I was out for a drive earlier this evening, and there was a haunting mist over the landscape. Some of the lights on distant houses were only pinpoints, and others were a little less clear with an aura around them, glowing softly under the greasy blackness of night and a waxing crescent moon. The mist seemed to follow the hilly horizon like a thick blanket which lay over the form of what lies beneath it. In some places along the drive the mist was engrossed by the sooty smoke of a fireplace heaving up heat to warm some family in the cold night. In one of those places the smell of Maplewood burning was strong, and hung in my nostrils beyond the smoky environs as the lights of the truck pushed further as it reentered misty air. If there were ghosts, then this is the kind of night that would bring them out to dance! It is the kind of night that would conjure ghouls as merrily as any old Halloween!
Musings For A Spring Workday
Today I am working on the lighting in Grandma’s bedroom. She has been using floor and table lamps in there since the days when she owned the house. But she complains of her eyesight going bad, so as part of redecorating her bedroom, I am wiring in new ceiling lighting. This is not like, “Hey there’s Kelsey, the Master Electrician!” It is more like, “Hey Kelsey, you still alive?” So far, the work has been easy though, is it is all installing, and the last step will be to wire into another terminal just outside the room.
When this job is all done, there should be a lot more light overhead as I am installing two fixtures, both rated for a max of 60 watts for each of their two bulbs. All the bulbs are CF for now, rated at 19 watts, but outputting equal to 75 watts each. Her total lighting from the ceiling will stand at 300 watt (equivalent)! Of course, to lower the actual cost of operation, I will eventually replace the bulbs with LED, but that will come after the living room lighting is done, which will almost complete the rest of the house for LED installation. Granny’s room will be the most expensive because it will require all high output lighting, with 75 watt equivalent bulbs costing $20 a piece. But, when those are in, I will then be able to replace her switch with a dimmer, for an added level of comfort in there.
After the lighting is installed, this weekend we will be stripping all the wall paper and priming and painting the walls, to lighten the room up even more. She will keep her old carpet, which is a bit of a shame, but it tones in with her new color scheme, and what she is trying to accomplish in there. The big thing is that right now, the room is very dark, and when we are done, she will be able to see in there just fine! And if all this does not do it, then the white furniture she ordered will!
Yesterday I got a couple of Amazon deliveries. One was a replacement battery charger for my Nikon D300. The other was a 1/2 mile roll of electric fence wire. The wire is too narrow of a gauge, so I will be using it this side of the road for the animals here, and to keep the neighbors cows from reaching over the fence to eat our grass and garden. I picked up a heavier gauge wire from Valley Ranch which will be much better for the cows, horses, and llamas across the street.
The next step in the fence process is to get corner posts, which have to be much heavier grade than the straight line posts because of the tension that has to be on the wires. I also need gate posts! We will never mind the gates for the time being, and make out own because of the price of gates! Shelters and feeders will be more important!
As for the camera charger, I am excited to be able to use my baby once again. It is not the camera that makes the photographer, but the photographer that manes the image. The camera is a valuable tool. I only have so much patience for cameras that have light or resolution or focus or clarity issues. And that’s none.
Well, it is almost 9AM, so time to get at it all.
Kelsey J Bacon
Lemons and Honey
I am sat here with a cup of hot lemon and honey in front of me. The yard outside appears as if in a spring thaw, birds fluttering about, and the snow almost melted completely away. Yet, it is only February! Despite all the precipitation we have had this year, there is not nearly the snow I’d like to see on the mountains to supply the irrigation and make this desert bloom. Worrying about the irrigation is what to do on a day like today.
It is also a good day to make lists. It is a day to make lists of things that spring to mind. It is a day to list the things that need to be done, and the things that should be done today but will not be done because of how I feel. Okay, there are some things that still have to be done, despite how I feel, such as making a couple of phone calls, and maybe doing some cleaning and some laundry.
The items for the list for spring, the real spring, include building a fence, putting in a garden, setting up the irrigation, and building beehives, so I can get some honey. Yes, I must remember the honey!
Stuff came by UPS today from Amazon. I love when stuff arrives from Amazon! Today I got 250 clips to connect electric wire to T-Posts for my electric fence. I have to contain cows and horses and even a pair of llamas on 6.5 acres over the road.
