Dispatches From The Farm

The Llamas Looked Alert

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

The llamas looked alert this morning, so I started watching, thinking maybe the neighbor’s horses got into our field, but I cannot see well below the canal, and the weeds growing up along the canal path this year. Then a human head bobbed along, and it did not look right to be the neighbor. I had a meeting set to start on Zoom for my daughter’s school, and did not have time to chase a trespasser! So I went upstairs to see if I could see better from the balcony. From there I noticed Sverro’s truck parked at the corner of the field on the other side of ours, so figured he has lost control of one of his animals while picking them up. Sverro is the man who leases the field next door to ours on the other side.

Sverro is pretty good about being aware of our animals, so I did not worry about him. But I did talk my eight year old through what the llamas were doing and how I was able to tell there was something amiss on the field. I suggested to her that I would normally have to go now to chase off a trespasser.

To that, she replied, “Let him get his animal off the field first, then go chase him off.”

“I don’t have to worry about the way you think,” I told her. “You are just fine!”

Today Was Restful

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

We decided not to do much today. Missus has wrapped up so much in the past week, and her arms and shoulders have been hurting for it. We were also thinking that the girls start school in the morning, but the school has not been great at communicating till I checked back into the calendar today and found that it is not actually meant to start for another week. So, all that rest today was in vain. Well… as they say, hard work often pays off over time, but laziness always pays off now. What is a wasted day of rest?

I worked on the firewood holder next to the wood stove today. It has a box built in under it, and some robust pieces of wood planking on top of that to set the firewood onto. It is meant to hold the wood off the ground so I can reach it without bending down too much. Atop of all that is the cast iron shelves, and it is all set into a corner next to the stove, and between the wall and the built in hutch.

For a long time I was not too sure how I was going to finish the planking as it has firewood thrown on top of it all the time in the winter. It has held up really well as bare wood, especially as it is rough cut fir, and does not show indents from the firewood. So today I used my hand planes to smooth the plank tops down some, leaving a little of the saw marks for the distressed look, then finished them with linseed oil, to give them that almost varnished look, while keeping them easy to refinish as necessary, and waterproof at the same time. They look really good!

My oldest daughter came to me this afternoons and said the boy goats were out. We have two young Billy’s we are keeping in the chicken run, to keep them from the girls. They managed to push the gate open, and leave. The gate is about 18 inches high so that there is a fence along the bottom, which makes it easier for me to get in and out of when the chickens are close as they cannot just walk out, and it is elevated to make it easy to open when there is snow on the ground, too. I went out, and walked around the other goat pen slowly, which pressed the escapees round it, showing me they did not want to be messed with. Kirynie was still in getting shoes on to come help. I grabbed a scoop of corn and put it on the ground in the run, and left the gate open. I put the scoop back, and looked back, and the goats were at the gate, looking in. Just then, Kiry came out the back door and looked up at what was going on as the two goats jumped back into the run, and I stood there cool as a cucumber while they did. She smiled and laughed, as she was expecting to come out and chase them! I walked over and closed the gate, and added an extra fastener on it after, while Kiry laughed, and high fived me for being so effective. I am glad she learned the ways of the wise today.

I have more boxes to put into storage tomorrow. I need the farmer to bring us some hay as we will use the last of it tomorrow morning. I also need him to dig a test hole for a new septic system. I need to fill out some paperwork, and get the county inspector over, too. I also need to set an appointment for the girls and I to get our eyes tested, and buy new glasses! That seems like a good plan for tomorrow! Aside from all that, I can carry on packing boxes, ready to go to storage.

I tried chopping at the weeds in the empty llama pen today with my scythe. They are long, and it is hard to reach through to get their stems and cut them down. I tried fitting the riding lawn mower through the gate, but to do it, I would have to remove the mower deck, and that is just enough of a pain that I am not that interested in it. It would really improve the look of this place if I got those weeds down. Lessons learned here are to use wider gates, and to make the pens goat tight so I can set the goats loos in it to sort out the weeds. I like the way I set the gates up to be able to use only two gates side by side and combine the pens into one, but next time, either way, wider gates are a must! The four foot ones are too narrow to be useful when a machine is required for mowing, or for removing a dead animal.

I’ll probably take the mower deck off tomorrow or the next day. Depends on how busy other things get.

