Tag: Farm Update

…Aaaaand We’re Back

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Hi friends!

Been a minute! I know I said I was taking December off, but I hadn’t intended to go completely radio silent. But 2023 decided to get a couple more rounds of chaos in and December was a ride. Buckle in for the most stupid series of events possible. I’m not even joking.

So, November 30th, I was just finishing up work, and I heard my toilet flush. I find this odd, because I’m nowhere near my bathroom and neither is anyone else. Found out a few minutes later that the boys were fighting a battle in the other bathrooms with overflowing and backing up issues. We figured we had a bad clog, which didn’t really make sense because we are pretty careful about things, but ya never know, so I had planned to call a plumber the next day, the boys had solved it but something was clearly still wrong because the pipes were making noises.

The next day, around 3 am, I am awoken by the sound of pipes angrily banging about in my house, and my brother freaking out because he’s just trying to leave for work (which is stressful already because he works in shipping and it’s gift giving season and its snowing) and the house has chosen to revolt. This also wakes my dad up, so we are all now starting our day at 3am, and it only got worse.

To make this longer story shorter, I’ll start summarizing a little. We spent that entire day, a Friday, racking up plumber bills and getting worse and worse news. And in the middle of all this, the power goes out for several hours because of the weather, so I’m stressed AND freezing.

Long story short, the pipe that connects the house to the septic system was obliterated. It was something called Orangeburg and apparently it’s just asbestos cardboard and was most likely installed in the 40s and it decided, on a cold Thursday in 2023, that it was done with our nonsense (yes, I saw the opportunity for the pun, and I left it alone, growth).

So, of course, they can’t fix it that day, and we can’t use anything that puts water or…. particulates…. down the drains, but it’s also snowy and dangerous to drive so we make it work ish. Don’t ask questions, and I won’t lie to you. But it sucked, and we waited excitedly for Monday. 

Monday comes, they start work, and immediately slice through the power lines to my house, causing a massive amount of chaos as surging and failing power blows bulbs and trips breakers and fries things and starts a small but unsettling electrical fire. And then there is no power to the house because we got it shut off at the panel, but live wires in the yard. 

Thank God the plumbers weren’t hurt, it was such a bad situation and I turned into a total mom, because I was alternating between “thank God you’re okay” and “how the crap didn’t you mark wires first?!”. Turns out they had called the correct people, and the correct people said they had marked things, but in fact, they hadn’t bothered at all. Queue a massive argument between the power company and the plumber. Meanwhile, I’m without power all day. Literally from 8am to 10pm, I was here, trying to spare the rest of the family, and seething. I rage crocheted a set of gloves. See, most electricians don’t really want to come out to deal with a “live wire” situation so we struggled to find someone to fix it for us. It ruined a few things, but that’s an ongoing battle, so I cannot talk much about that.

Of course, because they had live wires, no work got done, so they had to come out the next day, and the next, and the next, because they kept finding more expensive problems. Had to dig more holes, bring more equipment, and we continued to not be able to use the plumbing for more and more days. 

The actual plumbing part was finally all done and dealt with and approved on the 13th, but I’m still dealing with the aftermath. That’s why I was completely silent for the first half of the month.

Then work turned into a thing because of end of the year stuff, so I was working stupidly long hours again for the last couple weeks before the holidays, which took all my attention.

And finally, I had planned ahead for a Christmas break, which was so needed, but I ended up sick through the whole thing. Which, okay, sounds like a terrible thing, and admittedly I didn’t enjoy throwing up through Christmas dinner, but I really am sorta glad it happened because I went into that break with a todo list as long as my arm and, because I was sick, I spent my entire break watching movies, hugging critters, playing video games, and just resting instead. I would not have done this if I wasn’t sick, so ya know, a blessing in disguise. Although next time, a nasty cold would have done the same thing, I don’t think the stomach flu was necessary.

So, sorry, it’s a little bit of a drama filled first update, but I wanted to explain why I didn’t manage any sort of anything in December.

