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!