As it fell upon a day,
In the merry month of May,
Sitting in a pleasant shade
Which a grove of myrtles made,
Beasts did leap, and birds did sing,
Trees did grow, and plants did spring;
Every thing did banish moan,
Save the nightingale alone.
She (poor bird) as all forlorn,
Leaned her breast up-till a thorn,
And there sung the dolefull’st ditty,
That to hear it was great pity.
“Fie, fie, fie,” now would she cry;
“Tereu, tereu,” by and by;
That to hear her so complain,
Scarce I could from tears refrain,
For her griefs so lively shown,
Made me think upon mine own.
Ah (thought I) thou mourn’st in vain,
None takes pity on thy pain:
Senseless trees, they cannot hear thee;
Ruthless bears, they will not cheer thee.
King Pandion, he is dead,
All thy friends are lapped in lead.
All thy fellow birds do sing,
Careless of thy sorrowing.
Whilst as fickle Fortune smiled,
Thou and I were both beguiled.
Every one that flatters thee
Is no friend in misery.
Words are easy, like the wind;
Faithful friends are hard to find.
Every man will be thy friend
Whilst thou hast wherewith to spend;
But if store of crowns be scant,
No man will supply thy want.
If that one be prodigal,
Bountiful they will him call,
And with suchlike flattering,
“Pity but he were a king.”
If he be addict to vice,
Quickly him they will entice.
If to women he be bent,
They have at commandment;
But if Fortune once do frown,
Then farewell his great renown:
They that fawned on him before
Use his company no more.
He that is thy friend indeed,
He will help thee in thy need;
If thou sorrow, he will weep;
If thou wake, he cannot sleep;
Thus of every grief in heart
He with thee doth bear a part.
These are certain signs to know
Faithful friend from flattering foe.
XX. As it fell upon a day
Candles, Lavender, and a Woodshed
The sun is setting on a Sunday evening here on the farm, and everyone is cozy and relaxing. It was hot today, the temperature getting up to 89.8 degrees, and even now, with direct sunlight gone, it is still 80°F. It was cool for long enough this morning to get some things done for the farm though!
We put in the Lavender plants that arrived on Thursday. The girls and I set up the row on Friday with two stretches of landscape fabric, and an overlapped gap between them. So, not really a gap, but more of a seam, but without any kind of joining. Well, whatever! The point is, we were then able to lay over the one piece of fabric and put the plants in today, then close up the gap again, so the plants are all surrounded close up and completely with the fabric.
We made a mistake and put some mulch around the plants. It’s not a lot, but I will have to clean it off soon. Then I will need to get some sort of pea gravel or something to work instead. Apparently, Lavender is not meant to have any water retaining material around it. It prefers the dry climate.
I am nervous about planting these so late in the year, but they apparently grow like this just fine. Imagine, we can get to -10°F or even less! At least they have some time to do their root work between now and genuine winter! But the forecast for tomorrow is only 72°F! And that’s the high!
We’d like to try the Christmas Tree candles at the Farmer’s Market in the middle of next week. I need to remember to put the wax melter on tonight before bed. It will probably take till midday or later tomorrow to fully melt all the wax that is in it. Then I start pouring little trees with little wicks in the top and put on little warning labels on the bottom. They are cute little trees. I think I have only one mold though, so I may need to order a couple of more to get some serious progress done on this project. I will if they sell well at the Market!
Well, that only makes some sense. There are two Market days left this year. It might be best if I have them ordered sooner and can produce some candles for the Market coming up. Best just get the melter going and keep pouring till it is empty! I don’t know if they will sell, but I cannot see why they won’t! I just had a look on Etsy for some more molds, and the kind I have is not there. But there is a different candle mold, but I am not too pleased with it. It is a little shorter than I think I would like. Maybe I am wrong. Maybe I should just order it and a pinecone mold that I found on there. Okay, I checked Amazon, and of course I can get another mold like the one I already have and two of the pinecone molds delivered by Tuesday for about half the price of what I was expecting to pay on Etsy. As much as I like to support the small seller, I have to honestly justify with myself that I have no idea who is actually selling, and if they are not just reselling Temu. And the pinecone mold was also available there.