The good news is, January has been busy but in a much more chill kinda way. I ended up being on call at work for two weeks straight (still am on-call actually as I write this, hey hey) because everyone else was majorly sick too, but it didn’t actually affect anything except my ability to leave the house so really, been a whole lot of lying low. I’m excited as we get closer to spring for things to get a little more farm centric again. I really think 2024 is gonna be awesome! If nothing else I hope it’s cheaper, dang.

Until we chat again my friends!

One of the holes from the plumbing nightmare
Joe was very perplexed by the plumbing situation
Got some hay!
Didn’t my mom decorate a cute tree?!
Literally the only thing I got to paint in December but I really like it
We have had so many creepy, foggy days lately it’s been unreal
Like, this doesn’t look bad, but at some points I couldn’t see the bushes outside my window!
I could hear critters in the fog, but could not see them
This picture was taken just after these two broke out and just before they chose to rip out more fencing WHILE it was being fixed!
Joe has learned to love the snow day book club cuddles
Mom tried her hand at making a mini Thanksgiving after our big family one. She did 90% of it herself!
I don’t have many domestic skills, but I fold a mean napkin

All For Now!

Posted on by Farmers Blogger

Hello friends!

Last update of the year!

Unfortunately it’s kinda a boring one. I’ve been working 16 hour days and weekends to pull off a project at work and it’s sorta come at the detriment of the farm. But I guess going into winter is a good time to start slowing down.

We have not yet got the permanent hay storage up, but we’ve made progress! We had a pretty wet, stormy period of time that sorta slowed us down, on top of work, but I finally got enough wood salvaged for the beams and as soon as I can find the fittings I need, we will be good to go. It should just be a trip to Home Depot, but it’s been hard getting away lately. But I kinda need a few brackets and things to make this work… I think. Do you trust me to build a thing? Juries out on the side of the screen haha. 

Full disclosure, I’m writing this just a little before Thanksgiving, because I doubt I’ll have much time the rest of this week, but I’m going to assume it’s going to be a fun holiday because it always is. We have lots of little ones running around, and usually some spirited board games. I’ve bought the pies and drinks, turkeys, ham, and all the fixings will be coming in potluck form day of. I’m pretty excited!

The wild turkeys have heard its Thanksgiving and are pulling some serious mafia behavior, including trying to break into my neighbors home

The horses have gotten to be lazy because of the weather and my schedule, and because Ro continues to struggle with her cracked hoof. It’s not really hurting her, but it’s also not very stable. It’s been pretty hard getting the mud to stay out of it, which always worries me. But she’s in good spirits and she’s giving her all in work and in play, which probably explains the cracked hoof haha. She’s my little firecracker, injuries and all. 

Nellie Belle on the other hand is absolutely thriving. She surprised us so much the other day, she’s not wanted to take her mask off because of the velcro noise and I can’t really blame her. But I was gearing up for an argument, and bless her heart, her arguments usually end in my bruises. But she worked so hard and took her mask off, and I was so proud of that alone, but then, just in case I wasn’t blessed enough, she then offered to put her face back in it and took if off and put it on several times for me! And she’s done it a couple times since too, we’ve been casually keeping up on it. She’s so amazing!

Look at these breathtaking sunsets we’ve been getting! It’s been unreal, I’ve been standing outside in the freezing cold to watch these, its so worth it

I’ve been learning about wood fungus lately. Unfortunately I learned the hard way, by writing a too big check from my emergency fund to keep my house from caving in. I mean, it wasn’t quite that dramatic, but the end result was an eventually unplanned elevator to the crawlspace under the house. Luckily we caught it before that, because that’s a little too green acres, even for me. Anyways, we’ve had more contractors in the house and I’m starting to think November is cursed house repair wise and… anyways.

