I was checking my e-mail today when the notification of shipment finally came through for the lumber mill. I say finally, but I only ordered the thing a week ago. When I did, the website said that everything could be shipped within a week. Great! Then I saw that it could take twenty-four to forty-eight hours for the tracking number to become active on the carrier website. No worries. That is still great news! That’s what I thought till I decided to go ahead a run a track on it anyway. When I did, it said that it had left Portland, Oregon and gone through Salt Lake City and was on its way to the destination terminal, which I know from experience to be Pocatello, from which things usually ship to Idaho Falls, where it catches a ride via Salmon River Stages to my house. Typically, that could be either Tuesday or a week from now based on how this has gone with other items in the past.
I’m not ready!
It snowed!
There is a trailer where I expect to put the thing temporarily, and there are piles… Mountains! of snow where I intend for it to live permanently!
Then comes today. I don’t feel well after lunch and wonder if it was the chicken.
The weather is on the down right now, and it won’t be till Tuesday that decent weather comes again. Mind you, Cache Valley decent is still below 40F. But I’ll take 39!
I was doing school reports with my youngest today, and we got distracted down some rabbit hole, as people sometimes do, and we got watching scenes on YouTube from Top Gun Maverick. Way into the conversation, something my daughter said about how they got the pilots and filmed reminded me that I knew civilians could request to go out and shoot. That reminded me of how I knew that, and that lead to this guy who’s house I once sat in and thumbed through his photographs with him. He showed me some amazing work he had done by the time I met him in 1990. I still remember some of the photos! He explained to me that he took the civilian route into his military photography to remain competitive with others, even though he himself was a pilot, and could use connections he had to get aboard planes and ships and into situations where he could shoot. Then it popped back into my head, just who he was, and what the world owes to him. His name, C.J. “Heater” Heatley.
“Producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer stated explicitly that the inspiration for the famed Paramount motion picture “Top Gun” was the article “Top Guns” by Ehud Yonay, from the May 1983 issue of California magazine, which featured aerial photography by then-Lieutenant Commander C.J. “Heater” Heatley.” –The Aviation Geek Club.
I said to him that some of his images looked like they were right out of Top Gun. He then replied that his work had actually inspired Simpson and Bruckheimer’s style in the movie. I’ll give you a link to his work, and you will see why.
That was the one that compelled me to say what I did. I remember quite a few from the website I liked above. I remember he was called “Heater.” I met him a couple of times over a short period while I was in Florida. Not some ‘seen him at a presentation,’ meeting, but a been to his house, rode in his car, thumbed through his prints and talked about how he got the images on them kind of meeting. And thanks to what my daughter asked me, I suddenly remembered meeting the man without whom we would not have the Top Gun movies.
Today we all did housecleaning together. It wasn’t a particularly good time; however, it was good to get it done. It’s been a good time since! Mostly just relaxing. Well, expect for the rabbit situation.
One of the rabbits died in the bucket in its cage that it used for shelter. Khallie, who is only ten, did not really feel like touching it. I was on my way out to get firewood in, so I asked Kiry if she would help Khallie with it. I figured Khallie could do with a bit of admiration for her sister. Also, I knew it would be nothing for Kiry to do. I go around front to start the tractor, and I find Kiry coming up to ask me for help with the rabbit. It is stuck to the bottom of the bucket. She did not want to tear it up pulling it out. So, I go put it under the hydrant by the garage, and run it on low for a short bit, and the rabbit separates straight away. Kiry picks it up with one hand by its front legs, and finds it is frozen stiff. So, she is stood there holding it like it is a pistol and points its ass at me and goes, “pew! pew!” I sure love that kid! I am so glad that rabbit wasn’t loaded!
Spot the farm raised kid.
I went out to walk the dogs at 9PM with Khallie, and boy, was it ever cold out there! I mean, I felt a chill on my legs and everything! By the time we got around to the far end of the dog walk, I was ready to get back in and put some wood on the fire. I checked the temperature, and it showed it was 2 degrees out. Fahrenheit. As my dear sister-in-law would say, “It’s fresh out there!” Bloody understated Brit!
