We’re In the Farming Now

Posted on November 8, 2022 by Kelsey

It was October 4th that my new tractor was delivered to the farm. This was a long time in coming! I have been learning about tractors and implements for a good ten years, unable to afford one, but looking to learn what was best for our little farmette. It is very difficult to judge which one has the right amount of horsepower, and the right lift in the loader. Just as one can always accept more power, one can also take what they have got compared to having to do the work all by hand. This applies especially to lifting power. But one can buy to little tractor quite easily, and not be able to really do all the work required on the farm. This is as much to do with acreage as it does horsepower of the tractor. If horsepower is how fast you hit the wall, and torque is how far you take the wall with you, then getting a large property sorted out in reasonable amount of time requires more horsepower. We are not a large property. Just seven and a half acres. So, I figured I did not need a lot of speed to get things done. I was able to settle in on a 24.5 horsepower tractor, keeping under emission standards requirements, and still having a lot more power to work than I could produce with my two hands and sore back.

I got the tractor and a tiller, and I then bought some things to help out with our farm, as per my plans going back for years. I got the three-point attachment that allows me to hook up to trailers to haul around, and also works with a set of bale spears to carry hay. I got pallet forks that also can be fitted with bales spears and lift large bales. I’ve picked up a box blade to level land and the driveways. The only thing I did not get that is on my list of really good things to have is a post hole digger. I mean, I could do with a backhoe, but to be fair, that is pretty damn pricey, so a post hole digger with a 6-inch auger would do miracles for fixing fences up here. I could always rent an excavator.

There have been various sundries as well, such as some tools, diesel cans, and a small toolbox. I put one of my radios in to allow others outside the tractor to talk to me.

Oh, dd I say outside? Yes, I got a tractor with a cab on it. It was going to be a cab or a backhoe, but it really came down to deciding which would be more useful. I watched a lot of YouTube for this, and while there are a lot of guys with the same kind of tractor with the backhoes on them, not all use them as much as they ever thought they would. Now the guys with the cabs? They use their cabs all the time. And none of them are not smiling about it. The cab offers protection from dust and debris, the heat and the cold, the rain and the snow, and bugs that don’t sting as well as bugs that do. I get into my tractor, and it always fells wonderful to have that bubble of protection around me, and with all that glass, a reason to slow down and care a little more about what is going on around me. The cab version offers much better exterior lighting, heat and A/C, and a radio, as well as protection for the two-way radio I use. It gives me places to put things without the paper items getting wet, or the tools falling overboard. It is a calculation that works properly for me, though I know many guys really need the digging that a backhoe can do. I could use it for some jobs here, but those will come to an end. And as I have learned with the tractor itself, so much work can get done so fast that a whole ten-year chores backlog can get cleared in a matter of a couple of weeks, easily! That would be especially embarrassing after spending eight-grand on a backhoe that attaches to a thiry-grand tractor.

As I have nearly done with the ten-year chores backlog, the tractor is settling into regular chores now. There are some that have not yet come, such as snow clearing, and garden tilling. There are others that it is mastering handily, such as animal feed handling, and driveway maintenance. I was able to put down a stone pad for a large shed and level it easily. I have also cleaned up over a foot of compacted hay and mess in a goat pen, where I never thought I could clear it by hand because wet hay is damn near impossible to move with a pitchfork. Yet, it is the basis of a compost pile that is now heating and making great progress for next year.

Kioti 2610 in front of a GMC 2500.

The Kioti 2610SE Cab is not a huge tractor. It does not have a lot of horsepower. But for someone who will be focused on a lot of yardwork with a little farming on the side, it is plenty of tractor. I could have gotten a bigger tractor with more lift, but not had the cab. I am sure that as winter comes along, I won’t miss the power as much as I would have missed the cab. While it is not a huge tractor that could nearly lift up that truck in the image above, You can see that the hoods are at nearly equal height, assuring that this is no lawnmower, either.

Posted in Journal Entry, Special Update, The Farm | Comments Off on We’re In the Farming Now

Lately, The Queen

Posted on September 10, 2022 by Kelsey

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!

