Life on the Farm – The Farmer's Blogger

August Recap

Posted on August 31, 2024August 27, 2024 by Farmers Blogger

Hello friends!

How was your August? Mine was eventful for sure.

Where to start? Well, there was a mega wildfire, which, unfortunately, is not that out of the ordinary for August, but what made this particularly unnerving is that it burned within 6 miles of my home. We were under some evacuation warnings for a bit. Luckily not the worst ones, but needless to say I didn’t sleep for a few days. It’s very humbling to realize how unprepared you are, how hard it is to work out what to save, and the harsh realization that the person who is most likely going to fight the hardest for your house is you. But luckily it didn’t get that far. Many prayers of safety and thanksgiving were uttered. God willing it never gets that close again.

We had the funniest little storm come through the other day. It was a little overcast, and suddenly the winds picked up and blew like crazy, just absolutely wailed. Kicked up a ton of dust and debris and knocked some branches out of my trees (a couple were pretty scary sized, I should maybe call an arborist). Then it thundered and crashed lightning for a few minutes, then stopped suddenly just the same. Finally it hailed pea sized hail for about three minutes, rained for ten, and then the sun came back out. It honestly felt like the weather had a small tantrum and then pulled itself back together.

I relate.

Anyways.

Because of the crazy fluctuations in weather, Nellie’s annual swelling of the leg happened again, and happened intensely enough that I opted to call the vet. I was so full of pride because Miss Nellie was such a good girl. Just wonderful. It was really nice, because this Vet hadn’t seen Nellie in a while (they rotate, it’s nice because the animals get more exposure to different personalities and don’t associate bad things with one person as easily) and he was impressed with her better manners. He made it clear he was pretty surprised Nellie and I both survived her training and I think I earned some points. He’s an old school, quiet cowboy type, so that’s saying something.

I’ve always said that humans have a set number of words they can use each day. Some of us have lots of words, I can talk and talk and talk all day and never run up my limit. Cowboys, ranchers, farmers, they have less words, so if they use them on you, you better listen. Last time this vet was out, he said he thought Nellie and I might end up killing each other. This time, his words were complimentary.

Anyways, she’s on some anti-inflammatories for a while whilst we ride this out. This happens every year, we don’t entirely know why, but I have my theories, and it seems like it’s always okay, so I’m just trusting it is.

Joe had a rough few days too. See, he was furiously messing with his ear and just seemed off. I assumed it was an ear infection, even though he didn’t really have the symptoms, but he’s prone to them.

Nope, turns out he got something jammed in his ear. How? Good question, not a dang clue. He’s fine, no harm done, but he had to have a procedure because he’s so wiggly they were worried about doing damage if he wasn’t sedated.

The frustrating part for Joe then became that, since he was sedated, we decided it was a good time to take care of a couple benign lumps he had. Just in case they had plans to be not so benign, we thought we’d just get ahead of it. Turns out they were a little harder to deal with than planned and my sweet baby came home with quite a few stitches.

He’s good, as this is being posted I’m probably sitting in the waiting room with him waiting for the stitch removal appointment. At the time of writing, he’s happy, bouncy, a little itchy, and very tired of not being allowed to zoom through the sprinklers. Just a couple more days, Big Dog!

He’s been enjoying the privileges that come from “recovering”. He’s had his pick of the comfy spots on the furniture, all his pills in cheese, lots of cuddles and hugs and snuggles, gotten to go everywhere with us in the car, and I bought him a little snuffle pad I can fill with treats and such so he had some non-zoomie enrichment. He’s eaten so much peanut butter at this point he’s probably part legume.

Also, because his favorite nap spot during the week is my bed, during the day we’ve been rigging up some temporary stairs so he doesn’t have to jump with his stitches. Did someone say spoiled?

Otherwise things have been fairly chill. I did something to my shoulder and neck and haven’t been able to turn my head for about a week, so I’ve been taking it exceptionally easy when I can. I think it’s just a pulled muscle, but you can’t exactly stay off your neck so, I don’t really know how to solve it. Anyone got any advice? I miss nodding and looking to my side.

Anyways, things are fairly situation normal here in the farm, that is, vaguely controlled chaos. I hope you guys are having a great late summer and I’ll talk to you soon!

Until we chat again my friends!

Things are all weird right now…

Posted on July 26, 2024July 24, 2024 by Farmers Blogger

Hello friends!

