This is the beginning of the last month of the year. It has been warm these recent days, and I have noticed that there is a distinct lack of snow on the mountains surrounding our fair valley. Of particular note in my mind was the words of a guy I used to buy wood from when we first started burning to keep warm. He pointed to the western mountains and said, “you see that snow line? Usually as it gets closer to us, people start buying wood from me.” I can’t remember if that was an October or November that he said that to me in, but the snow was at least half-way down the mountains, and it was definitely not a December! Here we are in 2021 with only the smallest patch of snow on the top of Oxford Peak, the highest mountain to the West, and sort of our weather rock.
Yesterday reached the low 50’s, and I took advantage of it to get some of the work outside done that I have been contemplating with only moderate seriousness. We have talked about running a drive through the far west side of the property at the back of the llama pens and curving around the back of the place to the ‘barn.’ That accessibility is meant to make moving trailers through this side of our property easier and give more use to the barn. It would also stop the need of driving between the barn and the granary, making a sort of yard space that is always kept free of car traffic. In theory it could also potentially reduce the driving in the front yard making that a cleaner space, but we’ll have to see. There is an advantage to accessing the front, and we do like how close we can get to the front door with the car, useful in winter, on rainy days which can be almost torrential, and when bringing in groceries and the like.
Yesterday’s work was to remove some posts that marked out boundaries to garden spaces that we will likely not use as such anymore. Those gardens were also good for housing Big Pig in the off seasons and keeping her on them when we wanted all the plant life removed. The posts I pulled were everything from metal T-posts to wooden railroad ties. I managed all with a high lift jack and a chain. I also have one metal piece that is rectangular in shape and has two holes through it, one to take a chain and hold it at any link, and the other to grab the T-post and lift it. It is really good at making the high lift jack a T-post puller. To pull the railroad ties I have a loop in the end of the chain and a hook on the other end, so I was able to grab the tie with it, and connect the chain to the jack lift, then pull upwards. It worked a treat! It’s not easy work getting a large piece of wood out of the ground that’s been buried in two and a half feet or more.
With the necessary posts cleared that we wanted moved, I am seeing a good space to put a large shed for Missus, as she has wanted for some time, which would also give her a good space for a flower garden around it. It also leaves me a good space to put a wood mill by the barn, which would up my wood game a bit. I only need a hobby mill, just large enough to cut some smaller pieces into boards.
The Forest Service limits the wood one takes from the mountains to seven feet in length, reducing what one can do with it at his end, and the wood from the dump is never quite right for milling. But my goals aren’t to build a house, they are to make furnishings and craft supplies, so longer pieces are not required. Perfect!
A hobby mill is cheaper, too, making it more realistic for me to get. Maybe after the GlowForge is paid off. I am working to make the wood hobby more than just a passive hobby for me. Supplying the material to work with is the next important step for me.
Missus is also working on getting her hobby set up as a business opportunity for herself. That will require a shed with a good workspace for her, and a bit of heat and air for when required, and space to store materials and tools. Let’s be honest. She needs more than a small or medium shed could provide. We’ll see what we can do! It will need electricity and water.
Anyway, all the speculation is off topic for what I got done, and what is in the immediate future for the drive space. Right off the bat, I have likely got a better space to put the trailers that we have got in. I will probably try them out today. I will be expanding the orchard out a bit, too, with more space for trees. I need to see how a new septic system will go in before finalizing any plans there, though. Using the area planned as a drive will keep me from driving anything between the barn and the granary. That will make that a safer space to use for kids to play in, and where things can be set up for games and hospitality. Maybe I will fence it off? A yard within a yard? Perhaps.
We tried this summer to sell the land over the road in an effort to move off this farm and onto one situated with all the land on one parcel. There were no offers because water connections to the local supply are impossible to get right now, and we are not willing to cut the price to effectively pay for someone to put in a well. If anyone is getting a well with our money, it is us. The situation as it is right now, we are not able to move, even though we are supposedly in a great seller’s market. Pretty funny.
No matter. We’ll just fix this place up a bit and make the best of it.
We have two new puppies running the house now. They are half Australian half Beagle, and brother and sister. We bought one for our youngest, but he had a bad first day that looked to me like a lot of stress for him, so I went over in the evening and got his sister and brought her home, which immediately calmed his nerves. My daughter calls her little boy Spot, and I call my little girl Snoopy. I don’t care if it is a boy’s name. I am called Kelsey, and I am a man. So screw it. I get a Snoopy Dog! And she is just lovely! We are training them to poo outside right now. Spot is having limited success, but Snoopy seems to be at least 50% there. I think I will get Snoopy up to scruff then trade and work with Spot. I think that will do it. We are having them use the orchard because people already seldom walk there, and because in the summer it gets sprayed down with large volumes of irrigation water from above which should help clean it up. It is a bit of a walk, and especially fun in the cold nights. But I think it will be worth the effort.
Well, it’s 5:30 in the morning, and I am due for a little more sleep. Time to go get it! But before I do, I just have to say, since the Windows 11 update, the spell checker built in absolutely sucks. I have to right click on an underlined word then click on Open Suggestion, a two-step operation I have to do twice before it responds and actually actuates. Sometimes it does not respond at all. I have a pretty new computer that works fine for absolutely everything else I do on it. Then the suggestions it gives sometimes appear questionable at least, and completely missing a word that I have misspelled by only one letter. Why it does not just show a list of suggestions on a single right click like before is completely beyond me! What genius thought up the two-click solution? Microsoft, this is just idiotic.