Posted in Journal Entry, Regular Update, The Farm | Comments Off on Lately, The Queen

Mike’s Corvette & Others

Posted on August 29, 2022 by Kelsey

When I was just old enough to drive a car myself my uncle’s best friend Mike took me for a ride in his ’87 Corvette. It was a brand-new car, and I certainly understand that he was not about to let a brand-new driver drive it. It was Salt Lake City, and the roads had the usual cracks and holes of a city who suffered winter freezing and salt, and that car let me feel every single bit of damage that we rode over. If you know Salt Lake, you know there are fantastic freeways and amazing mountain roads to tour around, and to really get a feel for a care like that. But I was not worth Mike’s time, and only got a ride around the block. And that is the only time I have ever been in a Corvette.

I did get to ride in a Toyota MR2 when I was 20. The standout moment in that car was when the guy driving it went around a corner at nearly 40 miles an hour, and the car stuck to the road like it was on rails. Again, it was a short ride, but a lot more fun than the casual tool around the block I had taken in the Vette.

when I was 21 I got a chance to go for a ride in an Acura Integra. The guy driving it explained that when he had recently driven it across country, he was getting 28 mpg while doing 140 across Texas. The shift speeds were similar to a Mustang, and the pull that that little engine produced was amazing, for only a four cylinder. Economy and decent power?! Honda reliability? It soon became a dream car.

Of the different cars of my younger years, nothing was like the 1957 Thunderbird that the guy across the street from us had in Broomfield, Colorado. It was sort of an almond white with chromed wire wheels and a white top. He had the porthole roof as well as one without, and he had two hoods for the car. One was the stock hood, and one was a specialty hood that had come from a dealer in Denver that gave it as an option. It was louvered in a couple of bands down the length of the hood. With white-wall tires and a 327 with a six-pack carb, this thing was not only perfect to the eye, but tuned to sound like an orchestra of moving parts and exhaust in a low rumble. As eye candy, it was the most beautiful car I had, and have ever seen. By now the old man is long dead, and I do wonder what ever happened to that car. If it went to anyone sane, it is pampered even better today than it was when it lived in that garage across the street from us.

I have seen the usual car show fare, and even owned a 1955 Pontiac Star Chief myself, though I never had it running before I had to give it up for my list of bad decisions in life. And like everyone in America, I have my own Mustang story. Though the one I owned was only ever a four-banger. I did get to drive my friend’s 67 in high school, though. That was a pretty sweet car. In beauty, it was not far off from that T-bird I just talked about.

And then there was the motorcycle. In 1983 my stepdad took his tax refund to a shop, and there it was. I can still picture it in my mind. I was too young to ride it then, but it eventually became the bike I learned to ride on. It was a Honda XL600. 600CC’s of on road, off road fury with a deep thunderous sound and the kind of power that let me do what other bikes had to get a running start for. I would take it to the dirt hills and prop myself at the bottom of a deep ravine, my best friend on the back of the bike, and we would watch other guys get a long run down the one side of the ravine, then slow as they powered up the other till they pulled air coming off the top. I would nail the throttle, and pull the same air, with my passenger. It was a heavy bike. But it could climb anything. The massive knobbies were wobbly and difficult to handle over 100mph on the road. But I have road along with a guy on a crotch rocket on a windy road, and he turned and gave me a thumbs up as we parted ways at the end. I had kept up with him the entire length of the ride. I know he could have gone faster, but I think he was impressed that an off-road looking bike had the power and speed to give him as good a run as it did.

Famously, that bike had more power than most expected. My friend took it for a ride one day when we were out at the dirt patch. My stepdad and I watched him go down, then turn around and stop. We heard the engine rev high, and I think we both said, “oh no!” The friend dumped the clutch, and the bike left him lying in the dirt behind it as it wheelied off on its own, then it finally fell over backwards some 75 feet away from him. The taillight was broken.

After I moved out and went to live in California, an amazing opportunity presented itself for me to buy a bike exactly like that one. I learned a lot owning my own. The biggest lesson was that just because you fancy a girl, and she tells you she rides, doesn’t mean you let her alone on your bike. She rode off, then faced a run, and I heard the throttle rev high before she dumped the clutch. Same show. Only this time it was in a parking lot, and the crankcase bashed a parking block as the bike came down. I never did get that thing fixed. The bike was self-destructive in the hands of these people!

I will never forget riding the back roads, in places where the steep hills were, climbing 20 feet at an angle before taking it up the five-foot rise above, straight up into the air, and coming down with the back tire just on the flat top, then riding away like the whole affair had been nothing. It could do it from a stand-still, and at relatively low RPM. That single cylinder engine thumped its way up anything in front of it.