Yall, I tried an apple sauce cake cheat recipe the other day, and it was so good! And that’s coming from someone who generally despises apple based sweets of any kind. It was super simple, a box mix of yellow cake, apple sauce, and some eggs. Then you add some cinnamon and sugar, swirl, and tada, 30 minutes later: cake! We had it with ice cream and powdered sugar and, oh my goodness, it was tasty. It kinda reminded me of coffee cake but without the crumble on top. Which, now I kinda wanna make more apple sauce cake and a coffee cake. I haven’t made a coffee cake in a very long time, but they used to be my favorite thing on a Sunday morning. I might be baking this weekend, and not just for Thanksgiving. 

Anyways guys, I really appreciate you all being understanding about my taking December off for the holidays. It’s really going to take the stress off, especially because work is making it hard to get even a little free time.  I’m sure I’ll check in, I probably can’t stay away that long, and I wish you the happiest of Thanksgiving, full of food and love and gratitude. 

Until we chat again my friends!

Blog News

Posted on by Farmers Blogger

Hello Friends!
It’s that time of year where I need to start considering what I want to bring into the new year, my goals and plans, and how to make things work better going into 2024. Since some of those plans involve the blog, I figure I might as well share some of what I am thinking with you guys.

So, to start, I have decided to take December off. I ended up taking January off last holiday season after getting supremely overwhelmed trying to keep all the plates spinning, so this year I have decided to be somewhat proactive and just understand that the holidays are crazy and I won’t be able to pull off keeping updates rolling. I’m honestly struggling already to keep things going here on the blog without the added holiday stuff, so instead of making it worse, I am just going to make it easy.

Speaking of things being just left of out of control, we are going to go into 2024 a little differently here. I’ll be slowing way down on posting here for a while. I’ve really debated on how to handle this, because I love this blog, but I’ve not been happy with the quality of posts or my ability to devote time to it for a while. Frankly, I’m a little burnt out on it, which I hate more than I can express. I have such plans for it, but this year was just ridiculous. So much has changed in the recent months, most of which I haven’t even been able to share with you, that the blog just needs to take a less prominent role right now. 

At first I really thought about taking a year off completely, because quite frankly, the farm and I need a bit of a rebuild and regroup season, and I don’t know truly how I feel about trying to capture that online, but that didn’t feel quite right. Maybe it’s sunk cost fallacy, maybe it’s pure stubbornness, but I don’t think this project is done yet. So, I needed to find a compromise.
So, currently, the plan is to post a fun farm round up every two weeks ish, and a video diary type thing every two months. That’s the base standard, the goal for now. We may adjust as things change and we sit with it for a while, but that felt like a fast enough cadence that I won’t forget the blog, or lose track of things, but long enough that it won’t be taking up a bunch of time each week.
Now, there’s a huge part of my heart that still wants to post more often, so I am sorta assuming that as the seasons roll on I will probably be using the “photo”, “quote”, and “status” type posts a lot more for “in between-ies” but I don’t want to overpromise and under-deliver. So, for now, I am just going to plan for every two weeks, and the occasional video diary.

But I can hear you saying “Amanda, what are you going to do to solve the actual problem of too many spinning plates?”. Glad you asked! I’ve already done one big thing. I started leaving work at work a lot more, and being unapologetically unavailable during my off hours (not completely, when something pressing is going on I don’t leave everyone hanging, obviously, I’m just more selectively available), and while it’s only been about a month, it’s been really nice. I also took the opportunity to change my hours a little, it’s harder because I work a little later in the afternoons now, but I get a couple extra hours of sleep, which has been life changing. I’m not eighteen and I cannot function on four hours of sleep anymore, and I am way more useful and pleasant with the extra sleep. I’ve also put a lot of personal projects for other people in “maintenance mode”, they are either not active or chugging along passively, where I don’t have to spend so much time on them. Learning to say “no”, and “not right now”. So don’t worry, I am fixing it.

But, that’s where we are at, I know it’s not the post you were hoping for, but I know you all are amazing and will understand that the blog has to enter “low power” mode for a little while. And if 2024 goes the way I hope, when we reevaluate for 2025, we will be able to add back in the fun things, have a way more stable grasp on the farm, and on our to-do list!

