Tag: Life on the Farm

Everything Is Wet

Posted on by Farmers Blogger

Hello friends!

Well, we got a decent amount of snow recently, about 18 inches in total, so not as bad as some places, but enough to be enough. It was funny, it managed to snow pretty much only on days where I had to work on outside projects or be out in town. Funny how that is.

It also got down to about -7°. That’s Fahrenheit. For my Celsius using friends, that’s somewhere Around -21°. That is, regardless of how you label it, really freaking cold. 

That’s painfully cold. The ponies’ whiskers froze. Understandably, they hardly left the barn. I really can’t blame them, I hardly left my room unless I was grabbing food or hugging ponies. Watson has exclusively lived under blankets. He grumbles if you get up and move the blanket, grumbles if the heater is turned down, it’s hard to be small when it’s cold. It’s really hard to be small when there’s 18 inches of snow in your backyard. He misjudged how deep it was off the step, jumped in the snow, and just got so mad. Day ruiner. We got him inside all warm and dry, he survived. 

In other news, we’ve had more plumbing shenanigans on the farm. I am so over major repair bills. But it is what it is. I called a different plumber from last time, for those concerned. It was a better experience, but I really hope I just don’t have to call any more plumbers for a while. 

I walked down to the corral on my lunch break, a daily occurrence, and I noticed a river where there wasn’t one before. Curious, since I hadn’t planned to run a river through my arena. A little investigation later, I found where the water was bubbling up from the ground. Turns out the water line from the house to the horse trough gave up the ghost on me. To be honest, I thought it ran a different way, so I was so confused as to the location of the spout. So, that was a learning experience. 

Another thing I learned is that apparently whoever put in all these pipes originally thought shut off valves were optional. So, the only way to turn off the water was to turn off the pump for the whole farm. That obviously wasn’t going to work, especially not in negative degrees, so, well, we built an ice rink instead. Not ideal. 

I felt so bad for the first plumber that came out that evening, he looked at it, quoted the project for me, and set the fix for the next day. Then he spent about an hour trying to get his truck and trailer up my snowy driveway. There were a few moments where I thought he was going to need to leave the trailer here. Or that the trailer was going to drag Him down the bank into my pasture. But he eventually got it.

The next set of guys, the following morning, slid down the driveway with their own trailer, and they broke one of their chains too. Then when the second truck came, also got mildly stuck, and then left. Then the third one came with the excavator, it dropped off the excavator, and then fought to climb back out. 

At this point my incredibly sweet neighbor, realizing that I still haven’t managed to procure a blade of my own, fired up his adorable little backhoe and came and scraped some of the driveway for me. I really appreciated it.

That said, it took them two days to fix the pipe, and unfortunately they still struggled to get up the driveway so the excavator and the utility trailer stayed over until the temps rose enough. 

I am super appreciative that they were able to fix it for me in the snow and everything. Weirdly enough, the pipe didn’t freeze and crack, it didn’t freeze at all, it appears to have just worn through, water pressure or something just wore out a hole. I have no idea. This home ownership shenanigans is hard.

But, otherwise, guys, I’m so excited! My sweet grandma called me up and asked me to stop by one Saturday before bible study. She had something she wanted to give me. Turns out she had purchased a whole cow for butchering and split it up amongst all her family. She gave me about one hundred pounds of meat! She says it’s a christmas gift, she’s being so generous, and I am so grateful! That meat will last us well into summer, and will help tremendously with the grocery bill. It’s always great to have a stocked pantry, such a good feeling. I still want to build a bit of a store room of dry goods over time, but the freezer is stocked for now and I am so pleased!

So that’s been most of what’s new here. Not much due to the weather and the latest repair. As the spring rolls in closer and closer, these updates will hopefully start turning to things like planting and sunshine and flowers and such. I’m really really ready for spring. 

Until we chat again my friends!

We are still having this oppressive fog near constantly. It’s just obnoxious
Digging one of the holes
Snow: 1
Snow Boots: 0
Joe doesn”t understand why they can dig a hole and he can’t
Hole #1
Hole #2
The sunsets have made up for the blistering cold
When the snow first started falling

…Aaaaand We’re Back

Posted on by Farmers Blogger

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!

Let’s Make a List

Posted on by Farmers Blogger

Hello Friends!

Well, it’s officially starting to feel fall-ish around here. It’s chilly in the mornings, and there’s harvesting in full swing. Although I will admit, in this part of the world, the weather was so uncooperative all season that a lot of my local farmers have already started packing it in for the year, it’s just been a really hard one.
Usually I just get a little bummed this time of year and try to hold on to summer as long as I can, in full denial until the snow flies. Sometimes even after the snow flies, feel free to ask Ro and Nel how often the three of us end up huddled in blankets by the burn barrel after a work session because I can’t quite commit to staying indoors. I’m a “It’s fine, it’ll warm up” kinda person until December.

BUT!

I have decided this year to try to embrace Autumn. Don’t get me wrong, I fully intend to hold on to the hot weather for as long as I can, but I am also going to try to enjoy the feelings of fall as much as I can. So, I’ve decided to make a list of things I want to do this Autumn that normally I would ignore until it’s too late. Maybe my list will inspire you too, or you can add to mine with your great ideas!

To start, I wanna embrace the cozy. So, on the list goes “read a mystery novel with a warm bev by the window”. Admittedly this is a thing I already do sometimes, but I want to make a point to slow down and recognize it as a joy of the season. Full on, just like in the movies, curled up with a blanket and the dogs, the whole shebang. I want to bake a cobbler or pie, which is easy enough because my uncle loves my cobblers, and I do love the smell in the house. I intend to make lots of cookies too, but that’s less of a fall thing and more of an all the time thing because I really like cookies. I also want to try more soup recipes, because as the boys get older they are more willing to put up with my soup dinners (we are a meat and potatoes kinda household) and I want to take full advantage. Like, veggie soups, chicken noodle, potato, all the soups.

Outside the house, I would like to take some fall walks. I was hoping to get into walking this summer but work sorta demanded more time than it had a right to, and I sorta let it happen, so we are kinda just rolling over a goal here, but I think it would be so pretty as the leaves change. I also would like to go apple picking, I live 5 miles from a U-Pick orchard, you would think I would take better advantage. I have been peach picking once, but I LOVE apples so I would love to go picking for snacks. Thing is, I absolutely hate apple desserts, so I really only need to pick a handful.

Full Disclosure, I literally wrote this, immediately went to the farmers market and got peaches, came home and made a peach cobbler. So… list is working!

I do love apple cider though, and since coffee is no longer a thing I can have, I intend to fully indulge in warm apple cider… and hot chocolate, all Autumn long. It’s only fair since I’ve had to give up my mint coffees for Christmas. I want to find a yummy mint tea, but that’s more of a long term goal.

I want to pick a good fall tv show to curl up with too since I’ll be inside more, and pick out a puzzle or two, and I think I need to pick up my crochet projects that have been set aside this summer. I have to finish Watson’s sweater, my Mom’s gloves, the large blanket (that I started two years ago, oops) and I wanna add to the pumpkins I was making. Some cozy activities for when the winds blow too hard.

What else? I really want to decorate for fall. Cute leaves, lots of oranges, PUMPKINS, cornstalks. I don’t know how successful I will be, and I have to defer to our decor queen, my mom, for most of it, but I feel like the only true way to defeat the autumn blues is to make it an exciting season. 

What’s on your fall list? Share with me so I can unabashedly steal your ideas! Steal mine! Let’s try really hard to give Summer a good send off and Fall a warm welcome!
Until we chat again my friends!