Apart from those little tales, and a lot of reckless driving, my car storied about the special ones are few. My cars growing up could not spin tires much, so I made up for it laterally instead. Where they could not burn out, I took the rubber off on the corners, and somehow lived to tell about it. Some of my earliest training came on Flagstaff Mountain over Boulder, Colorado, at night. It’s a hell of a road at speed. It’s a hell of a road going slow and just trying to stick to the corners. But when you are working the brakes and the accelerator like an arcade game, it is a lesson in control that is best not ever failed. In those days, there was a dirt version over between Blackhawk and Idaho Springs called “Oh My God Road.” It was a suitable place to tear out the “Oh Jesus” bars.

Also in those days, Old Wadsworth south out of Broomfield was a two lane with an underpass that took it around a sharp S-curve that was touched on the white lines by the concrete walls that took it under a parallel railroad line. The curve turned a little back on itself and was marked 25 miles per hour. It was the greatest curve anywhere around, though the vision through that underpass was nil. You either threaded the needle perfectly or risked a head on collision with some unsuspecting sod who would not have had a chance against someone blasting through that blowhole. 70. Any of us kids racing through it could never get past that. at 75, the tires could not stick anymore. I have seen the headlights of an oncoming car right out my window as one friend and I tried the 75. A tiny arm of gravel reached onto the road and it took the traction from the front tire first, which recovered. But the back tire did not, and the car was sent into a slide. He kept it on the pavement like a champ, all while saying “oh shit.” The car dived so deep in the turn that a couple of days later we blew a tire doing 80 and realized that the noise we had heard in that dive was the tire getting a slice on the wheel well. It failed us near Terryall, miles from home. What days those were!

There’s much more to tell of! Those Colorado roads were covered in snow quite often, and between that and the dirt roads, one soon realized that training oneself to drive on them is just scaled down handling practice for what happens at speed on the blacktop. And that has saved metal bending more than once for me in my practical driving. There’s nothing like standing on the brakes only to realize that there is no way the car is going to stop before hitting another stopped in front of it, so turning the steering wheel and letting off the brakes completely, then darting to the left and just missing the back of the other car. That is a second nature that a driver has to know. It doesn’t come from growing up tame.

Posted in Memories | Comments Off on Mike’s Corvette & Others

Bookshelves

Posted on August 26, 2022 by Kelsey

It was a pretty good day today. We put aside any worry about homeschooling and household chores and went to Logan to do an important errand, then check the thrift store for any dressers or shelves that we need to sort out some organization in this old house. We were back int eh furniture section, just about done looking because there was nothing that suited us, when two of the people who work there came along with a cart that had a huge 6 and a half foot tall by 4-foot-wide bookshelf with glass doors on it. I asked them if they were putting it out for sale, and they said “yes,” to which I replied they could put it back marked as sold.

I realized when we got it home that we had never even seen it stood up, so I had no clue what the actual condition was. Well, once I got a good look at it after we struggled and fought it through the front door, it turned out to need some screws tightened down, and more or less be as good as one could hope for from a thrift store. It was not new looking, but it was not badly worn at all. There is a little trouble with the two permanent shelves, but it is not too bad and everything seems to be holding together just fine. I had to put matchsticks into the holes the door hinges were screwed into, but that was nothing. The doors are on fine now.

We positioned the bookshelf where another, shorter one was, and loaded it up, then put on more books from other places. Best part is, after it took more than the shelf that was there, now we have the old shelf to put upstairs and load up again. I am told that will be the fiction section of our library. No surprise here that Missus needs so many shelves, after she left the UK and got rid of some two thousand books or so to make the move.

The rest of the day was spent doing things like having lunch at a buffet, and our regular family chores that keep the old farmstead up and running.

The new bookshelves contain everything craft related, and everything homestead related. That makes sense, since they are both related.

The weather is cooling a little. The highs are not quite in the 90’s these days. Evening dog walks are cooler. It is still warm, but what I would think of as reasonable summer heat. We have almost a month of summer left. Our road runs East and West, and I was just telling our youngest daughter today that when the sun rises and sets at the ends of the road, that is when the Equinox occurs, and the seasons change from Summer to Autumn, or Winter to Spring. It’s no Stonehenge, but it works similarly, though less accurately. Still, good for her to become aware of such things when she is young!