And maybe what I need to do is turn some bases for the candles? I could use can lids for the separator to help prevent a fire from forming on the wood. Maybe that is something I should try out at home first. Well, there’s some ideas, anyway. That’s the way it goes around here. Think something up, think up ways to do it, then think up the potential exposure to liability, and cancel the whole project.
Going back to the topic of Temu. I noticed that my spell check does not recognize the name and think I have misspelled something. Well, as far as I am concerned, the whole company should be deleted. They are undermining everyone who is even trying to run a small business. Missus sees it in particular on her online browsing. She has identified where items get sold by Temu that are copies of things she has seen from original makers. There are posts in creator groups saying “This is what I made! Show me yours!” Then they can copy the designs people post. The whole online space is unsafe for makers. Try to parse that out from the sellers who really are just reselling Temu products they have ordered and brought to markets. That should be worthy of getting people thrown out of maker themed markets and anyone claiming to be American Made. If a seller is willing to disclose that they are reselling Chinese crap, then fair enough, as long as it is clear and upfront. It should be posted on a webpage or market stall in large, clearly readable and prominent letters. Let them wear it with the pride it deserves.
Rant over for now.
The sin is down now. I have to go out and shut off the waterspout at the frost-free hydrant. I don’t want the hose to blow overnight. I left it on thinking I was going to water the new plants, but when I saw how little they actually like water, I thought better of it.
The week starts tomorrow. Kids to school! I need to get to work on the second woodshed bent. I would like to see it stood this week. I didn’t last week. I might not this week. There is a lot to do if I am going to properly brace it. I would like to get this project done so I can get on to other important things!
A Week of Craziness in a Day
I have had an interesting week this week. It was Farmer’s Market week, and we got the truck packed up and everything brought up to the park in Preston, then set up under the tent. It was a fine old time to sit and chat with folks as they came by and looked around. There was a disappointing outcome as far as sales go, but I do enjoy being out in public with Missus and enjoying the opportunity to get to see people as they come through.
Wednesday, I had an appointment with the doctor. I needed to talk to him about why I was kept awake by tummy pain, but he said pretty quickly that he did not think it was anything to worry about, just normal kinds of pains one could expect with a digestive system. He said that his biggest concern for me was the “beer gut” that he had no better term for. I could not have agreed more after having just stepped off a scale in the hall that swore a number at me that I don’t care to repeat!
So the good doctor gave me some pointers on diet and how to improve my eating habits, but much of what he suggested was already in practice for me. But there were some things I need to shave out, and some things I need to modify to be in total compliance with his diet suggestions. It was basically Atkins. Then he added that for me to get best bang for buck out of a weight loss plan I need to add a fasting regimen to my eating plan. His suggestion was to leave out meals for 24 to 36 hours three times a week. Best seems to go from supper to supper without eating, missing breakfast and lunch. He’d like to see me go one more meal if possible, just giving a whole day a miss. The idea is that I drink non sugary flavored drinks, particularly water, and go into ketosis, then burn off belly fat.
I tried it yesterday, though I did not fully comply. I had three or four strips of bacon for breakfast, then two pieces of cheese soon after. I also had a coffee with half and half. But strangely, coffee is allowed black, and half and half is allowed. So I assumed it was okay to put the half and half in the coffee. It was only water other than that all day. I had some devilled eggs for supper. This seemed fine, despite an active day. So, I will have confidence to try it again, only go deeper.
I was out to feed the goats and two llamas yesterday around noon when I noticed a truck passing and slowing out front, then he honked and drove on. I went out to see what was up and there was one of the new llamas out in the road. I opened the gate to go out, and up came Joe from down the street, and he helped me press the llama into our front yard where I was able to close the gate and keep the llama where I could work with him.
This was the llama that answered to Sheldon, and he turned out to be pretty easy to work with. I got the rope I had put on him changed for a halter and lead. Then when it was time to get Missus up, I got her help with keeping him while I checked to see how the llama had got out, and where the other one was. Bad news, the other llama, Kyle, was in the canal. So I had to go back and we had to figure out what to do with Sheldon so we could rescue Kyle.