How are we doing? We are absolutely covered in wildfire smoke here, although I’m grateful, we are not in immediate danger from the current fires, so I can deal with some smoke. The air quality has basically halted all work outside for the foreseeable future. We are also under wildfire warnings for PSPS, that is Public Safety Power Shutoffs, so if you have tips, send them my way. A little nervous to be wfh with the chance of most of the valley losing power randomly. In fact, as I write this, I am waiting to see if they are cutting us off this evening, and if I’ll even be able to get this posted. We have a storm coming in, and everyone is sorta expecting carnage.

It’s very weird to be essentially fogged in, as though it’s winter time, but for it to also be 107 degrees. We’ve had heat and air quality warnings that have been extended long enough I am totally blind to the warnings panel on my weather app. Just trying to keep everything moist and limit activity for all the creatures on the farm, two and four legged. The worst I’ve seen so far on the air quality scale is 237, but I know it’s so much worse closer to the fires.

We had to give up on the garden this year. The potatoes we planted got dug up and eaten by some critters that needed sustenance, and with the rest of it, we just decided it wasn’t quite going to work this year. Gives us time to prepare for a better attempt next year I guess. And with the smoke, probably better to keep outdoor hobbies to a minimum. I’m kinda considering raised beds too, so I can put covers on things, but that might be overkill.

I had a birthday last week. I’m 28 now, which really doesn’t feel any different than 27 or 26, although I’d argue If you compared 25 and this upcoming year, you’d probably notice the differences. Change is gradual and easy to miss, but I’d like to think I’m slowly getting better at this living thing. I had a lovely calm birthday, took a few days of paid leave and finally got a few moments to destress. I’ve basically worked everyday since June 26th, some days less than others, some long enough that they bled together, and it was a welcome change to mute all work based notifications for a bit. But boy, that productivity guilt hit hard the first day or so. I’ve gotten to catch up on some things that had gotten the short end of the stick, and got to take a minute to look at ways I could sorta fix the “hamster on a wheel” feeling that has been a staple for too long.
Speaking of that, and of the crazy work schedule and relative halt of work on the farm, I think I need to chat with you all a minute. I have been really struggling to keep up with this blog, and the stuff I have been creating for you has not been what I would consider my best work. It’s frustrating to want to do better and either not have the time or the brain space to make those things happen. It’s just really hard to want to write or edit videos after long stretches on the computer for work, and to be honest, the farm has always been my escape, and I’ve gotten to where I really don’t want to grab my phone to record things. I’m pretty tied to my phone for work as it is, and most of the time, I just want to go hug horses at the end of the day. So, we are going to make a mid-year change.
I’ve decided, for the latter half of 2024, we are going to cut down to one post a month, an end of the month recap. That feels attainable with my current life situation, and allows me to keep you guys up to date without constantly rushing to grab content, or worry that my entire update is going to be “work happened again”, or be up until 2 am trying to hit that 6 am post time because I miscalculated what week was what. So, instead of every Friday, it’ll just be either the 30th or 31st of the month. Then we will reevaluate in 2025 how we want to tackle things. I am not closing anything down, just going a little quieter for now, for stress reasons. I am hoping as things get more steady state, I can post some in between photos, maybe a shortie video here or there, but I don’t want to promise things until I kinda have a better grasp. I really appreciate the understanding.

I hate to leave things on a sour note, so I will leave you with a happy anecdote! Guess who worked out v2 of the Nellie Fly Mask? Now with snaps! Officially she hasn’t worn it yet, Ro has been stress testing it for me, and now they are maskless due to the smoke, but I am hopeful it is a solid quality of life improvement for her (and me)!
Anyways, friends, until we chat again!

Busy Busy

Posted on June 14, 2024June 12, 2024 by Farmers Blogger

Hello friends!

We’ve had a busy few days on the farm here, but we’re finally slowly making some progress!

First of all, we are getting really close to pulling off the surprise birthday party for my grandma. Don’t worry, she doesn’t know this blog exists, so there’s no worry about spoilers. She’s gonna be so pleased.

We got the cake ordered and the photos all back for the decor. I’d say we are probably about 70 percent ready, which is just awesome. I’m really excited to see it all come together.

On the farm itself, I switched to a summer schedule at work. It took forever for the weather to work itself out, but I am now working on the farm a little in the mornings before I go sign in to work. It’s such a better schedule for me, but it only works in the summer when the sun is up and it’s not completely frigid. It’s my favorite schedule.