I also got a monitor cable and an Ethernet cable which was too short, but will be kept because they are ALWAYS useful!
I love Amazon!
At Parting
The fifth bell has tolled, and away she has gone. I sit in the living room, the lights dim, a soft heat radiating from the embers of the fire, the lick of a few flames to punctuate the atmosphere, my thoughts try to escape the void that will hold fast to the next ten days of my life. It is strange to think back thirteen years, when I was last in America while my darling was in the UK, before we were married and all of my dreams and hopes hinged on the sheer determination that one day we would be together, and such distances would only be at will. Now, thirteen years later we are in the heat of that romance and her professional responsibilities require her in the UK, affording her five days visit with her family after five days of workshops. So ten days we will trudge along without her. I have my grandparents and my children here to look after, and I am certain they will look after me as well. Parting is only bearable in the knowledge that she will return, but it still dims the colors, which are already under winter’s blanket.
For the next few days I have responsibilities to attend to, including keeping expenses down here so Katrina can afford a budget abroad. Dollars do not translate well into Pounds Sterling, so our riches here give little benefit there. She has staples to purchase, travel by train and by taxi, and other sundries for day to day costs. I know that will start out with a “full cooked English Breakfast.” Enjoy my love, enjoy. My boys will have to be paid their loading fee for the cord of firewood that now rests on the front porch. I have found a good price on inch thick Angus steaks that will settle the bill. It’s a small price to save my back! So I will get those from Sam’s Club today, along with soy milk for the girls, and hay for the horses, cows, llamas, and goats!
The days that follow will be more or less routine, at home days, keeping warm, cleaning house, doing laundry, reading with Kirynie, feeding and changing the baby, keeping the boys in line, chauffeuring grandma on occasion, and reminding her that she does not need to go to Logan every day of the week. In the mornings and evenings I will continue reading Hitchens, and filling my mind, which I have found, has filled my nights with memorable and vivid dreams as I consolidate memories from my reading.
Since lighting the fire a bit more than an hour ago, the flames have intensified a bit, despite the low hiss from the slightly wet wood. This wood is certainly burning better than soft pine has been for us. We should have better heat from the wood as we burn through this cord. The logs in the fireplace are still full, and may hold out for another hour or so before they require replenishing. As long as they are positioned so none rolls from the grate, I hope to spend the better part of that hour finishing my sleep, perhaps on Katrina’s side of the bed.
Kelsey J Bacon
Snow, A Dead Chicken, A Funeral, and the Joy of Furniture Arranging
Snow’s been falling today, which around here means that the temperatures have risen! It’s been too cold to snow for the last week and a half or so, but finally the temperature has come up to the high twenties and the low thirties, which of course means lots of the white stuff! Don’t get excited! This is Idaho, not Los Angeles!
I went out to the woodpile today to get some firewood, which Jordan has kindly been bringing in for us quite a lot this winter. A couple of weeks ago he said he had found one of the chickens, dead, in the pile. After that stint where the mink had killed all of our 35 birds in three days, and Jordan cleaning them up, I really thought he would have sorted out the bird he found in the woodpile without any trouble. Nope. There is was, laying amongst the logs, like it was waiting for me to bring it in and throw it on the fire. Nope again! And I definitely did not have Chicken Soup for lunch after that either!
After lunch, which I will remind you, was NOT Chicken, the lady came by from the funeral home to discuss funeral arrangements for my aunt, in the event of her death, which, like Chicken for lunch, HAS NOT HAPPENED. She might though, as she is in Hospice Care now, which by definition means that she could die anytime in the next six months or so if she carries on as she has, unless she improves. Whatever the case, if she survives longer or not, I have put the wheels into motion as far as getting her funeral paid for, covering more than half the cost with a check today. She has a box, a plot, and a digger arranged. There is to be nothing more than simple services, and no embalming. Her mom does not want it, as she feels my aunt has had a hard enough life without someone messing about with her when she is dead too. So Amy has to be in the ground 2 or 3 days after she dies.