Finally, our oldest has at last asked his girlfriend to be his fiancée. I have heard nothing of a date yet, but that is fine. They have a lot to think about, and a lot to do to take the next step after that. What’s most important is that they do things that make them happy, and at a pace that makes them happy, too. But congratulations to them both for taking this step. Whatever and whenever next is next, at least everyone can know he has designs on her, and is committed to her, and her to him. They have been together too long to doubt it, but this is a step to make it something more.

Current Forecast: Fair in Fairview

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

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?

Things Are Going Airborne

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

Things are becoming more up in the air now than before as we try to figure out the means to do a big life change, and just what the end goal is. We are sure we need to rehome a few llamas, and that there are other animals we won’t be able to take with us for practical reasons. Anyone interested in goats, two old llamas that need to be able to live out their days in peace, and a young male llama or two? We also have pot belly pigs that need a new home. None will fit into our moving plans or be easy to take with us. There are sure to be other animals too, such as some chickens, geese, and ducks, and maybe even the peacocks, as we are thinking we are going on a long journey forward. Three girl llamas will probably be going with us at any cost, though it would be good to get them stud service before we go.

Our range of possibilities lead us anywhere from Minnesota to Maine, and several states in between. It is time for a change, and a serious one at that. But to give up the farm totally is off the cards. We are looking for land, and it must have some pasture, some place to work our hobbies to turn them into businesses, and some trees. We want the trees! The places we are looking at are just too far to take many animals, and would be hard on all but the healthiest, and us.

Is this any different from when we threw everything into the wind and moved from the UK to America? Life should never be boring.

Right now, we are thinking to look towards Maine, go all the way, and set up a llama heard there, and of course some chickens for eggs and meant. We may get going on goats again, and others. But if we get the chance to get a fiber mill going for her, and a wood shop going for me, then that’s what we ought to do. Too much else is a distraction from where we both have our hearts set. I’d like to see us find a place where we can accommodate all that, and hopefully a bit more, too.

Nothing is set in stone, but either way, we need to get the older llamas rehomed, and the males sold for a reasonable price. They could help us get a good trailer to move the girls in!

I am keeping my eye open for a stock trailer. Bumper pull would do for the girls, though I would really rather have a gooseneck as I think it would be safer to pull long distance, and give them a bit more room to ride in. I have searches set up and check them daily.

I have arranged for a test hole to be dug to prepare for a new septic system on the house. Lucky I have a friend with a backhoe. That part is paid for with the county, and I have to pay for the permit for the system, next. Then it is time to get a solid estimate on cost for a new tank and field put in. Let’s just hope that comes in cheap! If I keep my personal spending under control, I can pay off my debts in a month, and if the contractor can take a payment from a card, and it is cheap, I can hold the cost of it there till the house sells, and begin paying it myself in the mean time. I am sure I have not covered every contingency, but I think as a general outline, we have forward motion.

As we have looked at houses, there are some really nice ones coming up on smaller properties, around five acres. I would much rather come in around twenty, especially with a wood lot, but we have to consider what kind of condition we are willing to accept the house in when we move in. Putting it bluntly, this house has gotten ahead of us on repairs, needs someone to do some work before moving in, while it is empty, and we need a fresh start. I don’t want to let this house get lost to disrepair and end up among the rubble of the many in this area that have fallen before it. It is such an historic home, and so many people are connected to it somehow. This is really important to me. But we have had such a long to do list that it has always been a case of having to do temporary fixes on one job while looking at the next three that also need to get a short term fix. This is why it needs a moment empty, and the work all done at once.

I know I have not been totally clear on this blog where we are going from here, and what is to become of The Peasant’s Manor Farm, or the Whittle House, but we just don’t know yet. We know we have put off moving for a long time, though, even though we have both thought of it every summer for years, now. We have ghosts here that need to be buried. This is the only way. That is a personal reset that we have not been able to work out any other way. We have both had time to figure out finally what we want to be when we grow up, and the Peasant’s Manor Farm idea, and the Antiquary Artisan are our dreams. Those are our path forward. So the farm will not die. It will just transition, then rise again, more focused on providing supplies to the Antiquary Artisan’s workshop!

Haying

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

The day before yesterday my neighbor asked if I would be able to help him bring in hay from the field, and of course I said I would! He has a couple of big tractors and helping out means I would get to run one of them, and besides, it is good to help out, even if I do get to feel like a twelve year old while doing it! I spent a couple of hours loading hay that evening, and then agreed to come over again the next day, yesterday. I didn’t keep track of time, but it was a good five or six hours with only one stop for about five minutes to grab a drink.

