Dispatches From The Farm

Spring 2022

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

Times are tough these days, with inflation high, and everything else that is going on withing the United States, and without. One of the biggest bug bears on our farm is the price of animal feed, and especially hay. Two years or so ago I was able to secure some grassy alfalfa mixed bales of hay from a neighbor for a mere $60 a 1,200# bale. This year he’s not growing hay, and I have had to go looking elsewhere. What I have found is the same bales, only more pure alfalfa, selling for anywhere from $200 to $360 a bale! I got my scythe out and sharpened it on the same wheel I use for my lathe tools and got a great edge on it! Now I am cutting grass from the roadsides and anywhere I can grow it without it being required as pasture by another animal, such as the horse or any of the pastured llamas.

It is still a lot of work considering the condition I am in at my age, but I think of the money it is saving us right now and keep on cutting till I have enough for a day or two. Once I have that, I try to leave it for three days till it dries and is time to feed, but I have had to put green grass in for the goats and llamas, which I sort of regret as I remember it is not that great for the ruminants.

I have a load of firewood that needs to be cut and split. I need to get off my lazy backside and do it! It’s honestly the other labors that slows me down, along with my bad hips and legs. I’ll push through it, but I may need to get a new log splitter soon as ours has pushed the maul right out of the track enough times it has now broken the rather industrial welds on the side of the track. I am hesitant to work too hard with it right now as I may break it and have to repair or worse, replace it, and cannot budget that just yet. To pick up an equivalent splitter with a better design looks to be just shy of $2K. Yardmax looks good to me. It doesn’t look like it would have the issue of water getting in the carb, nor the channel that broke on my Champion splitter. Without the channel, there should be less clogging, too. There are other features, too, but the biggies are the inherent weaknesses of the channel, and that leaky carb cover. Yardmax looks like the push pieces that separate a stuck log from the maul are replaceable, rather than just breakable like on the Champion. That entices me! All it is missing is a lift arm to put the heavy logs on the table for me! Maybe I should hunt one of those splitters down!

I am raising meat chickens this year, for the first time. I need to pick up a second batch. I bought 15 originally, but the brooder was too cold on the last chilly days of spring, and 9 of them died due to lack of oxygen while huddling too close together. I do need to fix the brooder, or just plan on raising such birds in the summer only. Since the weather has warmed up, the birds have been fine, even out in the cage next to the egg coop. They are larger now, but they still have a little way to go till they are full size.

I have been practicing a few things in the woodshop. I finally got a jig to use on the sharpening wheel and accurately sharpen my lathe tools. That is going to take a little working out as far as how to do it correctly and consistently each time, especially based on my preferred cutting edges, which have yet to be determined. But I have used firewood to make a couple of little stools, each a little more refined than the last. I only added glue to the stool I made yesterday, as the previous have been assembled without. All are holding together just fine, by the way! Yesterday’s stool can either be a garden stool for Missus, or a little seat for our grandson. I’ll leave that up to Missus! As I get better at this, I want to lead up to building a chair, then another and another, till I have a few for around the house! Maybe then it will be time to try a table! Whatever the case, the little stools are a good way to get started on an easy project with some of the required skills.

So that’s a summary of the things here that require my attention now. There are many more things, both house related, and family related, but those are for another space besides this blog. The best to you for now!

18th Century Beeswax Candles

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

Over the past few weeks I bought a candle mold from Townsends, on of my favorite online shops. I used some beeswax I bought before, and some wick we had in the candle making box, and made some candles when the mold arrived. Quite happy with the results, and aware of the size of the candles, I then turned a stand on the lathe from a piece of firewood. Again, I was thrilled with the results. I had a period-like piece that I could proudly display. Better yet, I could burn it with the satisfaction of knowing that I could recycle the wax, and I could make more candles.

That whole process was fairly simple and straight forward to me. I showed it to Missus, and she thinks I should try selling them on Etsy. Only seems logical. I might as well make some more for practice on the lathe and sell the results after I have a supply of sundries to keep me happy.

This weekend I ordered 25 pounds of beeswax, and two molds for short colonial candles, again from Townsends. I may get one more tall mold, if I need it, or if I worry about the one I have breaking and putting me out of business for a few days. I got some firewood on Friday, and hopefully have a couple of pieces I can work with in the next few evenings when I want to pass the time away.