For my part, I don’t care if the coffin has frosting and a cherry on top, so long as my grandmother is happy with the arrangements, and everything is sorted out for her piece of mind. We have different views on death, grandma and me. Granny thinks of angels floating around pushing clouds across the sky, and I think of stardust, with the biggest differences being our views on continues consciousness. These beliefs inform our views on what to do with dead bodies, apparently, with mine allowing a lot more flexibility in the options, such as cremation, sky burial, and green burial. Grandma thinks we all will have our bodies again, and I think that, like a glass of water, there are likely atoms in my body that have passed through other creatures such as dinosaurs.
So, the upstairs living room idea is dead. We arranged furniture tonight, giving up on that for a craft studio area for my wife, saving her several thousand dollars in the costs of building one of her own, or buying a prefab building. This means we have a sofa in our bedroom now! It is so cool! I can sit on it, as I am now, and put my feet onto the bed, making the bed the biggest Ottoman the world! I am so comfy! My desktop PC is finally in a useful position close by, and of course I still have my Netbook, which I am writing this on. I have my Kindle at hand too, and place to keep it here. I think I have found myself a lovely little nest to keep me till winter’s end. Then summer shall find my in a nook on the front porch, with a table, a chair, and a computer, in view of the gardens, the cows, and the other animals. All is right in my world right now!
Kelsey J Bacon
All In A Night’s Sleep
Time for sleep. No problem. Count some sheep. That ought to send me right off to sleep.
One.
Two.
Three…
I wonder what kind of sheep we will get in the spring? I have got to get that fencing done by then, or they will all get out of the pasture. They will overgraze it for sure, just like the goats have done, so I cannot leave the goats in there, can I? If I send the goats out to work the sides of the road, they ought to stay pretty well fed, if it is a rainy summer, that is. Of course, if it’s not, then I’ll be lucky! I will enlarge the area along the side of the road when I put in the permanent fence, so that should help them. But I don’t want to cut back too much from where the cows will be eating on the other side. What will I charge the guy who leases from us for his cows this year? Is that a mouse running around the room again? Oh yes, there is it! I have got to reset that trap! Is there no end to them? Must get poison! Get your furry little ass out of here! How am I going to afford fencing for the pasture where the cows are AND for the other pasture for the sheep to live in? I also will need some places for young cows to live and feed for their first couple of months! Oh, I wonder if the feed for the cow’s bottles is till $75 per bag? I am going to need a lot of those if we are going to try to start five or ten cows this summer, or more… How many cows will we try to start? I sure don’t want any of them to die if we put all that money into them. Plus there will be redecorating to do this summer. I have got to remember to have the second installment of property taxes ready for June. Irrigation bills will come due too! When is the insurances due on the house and the truck? Stupid mouse is back! How many times is it going to show its head? Wait a minute, wasn’t I counting something?
Sheep!
Four
Five…
I cannot believe my little girl is five years old. How quickly they grow! Just like that damned mouse again! Maybe we need an indoor cat! Where did that mouse trap go that I emptied out earlier today? I need it so that mouse can climb into it for me!
Six…
Is she really going to turn six this summer? All new winter clothes for next year. We’ll need jackets and gloves, and missus can crochet hats and scarves, but all that wool costs so much!
What was I counting?
What’s With The Weather?
I hear it is set to be mighty damned cold starting this weekend, and into next week over much of the United States. Of course, I live in Idaho, so I am safe from the worst of it, which is shocking! Last year at this time I could have scrapped the ice off the glass inside my house, but not this year. This winter is quite a bit warmer, so far. But the arctic blast that will cause the entire state of Michigan to close their schools nest week will miss us completely! We might get a little brush with a satellite cell, so I should go check the woodpile, not that I can afford to top it up in the next few days!
It has been warmer in our house this year! I am not sure why, apart from the fire in the fireplace. That would seem an obvious answer, were it not for the fact the fireplace is pretty inefficient, and really only heats two rooms up, and since the thermostat is in one of those rooms, it actually fools it into thinking the house is warmer than it is, and causes the rest of the house to be colder. So I am not sure the fireplace is a positive contribution in its current configuration!
What does seem to be a help here is the mice! There have been so many mice crawling into our traps that I have begun to think the walls are lined with so many of them that they are providing insulation and keeping the house warm.