The Kyle rescue was not so much fun. The embankment was too steep. But Kyle was as cooperative as he could be, and waded through the deep water on a rope as we pulled him from place to place to try him out. We finally got him to climb up near the east gate, but there was deep mud there, and he had such a time getting started. We got him up the embankment with great effort, in fact, that took near two hours. I ended up going to get the girls from the bus stop right after.
I also observed while out feeding that the Gord leaved looked spoiled. I checked on them later and took this photo.
That was surely frost damage. The plants were watered just a couple of days ago. I checked the temperature records for the day, and there it was.
The thermometer nine feet in the air and up the yard a bit caught 32.5F. Obviously, it was colder out back where the plants are.
We had our last frost on the 17th of June this year, and that was excessively late. But to have a hot summer like we have and to get frost here only shy of a month and a half later is surprising! Well, it sure doesn’t seem right for a growing season, and it sure is unexpected for a planet that is warming. Yet, here we are. A summer that was hot as can be but as short as can be between frosts. I wonder what the actual autumn will bring us?
Amis all of this, my sister-in-law called from England to talk a bit. She is missing America and is quite surprised by it. There was more than one occasion while she was here that I heard her to say that it was not her first choice of where to go to, but she came because family was here. Now she has had a bit of reverse culture shock and feels the compression of the small, close houses and the lack of space to feel open in. We have that space. She also says she misses the little family here like crazy. Awe! There is not a lot within reason that we can do about it, but of course, if we could, we’d have her here to live in a minute. Immigration law does not quite work like that. Plus, she is starting her job for the schoolyear on Monday. Hopefully that will distract her adequately. Hopefully.
The transportation director for the district called to say the bus stop is being moved for the time being. That call actually came in after I discovered Kyle in the canal and was walking back to the house to get a rope to put on him to lead him around with. The family in the house claim safety for why they would like the stop moved. I think it is probably just wanting a bit of privacy and their driveway not blocked, which is good enough. Either way, it all adds up to good reasons for the stop to move. So, it is. But the new stop is right in front of a building where beehives are managed, and the bees and wasps circle the car while I am waiting there. It don’t bother me, and the girls walked right through it like nothing. I don’t know if the other kids will do as well. Maybe. Or maybe the stop will move again. We’ll see.
So that’s the news from the Farm for this week, late in August. Today and tomorrow left, and with any luck September will be as expected.
See Ya Next Time Sis!
We drove down to the airport today to drop my wife’s sister off for her flight home. it was so good to have her over for the last month and change. She is an active and happy person and really enjoyable to have around. She has helped us out with getting set up for Farmer’s Markets and has really enjoyed exploring around and learning what she can of our many hobbies. It’s been a bummer that she was out during the hot season, but at this point, she has seen our place at the hottest and coldest periods of the year. I hope she can come again when it is much more temperate and enjoyable, and easy to be outside or in the shop busy doing things. She never got to spend as much time at the lathe as she wanted to, nor did she get to work at the sawmill. But that’s fine too, since she was happy to be working on everything she did keep busy at, especially working with the laser, which she says she wants one of. Well, who doesn’t?
Naturally, Sis gets on the plane and the wind howls all the way home and all evening as the temperature drops to a much more pleasant one. We are meant to only get to the mid 70’s tomorrow and the next day. Classic. We have been soaring around the high 90’s the bulk of the time she’s been here. Yeah, next time she comes, it needs to be in the spring or autumn. What a laugh!
Well, with the temperatures dropping, I need to get at some of my chores around here and get things done that must be done before the snow flies. I’d be really excited to get that woodshed done. I have secured more cinder blocks to prop it up, and that is great! I think it will need them. The extra blocks came from under the sawmill. I am setting it on treated wood, and that on the ground for the time being.
It’s been a long day today, and I am off to bed now. I put my hand made table under the monitor at my computer and put my keyboard on it. I restarted the computer, too. I’d like to fix the chair height adjuster so it will keep me up on the normal level so I can feel like a grown up at my desk. Tomorrow. Tomorrow.
I Finally Have a Sailboat After 30 Years Dreaming
This weekend I finally crossed a threshold I have long awaited. I got myself a sailboat. It is not a liveaboard type. In fact, it doesn’t even have an electrical system in it at the moment. It is an old one, too. The boat is a 21-foot Macgregor Venture from 1970. It needs a lot of work, but it should be manageable work on a relatively small budget.