We got the sprinklers fixed in the pasture. And then refixed. And then rerefixed. See, we knew we had some that had gotten busted in the last few weeks, so we went out and fixed about seven of them. Lots of digging, sawing, gluing, and wondering where on earth the pipe actually was. Then we took about three hours and mowed the pasture, to give the good grasses a fighting chance against the weeds. It was very hot, very dirty work, but it looks so nice and I’m hopeful lots of those grasses will flourish. Anyways, while doing that I personally took out two more sprinklers we had to go fix. I’m very good at accidentally obliterating sprinklers. Unsurprisingly they don’t like going through the mower. But I didn’t get stuck this time, which is a first.

Then a couple days later, while troubleshooting why the pump had no pressure, we ended up blowing the top off four sprinklers. See, rerefixed.

I think the girls have been scratching on them too, they are so itchy and we have had so many broken ones this year.

We finally got the potatoes in the ground. That’s all we are planting this year, because we have had such odd weather and now are having some irrigation issues. I’m excited though. I’m going to make loaded baked potato soup and fries and chips and mashed potatoes and…I feel we’ve done this conversation before. It’s gonna be fun, plus we’re Idahoans, so we gotta grow potatoes. It’s a rule, they make you promise when you buy land. That’s the truth.

Anyways.

We’ve had a new truck temporarily join the farm lately. A little blue thing parked in front of the garage. It’s a birthday gift from some of my cousins to another one haha. He’s gonna be a driver real soon. Everyone’s been working on it, so it’s been fun to have a revolving door of cousins always out and visiting. Lots of little ones running around and playing in the sprinklers.

Joe recently got a pretty exciting gift. Eighteen whole tennis balls! I was going to dole them out one by one, but on a whim I got his attention and turned the whole bag over on the porch. He lost his mind. He’s been so funny too, every day he goes out and pulls out each one and takes them out to the yard. Sometimes he will bring one up for one of us to throw a few times, and then he will sit and chew on them. Rearranging and rolling and dribbling them like a basketball. Then when we are done for the night he helps put them all back in the little backet I bought him. I’m thinking I am going to need to keep that little basket fully stocked. He is so cute with them, and he loves them so much.

Sweet bean is currently curled up on the couch snoring like an engine, because he played so hard earlier. Being a happy dog is a full time job you know.

Anyways, I’m looking forward to all the craziness in the next two weeks. We’ve got the surprise Birthday party and a wedding, the festival, and a few things at work; June is just going to be ending with a bang it seems. It’ll be fun!

Until we chat again my friends!

Hanging in there

Posted on May 17, 2024May 14, 2024 by Farmers Blogger

Hello friends!

It has been such a silly spring it’s truly unreal. So remember how I said we were having warm weather and I was stuck inside last update? About the time work started slowly ironing out, the temperatures plummeted and we went back into winter time. It only started warming up again this last week, and unfortunately I’ve earned myself a case of walking pneumonia so I haven’t been able to be out in it much yet.

That said, we got a few things done around here. The garden beds are starting to get cleaned out. It’s slow going, but we are separating bulbs, weeding, planting and replanting, and laying down some weed control and bark. It’ll be really pretty when we pull it together. And a little easier to manage. We are looking for pretty ground cover that flowers or stays nice all summer, or for a series of flowers that will bloom one after another and every year, so they are always attracting pollinators. I’ve been looking into chaos gardening, but I’m not quite ready to commit yet.

As you saw in the video, from three weeks ago, The canal was burned and cleaned out and it started filling up about a week later. Really stressed out the girls because they started filling it in the middle of the night. Very unusual, I never did hear why. But it also filled super slowly, I think it sat at halfway for almost a week. Probably because it started freezing again. Craziness. It’s full now though, and just so pretty. Such fun to have that “babbling brook” sound while you’re working around the farm.

The girls have had a lot of lazy days lately, although we had the big vet day. All but Nellie got vaccinated, but the vet agreed that there’s two issues at play with Nellie and we need to address them separately. First she’s terrified of the needle, so I’ve been working on that with her for a few months and while the vet call and my getting sick set us back, we will probably be able to vaccinate in a couple weeks (the vet isn’t really worried because right now they don’t really interact with a lot of other animals, so we can prioritize making it a good experience.). We realized that the second issue is that she’s still just terrified of new people working with her. She panics before we can even get to the checkup. That ones a little harder to solve, but we will get there. I’m still so proud of her, and all the animals on the farm, they all did fantastically. It was Honey’s first big kid checkup, and other than turning me into a pincushion, she handled it like a champ. She was a little mad at me for a couple days, but she quickly decided we could be friends again. Didn’t help that she needed her rabies booster, that makes all the critters unhappy.