Okay, the thought of that many mice is pretty disgusting!
In other news, I did go to Lowe’s today to pick up an internet order that my wife made early this morning of Christmas sale items. When I got there, I was told to wait a bit while they located it. After about fifteen minutes, they concluded that the order was not picked, and I was asked to wait while they did. I wish I was joking when I tell you that this part of the process took about an hour and a half, and was followed by another half an hour of returning items from the internet order that were no longer in stock because they were on sale and were grubbed up by eager sale shoppers in the store. After returning those items, we added one more of something, and then had to return ALL of it in order to ring it all up again and apply a 10% discount that I was promised after I had been there an hour because after all, I ad waited so patiently, and for so long. If you lost track of the math, that was two hours and fifteen minutes in the store to pick up an order that should have been ready for me to just pick up and leave with.
Maybe secretly, the people at Lowe’s control our winter weather, and they are going to wait, then hit us with it.
Kelsey J Bacon
Lately
The Holiday’s are officially over! We have two family members locally who are in failing health, and a very dear friend far away who is also, so with such a pall over us, we made this Christmas about being with our little clutch, and enjoyed it all we could!
Happy days for me! I got a Kindle for Christmas, and have it loaded with a bunch of books from Project Gutenberg. I have already finished Common Sense, by Thomas Paine, and am now working on Everyday Life in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, which despite being largely made up of newspaper ads from the era, I find it immensely interesting. It has even answered questions about some of our goals here on the farm.
So, for the next couple of months, my pocket money is earmarked for fencing for our pasture, to hold in the cows, horses, and llamas we have over there. AS the fencing there now belongs to the leaser who has been putting his cows there the last couple of years, I want to assure that he doesn’t need to take it one day, and leave us with nothing. I need to get everything in order before spring so we can get some investment in cows for this year, and work towards many other things we will need in the future.
Plans for this year in the form of resolutions? I am reading more already because I want to, and have made no such resolution. If there is to be one, it is around improving my general health, which I can feel is in decline with association to my age. I need to lose a bit of weight, gain a little strength, and especially give more attention to my cardio health.
This year would like to see the pantry finished, electric to the outbuildings, and some outbuildings started, such as a workshop for missus and a greenhouse. It would also like to see as many cows as we can afford across the road to help pay for the things that will come in the next couple of years.
Propane is a swear word around here. We have just paid a $430 bill on it for the last fill up, which has just run out, and based on the current price, I think this next fill up will run us a bit over $700, and as the tank has less in it than I have ever before seen, it may be easily over $800. And to think, winter has just begun! It is probably the sole reason I am so excited for spring!
One thing I have decided on is that there is a reasonable space for me to run a bit of duct work through and install a couple of vents into to channel some of the heat from the downstairs furnace to the upstairs. Maybe it would be enough to shut off the upstairs furnace for good? That would probably cut the heating by a load! It would also set us up so if we ever do install geothermal, our ducting would be set for it. The only problem is that it would not allow the ducting to reach the boys’ bedroom. Everywhere else I could hit from the attic above the pantry.
Lighting is still moving along slowly. I have LED in many of the fixtures in the house so far. Of the 9 bulbs in the bathroom, 2 still need to be changed. There are four in the pantry, one in the little pantry, two out back, and three in the boys’ bedroom to do before I get into my grandparent’s room, the living room, and the chicken coop and tool shed. The living room is too dark even with its lights on, so some fixtures will be changed in there to brighten it up a lot, and to allow for appropriate mood settings and such. Eventually we see that room becoming a library and more of a parlor, and a room for listening to music.
Well, there’s sort of a summary of where things are at around here. There is still a lot of work to be done to get to where we want to be. We are getting by, and have not yet had to eat the horses. Let’s see how this year goes!
Kelsey J Bacon
Thoughts Before the Dawn
I haven’t done a lot of writing in this blog lately, not because I have nothing to say, but because I make choices. When I have the choice between writing here, one of my favorite things, and rolling around on the floor playing with my one year old daughter, or helping my five year old daughter along with her homework, I chose that over the time spent writing. Life’s too short!