The first big job is restoring the swing keel on it. The keel is a 400 pounds steel plate that drops down from the bottom extending the draft from about 18 inches to five and a half feet. It is coated in house paint from its previous owner, who kept it on a budget. I’d like to see her gel-coated with some lovely rich colors like blue gunwales and a red bottom with a white strip at the waterline. Something classic like that. White topsides and a sand color for the tread would probably come together real nice. I can see a couple of instruments and a radio, and I can also see a slight modification to the trailer in her future, too. What it also needs desperately is a mast raising system. That is one job that is a challenge! There is plenty to do, as one would expect from a cheap, old boat. But with any luck, I will never be heard to say, “We’re gonna need a bigger boat.”
So, as of this weekend, I have embarked on a new adventure. It is one I have dreamed of for ages, at least in part. Okay, true I have always wanted to live aboard. But for where we are at and what we are doing, this will do for now. I get to spend a bit of time working on the boat, getting to know it, and learning all the things I will need to do to maintain her going forward. I could sail it soon, but why take the chance before I get to understand the rigging and components of the boat really well. I can do a lot of that on the trailer, messing about and familiarizing myself with positions and the overall shape of things.
Is it a proud moment? A proud moment would be a Cabo Rico or an Island Packet that is live-able and blue water ready. I go into this with some trepidation, but a readiness to learn for real something I have only got some of the terms down for. It’s like knowing Chess rules of Castling, or En Passant Capture, or knowing the Ruy Lopez opening, but having never played a game. It’s different to be sat at the board. It is different to hold a tiller in my hand and look up at the rigging and know I have got to get this right. Safety and enjoyability are at stake here.
So where will I begin? I need to order a part for the boom to get it fully operational, and I will need to replace a cable on the standing rigging, if not most of them just to get rid of rust. There is the keel. Maybe some new sailcloth is in order, if not at least some repairs. I can get by with handheld electronics to substitute for instrumentation for a sail or two, but if I am going to sail properly, I would like to sort out a VHF, GPS, wind direction and speed, and maybe even a chart plotter after a bit, as there is no room for a nav table in this tiny little boat. I can always set my app on my cellphone as a back-up. Anything drastic enough to knock out both will also require rescue and an insurance claim. If I can see all that done by then end of next summer, I think I will be ahead of schedule.
This Week So Far
Early this week I had the roughest time with my rheumatism. That cost me two days. Then I got a visit from a guy who lives in town, but has a house down here, too. He asked me if I wanted the wood from a tree he was having cut down at the house in town. I went up far too early as it took longer than I thought it might to get the tree down, so I visited the kids for a bit. It was good to get up there early so I could specify to the tree cutter how I wanted the wood pieced up. When I went to pick it up, the wood had to be machine lifted onto the trailer. I have three pieces that are long enough to make into boards of some sort. There will be a lot of knots in whatever I make of it. I don’t yet know if I will make something like 6 or 8 inch wide by 1 inch thick, or 2×4’s.
I went back over today. The guy who owns the house decided on taking down a second smaller tree. I told the cutter to go ahead and make it into firewood or anything that works best for him. That is sat on the trailer and in the bed of the truck right now. I’ll get that out at any dry points tomorrow. The second tree is an Austrian Pine, so said the tree cutter. I am not sure of the big tree. Might be the same as it came out of the same yard, but the tree cutter never said.
So what will I do with the wood? I will cut the smaller bits into firewood. There are some longer bits that might just fit between the bolsters on the mill, and I am thinking I want to try milling them into basically large cubes. I’ll have to put some Anchorseal on them and leave them for a year or more. They need to leak out a lot of sap. I’ve got a couple of boards from a pine I took down in our yard a year ago, and it is in pretty good shape. Once dry, I am sure I can sell them.
So there’s this week so far. Perhaps this should be on the homestead blog, but it is what I am up to. It is warmer now that it is springtime proper. I am going ot need to get down to the dump and get some wood coming back to the house. I’ll need some for lumber and for firewood. There are things to build around here, and the firewood needs time to dry. Somehow I need to fit in the installation of a septic system too. Nothing to it.