Nobody has gotten a garden in yet, almost any time we’ve gone to plant, it’s frozen overnight again. As much as I really wanted a big garden this year, I think it’s much more reasonable to get some potatoes in the ground and start prepping for next year. I hate to give up, but this spring is proving a battle, and I think it might be the smartest to work within our constraints for now. Plus potatoes are dope so I’m excited to be growing them. Lots of potato based recipes I want to try. For my fellow Psych fans out there, I wanna get brave and try “fries cuatros quesos dos fritos”. For my non Psych fans out there, go watch Psych, the first seasons especially will explain a lot about my humor haha.

We found some more Easter eggs today in the garden. I’m honestly surprised we haven’t found more, but it’s a running joke that I find Easter eggs all year long around the farm. We hide so many throughout the gardens, I figure there’s a few that are probably composting out there at this point.

Did anyone get to see the northern lights? We got them really faintly here, but they were so cool. Amazing to see them all the way down here. This far south, it’s a “tell the grandkids one day” moment. Very very cool.

Anyways, I wish I had more of an update for ya. I’ve kinda come to the conclusion that this spring is just a bit rough around the edges. Hoping it means there’s a great summer around the corner.

Until we chat again my friends!

A New Vlog for your Friday!

Video• Posted on April 26, 2024April 19, 2024 by Farmers Blogger

A Chair Raising Experience

Posted on March 15, 2024March 11, 2024 by Farmers Blogger

Hello friends!

How are we? Doing good? How was your February? Feels like it’s been a minute since we caught up.

Not much has happened around here because it’s been pretty cold and rainy. We had a couple good sunny days and we did a little burning and a little cleaning up. But mostly it’s been a lot of making huffy comments about the snow and mud ad infinitum.

We changed up the hay storage, since the setup that had worked all winter involved the tarp being tied to the truck and, well, we needed the truck. So we built a nice little lean-to, and put the tarp over the top of that. It worked pretty good, neighbors even complimented it, and we knew it was temporary because my tarp took a beating over the winter and was nearing retirement. What we didn’t know is three days later we would have a crazy windstorm that would tear the tarp in half and throw the lean-to around and take the pieces of the tarp and toss them onto the tack room roof. It also took down tree limbs, threw a ton of tumbleweeds around, and tore off a hunk of gutter… but I don’t know from where. It matches ours, but I can’t figure out where it came from for the life of me.

Oh well, you win some, you lose some. I got my money out of that poor tarp, and with a little hemming and my grommet punch, I’ll just have two smaller tarps now.

Since I’ve been stuck inside, I’ve taken to re-organizing my space. It’s been going pretty well, mostly just assigning things to better places. A good example was my dresser, I had a whole drawer of business casual clothing from a previous life. Explain to me why a remote software dev needs a drawer of slacks at the ready. It felt silly to toss them when I have some potential in-office trips happening in the future, and Lord knows I’ve done no growing (well, at least not vertically), so putting them in the back of the closet made much more sense. Now that drawer houses office supplies, which is a little unconventional, but I’m really excited about it. I’ve been really trying for Adam Savage’s theory of keeping the things I often use readily accessible, that really works with my brain. It’s also just nice to finally be getting ahead of the chaos that’s been compounding since I moved in. And it’s good practice for tackling the rest of the house. One day I’m gonna have to go after that pantry.

In other office news, I have a funny story that happened just a couple days ago, in case you need a good laugh. So, some of you may remember if you’ve been around a while, that I have, well, had, a lovely office chair my sweet brother gave me for my birthday a few years back. I loved it very much, super comfy and pleasant for long days at work. Well, after two and a half years of faithful service, my chair experienced rapid, unplanned disassembly…while I was using it! Rude.

So, I was sitting at my desk, and I went to lean back to contemplate a task, and the chair bit came off the pole bit! But it did so in such a way, combined with the blanket being all tangled up in the wheels, that my lower half was trapped under my desk and my top half was clinging wildly to my desktop to try to avoid smashing myself and the top of the chair into my bed’s footboard. Remember, my desk is somewhat lifted to accommodate the closet setup, so it’s a pretty unfun fall. To complicate things further, Watson was trapped under the blanket on my lap and I didnt want to squish or drop him.

It was a hilariously ridiculous situation to be stuck in.

