It is a mystery

many people are getting The Big Storm this weekend. We are currently predicted to get 13 inches of snow starting sunday morning, so not too bad at all. I am going to spend part of tomorrow cutting and splitting wood, the new chainsaw bars came yesterday and it took me about a minute to get through a test log that was probably 30 inches in diameter, smooth and easy. So nice. We have plenty of wood to get through the storm, but I want to keep working on it. 

We have around 5 gallons of gas and two generators that work to power our or the relatives houses. Plenty of food and water and I just split some more wood for the indoor burner today plus we have another tote at the other house. I will need to drain the downstairs bathroom pipes tomorrow night since they freeze when the temps get too close to 0F, oh well. 

We picked up a trailer of straw today, unsure if we'll be able to get it all spread before the storm due to the intense winds we are supposed to get. But I'm hoping we get at least two loads done tomorrow, possibly three if we can, then two Saturday morning. It takes around 5 donkey cart loads to empty the trailer. I don't really want to do it because it will be either windy or cold as fuck but we can't spread when there's much snow on the ground and we can't spread if it's windy since it blows the straw before it drops. Cold as fuck it will be. 

Plow is on the tractor, ready to go for snow removal. Shovel is on the back porch. 

I don't think we'll lose power, my parents barely lose it compared to the house in NY which lost power a lot, so I think it's all good. We've got hot chocolate and I'm tempted to try making it on the wood stove for fun. 

Good luck to everyone else, stay safe and let your pipes drip

I am two years overdue on moving my pictures from my Camera Uploads folder on my dropbox to my external harddrive/online only dropbox folder. So far I've done about 50GB, around 6 months and have just moved up to the end of March 2025. Since the Camera Uploads folder is mirrored on my computer harddrive, it takes up a ton of space if I haven't moved things out of it in a while. In an ideal world, I'd do the transfer every two months. I ought to go looking through and print some photos out, which is something I enjoy doing every couple of years. 

I have hung two pieces of art in my crafting room using command strips. I have decided that's how I'm going to hang most things since the plaster and lathe walls don't exactly hold things well. I have a whole crate of used frames for art prints and posters which my aunt gave to me. Some need new cardboard backing but I'm excited to hang art! I think I will make some collages of photos and art as well. Main struggle is getting things to stay in place . Also had an absolute galaxy brain moment the other day when I started winding the warp to go on my loom: the warping board can be clamped to the front beam of my loom and it is the perfect height to wind a warp. The best ergonomics for winding ever. Previous places I have put it: on the floor leaning against a table, on my crafting chair arms, on the couch. All of those require leaning over or sitting on the floor. This is such a good change.

We spread another two loads of straw this morning to empty the trailer before it got windy and I reassembled the chainsaw. It's usable if cranky, which describes most equipment on this farm. It was having issues cutting, would more or less just stop once it got partway into the log and it seems like the bar was the problem. We ran through all the other things, sharpened chain, tightened it, cut maple instead of the pin oak, etc. I switched to an alternate bar and it actually started cutting. Spent some time this afternoon cutting up a maple tree that will be burner wood probably and also my dad got a call that the guy brought a load of oak logs. I wanted to replace the rim sprocket on the chainsaw because it's getting worn but the piston stop I bought is plastic, it was taking too much force to remove the clutch drum and I was worried about the plastic breaking and getting into the piston which would be a big pain to get out. The small chainsaw is still out of order, so we might take that to someone to fix, it runs for 15 seconds and then shuts off no matter what, so mystery. I wonder about finding a small engine repair course of some sort, we have chainsaws, weedwackers, pumps, generators, snowblowers all here on the farm. They break a lot. Could be our maintenance. We are running for more straw tomorrow afternoon. 

My farm business stuff is progressing. I haven't really talked about it much, but it is happening. My parents attorney did all the paperwork for me, so now I have the EIN and operating agreement, which I'll need to set up banking accounts and go to other businesses for things. My parents are currently footing the expenses until that's all set up, but we are considering it an operating loan for now. I need to do research on the banks/credit unions and figure out who will be good to work with. We are getting back to weekly farm transition meetings so much discussion of things is happening. I am taking a six week webinar on farm insurance. thrilling stuff

things melted last week and everything was mud, so I got a couple days break from spreading straw. weirdly, my problem elbow hurt more when I wasn't using it constantly than when I was. Not sure what's up with that. The temperature dropped again, so the ground froze again. Did another load at dawn this morning but discovered a belt had worn weirdly on the shredder, so I need to run to town today and get a new one before we shred more. 

The pottery class I was going to take isn't actually available on Wed, their only evening hours are mondays from 5-8 and they only just updated that on facebook and haven't emailed me back. I'm busy that night, so that's out. I could theoretically do day classes but with how short the days are, any daylight is needed for work hours especially if I need extra warmup time between morning and afternoon. ETA: I found another studio with wed classes and easier signup procedures. done.

 I did go to spinners guild on sunday and it was a gosh dang delight including one of the longer term guild members coming this time who is queer in so many ways and everyone was lovely to him. It was so so so nice and relaxing. I think for the next meeting I'm going to get either my electric wheel battery up and running or take my smaller wheel and start an alpaca spin on it. My CPW is too big and loud for the space we've been meeting in. I got there right at 1pm and was still one of the later arrivals, so clearly I need to get there even earlier :)

We have started the wood stove indoors back up, so that's nice. I missed it. We ran out of wood that size and it had gotten warm, so there was less point in running it. Dad got on the roof and cleaned the chimney out while it was off, so that was nice and split some of the wood at the rental into wood stove size for both their house and mine. 