Septic System and Orchard
Today I took care of two things I have been putting off for far too long! I had a meeting at 9AM with the man in charge of the county health department to discuss planning for our septic system. He went over the specifics of what has to be done and how it has to be done. It seems like there is a little tiny bit of wiggle room that will set me up to be able to do this okay as long as I don’t need a pump to get the effluent from the septic tank to the drain field. I will have to do some measurements to see about that. I might make it, but because of the high water table here, I don’t have a lot of wiggle room on that. The rest of it sounds pretty easy apart from collapsing the old tank. That is a pretty strong piece of concrete, and may require renting a jackhammer.
After all that, I came home and helped Missus out with some things, and then went out and pruned back the whole orchard. It is only about a dozen trees, but this is a job I have been needing to do for some time now. Some of the trees have got pretty good sized and have a lot of limbs and branches on them. They all needed some work. Some only a little bit, and others needed a right butchering! I worked on shaping this year and let the consequences follow. I think next year I can work on trying to maximize production. I also have one dead tree out there that needs to be replaced. It is a prune tree right back with the apples. There are two other prune trees that are alive at the front, and they got a trim and hopefully will produce. But that dead one needs to be replaced with a proper apple tree, I think. No other fruit trees we have tried have survived. Just the prunes and apples.
We have an old apple tree sperate from the orchard by a little way. I gave that one the once over too. It has produced the last couple of years, but very poorly. Hopefully this year will see a change! I butchered the living hell out of that tree, too. It had the most prolific collection of stems and such on it. Now it looks like the others. I know I was only supposed to take off about a third of the tree at max. I am sure I exceeded that. But I think it is worth the risk. It is an old tree and very well established. Besides, I have had a couple of trees that have started out small and been completely knocked over and destroyed, then resprouted off the root ball. I am sure this one could do the same if it had to.
Missus needs help in the cottage tomorrow. I also need to remember to pop open the air tank on the compressor. I have been poor at doing that lately. I need to get the trailer up to the dump and empty it out and ready up for another fill. I could do one or two more before I get the bulk of the old compost pile finished and ready to redistribute the soil where it needs to go. I really want to get some flowers in this year and get Missus going on selling some or getting the place looking better at the very least.
Now that I am pretty sure on where the septic is going, I think I can make up my mind on the gourd tunnel and on the woodshed and a couple of large planters. A couple of lean-tos would not hurt. One for the chicken coop, and one for the tractor. Also, the septic guy approved the idea of building a leech field, then putting a coop next to it and fencing in the field and letting chickens roam around on it. Yeah, I’d like that. Then the ground would not be going to waste.
Our male cat is roaming around the house like he is having some sort of anxiety. I figure it is either the onset of the frogs he can hear through the open doors and windows, or he is missing the female cat who is out in a pen by the chicken coop because she keeps crapping in the house. We are going to try to get her used to being outside in a safe place, then letting her run free a bit then come back in to visit. This keeping her in the house business is just not working out. She keeps spewing out both ends, to be honest. It’s too much. The other three cats that either live here or visit are fine. But this one likes to put her mess where it is nearly impossible to clean. Enough is enough.
Well, there’s my report for today. It’s late enough for an early night now. I might give that a go in a few minutes.
Relaxing on a Sunday Afternoon in March
It’s Sunday, normally a relaxing day around here. Missus isn’t relaxing, so I have helped her with moving things around and getting things put away. She is trying so hard to get things organized better. She finally went for a nap, and I went and did my chores feeding the animals and recovering the hay from the recent wind, and unfortunately, rain we had. The hay got wet, which is unfortunate. It did not penetrate too deep, so hopefully it will at least be fine for the time I will have it before it is used up on the goats and llamas.
The rain has restored our lovely mud outside, making it miserable and a little unsafe to work out there. I won’t use the sawmill in the mud, for example, till I can get it up on a platform of some sort, and maybe even a roof built over it to keep the platform dry. Last thing I would want to do is slip and fall while pushing the blade through a cut! I have a fair load of logs towards such a project. I need to set me up a cut list and finish it. Then maybe I could get on it.