I was loading 1,400 pound alfalfa bales onto pickups with flatbed trailers attached, and the farmer was unloading them as they came up to the shed. I have no idea how many there were, but we cleared about 250 acres of fields in those two days.

I discovered that working a tractor is not making the work easier on the body as such. Sat in the operator’s station, I have a clutch, an accelerator, two brake pedals, two gear shifters, and a forward and back stick to operate as well as the loader control and the steering wheel. There is paying attention to make sure I know where people are around me, and being sure not to bugger up somehow. It is done in a cab that the A/C mostly worked in. There were also the distractions such as the hawks that would sometimes land on a bale and stay till I was not far off approaching to pick it up. It has its mental tax and it certainly is physically taxing. I am not used to using a clutch pedal at the moment, so that muscle was pretty sore after.

There was one point when the farmer’s wife got out of the truck while I had two bales up over the trailer and the bottom one was collapsing and tipping, nearly dropping the top one off, so I just stopped and waited to be sure it did not fall on her. I told her about it after I set it down, hoping she will be more mindful of it going forward because she put herself in danger, and I would hate to see her get squished. I was not a fan of that moment. Forgive me if I seem over dramatic bringing it up. Two of the three people in my family that have operated heavy equipment have had accidents that have resulted in deaths. My grandfather was a serious stickler for safety, and would walk off jobs where foremen thought they could tell him what to do as the operator, but proved that safety is no accident. I admire him deeply for it, and hope to follow his footsteps on the matter.

Today I am pretty sore. Running the machine was a lot of work and it was not all just fun and games, even if it did appeal to my inner child. It was fun, and I did really enjoy it. The nest moments were working right down next to the river as it flowed by. What a beautiful space that was, and what a wonderful farm my neighbor has! He is a lucky man! He is also a good man, and I am glad to have been able to help him out!

It is raining today, which would have spoiled the hay in the field. With it all tucked away in the barn, there are no worries now, and I am glad to have been a part of that. I’ll feel recovered by tomorrow, no doubt. And with the smoke that has filled the sky this summer, hopefully the sky will have a moment of recovery too.

Ponderings On Our Direction

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

I did not sleep well last night. I was too busy thinking up things to worry about! Hopefully tonight will go better. Missus is hard at work this week and being swamped with things that are frustrating and high pressure. I won’t say more due to business being a business. I just want to put down that she is under a lot of pressure, and her job role is difficult because she is a multi-hat wearer including Senior Project Manager and Director. While she is wearing multiple hats, I take mine off to her for dealing with all she is right now, while we are adding more stresses at home with the farm.

Someone has driven by the place across the street and looked at it a couple of times today. I think it is in a prime location and will draw some attention. I was just amazed at how quickly it turned from an office visit with the realtor to actual people looking it over.

Seeing such things just about leaves a knot in my stomach. Turning ideas into reality can do that, especially early on, and when we are not sure where tomorrow leads us. But there are ideas of what to do, and I am happy to share some of the generalities.

We love our llamas, and have no plans to give them up. We would like a few more! They are wonderful animals, and for all of the talk of them being great guard animals, and the viciousness that that implies, I have always found them quite the opposite! They are lovely. Just this morning I went into the pen with the old girl with the bad hips, Mystique. I have to go into her pen to water the little pigs, and she has formed the habit of coming up behind me and waiting for me to turn around and spray her down with water. She does this early in the mornings, before it has got hot, so either it is really hot being a llama, or she just likes it either way. Whatever the case, I would like to quarter all the llamas and be able to work with them better going forward to develop these sorts of habits. I think having a barn for them to do that in, and to put them up in during bad weather would be really wonderful, so it is on the shopping list! Any new property going forward wants to have a barn.

I think in addition to a barn, a field to turn the llamas out in that gives them access to a pond and lots of water would also be very good, and increase the odds of us leaving the property for longer than we have been able to before. Currently, we can go out for a tops of about 36 hours. We would like to better that.

Chickens are a given on a farm. The eggs and food source are obvious, and helpful. There is too much that can be done with eggs to give up on them, and fresh eggs are really so much better than store bought.

We will keep the peacocks, too. They are ornamental, and maybe they could pull a bit of money selling them as they breed, but we would like to have them as a permanent part of our farm, wherever.

I don’t want to do pigs again unless we are properly set up for them for the long term. I am not a butcher, either, so that has got to either be learned, or they have to be given up on. Maybe they will come again in the future, but only if there is good housing and strong fencing set up for them, and the breeds we pick are a bit smaller than our Large Black was. She was lovely, but weighing in at about 400 pounds, she was also a big, expensive pet. So pigs are probably out, at least for a bit.