Until we chat again my friends!

Busy, Busy

Posted on by Farmers Blogger

Hello Friends!
It’s definitely not been very chill around here, but there’s not a whole ton of farm news.
We’ve been trying to rig up some hay covering, some of which you will see in an upcoming video, but it continues to be a thing, I think I am just going to have to bit the bullet and go spend a little money on the lumber I need, instead of just shimming together a bunch of pieces. I was hoping this would be a no spend project, but I’ve already had to buy a new tarp so that’s a long gone dream. Hoping in the next catch up I can tell you how we solved it. Eventually I am going to build a more permanent storage for hay but there’s a lot more planning and steps that need to go into that.
We also blew up a fuel line in the flatbed working on this, which was just such a fun little side quest. I’m pretty sure that truck really needed that new hose anyway, but the timing was comically wonderful and practically quite annoying. Again, that will be in the November video, since it happened after I had to post October’s.
We’ve had lots of house guests and visitors as of late, lots of family friends we haven’t seen in a long while, and it’s always lovely to have friends stay. It’s always a little awkward for me, because working from home means I sorta say “good morning!” and then turn into a hermit for ten hours, but everyone is pretty chill about it. I’ve said it a million times, and I’ll say it again, the pandemic was awful, no good, very bad, BUT the change in understanding toward remote work was huge and very helpful. So… silver lining.

We had (or maybe still have? technically all of this is unconfirmed) a mountain lion hanging nearby for a bit. Luckily I did not see it, I only heard about it from neighbors, but I was super on edge for a while. Then, one day, I was sitting on the porch after a morning of chores, and I heard a rifle shot. That in itself is not unusual, although not common, you usually hear the occasional shotgun or small handgun, but not rifles. Anyways, that already sounded odd so I stood up to walk over to the pasture, when suddenly I heard the sound of panicking yelling and screaming and THREE more rapid rifle shots! This is insanely unusual because, for one, a neighbor would have to be exceedingly loud for us to actually hear them, and rifles are not usually panic-fired around here, because this isn’t a hunting spot and … and you shouldn’t panic-fire any weapon. It unsettled me so I shouted for Dad and rushed the dogs in the house, and the horses took off for the barn, but in the panic the bicyclists that had been randomly going by our house had fallen/dove off their bikes at the noise and so I was concerned they were hurt (they were fine). Dad came flying out and we sorta checked everything the best we could, and I explained what I had heard, and Dad said it sounded very much like someone probably had to put down the mountain lion, which would explain the rifle, the shouting, and the weirdness of how it all went down. We don’t get a lot of more aggressive wildlife beyond coyotes and wolves (thank goodness) so it would make sense that someone was a little caught off guard. Again, it’s unconfirmed, but honestly, I like that better than what I was initially imagining (not that I love a mountain lion getting potentially murdered, but ya know, I watch a lot of true crime).
Finally, we’ve just had so much fun family stuff happening. My cousin blew up his transmission and was using our shed to fix it. That in and of itself is not fun, but the fact that I got to see a lot of my cousins after work each day for a couple weeks was fun. Another of my cousins got engaged! They’re a lovely couple so we are so unbelievably happy for them. They are such a cute little family already, I’m excited they get their ceremony soon. Another family member got a promotion and one got a new job so we got to celebrate those things, and the big one: we had a bit of a surprise wedding (and it wasn’t the cousin who got engaged)! Got a call to meet them at the courthouse, they think they might have a celebration later on when life calms down, but they wanted to be Mr and Mrs now. It was a fun little weekday celebration.
So, ya know, now it’s probably more evident why I haven’t gotten a lot done since we last chatted. Just so much family stuff! I love it, but when I tell you I am so far behind it’s unreal. I hope this blog doesn’t disappear unexpectedly because I haven’t done a back up in a hot minute, I really need to clean the tack room, and, ya know, fix the fuel line, and the hay storage. Lots to do, lots to do, and work just needs more and more attention. This adulting thing is hard!
Until we chat again my friends!