I am also concerned about the woodshed. I need one of those built, and the sooner the better. It would sure be a bonus to have that built and be able to stack the wood into it to dry up for next winter. To be fair, I have still got a fair amount left from this winter, and that can go in first! Put it all in the south side of the bunk, take out the north side, build a shed there, then transfer the wood in, and clear out the south end and put a second shed there. The problem is that I am only allowed a certain size in our county without a permit, and that size is not big enough for a whole winter’s worth of wood. If I build two at the limit, I should be able to hold enough for more than a winter’s worth. Nothing wrong with too much wood!
This stuff is a change from when I first started this blog, isn’t it? Who would have thought back then that I would have ended up going on like this? Certainly not me. But here we are. Though, there is the threat of getting our bikes out and going for a ride somewhere around here. Probably not too long of one, but the kids are eager to.
On that note, I have got to do something about my photography. I am not feeling inspired. It is mostly what is around me. It could be because of the winter and brown grass all about. It’s been the mildest winter I can remember here, by far. Mud season is pretty much over, apart from the shallow mud outside right now because of the rain. But the deep mud is not affecting us. The place looks bland, and almost colorless in its otherwise drab winter regalia. Not just around the yard, but the whole area we live in.
Well, that’s enough of being boring for now. I would like to stop and have a thought before I write more. Writing this much has me thinking of things I’d be better off doing than writing about.
Rheumatism
Honestly, it’s days like this that worry me. I woke up feeling fair to middling, did my morning chores feeding llamas and goats and even giving a shot to one of the llamas who has a swollen leg from some kind of injury he has given himself. Around noon I had finished up and my youngest daughter and I sat on the tractor bucket, and I told her some of the old stories of rounding up cows when I first came to visit Idaho, and how her oldest brother learned to ride from a champion barrel racer in Nevada.
Lunchtime came and I fixed up me some hotdogs and ate them. It was around that time I also started feeling quite poorly. It started like the old rheumatism in the hips and spread throughout my torso and arms. That finally got to the point I could no longer stay awake, so I went up to take a nap for more than an hour and a quarter on my bed. That is not right for me as I normally only nap for some twenty minutes or so. Now it is gone past seven in the evening an I am still feeling like Wile E. Coyote after the fall from the cliff and the huge boulder landing on me. With any luck, I will feel much better after tonight’s sleep and for all of tomorrow. I have an important errand I need to run as soon as I can.
The pain of it is debilitating and were I working a regular job that required reporting into some stuffy manager, I would have been in trouble for a day like today. That is not interesting to me. I don’t want to have to have my security and livelihood threatened over something beyond my control. I will try to report into myself in full health tomorrow.
I have just about finished a stand for Missus’ loom. She has an Ashford rigid heddle loom that is some 18 inches wide. She told me that a stand would cost us $175 or so, so I took some of the wood I milled and made her one for about $15 in parts. I *think* that saved us a few dollars. Perhaps you know the old meme that says “why buy it for $35 when I can make it myself with $97 in craft supplies?” I have spent well over that amount in supplies and tools and the mill and so on. Well, I have got to trim the tops of the legs and tighten a couple of bolts, then it is as done as can be. I more or less followed the specifications of the stand she does have, and replicated it as close as possible, except the type of wood and the thickness of my pieces. I think it came out pretty good, and I understand some of the things they did on their model to help it work better than the methods I might have chosen on my own. I also need only make one spare part, only longer, to make this stand fit a wider loom. Well, I am happy with it.
The ideal situation this year is to make anything like this that we can here on the farm. We’d like to give up on buying things as much as we can, buy quality when we do have to, and make quality when we don’t. I need to get the trailer fixed and start making trips down to get firewood and milling wood. The weather today was perfect for it. We have a bit more to come before it starts getting wet late this week or early next.
Off to an early night to bed tonight. I need to recover from this awful feeling. Best wishes reader.
Weird Winter Weather
The winter has been shockingly warm compared to the past winters we have had here in our part of Idaho. I took a photo last week while warming the truck up to take the girls to school that I thought demonstrated just that. It was of the rain on the windshield. It was just after seven in the morning on February 15th. We were only a week or so past the dead middle of winter and it was raining early in the morning! I could not believe it! Any normal winter and we would have had snow instead! But not this year. It snowed this morning though, as a storm blew through! I fed the animals and shot two photos of what it looked like as I did. Those looked far more typical of what Idaho should look like this time of year.