In the morning, our youngest and I are going to go get firewood. Since it is just me to load, I don’t expect a huge haul, unless I were to hire the helper loader there. I would do that if I had a tractor to get the wood out again, as it would likely get stuck and be too hard to get out on my own. One day. Till then, it is best I do it the manual way, and stack in the wood carefully so it does not get stuck. Also, as I have to do it manually, I also have to cut it up small enough to move by hand, so that alone keeps it from getting too badly wedged in or anything like that. I could solve the whole thing with a dump trailer, it is true, but a tractor would be far, far more useful in many other ways.

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

Graig L Hansen – 1957-2022

Posted on June 20, 2022 by Kelsey

He began his entry into my life on Valentine’s Day in 1979, when he was an MP at Camp Pendleton, and met my mom that evening in a bar. They hit it off pretty good, and a week or two later when my mom went to visit friends, he knocked on their door and the friend introduced them, and the smiles on their faces as they said they have already met were enough to suggest to me that there was something already there. They both knew they had met their mates. I don’t think there was any other path forward for them from that point. Hell, I was seven, and I knew it. They were married by April. This was a guy who came in just about on his mom’s birthday in 1957 and was lucky to have made it due to his mom’s bout with German Measles while he was gestating. I always figured he was lucky there because he only appeared to have been born deaf in one ear, where a schoolteacher I had once in high school was born under the same circumstances and had no hands and feet. Of course, nobody knew about a defect in his heart in those days.

All his life, or for at least the time I knew him, he was one of those guys who was good at everything he did. I have played him thousands of games of Chess, and only ever beat him five times. I have watched him shoot, swim, play ball, and it seemed like he had the Midas Touch at everything he did. One time as we drove through Las Vegas on vacation things had cost my parents more than expected, and they down to their last twenty bucks, so he took it to the casino in the hotel we had checked into, and won enough we were able to carry on with the trip at a comfortable pace. It was always punishing to play him at anything. He could pick up something new in a moment, and play it like he had been doing it all his life.

At the same time as he was brilliant, his handicap was that he was difficult. to communicate with. My grandfather once confided in me that he thought Graig was stupid. I knew better. He was not stupid and was willing to give a go at any task, and usually succeeded at whatever it was. What was hard was that he did not know how to communicate his thoughts well to others. It was like he thought something, and it came out of his mouth as half a thought, and then he did not understand why the person he was speaking to did not understand, and he became impatient with them. But damn straight he would still accomplish whatever it was he was set out to do, proving that yes, he was intelligent.

Graig was good as a stepdad. He was a good provider for his family. Christmases were always full and surprising. The cupboards were never bare growing up. He gave freely of his time and helped out whenever asked to with the financial matters. Though he seemed to like coming off as calloused, and hard, he tried to send me recordings of all the family videos from our growing up, and when they did not work, he found a different way and tried again. Sadly, I never was able to get the recordings to play on my computer. There are a few clips I got, and I cherish them deeply: even more today than ever.

Thanks Graig, for a good childhood, full of fun and adventure that I have never been able to replicate. Your greatness was not in a shiny veneer, but down in the core. I am so sad that you are gone. I’ve always had you figured to be too damn stubborn to ever die. Really.

Posted in A Death, Journal Entry, Philosophical, Special Update | Comments Off on Graig L Hansen – 1957-2022

My Body Pains

Posted on June 17, 2022 by Kelsey

It is hard to write a blog post here and not go down some rabbit hole of some sort that leads me to places in my mind that I don’t want to share out loud. It’s one of the most difficult parts of keeping a blog. It’s not the writing that is hard. It is the *not* writing I’ll have trouble with. I am content to keep some things to myself and not share them about with others and leave some parts of me a mystery to the general public. Are we meant to have access to everything that a person thinks? This is a private blog; a journal of sorts, meant to be about my personal life and thoughts and so on, but there are limits to what I want in a public sphere. Some subjects are too political, some too personal, some too opinionated. Quite often I will write several paragraphs and realize that I would just as soon publish my checking account details as what I have written. I think it is in part to do with the nature of this blog, being a personal one.