Suessian Wiring

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Hello Friends!
Goodness. It’s been a month. I’m tempted to do a rapid fire recap, but maybe it’s easier to take the major points one by one.
To start, my little Ro is so so soooo done. She is really tired of being babied due to her arthritis and random back injuries. My normally level headed little mare full on tantrumed a few days ago and I have been on a mission to create new and fun experiences and completely shake up her routine ever since. I am also on the lookout for some tack and equipment based solutions, but the long and short of it is I’ve been trying to be so careful of her legs (vets recommendation) that I forgot how much this girl just likes to go. So, I’ll keep you posted on how that goes, I have spontaneously tested gravity once already this fall (my fault). I really don’t know what the rest of our season looks like, it’s all very up in the air.It’s officially “goathead coming out of my ears” season. I am fighting hard to keep this crazy weed under control, I am firmly convinced it is of the devil. I am not terribly excited for fall yet, but it would be nice to get past the burn ban so I can take fire to the little suckers. Does anyone have any goathead tips? I’m all out. It’s dangerous to walk barefoot in my home right now because these little guys come in on clothes and shoes and then lie in wait to stick you in the middle of the night.
Those are not the only concerns we’ve had on the farm this month, Watson got to take an unexpected trip to the vet and scared the ever living tar out of his mother. He decided chewing was optional on the little treat he got and it ended up lodged in his throat. I tried to help him out myself but it was more than I knew how to deal with so off to the vet we went. Luckily the treat had mostly dissolved and Watson was over it by the time we arrived, but I still had the vet double check for damage and we were under intense supervision at home for the next couple days just in case. This happened at the beginning of the month and I’ll be real with you, he only this week got a cookie again, and only because Joe and my dad lobbied hard on his behalf. I was not sure how ready we all were to try that again, and I still won’t be giving him cookies when I don’t have backup at home.
Now, I know what you are wondering, Amanda, what was up with your power situation, why did you miss a week and where did the Tuesday posts go? All super good questions and the answer is, dude, I don’t even know.
So, basically, I walked into my room one afternoon after a day out on the farm, and I went to wake up my computer to find it unresponsive. A small panic and large assortment of sear words later, I realized my desk lamp and phone charger weren’t working either. So, I tried popping breakers and resetting surge protectors and the like, and realized two things, that the wiring in the wall of my cloffice outlet was dead, and my house was wired by Dr Suess. I had my cousin, the electrician, come out to look at it, and she spent three or four days chasing the wiring through the house, literally that wall, and a wall on the complete other side of the house, and the back porch are all on one breaker, even though all three were constructed and wired in at different points in time. My cousin walked out at one point holding the bridge of her nose and muttering, “This is the most ghetto wiring”, so ya know, that made me trust my house so much. We then had to punch a bunch of holes in my cloffice, and closet proper, which meant my work and living spaces were all a massive disaster, half packed away, half stacked on my bed, all smelling like spackle and spray texture. Luckily my other cousin is a general contractor and expert drywallist , so he was able to come out and patch up my wall for me too. But all in all, between the hunt, the rewire, the patch up, and the re-organize, I was about three weeks without my office, or really my room at all with the amount of stuff all moved, and I couldn’t even work at the dining table because the power for that part of the house had to be off. I was a total basket case. I’ve been back in my space for a minute and I am still not caught back up. Between work, adulting type stuffs, blog stuffs, and other things that need my attention, I might just be back on track by… Halloween? Oof.
The kicker? The porch lights (same breaker, remember?) went out a couple days ago, and it’s not a bulb problem…. But I am not quite ready for more holes.
From me and my questionable wiring,
Until we chat again, my friends!