Missus wants to carry on with goats, but we will need the means to sell them of so, or we will be overrun! I have the boys away from the girls now, because they come in twos and threes when they do come! That turns into a lot of hay consumption!

Missus wants to carry on with our Lionhead Angora Cross Rabbits. Who could blame her? She wants a better pen for them where they can have social time and such, so that is something we are looking at in a new place.

Waterfowl are okay, but again, I would like to seem them with access to a pond because ducks and geese see fresh water as something to go ruin with mud and dirt just as fast as they can, and messing it all up for the chickens that currently live with them.

I have been on this place not for some nine years, working with one hose connection for all of it, and with no tractor to help out with the heavy work. Those are two things that have got to change, especially where I have crossed the fifty-mark! Snow removal is a pain, moving hay impossible in the size bales we currently buy, and so many other jobs that would be aided, especially firewood and compost and other wood products and byproducts!

Other tools I would like to procure include a sawmill and a few more hand tools to try my skills at some furniture building from timber to finished product. I could use a workshop rather than a garage for that kind of thing.

Missus wants to get the fiber mill going where we can handle our own llama fiber, and other people’s fibers as well. If you are following my logic here, you may be adding up the out buildings we are shopping for so all this does not have to be stuffed into a house with us! There are places, and they are in our range, but we have to get ourselves to one, and hopefully not find it in serious need of work when we get there. Only time will tell on that part. Geography has not even been worked out yet.

Last, but not least, I have got a little model of the train I rode on with mom when I was nine. I would like to have a little space to set up something with that. A basement or an attic would do it.

Leaving the area we are in would be bittersweet. While we don’t know a lot of people around us very well, there are a lot of wonderful places around us that we like to go to, such as the ice cream manufacturer’s shop, and the flour mill, the cheese factory, and the honey maker. These are places we can get items that are very fresh, and very good. There are other treats as well, such as the milk shakes over at Brea Lake, or the wonderful little BBQ place over in Malad.

Right now, things are not set in stone or even wet cement. But the ball has been pushed and will either roll, or not. It is time for a change, so I am happy for it to. I have had changes of scenery all of my life, from living in places like California and Colorado and the UK, to little changes from city to city.

I’d like to live where the grass is tender, and I can scythe it without it pushing over because it is dry. I’d like to put a canoe in the water and row from shore to shore, listening to the birds, and spotting the occasional fish breaching the surface of the water, and teaching my daughters to appreciate nature and out part in it. I’d like home to be a place where I can let my llamas graze all summer long, and where I can provide winter feed without being subject to massive price hikes like we have recently. I’d like to spend my evenings in the wood shop, working out how to build a chair for a grandchild, or building a detail for the model railroad. I would like to roll around on a tractor, pulling a chicken coop behind and setting up the birds so they can peck and scratch in a new spot each day. But mostly, I want to see Missus able to spread out and do her hobbies and making the things she enjoys doing, and have a space to teach others the many things she has spent years learning on our hobby farming adventure, and I would like to see her with a deep, contented smile on her face. It is going to take a change to do all of that, and the time is here to at least try to make it so.

I am fifty. Accidents aside, I am probably 20 to 50 years away from snuffing it. Whatever, I need to make good use of it all. We need to put down where our roots can grow a little deeper than they have been able to here.

Oh, and I still love heating our place with the woodstove, so wherever we go, I am going to need that! There is nothing better, and nothing that provides more security over the winter than having heat with the flick of a match and a good pile of dry wood at the ready! I don’t ever want to give that up! That rules out most rest homes for me in the future!

Last Night It Rained

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

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.

Bye Big Pig

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

Big Pig was dead in her pen this morning. She is going to be missed quite a lot around here. She was a big, 400 pound puppy, loveable and trusting. She leaves a letteral and figurative hole in our farm, and we will never be the same without her.

Some Evening Photography

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

I took a short walk this evening and took a few photos around the yard. Golden Hour is always a great time to shoot. I thought I would share what I got.

It is Father’s Day, and my family sure has made me feel special! I got lots of love and a few wonderful gifts to help me get started on leatherworking. I don’t have big ambitions with it, yet, but I do want to be able to do some basic projects and practical items, and the tooling set I got will be more than enough to give me an idea what direction I would really like to take the craft, and how far I really want to go with it.

This Week On The Farm

Posted on by The Lord of The Manor

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.