Christmas is almost here. We’re pretty well ready for it too. That’s a nice feeling, especially when coupled to the fact that there is no accompanying debt coupled to it. January First will roll around and we will be making progress with our lives, not paying for what’s past. That’s always a nice feeling, and a wonderful way to start the New Year!
My only thoughts on Resolutions for the New Year are that I would like very much to get more reading in. Not Facebook reading, and the articles that are brought to light by the people I know, but actual reading of actual book texts. All of my greatest weaknesses are encompassed by my lack of knowledge, and maybe the need for a little cardiovascular exercise.
We have our share of problems around here. There might be a few more mice in the house than we had imagined. The clue is when the mice start setting people traps. I had set mouse traps in Autumn, but then let it go for a while. I have been setting them again the past two days. It’s difficult with children and pets getting into everything. It’s not pleasant but I am building up a tolerance to catching them, and cleaning out the traps.
The tuck would not start again, and I could not get the block heater to work, or so I thought. This is what I get for being inexperienced with diesel. The guys at the shop down the road came and towed the truck for us for no charge, then they cleaned up the battery terminals, and checked the block heater and determined it actually was working. They advised me to cycle the glow plugs, which is to turn the key till the “wait to start engine” light came on and went off on its own, then turn the key off and repeat two more times before trying to start it. This works! So now we know a bit more about how to cold start the truck! So now maybe we won’t get stuck in the cold weather anymore! But, keep the engine running when using the truck as a get-away vehicle!
When we were stuck at home because of the truck, it disrupted our ability to procure feed for the cows and horses and goats. We sorted that out right away with seven bales from the Toolson’s of Smithfield who only charge $7 per two string bale. And it’s good hay, too! So much better than paying $9.50 a bale at IFA.
I have been experimenting with using vinegar and lemon juice as cleaners lately. They work pretty good! I am a lot happier raising little kids when I know that my household cleaners can be put on a salad too. And they are pretty cheap! I just need to procure a spray bottle for each of the two ‘cleaners.’
I am also over the half way point of changing out our light bulbs for LED bulbs in the house. The electric bill seems reasonable enough. We have sump pumps and electric heaters and two fridges and two big freezers and computers that run all the time and grandpa always watching TV to consider, but the bill has been between $160 and $180 a month all through the autumn. Solstice is here in a few days, so even the lighting element of the bill should be at its peak right now.
Time to go get Kiry up and ready for school! She and the boys and I all got our hair cut on Friday, so we are all sporting our new looks!
Kelsey J Bacon
Winter Heat – A Tragedy.
Lately I have devoted a great deal of my time to being with our littlest daughter, and less time to hobbies and personal interests. As much as I love the farm, I don’t yet feel settled in here! This is because of the inability to really focus on getting things done around here that I would like to do! But what could be better than spending my time with our daughter during her early childhood? She’s crawling now, so it won’t be too long before she will be up and around so that I can break free to do things with greater ease, anyhow.
We have got a start on our firewood for the year, but I think we would be best to get a woodstove to put in the dining room, which is more or less at the center of the house. A good source of heat in there would spill warmth into the kitchen on one side, the bathroom on another, the downstairs bedroom on the other, and of course, hopefully up the stairs too. The living room has a fireplace which is not as efficient as I would like, but it is enough to keep that room, which is also adjacent to the dining room, so would keep warm from a woodstove in there too.
I have seen woodstoves for as little as $650 that would adequately warm the house, but my ideal stove includes a small cook surface and an oven that I could broil meat in, or bake bread in. What could be better than baking biscuits in the dining room while preparing supper in the kitchen?
Our most ideal option, especially for later when we are retired, would be geothermal, but it would run around, or even more than $15,000 to have installed.
The option of remaining on propane has cost $1,000 per month, or more, over the five cold months of the year. So yea, there would be a budget available to cover the costs of even geothermal. It’s getting the money rounded up for the upfront costs that is difficult. I especially favor staying out of debt to do it!
There are of course tax credits for geothermal, and for woodstoves. I have to look deeper into those.
No matter the option, just about anything would be better than staying on propane. But of course there is nothing like the atmosphere of a fire. In the end, maybe a bit of both will be the ideal option.