with white bark, and a decent smell of honey. I cannot identify it for sure, so I won’t try to say. I also got some willow, I think. It had the right type of bark and white wood, but there were no sprouts of any kind, so it may have been different. After loading some 3,000 pounds of wood I decided that was enough for the day and took off. I was not too sure of the weight till I hit the scales on the way out, so I decided to leave before I overloaded the trailer. Turned out I had a bit of room to spare. Not much, but some!

While loading wood I tried out the little device I made to fit over the top of the trailer’s front, top rail, and has a hook under it to hold the snatch block that the winch rope goes through. I built it because the chain never stays in the right position. This device worked perfectly, and made the whole job a lot easier because I was nto spending so much time preventing the rope from dragging through the second rail. That wears the rope severely. I have already broke one.

Happy with my device, and with my wood haul for today, I came home to help Missus with several things she had going on, then unloaded the trailer. That is a process that does not go perfectly, and I am still working out some kinks, especially to do with getting the log tongs to grab hold and let go when I want them to, as they are not mechanically driven.

I helped with a couple of short jobs while Missus was making a shepherd’s pie for supper, then went and got the girls from their bus stop. It was on the way there that I noticed that there was snow on the mountains! This is the first I have seen any for this year, and it sure made me want to go get more wood and get it all cut and split!

After a lovely meal, I went out to feed the chickens that I remembered were out of food. That’s when I found that another peachick has hatched, and the poor bird was getting tumbled by the chickens. I grabbed it up right away, and brought it in to Missus, as the peafowl are her project. It is now sat across the room from me under a heat lamp in a wash tub with a bit of wire mesh over top of it. It sure is noisey, and I think, quite healthy. We did not have luck with the lest couple that had hatched, so we are really hoping and trying to get this one off to a good start.

Now it is about an hour till bedtime, and I still have to get the rubbish out to the curb for pick-up tomorrow. Apart from that, I would like to relax a spell. It has been a busy, and really quite exciting day!