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A Day in the Life

Posted on October 20, 2023 by Kelsey

Morning

That first cup is a cappuccino, vanilla. It is not a drink that comes with a sensational aroma like coffee. But it is not packed with acid that upsets my tummy, and it does not go right through me, exiting as soon as I pour it in, like coffee. What is the difference? I don’t know. One is from a bean. One is a powder, like a big glass of Nestle Quick. But the hot Quick stays put a minute, and it washes down the vitamin and Glucosamine tablets I take each morning. I enjoy a slow go of waking up, and let the kids do their thing to get ready for their day while I do. Missus and I talk about the current events in the family, and eventually I take the girls to the bus stop where they take off for school each day Mondays through Thursdays.

Today is a typical day. There is a conversation about the size of our youngest child’s shoes in order for me to report that back to our oldest so he can get her a present for her birthday coming up in about two weeks. He’s good that way and puts in the effort. What more could a parent want than to know that if said parent were to disappear off the surface of the Earth, their kids would take care of each other, or at least be able to take care of themselves?

Our second child will be by today to help split firewood again. I moved the log splitter and the big pile of wood yesterday so we can load the bunk as we go. He did not like the trailer loading out back and then having to unload it into the bunk beside the house. I don’t blame him. It all stemmed from the mess I had going out there in the Service Yard last year when the new tractor arrived. I cleaned it all up and had decided that the whole setup would not fit well in there with the tractor in as well trying to do the lifting. Well, we will try it anyhow, and I have tried to set up with the space for it. Splitting wood is the big chore I have to look forward to today. But if we get the pile done that it out there, we will undoubtedly have most of the wood ready for winter, and I can breathe a lot easier knowing that the wood is drying a little before we burn it, and that I can relax and work more wood with an eye to having it ready for next year. Yes, that’s right. We will finish this mad dash through firewood just to keep doing it still, only at a more relaxed pace. I need to get this into my daily schedule.

All this is to say where my mind is in a typical morning like this one. Not that I am working any of this in the morning. That will al come after the cappuccino and taking the kids to school. If our second arrives at his usual time, it will be within twenty minutes or so after I get back from the bus run, and we will get started soon after that. I think these thoughts through so I can eventually get to the point where I remind myself that I need to get tarps to cover the wood this weekend before the rain comes next week. Best keep it dry now, rather than bringing in rain-soaked wood to try to light in the fire as it gets colder with the changes in the weather, and especially with that rainfall.

Time to leave soon. I did not have my usual second cup. There is only so much a man can stand of the stuff each day. Some habits cannot remain consistent, even in habit form.

Lunchtime

We took a break at noon and son left. Then I went back at the wood splitter for a bit before I called it off just after 2:00PM. I ate some ravioli, then caught up on the news. I watched an episode of CSI: NY while eating.

Evening

For me, the evening starts when I go to get the kids from the bus stop. I get a few minutes there to catch up on the news a little more, then after they arrived, the girls and I went to town and got some rabbit food, and some whole corn. We went to the thrift store and picked up a couple of puzzles for our ninth grader’s art class, and we grabbed Subway sandwiches for supper when we got home.

I thought about going out and doing more log splitting, but after all that for a day, I decided not to. So here I am sat down for a spell and enjoying the quiet evening without running myself into the ground.

I want to add too that it is another good day. No bones pain. I am muscle sore, but that does not hurt like bone sore, so I am pretty happy this evening. I just want to rest it all off because I can. There will be plenty to do tomorrow.

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Milling Wood for a Rabbit Hutch

Posted on October 16, 2023 by Kelsey

The morning was busy helping Missus out with arranging some things in the house. When she was done with me, I went out to the tractor and took it around to the mill and parked it. There was a log already on it that I had put up there a couple of weeks ago. It was a short log that has some limited uses, but it was dry and a bit experimental for me. Most of the wood I have cut on the mill so far has been green wood. The one on it yesterday was effectively seasoned. So, I tightened the blade on the mill and started it up. A warmup run cleared the oxidization off the blade and confirmed it was running true.

There was a large crotch in the log, and I started it off by cutting the remaining branch stump off. Then I turned it and flattened it on two more sides, leaving one lived edge, which I could have cut off too, but decided to worry about that at the table saw instead. That allows me to maximize the size of any boards cut from the middle of the remaining log rather than forcing all of them to a single standard from a square cant. I then cut each live edged board to one inch thick. All of my scraps and boards went into the tractor bucket ready to take around to the house and shop. The scraps will be used as firewood in the house.