To be honest, the snowfall seems minimal, but it is usually spring when it falls the most, as the weather warms, and the seasons ready for a change. It has fallen a fair amount for the year, but with the warmth and the rain, it has melted more quickly than usual. That is probably a fair assessment and explains the water forming what looks like a lake in the field behind our house. The moisture is there, but it is just not there in its normal fashion.
Rainfall at a little past even in the morning reminds me more of English or even Californian winter weather!
Perhaps we will pick up a lot more snow in the spring this year. and perhaps it will also come in unusual form instead of snow. So long as it is snow when it hits the mountain tops! And that brings up the next concern. It needs to be snow on the mountains so it can last till early July or so. Then it can melt in the summer heat and come down to the river to be pumped into the irrigation canals and eventually onto crops.
This winter has been unsettlingly warm, and I do wonder what the summer temperatures and weather will be like. Will it be much warmer than we are used to in summer too? Warm weather encourages thunderstorms, and thunderstorms encourage wind. What are we in for?
The horse is looking forward to the feed in the tractor bucket as I drive it along and shoot her photo. Hard to believe the field was clear of snow just yesterday. I expect it will be again soon!
All we can do is ride it out. But if it is exceptionally hot, I will still need to create firewood for the following winter, despite that. I will also need to work in the workshop despite it. That may mean nightshifts. So be it. I am not sure how to deal with the mill, but I will work something out. Maybe it requires building a shed with a roof over it for shade? Maybe it requires moving it? That is probably in the cards anyhow.
No matter the case, I need to work through it. My arthritis does not hurt like it has been the past I don’t know how many years. It is feeling much better thanks to some tablets I have been taking to reduce it. But even with them, I am limited. Before the tablets I would wake up sore and hurt all day. I would limp while walking. I would not be able to move much for long. Now I wake up feeling much better. I can work a while. What I cannot do it keep at it for long without it feeling a dull awful feeling that requires me to stop and rest off the pain, to the point of even having a short nap to recover. This year promised to be better, though with these limitations. But I will do what I can. I know for a fact I have passed this on to one child. It may have gone to even more. Time will tell. I just hope not, but if so, there is not much I can do apart from advise them of it and help them to work and will through it.
Looking down the road beyond where I turn to feed the llamas on the back pasture over the road from ours. Visibility was just shy of a mile. It’s not bad, but it landed as a surprise to me, full stop.
It’s not the summer I look forward to. It is the intermediary season of spring. Those in-betweens here are wonderful. I was told many years ago that the summers were nice here. They were not too warm. Even in 2010 the high temperatures for July and August were an occasional 93F with more falling in the 80’s than 90’s. By 2019 we saw the high reach 97F with several more days falling into the mid 90’s. Tree rings I have seen around here suggested to me that the 1980’s and before saw more rainfall, taking into account early wood growing years of a tree, as it does.
In other news, we are living with three cats in the house now. All of them are “fixed” and their attitudes towards each other and everything shows it. They wrestle together. The older one tolerates the younger ones better. He was fixed a while back, but he seems to have improved on the two young ones for them not producing so many hormones. I’d like to see them all shitting outside rather than in the litterbox in the house, and especially just in the house. I found three parcels under my desk upstairs, and they were just starting to go to town under Missus’s big loom in the library. We have a spray that is meant to stop them doing it where we spray, which is where they have gone. I am waiting with bated breath. We’ll see how they do! I have sprayed the entire upstairs carpet for good measure!
Wood is loaded into the fire for the evening. I am tempted to go up to bed early and watch some YouTube videos. There is no school tomorrow, so I can cancel the alarm and just enjoy the evening and the morning. Such rare opportunities should be taken. My wife is good at knowing that. I have been so ingrained with “you should be busy” that it is hard for me to remember it is okay to do such things, even when I am limited by my health. It is likely to snow again tomorrow, and a little bit likely the two days that follow it. High temperatures will hover around 40F throughout the next ten days, according to the forecast. Before long it will be real spring and the temps will begin to rise. It will be time to work hard and get done all the things that need to be around here. I have a long list.
There is much more I could talk about. Everything from politics to why I am not photographing as I should be. But a relaxing evening is calling to me, and I do wish to go and enjoy it thoroughly.