There is more to it than that, though. When I started this blog in 2006, while I was living in England, and cycling about and exploring places, I had it in mind that those trips would make up a large part of the entries. Some personal items filled the space too, as I lived life, and our family grew, and changed. My joint pains became unbearable, the cycling tapered off, and our lives changed. We came to America, had some very bad experiences, and I stopped wanting to write, because I was trying to, but what came out was so bitter. We were held hostage to the situation though, and there was nothing we could do to change it. But it changed itself in more recent years, and I think I can finally say that most of the bitterness is gone, and I can get on with writing about my own life without feeling like the things I had bottled up had to burst out of me. I could really have done with a therapist or a friend at that time who was not also trapped inside of the situation. Well, I have always been too cheap to pay for someone to pretend to listen and finding friends with the patience to be of any help was impossible.

By the time the situation alluded to above changed, my joints were hurting so bad that my life was coming to a standstill. Every activity I got up to had to be forced. I could not walk without making the obvious steps of a man in pain, hunching over a bit, waddling side to side from the moment I got up till the time I went to bed. Even lying in my bed hurt. I woke up in pain, and not well rested at all. It’s been years since I woke up feeling well. In retrospect, I have been in this pain since I was a young teen, at least. I was plagued by it all along, thinking that body pains were just normal, and wondering how people could ever be athletic, and capable of doing so many of the things they did. Running has always been out of the question for me. I took up cycling because it allowed me a chance to coast, and the turning of the crank was always softer on my than the collision of my feet against the pavement. In the past two or three years it has only gotten worse! It has been so bad, that I have seriously wondered if I would have to give up rural life altogether and move to where I could just sit in a little house, in a little yard, and watch TV, and get someone else to care for the place if I couldn’t. But that does not fit in with my plans at all. After all, there is wood to be gathered, a lathe to learn to use better, chairs I want to make, and the land and animals to look after.

Five days ago, I tried glucosamine for my joints. It is me finally giving in and taking some sort of tablet. The next morning, I woke up sore. But I was not sore in my joints, or in my bones, or whatever had been hurting so severely for all those years. I woke up sore in a tired, or even exhausted sense. I was sore from all the compensating I have been doing. Muscles hurt from my awkward walk, in my legs, in my back, in my shoulders. That went on for four days. IT felt awkward more than anything. After all, I was hurting, but not at all in the way I was used to hurting. I was not hurting as much as I was used to hurting. I carried on with those days with caution, trying not to restart any of the old pains, and worried that it was all just a fluke, and that they would start up again on their own. I was also careful to take my daily dosage of my tablets.

I am still feeling quite cautious, five days in. I am worried that the pain will come back in spite of the tablets. But I am also feeling a validation of myself, because for all those years I could not understand how people could do all that they did, and for the time when I finally realized that they could not possibly be in the pain I was in, I now feel it. I feel the absence of pain. I feel the normal I always suspected they enjoyed. I am sat here now, not feeling immense pain in my hips and in my back for being sat down. I am not feeling the pain when I walk, and I think I could go at any speed my legs could take me, for a short burst, anyway. I have woke up in the morning, and not been in immense pain for just being lay there, my hips hurting, my shoulders stiff, my hands and wrists unable to move without cracking in the joints with every move. Instead, I feel what normal must feel like! I feel like getting up, doing things, and living, rather than giving up, trying to figure out the least impactful way of getting anything done, and wondering how long I can go on.

Do you know how strange this all is? Do you know what it is like to only suspect that you are basically handicapped, but unable to bring yourself to really admit it, and unable to suggest to s doctor that maybe you should be considered for a placard for the blue parking spots? I know people would look at me and see that I was walking in, and would be likely to confront me, and I have no desire to argue, because I would tend to want to go low in such a debate. I cannot see why I should have to have patience for such people, or why anyone who is handicapped should have to either. It is strange to suddenly feel what is normal, and what is able, when I only suspected I was missing it before because I have been without it for so damn long.

I take this with humility, with a sense of gratitude, and with above all, a spot in my heart for those who are disabled and cannot come to such a place as I have been fortunate enough to find. I come to this space with hope that I can make up for what has been lost and spend another fifty years being a full part of the lives of my family and friends, without holding them back, and without being unable to do what they need done from me. Christ, I have been out of the workforce since 2005 because of this!