I cut a straight edge on the boards, then cut the size 1/32nd over five inches in order to allow for a little bit of edge jointing on my final width. At last I ran all through the planer and surfaced the faces. Then I did the same on the posts I made a few weeks back, on all four sides. The final step on the boards was to cut one straight end, ready for their final measurements. The final step on the posts was to do the same, then but a 3/16ths-ish bevel on that end in order to serve as the bottoms of the legs for the hutches I intend to build out of all this wood. Now each board and post is sized in every dimension except for final length which will be finalized when I put them in their places and cut them to fit.

I need to mill a longer log or find some one-inch-thick boards already done to make the longest pieces for the hutches. The pieces I am describing will run the span of the hutch. The hutch is going to be made from wire cages suspended in a wooden frame. The idea is to prevent access to any of the wood by the rabbits, so they cannot chew it. But there is also another important feature. No wood bracing can be allowed under the wire cages, so they cannot pile up droppings anywhere. If it can fall through, the chickens in the run in which the hutches will be kept can pick through the droppings and effectively clean it up. Lastly, I will be building a roof on top to keep the rabbits dry and give them a bit of shade. Walls can be added to a couple of the sides in order to give them a wind break, too.

It’s a challenge. It’s interesting and enjoyable. Taking the boards from a tree in the manner I am able to now is absolutely wonderful! There is something that feels very self-reliant about taking a log from a tree and cutting it to the dimensions required for a specific task.

I could be suing the lumber rough, but I decided on planing it all smooth because it will be in the weather, and I want it to expose a smooth surface that will not trap water in any way other than its normal adhesion to help reduce rot. Another step I will take it to stand the final hutches on cinder blocks to get them off the earth and reduce the time water can stand at the base of the posts. No post can be sealed at the bottom unless its top is capped or sheltered to prevent water running down the wood grain and trapping in the sealed bottom, causing it to rot. I don’t know of you have ever seen a fence whose posts have had some sort of metal nailed to the top, old timers would sometimes use the disk from a bean can, but that actually does serve a purpose. And my intent is to build this hutch to last! Well, I should say these hutches. When I finish the big one, there will be at least one little one and maybe two left to do.

Anyway, as for suspending the cages into the wood frames, I am fixing to build a set of wire brackets that can be screwed to the boards that span the posts, and then hold the wire in a way that does not create any flat surface under the cages. That will require some 1/2-inch-wide metal strips and the vice and hammer for shaping, and a drill for screw holes. Any braces under the cages to help hold up the weight of the rabbits will be fashioned out of the same kind of wire the gages are made of, creating a deep beam but again, no flat surfaces to catch mess on. There is also an interior wall that provides a door that can be close to split the big cage up into apartments when needed, but also will provide a strong support at the center to suspend the floor at that location. Missus’ idea to put that wall in! That was a stroke of brilliance!

I imagine after putting all this explainer in, when I get the hutch set up in situ, I will shoot a photo and post it. Watch this space.

Dylan has promised to come over today and begin a regimen of helping to sort out the final mass of firewood for this winter. We have pieces to cut and split, and if need be we can go get a lot more where we source it from. I really appreciate his help with it. There is a lot left to do!

Time for me to get moving and get ready to take the girls to the bis stop for school. Then there is a long day of work ahead after that!

Posted in Journal Entry, Regular Update, The Farm, Woodshop | Comments Off

A Dedicated Blogging PC

Posted on October 11, 2023 by Kelsey

I sorted out a new computer at last. As much as I wanted the Samsung Tablet to work as a blogging platform, and it did to some degree because of its size and convenience, it would bog down as I got beyond five or six paragraphs of writing because the memory just could not handle it. The keyboard is too small and flimsy for the kind of writing I most likely want to indulge in too, such as sat in my big chair in the library or sat up in bed at night when I cannot sleep, and my mind is overrun with thoughts. At that time, it is either put on YouTube or write, and one is definitely more productive than the other.

So, in comes the new laptop, with its larger and sturdier keyboard, which is backlit to boot! Typing in the dark just got a whole lot easier! With 16GB of RAM and a decent half TB SSD, I think it would serve well as a dedicated blogging platform. I will carry on with the Samsung as before, ex-blogging. Although it is still fine for queueing up a post with a mini draft. Save that online, then come back to it from the Windows platform here, and that will offer better spell-checking and the opportunity to finish out the post in long form with photos as I set up with the SD card reader I have currently on the desktop PC. I may make a carry pouch for this computer and give the reader a pocket. That would be ideal.