Because I was stuck, clinging to my desk to avoid injury but unable to get unstuck, I had to call for help. Of course, I’m way in the back of the house and literally everyone in my house is nearly deaf or living in headphones, so I had to figure out another solution. I couldn’t reach my phone, but I could reach my keyboard, and luckily my phone was connected to my pc, so I managed to send “help” to my dad, who came running in and saved me. And then laughed at me for about 20 minutes. I can’t blame him, I started cracking up too.

Watson for the record is fine, but boycotting the office for now. Understandable.

But who would have thought I’d still have to send “come save me at work” messages to my dad after I stopped commuting? Better yet, can you imagine my boss’s face if I had hurt myself and had to explain that I’m calling in sick because my chair went on the offensive? Is it an L&I claim if it happens during work hours (I jest)?

Anyways, my poor chair is toast. The pole bit is pretty shattered, the plate thingie is sheared off, and the pressurized tube thingie no longer pressurizes. So, as much as it saddens me, if you have a good chair recommendation, lemme know.

Hopefully the next update will Be more farm and less chaos haha.

Until we chat again my friends!

Spring is so close!

Image• Posted on March 8, 2024February 22, 2024 by Farmers Blogger

Honey says hey

Image• Posted on March 1, 2024February 22, 2024 by Farmers Blogger

A Cute Clip Show!

Video• Posted on February 23, 2024February 12, 2024 by Farmers Blogger

It’s spring and no one can convince me otherwise

Posted on February 9, 2024February 5, 2024 by Farmers Blogger

Hi friends!
I am so serious (or seriously in denial) that it is spring. It got warmer, and it’s been mostly drier, and I am convinced, convinced, its spring time. I know it’s only February, and I know I am going to get blindsided by sudden, wet, February snow at some point, don’t care, it’s spring. I’ll die on this hill.

But no, in seriousness, it’s been sunny and warmer and my entire outlook on life has changed. Literally the first sunny day, I was so happy and productive and I was explaining to my friend what a sudden burst of energy and productivity I had and she goes, “well, duh, you’re solar-powered”. Which, I simultaneously feel like I knew, but I think that’s the first time someone said it to me, instead of just my joking, and I realized it might be a little more true than I had thought. It’s so much easier to do things and think happy thoughts when the sun is out. It just is so hopeful.

Everyone has been thinking I am crazy because I keep trying to justify working outside and it’s still, realistically, too cold and wet to work outside on a laptop, but I keep trying. It’s blowing like crazy outside right now and yet, I was just wondering if it’s too windy for the notebook.

It is.

In other news, we are starting to plan the garden out. I know I want peas, beans, and carrots, and I think I would like to grow pumpkins and watermelon again, even though I haven’t had much luck with those. I really wanna grow potatoes. I had so much fun with them last time and I live in Idaho, it’s necessary. It seriously might be a law. I really want to try corm again but we are two states and three garden plots into failing that crop. I cannot successfully grow corn. But maybe this is the year? what else I should I grow? Maybe eggplant? Can I grow eggplant here?

I also wanna add hollyhocks to the arbor vitae hedges this year, because they are annual but they self-re-plant AND they are super pretty and the deer have done a whole number on the hedge row but apparently don’t like hollyhocks. I also think I want I to plant them along the arena fence for a little privacy but I need to double check if horses can/will eat them. Because Lord knows, my girls will try.

Along with those, I really wanna put sunflowers in the garden beds. We grew those sunflowers a while ago for my cousins for my cousin’s wedding and I loved them so much. But they went bonkers and all my neighbors had sunflowers too, and when we transported them, you could find sunflowers the following year along the route. So, I need to do some research before I let them loose on the valley again.

I also wanna try thyme? Apparently thyme is a really great, safe for animals and good for the environment type ground cover. I am hoping it will clean up and keep my hillside nice, because currently the only thing I am growing up there is tumbleweeds.

Anyways, that’s where my brain is. I have been painting winterscapes occasionally but it’s transitioned to springscapes overnight. I am so ready to be outside all the time.

Its a good thing that the groundhog decided spring is coming early, I think we would have had beef had he said anything else. I would have had to have a conversation with the groundhog, that he needs to get brave and not flee his shadow. I’ll be honest though, I completely forgot to even check and didn’t find out until the Monday after.

See, my parents got married on Groundhog Day, and we were having too much fun celebrating to notice the little guy. My parents wanted to go out on a small “family adventure” and then out to eat with my brother and I. So we did a little window shopping and tourist-ing in Boise, I spent far too much money but solved some fun problems, and we had a lovely meal. They’ve been married 33 year, can you imagine? It’s true love, they are soulmates and they make me believe in fairytales. So sweet.

Until we chat again, my friends!