So, with that, I can explore some online selling to help support the farm or my woodworking habits or whatnot. There’s no harm in trying, and certainly no harm in seeing what comes of it! Missus provided me an old crockpot to warm the wax in, and I have a space out in the shop to work happily in. I have got to pile on the firewood this spring, and while I am out, I can find as much wood as possible to turn.

The best bit about turning candle bases is that they are easy, short projects, that give opportunity to try different shapes and yet I have a completed item that is useful, and maybe even sellable when I am done with it. The next best thing is that even if none of them sell, I will have a lot of candles and stands, which I love, and since the candles are all made of beeswax, the house will smell lovely!

The Cast Iron Cauldron

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

Over the past ten years I have collected a fair amount of cast iron. Today’s acquisition is spectacular, however!

The cauldron arrived unseasonably and was the silver grey color of bare metal. I seasoned it with three coats of olive oil, then messed about with a lid too small and one too big from my Lodge collection. Then I remembered I had a 9 inch lid on my small wok! What a beauty! It seems like a wonderful time to get the tripod over a fire and get a nice soup going!

So Nearly Spring!

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

It is almost Spring! Along with the recent time change, the weather is acting accordingly. There are geese in migration and there are other birds showing up, though I have yet to see my first Robin of Spring. The temperatures are warming up with higher daytime highs and nights that are not nearly as cold as they once were. The days after the time change come to sunset later than before, giving us more time to do our evening chores and walk the dogs without having to carry a light. Mud season seemed worryingly early this year, and I wonder if the ground will dry up before the sun warms the ground enough to start the pasture grass and trees. But we will have to wait and see on that still, as the dead grass from last year is now fully exposed, and nothing has even hinted at the blossom.

I have a couple of things on order from eBay and from a reputable antiques replicator that specialized in 18th century products. The first is a corn sheller from the late 19th or early 20th century. I want to grow and dry our own corn to give to the chickens. The one I have on order is in excellent condition. I hope to see it put to good use. From the replicator I have a cast iron cauldron, for fun, and a colonial candle mold, to make candles for my replica tin punched lantern that I received for my birthday. I am really excited about it! I remember first seeing one pictured in a history book in high school and swearing then that one day I would have one. Well, my birthday was finally that day! It looks as new as a Colonial American would have seen it the day he bought one in the 18th century. When the mold arrives tomorrow, I may just melt the wax in the cauldron and make me some candles. I will have everything I need to do it! By tomorrow evening I will be lighting the lantern for the first time.

There is a lot to rearrange here on the farm to carry on with plans we have talked about lately. Missus wants a shop to sell things from. I want a workshop to make things in. Both require a lot of work, and to accomplish them, I think we will need to arrange the layout of some of the internal fencing differently. We will also have to put some animals over the road permanently. In other words, I have a busy spring ahead of me. On top of it, there is the usual with firewood gathering. I need to get a lot of it before it warms up too warm to do such hard work. The splitting can be done any cool morning on the farm. But gathering is away, and just for that reason is inherently more dangerous. But while I am splitting, I can easily take a break, get a drink, and so on. Much safer as it is at home. It also does not require a long drive, so can be started and worked on any day of the week, rather than the days there is no school for the girls, and so on. We expect to be working wood in a new part of the yard, too, and I have to set up a good workspace. Time to review my workflow.

I have the shop reduced to just things that are supposed to be in there. There is a lot to clean up and find homes for, though. I don’t have the space I need for it all and will need to set up some sort of cabinets or workbench still. I would also like to get a jointer’s bench, if I can. I’d like to be able to work in the shop on nay day there is no power, just as well as on the days there is. There are a lot of ideas floating around in my head that will keep me busy redoing it for the whole summer, I’m sure!

With the nights only getting to the mid 20’s, and the days hitting the mid-forties, the house is lovely and comfortable, and easy to keep warm when it needs it. I am thrilled that there is still wood in the woodpile! It is not all well-seasoned, but in a pinch, it will do!

I am still adjusting to the time change. This may be why I am up so late right now. It is approaching eleven o’clock. It is best I get to bed. Tomorrow will no doubt be a bust day! The repairman for the dryer will finally come to replace a part in it. That has been two months in the ordering. I’ll be glad to get it in and be done with it.

The Weather and Heating

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

According to an article I just saw, January was in a drought, officially, in our part of Idaho. I can confirm that anecdotally. I have not seen much new snow at all. None, really. If you were to look in our yard, you would find snow that has been there since December. Forecasts for the rest of February are not promising.