A better form factor and a Windows platform are only part of the package to improve my setup. There is also what I don’t want on this computer. I will likely keep things like Messenger off of it as this is meant to be distraction free to help focus. Those things are always right here next to me on another device, such as the tablet, or my phone. But it does not need to be in my face. I also think that keeping such things off this computer will avoid the RAM being bogged down with too many processes and allow the computer serve what I most need it to.

Physically the only change is having to keep this relatively small computer to hand for writing. It is larger than my tablet for sure, but not near as big as my other laptop, this much easier to carry. The battery will last a respectable amount of time so it can be separated from the charger for decent writing periods. The two main places I intend to use it are at that big chair I mentioned and sat in bed upstairs. That could expand to other places, but I see most of the time I use it being in those two places, as that is where I tend to set up to relax for writing. I mean sure, I’d add e-mail to this thing if I could get Outlook to set up rules that only allowed family and friends to come through on it, and I could write to them too. I prefer long form communication to wasting away long periods of time scrolling on Facebook. Ironically, it takes up less time to write a proper letter to someone that shows real appreciation to them and focuses on that individual than it does to mass communicate with hundreds in general form on social media. I stay off social media. It’s not the life I want. It does not foster the friendships I want. If anyone wants to get ahold of me, I am always available via Messenger or e-mail. But I digress.

How would this do in the shop? I have my tablet for that. I am not comfortable with the dust of the shop getting into the keyboard or vents of a laptop. Obviously, there can be exceptions as needed. The shop can be a great place to focus on specific ideas and topics. But I can always queue up the ideas and descriptions and take the photos I need to with the tablet then come and finish out on the computer later, which fits the way I work, I think.

On the topic of battery life, I should mention that things were looking pretty good on the computer till I tried out the performance settings, which extended the estimated battery life from eight to thirteen hours just now. That looks very promising.

All in all, I think this setup holds the potential to allow me to write more, which is my substitute for an extensive social life. I am eager to see how it works out. Will I cave and put Messenger on the laptop, and set up Outlook with rules set up to only keep personal mails in the inbox? I can see it happening since I tend to want to write to people from the same spaces I write blog posts or attempt any kind of manuscript. This very post is a first try, and so far, I think I can say I am able to comfortably do what I wanted this computer to do. My tablet is close by for doing what I normally do with a device, such as web browsing and keeping innumerable tabs open because the thoughts that lead me to open them have not yet been resolved. I have my bedside tablet for YouTube watching. That is a device dedicated to a space. I think I am happy with this device dedicated to an important activity. Writing.

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Sunday Work and The Dentist

Posted on September 19, 2023 by Kelsey

Golly! Sunday was great! I got out to theyard and cleaned up a lot of the stuff that was put out for summer, or during summer, and left there. It was a great day! I usually expect to go to work on something like that and stay at it till my bones tell me no more. On Sunday, the bones kept at it. They did not fail me at all. So I stayed at it till suppertime. That meant that I got more done than I normally would. That made me very happy!

Yesterday was far less productive. But to be fair, after dropping the girls off at the bus stop for school, I came home for an hour, then went to the dentist. I required two teeth drilling. One to save, and one for a temporary filling while I decide what to do with it over the long term. That tooth is dead. Apparently it is supposed to be in a lot of pain. The dentist said I am tougher than most for taking that pain. It never actually hurt. I have kept the debris out of the hole in it where the filling fell out, and as far as whatever is supposed to infect it, I credit that to the overactive immune system I apparently have. Anyway, I had three roots sticking out of my gums where a tooth broke apart some years ago. Again, it never bothered me. But the dentist wanted it out, so I let him pull, and that was that. I have got to say, he gave me some damn good drugs, because the whole event never hurt at all. Nada. Nothing.

As far as the high on the nitrous, they said it worked best if I breath in AND out through my nose. I did that, and boy, oh boy! Pretty good! I did enjoy that!

I need to get the lead out today, and go get some firewood. At the moment I don’t feel up for it. I could do some welding and make a mount for the snatchblock. But I need the wood, and I can do that welding this afternoon. Let’s see what happens.

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CycleKart

Posted on August 28, 2023 by Kelsey

Rotten kids have been back to school for one whole week and they have already brought me a virus home and let me have it. Rotten kids!

Meanwhile, I have been looking at old Ford Model A’s on the classified site and decided that getting one would be awfully expensive and would not necessarily get me much in the way of returns on the money put into it. I think it could be great advertising, don’t get me wrong. But while I was looking around, something came to my attention that would be a ton cheaper, and looks really fun.

CycleKart.