The next step is to try this all out, and to build new habits. I am not in the habit of getting up and getting at my day. I have had to get up and rest, and let my body try to get with it in order to start my day. It is a new habit to get up and get right on with it. But these last few days I have felt better by the time I have been busy all day and gone to bed, than when I was waking up before. That sure is a pleasure!

I am amazed and completely stunned to be able to say all of this. I never thought I would find a way other than Advil, which is no way to deal with daily pain. Will it last? I can only hope. And I do hope for many years.

Posted in Journal Entry, Special Update | Comments Off on My Body Pains

June 2022

Posted on June 13, 2022 by Kelsey

A nice cup of coffee in the shelter of the front porch, in our newly laid out table and chairs set up as a gathering place in the sunlight and the fresh air, there is a breeze blowing in from the north, with cold air to follow tomorrow as I sit in the lamplight and think of what to report on here. I stop and look at the horseshoe that was thrown by a passing rig earlier this evening. It is placed upright in the front window of the porch, so the luck won’t drain out. This year is hard, and the forecast for the summer remains so on everyone because of high inflation and high gas prices. We could use the luck of the horseshoe! If the gas prices stay high, we could probably use the horse, too!

Nobody in the middle class and below is doing very well at the moment. There is the war in Ukraine, and the punishing sanctions against Russia for waging it, and there are the oilfields producing low quantities of oil due to the residual effects of the pandemic while things ramp up again to meet demand. There is the incredibly low unemployment rate, and the higher wages being offered, putting more money into the hands of consumers, and that demand being so high. All this and more has culminated in high costs of goods and services, and the fuel prices is only inflating everything even further.

I just filled the tanks on the car, and about three quarters of the truck, as well as the mower and garden tool gas cans. Now it is time to sit it out till next payday, going as few places as possible, and buying as little as possible. It won’t drive down the prices of everything, but it will help us not spend so much. Only, I need to get firewood at every opportunity, lest we freeze over winter! It’s the most important thing I have learned in rural living, prepare for tomorrow. We have to be able to have feed for the animals and wood for the stove over winter. Like it or not, with the costs of hay so high right now, I am scything down grass where I can on the property, then collecting it and bring it to the livestock after it has dried. Drying takes three days, so I have to stay ahead. Where it is meant to be cool tomorrow, if there is no lightning around, it might be a good time to get up and clean the chimney ready for next autumn and winter. If I cannot get out to pick up more firewood, I do have lots in the service yard to split till I can go.

Atop of everything, I have been dealing with the pain that is being me. I have had constant joint pain for as long as I can remember, and lately it has been difficult to even walk. Doing all the chores I mentioned above has been hell. Yesterday I tried taking some Glucosamine for it, for the first time. This morning I woke up feeling like a new man. I was twenty years younger! I felt it, anyway. That can’t be good news for Missus! I picked up a bottle of my own while we were out shopping today, and if it continues to work, then I guess I am a pill popper at last! Missus grabbed me some vitamins, too. I have not been faithful to those since I was on Flintstones when I was a little kid! I guess it is as good a time as any to get started again. If nothing else, I would like to feel better to do the things I want to get done this summer.

So, what are my goals for this summer, besides shopping firewood? I want to get some maple trees from the mountains so I can put them up to dry, and get them on the lathe later when they are. I have been building little stools when I can from firewood pieces, all in practice to soon make a chair. I have most of the tools I need. I need to get electric put into the shop in proper fashion so I can work out there without the worry of not having enough power to run a couple of tools at once, such as a sander and a shop vac, or whatnot, along with the freezers. I consider this as building my shop, and once it is done, I have a few things I want to get to work on! I have some things that need building for the house, some chairs I want to make, as I said, and a few flourishes for the house and garden that are wanting to improve the atmosphere here. Examples include a cabinet for the kitchen, a gazebo for the herb garden, and some finish moldings for the house.

All this said, then I have to look at my reality. Heck, I bought four new 100w equivalent lightbulbs for the dining room light fixture today because it seemed so dark in there the last couple of years, and I realized, I have like 40w equivalent bulbs in there! Gee-wiz, self! Have you been so distracted that you cannot even think of upgrading light bulbs to brighten a dark room? Problem solving, problem solving, problem solving! Why not do the easy solution? Just do it! I feel like I let myself down, and every pour soul that has had to suffer that dark room! But then, I am pretty sure we all have days like this. But months and years?