As for temperatures, it has been warming for the last week, giving the feeling of an early mud season. The grass has been wet, and some of the snow has melted away. There is still a lot covering the ground, but the clear patches are getting larger.

Our upstairs furnace started producing carbon monoxide on the 29th of January. We had a visit from the fire brigade, and then after the weekend, we had a visit from the repairman. The repairman took one look at it and said he could not fix it because it is in a bedroom, and as a combustion furnace, it is out of code. We had some things to discuss in this house, let me tell ya! The furnace upstairs is there because there is no route for ducting from the downstairs to the up. The downstairs furnace has not operated since 2015.

We decided to order some 400-watt panel heaters that hang on the wall and produce constant heat. The effect is similar to a radiator. I ordered three, but so far have only installed two. Between them and the woodstove in the dining room, the house is easy to maintain at about 70F throughout. That’s with the temperatures outside in the tens and twenties. I am actually concerned that when the temps get up into the thirties and forties, it will get too hot inside, and will be hard to keep at an even temp throughout the day.

I have yet to be updated on our electrical usage, but the two panels are using about as much electricity as two or three always on computers. Either way, we are no longer using propane, so there is a cost saved there where the money to cover the extra electric cost can come from.

As for our firewood, I think we will be running out early this year. I need to get more each year ready for winter. I have some green wood that we can burn into to keep warm after we run out of seasoned. There is still about a cord of seasoned left, mind. But once it is gone, I will need to watch the chimney more closely. Green wood burning clogs the spart arrestor. It also clogs the pipe if not kept clear, so I may have to have it apart for that. We are fortunate to have a bend in the bottom of the masonry, which is also out of code, but it collects what drops much faster than the rest of the pipe clogs, and it keeps me after that pipe, and aware of the condition of the entire thing. Once I have to clean that bend out, it is not much of a stretch to just clean the whole pipe. The whole job only takes about an hour. Small price for heating that has proven safer, easier to service, and much more reliable than our furnaces. Less costly to feed, too!

So that’s where we are at with our heating situation. It is a little unconventional, but it seems to be working. It is also redundant, still. I think in a perfect world, I would run a couple of dedicated circuits to carry only the heaters, and put a dimmer switch over each one, allowing them to be individually controlled, and turned down, especially for spring and fall.

Half-way through February, it is getting time to start making some solid plans for spring. Missus has said she would like to try a garden again this year. I would REALLY like to put water in near to the garden spots, so it is not all hose dragging and maintaining. It really kind of ruins it having to carry upwards of 300 feet of hose around the yard to be able to reach everywhere. It’s a pain where watering animals is concerned, too.

Out With the Old, Propane

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

It’s -2F outside right now, three in the morning. The house felt cold, so rather than try to roll over and go back to sleep, I got up to answer nature’s call and to put some wood on the fire. It was a hot bed of coals when I got to it, so I scooped those to tone side and added three medium sized logs to it and let them light. Once the plasma had formed, I shut the door and set the damper for a fair burn, enough to keep the flames going, but not enough to burn quicker than a couple of hours. Missus will be up and able to add more wood when it goes down.

The furnace upstairs started producing carbon monoxide last week, and we have had to shut it down. We had a fella come by and give it a look, and he right away said he could not repair it simply because it was not properly vented for where it existed, in a bedroom. The only way we could carry on with it where it is would be to replace the existing unit with a direct vented unit, or an electric one. Also, he understood my reluctance to give up on this particular unit for reliability. It is an old Whirlpool unit, produced here in the USA, with a tag on it that states it was produced with Union Labor, that he said was about 60 years old. He said what would need to be done on the unit to get it working properly again, which I am not qualified to do, and am not so sure I would want to for the reasons he gave that he was not allowed to repair it. Sucking up all the oxygen in the room while there are sleeping inhabitants was mentioned.

So, with the furnace shut down, we are heating on wood alone at the moment. It is enough to keep the cold at bay and make the living spaces quite bearable even in the temperatures we have been experiencing, which has ranged only from -8F to about 30F, on a good day! It’s bee cold! But it has been easy to keep the whole house at mid 60’s and above, even through the night.

