It’s 4:30 on a Saturday morning as I begin pecking away at this. The Queen of England died two days ago, marking the end of a reign that was well established when I was born. It is the end of a female rule over Britain, and the beginning of the males that will reign for the rest of my natural life, Charles, William, and George. That is a huge change in itself. The passing of the Queen is only notable in my life, personally, and not really of any substance, though I am married to one of her subjects, and there are more in the family as a consequence. So, it has been a topic of conversation in our house since Her Majesty’s passing.
Having marked this moment in history, I will come to my personal life again.
Things here on the homestead have been going along fairly well. I have finally bought beef cows to raise on hay over this winter, then our field for next summer. I would expect to butcher them or sell them by the start of winter next. I hope to see two or three go to the use of our family. My brother goes fishing. I raise beef (and chickens). To each their preferences, I guess.
I have redone fencing in the pens next to the house, converting them from cheaper electric fences to more expensive horse fencing. I installed gates, too, that will hopefully eventually allow a tractor to come into those pens to pick up anything that dies in there, and to lift llama poo for selling as compost. I would like to first provide for our farm, though, and it is just not something I want to do by hand. I do have one fence to redo at this moment, but there is enough done to call the finishing of it easy.
I have firewood to get through to around late February at the moment. I need to finish up what is in the Service Yard. Once complete, I will probably have enough to last till March 20th or so. If I count the second bunk, maybe April 10th. It is best to make it till mid-May, however. So, to that end, another cord or so will be required just for this year, before I even begin to think of next. Luckily that will only require a day out gathering, and the weather is far better for it now that it has finally cooled from summer.
There is a haystack growing out in the yard. I have about 75 bales stacked up; but need around three hundred. Won’t that be good fun. It is a heavy requirement year due to the new calves. I’d hate to just kill them. Like firewood, hay is not something one waits to get. Get it while it is available.
I took yesterday off from doing any heavy work. My muscles wanted a rest from that fencing project. Even so, I did stack 18 bales of hay onto the pile, completing the 75 I have there so far. It’s a little depressing that that is not even enough to get us into winter, and I am already feeding from it at a rate of about half a bale a day, with that set to increase by quite a lot when the calves come off bottles, which from the looks of them could be soon. I anticipate the first day of Autumn, which come to think of it, is soon! Anyway, I rested and plan on working outside today. There is so much still to do. And now that the weather is agreeable, I hope I can spend more of the day doing it, rather than hiding in the house from the heat!
We are lucky that we have been able to keep the house cool this summer, even without the use of air conditioning. It’s just a matter of shading the windows on the sunny sides of the house and limiting the amount of hot air that can come in during the day. Also, running the big fan on low at the balcony door brings in a lot of cool air overnight, and takes down the ambient temperature of the house, making it cooler overall. That knocked five degrees off the upstairs, on average. I think there is still more we could do, too. But again, this is all passive, and without using any water or electricity to try to cool the house even further.
The next thing that will help me do more day work in the heat is having air conditioning. The only way I can think to do that is a cab tractor. That will keep me out of the heat, and still working. So, hopefully, finally.
Well, that’s enough for now. Still time to get some sleep from 5:00 till maybe 7:00!