I woke up last night at half three. I lay there a while trying to go to sleep before I gave in and decided to scroll through Facebook a minute. It had been a while, and I think I scrolled twice on my tablet before I remembered why I don’t go there. Someone was saying about having been pulled over on a traffic stop recently, and the cop asking if he had a firearm. He said he forgot his at home. The cop apparently told him that all law-abiding citizens should be carrying these days with all the crazy going on. This flagrant appeal to authority was a bad effort to argue for gun rights, and I could not help but laugh at the irony and wonder how a law-abiding citizen had got himself caught up in a traffic stop? I mean, I respect the guy as a decent man, and a good human being. I just couldn’t help but to laugh at the logic. Then I decided to close Facebook down and forget about it a few more years. How do we determine who is law-abiding?

I think the goats are being hammered with water from the neighbor’s irrigation. They have started yelling back there. I better go check and get ready to walk the dogs before their bedtime. I don’t know how I have made it awake this late. I think I may lay down to sleep with the dogs!

Posted in Coronavirus, Journal Entry, Regular Update, The Farm, Woodshop | Comments Off on June 2022

Period Beeswax Candles

Posted on April 4, 2022 by Kelsey

This weekend I put a couple of candle molds on order and 25 pounds of beeswax. I have been turning some candle holders on the lathe and have really liked the outcome. More importantly, Missus has liked them, and wants to see me sell them on Etsy. So, what the heck! I’ll give it a try. I may only sell one or two in the end, but the point is to sell them, and see how it works to sell on Etsy.

The molds are replicas of 18th century candle molds from Townsends, a company in Indiana that deals in replications from the period, and has supplied to individuals in the hobby, as well as the film industry. The top is a conical shape rather than an ogee. I suppose I will sell them as two or three candles and a base.

The molds I ordered are two sets of 6-inch candles, making six at a time, and I already have one 9-inch candle mold, making six from it. I may add a second 9-inch if the demand requires it. I am not yet sure. Maybe just in case of it becoming damaged.

I have bene perfecting the technique in making the candle holders on my lathe. It is fun, and a nice challenge to get me working and trying new shapes. Missus really liked that I have been making each one different.

I got the wax off eBay. It is not cheap! But it is the real thing. I bought 25 pounds to start me off with. If the supplier is good, I will likely look at his 50-pound option. Oh, and if I sell. That is also a good reason to look at the 50-pound option. To be honest, I want to do this so I have an excuse to have a pile of extra candles around for me to use!

Posted in Journal Entry, Regular Update, Woodshop | Comments Off on Period Beeswax Candles

And Now For The Weather

Posted on January 30, 2022 by Kelsey

Today topped out at 25F here, and the low was -8. The pipes leading to the washing machine froze, rendering it unusable. It has gone 11PM here as I write this, and it is already down to 3F. Teh furnace upstairs will be out till we can get it serviced. Meanwhile, everyone is sleeping downstairs where Missus has heat in her craft room via electric wall panel or in the dining room/entry hall where the woodstove is. Strangely, it is only down to 66 upstairs and a mere ten degrees warmer down. They could all go up and sleep well while I could stay down to load the stove with more wood when it gets cold. I guess they like the adventure. No bother.

And now in other news.

I watched the entire Masterclass by Annie Leibovitz this evening. It was interesting for sure. What I found quite amazing is that the closest she came to addressing the technical was when she said that a key light should fall about one stop lower than ambient lighting. The rest was more of a lecture in approach to different aspects of the art while assuming that the skills are already mastered or not really necessary at all, when one considers how specific her skillset actually seems to be. It was weird. It was as though she doesn’t really know the craft while she produces amazing results. Obviously, she knows the craft. She just approaches it as though she is technically weak, while effortlessly getting what she wants in the camera most of the time. I suspect where the difficulty lies is somewhere between her learning in film and her current working in digital, however.

A lot of what she offers is the approach to shooting, to subjects, and to sets or scenes. She has got an amazing style and has photographed everyone from Lenon and Ono, to Arnold Schwarzenegger, and the Queen of England.

It was encouraging enough to dig up the camera batteries and charger and get the camera ready to work for a bit and get to my favorite medium. Watch this space.