What is a CycleKart? It is a vintage inspired race cart that one has to build for themselves from the ground up. Good reason to learn welding! Once all the parts are sourced for the rolling frame, the cost should be around $2,000. The engine is limited to 200CC and the weight also limited to 250#. This should produce a vehicle that tops out around 45MPH, and due to its wheel and frame requirements, should resemble something you would have seen racing in the 1920’s. They can be raced. But honestly, they just look like a hell of a lot of fun. And it has style.

See the Gallery Page here.

As a vintage stlye sport, there are rules to keep it a bit of a gentleman’s sport as well. That is welcome in this world right now. Plus, I have a field, so why not? Maybe I can see some of the people around here get interested if I do one. There are lots of people in my area that are the type. Perhaps they just don’t know about the possibility. Either way, it looks like a fun alternative to a GoKart. It fits my love of the vintage. It could help me learn some skills I need to pick up. I cannot think up one good damned reason not to. So there’s that.

I ordered a set of frame plans off Etsy from the guy who manages the Arizona CycleKart Club. I can get a better assesment from there. It is after I examine those plans that I will decide if this is the thing for me. I know where to source just about everything else I need.

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A New Word Invented in California

Posted on August 23, 2023 by Kelsey

There was a new word invented in California. The word is Hurriquake. It is an amalgamation of two words: Hurricane and Earthquake. While it is not entirely accurate because California was hit by a tropical storm yesterday, it was also struck by a M5.1 earthquake. The tropical storm was Hilary, a hurricane that made landfall in Mexico on the Baja Peninsula, and lost power as it drifted into California as a tropical storm. Still, it dropped a lot of rain on the state, especially in the high desert.

I could not help myself but to think when I found out about it an hour after it happened that that’s California. Go big or go home! There’s no messing about with just having a very rare tropical storm. Why not ice the cake with a quake? But luckily California seems to have weathered both events quite well, and while there is a muddy mess to clean up, there was little affect from the quake, and people were mostly able to just move on. Might have been different if there was something above a M6.0.

The Epicenter was near Ojai, a beautiful town in the mountains above Ventura that I lived in in my early twenties. Meanwhile the rain in Death Valley was equal to a year’s worth in a single day, apparently.

But that was yesterday. I got the mower deck back together today and am ready to put it back on the mower and try it out tomorrow. One of the bolts sheared off and I suspect that is entirely to do with the spindles being of cheap Chinese quality. I am going to just run with it having three of four bolts holding that spindle on. Fingers crossed that it is enough. The other highlights of the day were helping Missus out in the morning and running to get hay with Dylan in tow and stopping in to get street tacos at La Unica for lunch. I unloaded the hay myself this evening.

Tomorrow Missus has a private appointment in town and after it I have an appointment to meet a septic installer here at the house. I have called most of the licensed installers in the county, and some “do not do that anymore,” or “really install a separate product, and need to have an excavator hired separately.” Some don’t answer their phone at all, or never call back when they have been contacted. I was running out of options when this one fella answered his phone and sounded excited about the project and said his schedule opens up in about three weeks. Who knows how much of that is genuine, but I sure do need it to be. The house needs it!

I have a couple of weeks open up in my schedule soon. I will need to fill them with firewood gathering. I am nowhere near ready for the winter yet. I also need to try to build that woodshed I have started lining up pieces for. Even if only a little one, I need to get it framed up and ready to take on some wood, if it is covered with a tarp rather than finished. Whatever.

In addition to firewood, I need some wood to turn on the lathe, and plenty of stock for the shop, too. There is no end to the wood I need in there. Where I am gathering it at the dump, most of what is there is poplar. It is not an ideal wood for everything I want to make, but for learning to make, I think it is alright.

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Meteor Shower and the Fire in Hawaii

Posted on August 13, 2023 by Kelsey

I got up for the usual reasons last night at 2:30, then went out to look up and see if the sky was worth watching during the meteor shower. I didn’t see much, so I went in and spent the next hour learning more about where to look and be sure I had the location of the Perseus constellation worked out. I got the girls up at 3:30 and then woke Missus up so she could start her day. The girls and I set up out front of the house and watched for falling stars. I think we must have got to seeing a falling star once every minute or two. We also were spotting satellites at nearly the same rate.

We decided the planet we were looking at in the southeast sky was Uranus, so that made orienting some of the streaks pretty entertaining in an elementary form. We are not amazing at our sky map, so we had to use some basic markers and places on the ground. The shooting stars were just about everywhere in the sky.

My oldest daughter kept saying how she saw the shooting stars out the corner of her eye. We decided then that the All-Seeing Eye has nothing on the Corner of Her Eye. The Corner of Her Eye seems to never miss anything. If you are worried about Santa’s elves watching you, well they ain’t got nothing on Kiry’s Corner of Her Eye.