Missus has been using a wall panel heater that uses half the wattage of a normal space heater and having great success with it. It is not the kind of thing that heats a room up to hot, at least in the large room where she is using it. But I think in these smaller upstairs rooms, they ought to keep the space quite nice, and hold the cold back plenty well if they are put in the right places. I have ordered three more of them and will be giving them a try. We also added more smoke alarms in preparation for any methods of heating, as we did not like the idea of carbon monoxide being made in the house. The alarms sense it, in addition to smoke. As they are on battery, they will have an advantage over the sensors that went off last week. Not that we would be producing carbon monoxide when the power is out, and the sensors would have to be on a battery to function. Then we would be on the woodstove alone, again, and I think I have only ever set the alarm next to it off one time in all the time we have used it to heat.

With all these changes, we will be shutting down our propane tank and using strictly electric heating and the woodstove going forward. The money we save on propane will go to the electric bill instead, with the woodstove doing the bulk of the work during the winters. I think our propane dealer is going to be disappointed. We are their best paying client apparently, because of the way we pay. Rather than requiring a fill and then struggling to pay the balance, we have always paid $50 a payday (twice a month), then asked for fills out of our credit on account. We have a credit now, and a full propane tank, and no way to use it. At best, I could probably have it connected to our barbeque and use it up that way, but that is sure going to take time! How long can I operate a barbeque on 300 gallons of propane? It has lasted us half a winter on constant use with that old furnace!

I’d like very much to have the propane tank moved out of the garden it is in and put somewhere more convenient for filling and use at one of the outbuildings. I think there is a lot of use in it still. In addition to the barbeque, there is the idea of being able to heat water on a range for chicken processing. This all leads to a change in how we use the granary, which we have considered before using as an outdoor kitchen. Is this the year to do that?

The Many Things of Today

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

I got up this morning knowing I needed to get animal feed and a couple of Kilner jars because I keep buying them and filling them up before I get mayonnaise made and put into what I have bought. After my little one finished school for the day I get her shuffled out the door to go get what we needed, which I figured could fit easily into the car. That’s when things went wrong.

We got out the gate and down the road about 750 feet when the car claimed it was in a faulted mode and overheating. It was only 27 degrees out, and the car had been running for about five minutes, so there is no way it was overheating. But, modern cars being what they are, ours went into self-defense mode, which prevents it throttling. I hate it, because it can do this on the freeway and almost instantly cut power to the motor and leave a family stranded in traffic with no recourse to getting it out of the lane if one did not make it out in time. It seems extremely dangerous to me, which I think I expect from a Ford. Say Pinto with me. Once it dies, the driver may be able to shut off the engine then restart it a couple of times as it continues to act up, then get it moved a short distance. I barely made it back home. We took the truck out.

We went to the feed store and got much of what we needed there, but I knew I needed some Kilner jars, so I decided to pick up dog food and cat food at IFA in Logan. They did not have the jars I needed, nor the cat food, so I went to Smithfield Implement to get the jars. Then we went to IFA in Preston to get the cat food, which they said they had, then called back to have it brought up front and the guy in the back room said they were out, despite the computer claiming there were four. Then he came back as said there where two, and I said I’d take them both!

When home, we rested off the trip, then I put the animal feed away and fed my animals for my chores. Then I checked the car. Still playing like it was overheating. So I checked the coolant reservoir, and it was below the minimum line. I added water and restarted the car. Still in fault mode. So, I remembered that I needed to find the OBDII port scanner… That took a while. By the time I did, I put the thing where I could find it tomorrow. IT was too late to mess with is anymore, and I went and played a game.

Goodnight!

Oh, also. I did look into the weather station data to see if I had recorded the shockwave from the volcanic eruption at Hunga Tonga-Hunga Haapai.

Volcanic Eruption Shockwave
The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Haapia volcano erupted violently on the 15th of January and sent a shockwave around the world that was recorded in barometers. The gray line shows it here in SE Idaho.

And there it is!

It’s Winter

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

Wintertime is beautiful and magical and all of that. I hide from it though. I am not an out in the cold kind of person. And try as I might, I end up shuttered up in the winters to stay warm and do inside things. But I don’t love the inside things as much as the outside things where I feel alive, apart from the cold. I have got some hobbies to work on in the house. I need to get at them. I thought I would be doing a bit of leather working over Christmas break, but I have been too much enjoying the company of my family, and being with them, rather than drifting off to my den to cut and sew at the leather pieces I have in there. I’d rather be relaxing and chatting with my crazy nine-year-old than making something out of leather. I think it is a better legacy.