Got the wood stove going and warmed it up in the house a bit. I was just remembering when we had a pair of furnaces going in here to keep it warm. Those days are gone. That was a constant fight of warm, cold, warm, cold. It was never satisfying. The furnace would run, and it would get warm for a few minutes, then start to chill soon after it stopped. With the stove, it will chill, and all I have to do is put five or six logs in it, and before long it will warm the place to a cozy temperature, then I shut the draft and keep it relatively nice. It is nothing to bring the dining room up to 80 degrees. Once it does, it affects the whole house.
Monday I will receive an Earlex Steam generator via UPS. That will require me to sort out some sort of pipe or box for it, and I will be able to start steam bending boards. I’ll have to make the jigs required for getting the shape right, and clamps too. But it is a step for my dream of making a Windsor chair. The last big tool for the shop is going to be a bandsaw. That will require a 220 outlet wherever I decide to put it. No problem there. There are a few planes that will cost a penny, but I have a Jack Plane, and a smoothing plane and scrub plane, so the most important ones are covered for now. When I get to cabinet sides or tabletops, I would like a jointer’s plane. There are other specialty planes to think of, but much of what they do, I can improvise with the planes I have. So, they are more luxurious. I have nothing that will benefit me in the way a bandsaw will.
It’s been a day. Time to get to bed and soon see what tomorrow brings!
Lying awake seems pretty normal these days. Once I help Missus get up for work, I have trouble getting back to sleep. I am sure this bright screen and keyboard are not helping me. But alas, here we are. So, I figure, get some things on my mind off it, and see if I can type myself into boredom.
I woke up a little after 2AM, and the first thing in my mind was “John Delancey played Q, on Star Trek Next Generation, right?” I went down to where Missus fell asleep in front of a TV, and she has Stargate SG-1 playing, and there was John Delancy. And no, I could not possibly hear it from where I was in bed. That was kind of weird. I ate an orange after that.
This year we have received more snow than last. It snows so often; it feels like that for at least this year we can safely say the drought is over. But for one thing. When it snows, there is barely a skiff left on the ground. In normal snowy years I will walk next to a fence that is head high in the summer and find its top halfway down my upper arm. But at least the weather is trying. Hopefully the mountain tops are covering deep in a blanket of snow.
When I was downstairs eating an orange, I thought that maybe I need to change up my phone greeting whenever I answer it. “Hello, George Santos’ office.” It makes sense. Really, this is the shit-show that is American politics right now. If you don’t know, you don’t know. Don’t worry about it and count yourself lucky.
I have got this beautiful workbench set up in my shop now, and I have gone about cleaning up out there to make the workspace workable again. After all, the new bench should not be the only bench out there with a clean work surface. It absolutely glows under the lights I set it beneath.
Sjoberg’s Elite 2000 work bench.
It’s damn cold out in the shop. It hurts me rheumatism just to be out there for very long but add to that the moving around and trying to do some work, and I get really sore. I cannot wait till spring, or at least for it to warm up above 30F.
I have put a couple of pieces on the bench to try some planing and see how well it holds. So far, fantastic! I am not excited about the metal bench dogs at the moment though, because they seem like a single nick on them is going to damage the plane iron. I will probably turn some wooden ones on the lathe to solve this problem. I am sure the metal ones will come in handy after that in order to extend them further up to get a tighter grip on larger pieces. So, I don’t regret having them. Good for holding furniture and such. But for the sake of my irons, I think I would rather they strike a wooden dog than a metal one.
Not easily seen in the picture above is that there are two vices on the bench. The second one is at the far end in the photo. It will cause the length of the bench to hold boards and such down the length of it. That makes pretty much the entire 74-inch surface of the bench a holding platform. Apparently, the bench weighs in at 290 pounds.
Now for the real irony. It is Swedish. The flat pack capital of the world is where I got a flat packed workbench so I could try to build some real furniture. Some things I will never understand.
There is all this talk these days about the looming financial crisis. The debt ceiling has just been hit, and some members of Congress plan to hold the world economy hostage to their demands, willing to burn the whole thing down if they don’t get what they want. Strangely, when Trump wanted to withhold defense aid from Ukraine to get what he wanted, it was said that he was breaking the law because that was money that Congress allocated for that purpose. Yet, hitting the debt ceiling means the government can no longer borrow to pay for the budget Congress has already passed. I don’t know if that means some members of Congress should be handcuffed and taken into custody, but I think it does mean that I should be wheeled away in a strait jacket trying to understand all this. The lunatics have taken over the asylum!