Posted in Journal Entry | Comments Off on And Now For The Weather

Anatomy of a Morning Wakeup

Posted on January 27, 2022 by Kelsey

Every morning I am awake for a couple of hours, usually starting around 3AM, but sometimes earlier. Nature’s Call is what initiates the alarm. If I am awake before 3:00 I can sometimes get back to sleep, which is worth it. But after 3:00, then I have an hour or less till the actual alarms will be going off, and Missus will be getting up to start her day at 4:00. Once I am awake at that time, my brain usually is off to the races, and I feel it is of little worth trying to get back to sleep till I can settle it around 6:00. Then it is back to sleep to get the rest of what my needs require.

While up, I will at least put a couple of logs on the hot coals sill lying in bed in the woodstove, then open the damper a little to bring up the burn rate, leave the door open while I visit the chamber, then close the door when I come back, and flames have developed. Ideally, I would give it time to build up enough heat that the thermometer on the flue has shown the temperature in the green range, somewhere above 400F. Then it’s back up to bed to wait for the alarms and stir Missus when they go.

Next it is time to check Messenger to see if there are any overnight messages from anyone among family. Often there are, but if not, there may be one from a scammer in India to keep me company. Yesterday there was. No foreplay. “How are you?” It was from someone I have not spoken to casually before on Facebook and did not know well. I replied back, “Well, how are you?” The account came back with, “Busy searching online on how to spend my grant money.” Ahh, now this all makes sense! Report. Delete. Gone. Otherwise, if there is someone from family or friends, my head is running well enough to write back to them. Or I could write a blog post, hence… This.

If there are parcels in the mail, then I will be checking their progress too. Is today a day to look out for a delivery or two? Actually, yes. Four pie pans from Lodge, and some new clothes from Carhartt. I am eager to try some sweet and savory pies, get my daughters started on cooking some, too. And when I asked Missus what kind of pies she would want, the list came out quickly and endlessly. I’ll have my hands full.

I have heard that people are burning their Carhartt’s over the company’s vaccine requirement for their workers. Now it is time for Conservatives to take a stand on what they view as a social injustice? I mean, let’s bear in mind that chances are, many of the workers there are fine to get vaccinated anyway, so this stand is for those likely few who would refuse, if there are any. But people will burn their best clothes over it! To me, that seems extreme. Extremely stupid. Was there an employee revolt at Carhartt? Does anyone know who there we are supporting if we burn our clothes? Well, anyway. If these people are standing up for the little guy, then why not donate their clothes to a homeless shelter? Because it is not dramatic enough, and it does not feed the need for attention, I’d guess. And while burning their clothes is symbolic, I’ll bet they also support the symbol of kneeling for the flag during then anthem to protest higher rates of killings among the black community during police interactions, too. Right? No, because bootlicking patriotism is far more important than rebelling against the boot on your neck, to them. I mean, it is just a thought.

I bought some Carhartt clothing the other day. They’re just clothes, and damn good ones at that. A vaccine is a simple and free way to increase my odds of survival if I go running headlong into a virus that can kill, just like clicking a seatbelt closed over me is simple and free and protects me in the unlikely event of a car accident. I also make my kids put theirs on. See a pattern there? (Should someone protest me for requiring them to vaccinate?) I can respect a company requiring their workers to vaccinate to prevent deaths and downtime due to unnecessary illness. They are expected to remain profitable, after all. Especially if their company is traded on Wall Street, the great American Temple of Capitalism, and the Conservative Holy Sanctuary.

As I was saying. I bought some Carhartt clothing the other day. It will arrive today. I have a coat currently that I have worn through during years of chores-doing abuse. I was trying to remember how long ago I bought the coat. I can get back to around 2013 with it. That’s nine years of farm chores daily in the thing, which is not bad considering the holes I am concerned about are more cosmetic than anything, and it till keeps be warm and happy while working in temperatures down to 0F. Yes, I will likely put on a jumper underneath below 20F, but then it is protected from damage by the overcoat. I bought the “chores coat” the other day. Hopefully it won’t be too nice to wear out to do chores in. I also bought two pair of overalls for use this summer. I may be feeling old, but I have some things to do this summer. Overalls seems a better option for working in. Anything with an extra pocket or two, anyhow.

As far as the political statements, everything these days seems like it is one. That’s because of stupid social media. Or, as I prefer to call it, Anti-social Media, as it seems to be driving us apart. I’m going back to sleep.

Posted in Journal Entry | Comments Off on Anatomy of a Morning Wakeup