Broke it

I broke the house, well, specifically my office/bedroom/personal space, and basically my desk, the computer I do all the blog work, most of my closet, much of my storage, and my whole crochet hoarding issue are all stacked out in the living room and there are holes in my walls (the electricity in my part of the house just quit, for no discernable reason). I was going to try to edit on my phone, or rig up a temporary desk, but to be honest, I am a little overwhelmed by the whole thing so we are just going to skip a week since its a 5 week month. If I can’t get back in my office soon, I’ll work something else out. Sorry!

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Creepin’ Toward Fall

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Hello friends!What happened to August! Things have started to calm down a little here, but that doesn’t mean time has slowed down at all. My goodness if this year isn’t just flying by. It’s going to be Christmas before I am ready!We had Christopher’s birthday this month, twenty four years around the sun for that boy. He requested a lazy day, where he could play games, watch baseball, and eat his favorite foods. He couldn’t get the day off work so I snuck into his home office space and set up his birthday gifts for when he got home (He got a much needed new desk chair and a couple video games). We then went grocery shopping and got all his favorite foods (or at least the ones I can make). So there was warm mac and cheese, poutine, and cookies for lunch, pizza and nachos for dinner. Plus a really cute cookie monster cake my mom picked out for him because he is, in fact, a cookie monster, and my parents raised us to always keep a little bit of childishness to us, otherwise life loses its joy.

It was a good thing too, that we had all that warm food on hand because it absolutely poured with rain for a good portion of his birthday. It was part of a bigger storm system that took about a week to roll through, storms constantly, and enough rain to cause some issues. Nothing crazy like the rest of the country, thank goodness, but I did have to push part of my driveway back up the hill. I tried to take some video of it, but it didn’t really turn out. We have enough forecasted storms in the future though that I doubt that will be my last chance to catch the thunder and lightning.It’s all part of moving into the fall season I guess, those late summer storms. I am surprised how early it is starting to feel vaguely like fall. I have mentioned several times how August 20th always seems to be the switch around here, and you could definitely tell a difference that morning, but it was getting a little chillier in the mornings and a little darker a little earlier already. I haven’t seen any changing leaves yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s just around the corner.It’s not been cold enough to give up on air conditioning yet, but our air conditioner sure wants to give up on us. The system is just tired, there’s no parts for it, and we’re in a bit of a quandary because the only place out here that does air conditioning work wants to do a full system upgrade to the tune of five figures. I am not as keen so we are investigating our options. It’s way too warm here to not have some sort of cooling system. But I don’t really want to dump my life savings into an air conditioning unit, ya know?In other news, we’ve had some small progress with Nellie and her mask wearing. She was able and willing to put on the new, modified mask, which was so great! But… because there’s always a snag, she is unwilling to take the mask off. She wants to take it off, but she wont let me undo either of the velcros. After being fine with it for months, she’s decided to develop a fear of the velcro noise. This horse, my sweet, beautiful, disney princess of a horse, is the most high maintenance critter ever. Holy smokes, everything is a seven act drama with her. She’s loved unconditionally, which is good because she is a patience tester for sure. It has forced me to think about prototyping a second halter style mask, a version two if you will, that maybe doesn’t use velcro (which would honestly make me happy too because velcro is a pain in the rear to clean and not the easiest to work with on a moving horse). But, considering how quickly Ro keeps destroying masks, I don’t know if I am going to have an extra mask lying around to prototype on anytime soon.Speaking of Miss Ro, as I sit here typing to you, she has antibiotic wound clay all over her cheek. Why, you ask? Because I came down to the barn to catch her for a morning ride today, only to find another torn up mask and her with a big all scrape on her face. Of course, it’s right where the halter and bridle would both sit and very clearly not very comfortable, so that got her out of work. I packed it full of stuff to help keep it safe and let it heal, and now I am left to attempt sewing up the mask and waiting patiently for her face to not hurt. She, on the other hand, is absolutely milking it for all the love and attention, and relishing in her bonus day off. Silly girl.Anyways, I think that’s been most of the big things here on the farm. It’s been kinda low key for me because work has been creepin’ up there in hours again and I don’t have much free time. Hoping for a calm down in the fall.Until we chat again, my friends!