With all that, I am glad to be getting set up in the shop to hopefully be able to build and repair things for the house. I sure see buying things as a diminishing option. But if I can keep getting my hands on the firewood we heat with, then I should be able to come up with something to work with. The last big thing for the shop would be a bandsaw to saw boards and resaw them as needed.
Oh, what do I plan to build on the bench? Great question! I need to get this list thought out so I am not caught off guard by it. I want to do some blanket boxes for the girls, and some shelves and cabinets for the house. I want to build a pie safe. Missus could do with a wardrobe. I also want desperately to build some Windsor chairs. I have done a few stools with the help of the lathe. That has helped out with a little imprecise jointing practice. I’ll get better at it. We have got what I swear is the world’s largest bread bin, and it is still not enough! That may be a thing in order. I could use a bedside table. I owe a drawer between the microwave and the built in oven for the kitchen. I got that unit together and never did finish the drawer for it. I have been fretting too much over trying to do it by hand and putting in dovetail joints for strength. It will close a gaping hole in the kitchen and block some cold airflow from behind the cabinet, as well as give a much-needed storage space. It seems a perfect place for hot pads. I also foresee building whatever takes my fancy, then putting it up for sale locally.
Well, like usual, when I get down this far in my typing, the lousy browser is slowing down and irritating me. I miss Windows Live Writer.
This is so obvious, but I hear it so seldom. I wanted to put it here, because I needed to remember that I am not alone in this thinking.
Beau of the Fifth Column, who is correct on so much of his analysis on politics and humanity in general.
Well of course China will outgrow the US. Why would this surprise anyone? For as long as it is sustainable, they will produce more goods and services. There are other economic advantages they use that are not mentioned in this video, like labor practices, and the Yuan being pegged to the dollar. But just the fact there are four times as many people there, they should outgrow the US. It’s the only logical conclusion to any thought on the matter.
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The workbench is on the way, and I have electricity in the shop now, providing plenty of light, air in the compressor, batteries a charge, tools electrified, and maybe even a little heat when needed till the wood stove warms things up. There are a few gaps to fill in on the hand tools, and I need to do some exercise to get ready to work. The goal is to get a little furniture made for the house, some trim and tops too, and maybe a few things to put out for sale. The space isn’t much to look at, and not a lot to brag about if you were to see other workshops that appear on YouTube in the videos of other woodworkers, but one; I have got to start somewhere, and two, I really like the old world feel of a relatively primitive shop. It’s not about how it looks, it’s about what can be done in there. Perhaps I am just a minimalist at heart. But I will have a workbench.
It’s coming up to Mid-January, and the weather so far this year has been surprising. We have had precipitation! We need precipitation! Storm after storm has battered California, and at last count I heard 1 people have lost their lives, including a five-year-old boy whose last words to his mother before he was washed out of her arms were “Don’t worry mommy.” How horrifying! That was several days ago now, and still no body has been recovered. The tragedies are horrible. The water is needed. Confusing reports say that the water is putting a stop to the drought, or at least providing relief, while one less that optimistic reporter pointed out that most of the water has washed back into the sea, and that so much of it is dirty from all that it has stirred up, and that it will cost millions to clean. Give her a pot of gold and she complains that it is too heavy. I’m sure we’ll make do. The snowpack locally here in southeast Idaho is benefitting too, and I for one am a bit relieved. Over recent years we have been notified that we will get less water through the municipal pipes, and that it will cost us more money.
Also, on the topic of being mid-January, it is that boring time of the year when it is too cold to do much outside, but I am nothing but eager to get there and get at a few things. With the tractor this year, I have had a hell of a lot easier time of doing my chores! I mean, first of all, the cab is heated, and secondly, the weather has not been as cold as in previous years. Well, so far, anyway. With the tractor and a few tools for it, this promises to be the best spring ever on the farm. There are things to get done. So far, the mechanized help has made a world of difference in just keeping the snow cleared. The tiller and loader will make a hell of an easy job of preparing the garden space! I am extra eager for that. Firewood is holding up this winter, though it is normal for me to question how well it will since I am usually only able to produce enough each summer to get through one winter. Ideally, I’ll be getting closer to two cords ready over the spring and summer and will do that for a couple of years in a row, getting ahead while I can. The difference being that I have the tractor set up to lift heavy logs. Make that bit easier, and I can get the rest done. So, this also makes me eager for the weather to warm and the snow to thaw. I want to get at the work, and I want to get through the burning season without running out of wood too early.