Wel, it’s going to be a hot one this week. We are going to get to the mid 90’s. While it has been a fair dinkum warm summer, it has not been the hottest here. It has been hot, but it has not set records.

Watching what has happened in Hawaii has been heartbreaking. As of this morning there are 93 confirmed dead. Some of the video and some of the stories of survivors have been harrowing. We used to look so far back into history to learn about the London fire. I hear Moscow used to be built and rebuild from wood and burned down a lot. But it seems like we are getting doses of historical events as dense as all of our known history now. Of all the towns and cities I have heard of burning down, half of them have been in the last five years. The news is saying there are still a thousand people unaccounted for. Is this the way of the world now?

I leave it at that. Time to get my day started.

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Easy Solution to Wood Requirements

Posted on August 9, 2023 by Kelsey

I had a log on the mill that had a split in it that made it a bit undesirable for anything like furniture or otherwise. I was done with it at the time I left it. Today I needed a piece of wood for the top front of the trailer I use to haul firewood home on. I broke it on accident on my last wood haul when I pulled a log right through the front of the trailer with the winch. So this was a chance to put a heavier board on the front to carry the weight of the logs as they come into the trailer as the board is the one I put a snatchblock onto to reposition the pulling rope to a better angle for the logs as they come into the trailer on the winch.

I checked the log against the measurements I needed and there was enough there to try a cut from it. One pass of the sawmill, and I had a good two inch board with a straight line on one side and a live edge on the other side. So I took it to the shop to finish it.

In the shop I used a hand plane to better straighten the straight side of the log to a more finished edge than a rough cut. It was not quite perfect, but close. There is a dip in one end. It was amazing to take a curved edge to a straight one with a scrub plane and a jack.

After finishing the edge, I used the jack plane to put a good finish on the faces of the board. Most of the saw cuts are removed. There are a couple of dashes, but not a big deal where this board will be used. The only place I used another power tool was on the ends, where I used a circular saw to cut the ends straight. The finish is a five foot long, two inch thick poplar board. It was lovely to work, and has a beautiful finish that makes it easy to envision similar boards made into a heavy table. I think a great option would be to get practice in by building a potting bench for Missus.

It is liberating to have a need, then sort it out with a log from a tree rather than a pricey board from a hardware store. It makes me eager to get at it some more!

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The Neighbor’s God is Angry

Posted on August 6, 2023 by Kelsey

I don’t keep a god of any kind, so I know this was not meant for me. But at just about six this morning lightning struck the field just behind our house, reminding that the storm does not have to be close by.

The map above shows all the lightning nearby. The little information mark shows our place. The red dot next to it is where this morning’s loud crackle of thunder originated that woke me and at least one of the girls right up from our sleep.

This second image is the close up on the strike. Assuming now that the system that detects strikes is pretty accurate at the least, that spot is about 725 feet from the center of our house.

The rest of the lightning strikes measured on the map are over at Franklin, which is five miles away.

I did double check the field to make sure there was no tractor or cow laying in the field after. Lucky the field was empty. There was a herd of dairy cows there just last night.

That electrifying moment beyond us now, it is time for coffee. Looks like I am awake for now.

Posted in Humor, Journal Entry, Weather | Comments Off

It’s Another July

Posted on July 16, 2023 by Kelsey

Looks like it has been nearly three months since my last post. I have been distracted. I hope things are settling down now, but we’ll see how far that wishful thinking gets me!

I did get the sawmill put together and up and running. I had a little trouble throwing blades for a second, but I thhink I have that sorted out for now. Of course, I still go slow and worry that I am going to throw the blade, but so far, since getting proper tension on the blade, it has been travelling fine.

We are on the cusp of trying out living on our own businesses as we get set up here. There is a lot to do still to get the house situated, and the shop cleaned up and ready to go. It’s July, and the heat is oppressive. I am about to cave and buy an airconditioning unit. We need at least one room that is reliable to work in. We put one in the craft cottage, but it doesn’t seem to have the welly for it. I think we will have to get insulation in there to make the heat and A/C work properly and get our money’s worth out of them.

I am just sat here thinking thoughts that I think every July. It is an unsettled month for us. We never make it through the month without dreaming away on Zillow. I can imagine reasons it always feels like I need change in July. We never do just go for it though. Well, so be it. Just get through another year as things are.

Well, I better hurry up and finish here. Missus needs help cleaning up out on the front porch before it gets too hot out there to do it today.

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