Winters stink because of the cold, the slog through the snow to do my chores, the constant battling back the cold on the house, the darkness, and the long drag from Christmas till spring springs. My workshop is being used as storage and cannot be heated because the stove is crowded in under stuff that could combust. It’s basically unreachable. I cannot heat it and work out there. My space in the house is my little den at the top of the stairs. That could do with a cleaning now, too. At least that stuff is mine!

Time with the kids. It is better time spent. It is certainly warmer!

The First Snow That Sticks

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

Every year around this time we get a snowfall that puts a base down for the winter and will not vanish off again till spring. That is likely what’s falling outside right now. Our youngest and I went out to walk the dogs early this evening and it was raining, and windy, with temps that were quite bearable. I doubt I would have needed a coat if not for the wind and rain. I looked out the back door about ten minutes after we came in and there was a good inch of snow down! It has been falling since, and there is probably four inches down now, or more.

I have been listening to emergency dispatch for the county, where I have got a play by play of troublesome roads on the north end of the county with hills and slick roads stranding drivers who need chains to get up them. At one point someone called for any farmers with tractors to come help! Unfortunately, a house fire call out has also gone out; a direct reminder that nothing should be taken for granted.

We never know what tomorrow will bring. We can do all we can to be prepared, but as recent events have shown, we prepare for whatever may come, and then find out we readied all the wrong things, such as when Covid hit, and all the stores ran out of toilette paper. I am in the middle of a part of America where preparedness is constantly urged, and even here there was a total runout of TP! I guess nobody had long term stocks in their pantries.

I have a cold right now, and it was a lot for me to muster working the tarp back down over the hay today, to try to secure it against winds that had blown it loose. After that, I was knackered! I am reminded why a certain vigilance is maintained at a constant and consistent level, because we never know when a double blow will strike at us.

A look at the weather radar map shows the “atmospheric river” is pushing a lot of water right at us from Southern California. I think we can expect a lot more snow on the ground by morning. It’s nearing 11PM now, and hopefully the traffic situation will quiet down, and Emergency Services won’t have to be pushed by heavy traffic trying to get through heavy snowfall.

Maybe, just maybe, the snow will help button the tarp down on top of the hay, too.

Emptied the Trailer

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

Yesterday was momentous! I got the trailer hooked up to the truck and went down to the thrift store, only to remember then that the thrift store here is not open on a Monday. I wasn’t going to waste the time or the fuel, so I went over to the salvage yard and began sorting the stuff in the trailer onto the ground there for the big electromagnet to pick up and put to use in something new. One that was done, I went to the dump to take care of the rest of what could go from the bottom deck of the trailer! When I was done, there were only a very few items left that I knew Missus wanted saved, and that I was not quite ready to throw out myself. After I got home, I rested from the chores a bit, then took out those few items, and emptied the trailer out once and for all!

Why is this momentous, you may ask? Well, the trailer deck is much lower than the truck bed, AND the trailer has a ramp leading into it! This is something worth everything when one is loading in firewood! It has been tied up with this load of ‘not sure what to do with it’ stuff for ages now, and with this done, I can now easily get firewood (as compared to hefting the wood into the bed of the truck) as well as get more if I should decide to heft wood into the bed of the truck. I might have to plan a trip to fetch wood this week! It would be good to top off against what we have used this year so far and it never hurts to pile up against next year. With our plans in flux and the hot summer we had, this year did not see the accumulation that I wanted, but it is still not too late. On top of that, I need to get wood that will be ready to turn on the lathe come warmer weather, or when I can get the shop heater cleared away from for burning.

The dogs left only one bomb overnight yesterday morning, and I got ahead of them and thought that we may be onto getting them trained to go outside only. Then yesterday evening, they spotted over four places and left two bombs. So much for progress! So when I woke up at 4AM this morning I got up soon after and stayed up to be ready when they woke, that way I could walk them straight away, and probably a couple of times (as it is still early now) to try to get them out enough to not have excuses to mess. You ever have such things running around making noises, and sometimes walking by sniffing as they go? It does not help one’s trust. I feel like the dad in some sitcom, or worse, in A Christmas Story as he looks over his newspaper to have just missed the neighbor’s dogs running through his living room on the way to the Turkey in the kitchen. What’s that smell? My imagination? Good! Incidentally, they spotted once that I could tell, but did not bomb overnight last night! Good doggies! I think it might be progress of a sort.