The whole family got bikes this Christmas. There is an opportunity for exercise that I hope all will find tolerable. The girls are eager to get out on them. Mine seems to be set up as a cruiser and climber. It’s a strange arrangement of a multi-geared rear cassette, and a single sprocket front. Teh salesman was an idiot who tried to dazzle us with phrases like, “It’s science and technology!” He also said that biked have improved so much recently that they are nothing like what we used to ride when we were younger. I very narrowly avoided laughing in his face. The gearing arrangement is a small change, and it is simpler. Everything else about the bike ain’t that much different to the Specialized Rock Hoppers I rode in 2000, and in 2005-10. It’s a fucking bike. Sure, it is different to the ones the Victorians rode, but it still has pedals and wheels and needs a person to power it forward. The composite materials are nice where they decrease the weight, but I am not riding in the Tour de France. Ease up on the sales job! Especially where repeating the words “science” and “technology” are so non-specific and tell me really nothing at all. I found the fellow terribly irritating.
Lisa Marie Presley died yesterday at 54 from a heart attack. Another woman who was a model and only 56 did so too this week, of breast cancer. Recently a football player had a heart attack on the field. He was obviously younger. It’s scary to be 51. Well, it’s not scary. I mean, death is just death. Once it’s done, I am not going to know anything about it. But I have still got so much to live for, just like these other people. I’d really like to keep going for a while before popping off. There’s a lot to do!
So that’s a bit of what’s on my mind this early winter. It’s the norm for me this time of year. Cold, snow, death. It’s also early morning, so I expect I ought to get up, drink that orange juice I squeezed before bed last night, and get my day started. It’s Friday the 13th! Time to put on my hockey mask and get my day started.
It’s a little alarming, actually, that this winter is as warm as it is. The snow seems to come down in fine granular bits, or in goose feathers. There is not much in between. I woke up at 5:00 this morning and went downstairs where Missus informed me that not long before, there were larger than goose feather snow. The temperature just before I came down was at 33F on the family weather station. As warm as it has been and the way the current storm was tracking at us, I half expected it to be raining this morning, but thankfully it wasn’t. When we walked the dogs last night before bed, we observed water drizzling from the roofline of the house.
The last time I remember it being this wet was February and March of 2017. Those were tough months with heavy snow, and a lot of it! We ended up with maybe two feet on the ground! Thereabouts. It was not devastating or anything like that, but sure was not fun to move by hand and shovel. I am positive I could not get at it now, especially with my age constantly moving upwards. But at least this year I have a tractor for it. So let it fall.
While I sit here and marvel at our strange winter weather, the origin of the snow is in my home stomping grounds of California. The storms have been blowing ashore from the Pacific and dropping massive amounts of rain one after another. The ground has not been ready for it, and there has been flooding. I got word only an hour ago that the Ventura River has come up over the 101 Freeway north of highway 33. There is a trailer park there that floods over every time. There have been homeless encampments under the bridge that have been wiped out in the past. Hopefully Ventura does a better job of keeping those clear these days. During one flood in the 1990’s it seemed from a public point of view that the authorities were not clearing them on purpose in order to allow the flooding to do it. At least one person was killed. It must be so difficult for the homeless who were just looking for a place under the bridge where they could have shelter from the rain and the hot sun in a space where nobody would bother them. I became concerned about them down there after a fuel tanker came off the bridge in ’94 (I think) and blew up in the river bottom below. But who wants to run them out? They are in a tough spot. More needs to be done to help them find someplace safe to be.
Anyway, as I started off before, California is being hit hard. The upper 2/3 of the coastline at least has been receiving damaging rains. The state needs the rain, but not all in one fell swoop! Hopefully it will at least repay them with full reservoirs. That would benefit much of the rest of the Colorado River Basin before even accounting for snowpack up above it. Maybe Lake Meade and Lake Powell will get a good boost too. The economy of the Nation is tied to the economy of that State. So much food is produced there, and this could result in a bit of a break in prices as perhaps farmers will take hope and replant fields they have been reluctant on since the drought settled in, easing demand.
As for our house, the warmer weather has allowed us to burn wood a bit lighter than we have expected to. That has eased our demand from the firewood bunk. Every summer I get the wood piled up and start making calculations in my head about how much is in there, and how much we will need. I start making mental compromises and adding a dash of hope to it in order to justify a stop to the hard work. I hope this year I can change up the routine with the addition of a good log splitter and a tractor to do the lifting and pile up enough wood that we have unquestionably got more than enough to serve the coming winter, and maybe even two. That may be a bit of optimism, but I need to see how the work goes with the new equipment. I may have to lower the sides of the trailer by one rail in order to lift over them easily, but that should not much damage the amount I carry as a full rail to the top is too heavy for the trailer anyhow. I will likely use the loading help option down at the dump and get more wood home and unloaded and split in the single day. Or I could do a couple of days of hauling, then do the splitting for a bit. Get all the good wood I can find for a week, then spend the month splitting it up. That would probably make a year’s worth of firewood right there.
The woodworker’s bench is meant to come soon. I will finally have a good holding tool for the shop! I am excited about this. I have some access to wood, and I am nearing the ability to mill it myself. I will certainly like it the day I can either do that, or even buy some wood, and produce a piece of furniture on that bench. I have got some ideas for what things I want to make and needing a good holding tool has been a hang-up. Well, hang-up no more.
It’s almost time to get out of bed and start the day. The police radio is reporting between officers that the roads are rough. There’s that wet snow. Let’s home we get something that sticks.
It is a quiet Thanksgiving evening here at The Manor. Fires are burning in the wood stove and in the fireplace. Everyone is relaxing and doing their own thing on a computer or tablet, be it playing a game, watching something, or in my case, writing. We kept it simple this year, but had an excellent time, nonetheless. Obviously, it is getting late in the year, and I am beginning to feel that sense of reflectiveness. There is a lot to ponder on, from the way forward on the farm, to the people who are in the here and now, and those who have passed. So I sit here in the library with the fire popping, and the sounds of a couple quiet games being played in this room and the next. The room feels warm with a smokey aroma. I have not felt this comfortable and relaxed in quite some time.
This year saw the passing of my stepdad, and with the distribution of his estate, and what was left of mom’s things in his possession, I feel a bit like I have the dust and ashes of their lives settling in about me. True it has made us a little more comfortable, but it is a bit uneasy at the same time. I’d much rather have the people here. Their lights are gone, and all that remains is the shadows of memories that give contrast between my own life, and the things they did to make it possible. They provided a lot for us kids when we were young. Now we all have to do our own things, and make the best of what we have, which is much because of them. I feel their void in the shadows of memory.
Thanks to scheduling, our Thanksgiving holiday started on Saturday with all the kids at the buffet and at the European Food Club. Today we had the girls for games and a meal. We will be together with one of the boys for a full Thanksgiving meal on Sunday, too. That works out to three days of Thanksgiving over an eight-day span. That suites me just fine! Maybe it doesn’t match up to traditions I was raised with, or to culture that I live in, but all of our holidays tend to be extended out like this, and I have plenty of room for it all.
Next is the run up to Christmas. That is music, decorating, shopping, spending time together. Then we get to the Christmas Eve tradition of Chinese and a small gift exchange, with PJ’s, hot chocolate, and a sleepover. Then comes Christmas Day, which looks like the traditions of many people. Following that we do Boxing Day lunch, and a day of games and relaxing. That pretty much looks like today has.
Finally, we do a little time relaxing again on New Year’s Eve and Day.
Once the New Year gets started, we have winter in earnest, and the weather bears down cold, while we endure the seemingly endless time till the slow climb into above freezing temperatures again. Mud season follows, though this year it will be different to any of those gone by. This year I anticipate putting the tiller on the tractor and stilling up a garden early, and then repeating it several times till planting season begins. One more time I am going to try to defeat the weeds and raise a somewhat respectable garden for the delight of my family. I have compost going in the back that I will lay out on the garden, then I will begin a new pile for the following year.
Spring will mean firewood gathering, and it will mean cleaning the barn and the granary again. I really hoped the last time would be the last time. But alas, we have trashed them again. There will be changes to how we store things, and hopefully this time we will crack it once and for all. At least this time if we don’t, the hauling should not be so hard with the tractor on duty. We also have a septic system to replace, and I expect to do that come spring. Missus has a list, too!
Bedtime is coming soon, and everything else I have on my mind will have to go to my dreams. There is a lot there, too, but that’s where they will have to keep for now, secrets in my mind.
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.