I did kickstart my parents into doing work on their house! I sanded their office floor and then mom cleaned it and we sealed and finished it together. Definitely one of those times where it would have been faster with just one person, but so be it. My dad has been working on their living room wall drywall which is next in line. They do have renters moving into the rental Feb 1, so there is painting to be done there, plus some other small misc stuff. Parents' house also needs paint so I will be helping with some amount of painting. I didn't do drywall in my upstairs bathroom yet as expected, but I'm planning to later this week when dad is around to help me move the drywall outside to cut and then upstairs to get in place. They do have an extremely firm deadline of house renovations of June when my dad's college buddies are coming to visit, so there's that. We did discover that nice foosball tables are extremely heavy and it would be good to have more than two people to get it in a bilco basement door. I didn't get squished but it was very very heavy. After we got it down there, my dad said, you know, I think it did say something about being over 200lbs. hmm. thanks dad. Although we would have had to get a cousin or something to come help, which my parents are slightly allergic to asking for help, so I dunno if that would have happened anyway. We do have a vague plan to get the floor done which is good and there is progress happening. Given my parents hated the smell of the seal and finish, we are waiting to move them into the house until the living room/dining room/kitchen are all sealed and finished. 

Winter is one of those times where I am just sleepy a lot, so I do accept this as a fact of life but also am fully aware that I am relatively isolated from the local area. In NY, I had an established friend groups, I had places I could go when I wanted a little socializing or crafting with folks, all sorts of things. Here I don't have any of that, so I'm trying to find something. Over the summer, I was so busy with the farm that I didn't really notice, but now I really can tell. To be fair, I have three nights a week where I have weekly social opportunities, but they are all digital. I know I need to push myself and get out there but it's hard and farm work is a bit unpredictable with when we need to run for straw and things. So spinners guild was excellent. I'm hoping to go to a meetup this saturday, although I'll be missing gaming with Jade that night for it. I need to do something thur/fri nights. And maybe some saturdays during the day. Hmm.

Holidays were very good

• hung out with family and their dogs
• we did a puzzle that friend of a friend of my SIL made of their painting - it was very good and difficult
• had friends visit on their way south, they brought their dogs
• played a random series of games - exploding kittens, oh hell (family fav), some kind of game about guessing on a scale, ransom notes, some kind of imposter game. most party games aren't to my taste, but I did like exploding kittens
• new years day family party which was nice
• I pulled all my stash out organized it and it is mostly put away
• I made peanut butter chocolate chip cookies and they were so good
• I made tacos for the friends that stopped by and it was good 
• went for many walks - christmas day with the cousins, twice with sibs and the dogs, friends around the farm
• I brought some furniture, my CPW and the two extra boxes of yarn stash that I didn't know I had from the shed and am now more optimized for crafting and can watch tv on the big screen while I do it
• finished upstairs bathroom floor - drywall next
• started journaling my feelings in a little physical notebook
• made a dr appointment for next week
• my brother bought me anno 1800 - time sink it's very good if confusing
• my brother and SIL came overnight because they realized their ski lesson place was closer to here and so brought their dogs for two days and I got to hang out with the dogs which was very good

today, I spread two loads of straw - person spreading counts as the one putting the bales in the shredder, not the driver. driver has easy job. we go 1.5mph and a bale goes 50 ft or so. the cart behind the shredder holds 50 bales or so. I'll try and have my mom get a video, it's very fun and decently difficult farm task. then I finishing sanding my parents office at their house. I was supposed to run for groceries and supplies from hardware store but after straw and sanding I am tired and don't want to. Might do that and baking tomorrow. 

I am attempting to motivate my parents on their renovation by just simply doing parts of it for them. this is working okay so far. I need to pick up a spackle bucket. not a bucket of spackle but something for holding the spackle because my dad used it for floor patch in the rental and it apparently because extremely solid in the container. spackling and sanding is next for them and as soon as I get my drywall pieces up in the upstairs bathroom, I will be spackling and sanding. 

In theory my parents are moving their bedroom over this week, the reality is that my dad went to urgent care today to get something with his jaw looked at. I have been working with an attorney on business stuff. there's a lot going on and I'm very tired right this minute so I might get my heated blanket and take a nap in my comfy chair and then crafting tonight, can't wait for more crafting

I thought I did more of these, but the last one was Sept 1st and honestly, Sept and Oct might as well not even have existed for all that I can remember really what happened.

Previous goals:

• finish knitting the sweater because then I can wear it. I really want to wear it - I got to the cuff ribbing, tried the sweater on and realized that I hadn't done decreases on the arms, so I had to rip them back to the elbows.
• spin! - did some spinning! Finished an 8oz skein of yarn of pretty stuff, spun 4 oz of grey merino singles, spun 4 oz wensleydale singles
• weave! - finished weaving the project on the loom! Tied off the warp ends so I hopefully can tie a new warp onto it
• sew! - coat is getting extremely close to done, like I could wear it now. Topstitching and buttons are the only things left
• pull out, clean and finish the great wheel while the weather is nice - lmao no
• process fleece - I finished processing a fleece!
• other - crafting room is partially set up and a Great Sorting is in progress. I went to a fiber festival even though it was inconvenient timing. Put together 25 items to take to the weavers guild show and sale and sold around half of them. I was reunited with my CPW and immediately started spinning on it. I missed it so much.

8 oz of 80/10/10 merino/bamboo/nylon spun up as a two ply yarn. Originally for weaving, I washed it and sold it at the weavers guild sale. 1150 yards. It was really pretty but I didn't think I'd actually do anything with it. The colors in this photo are very bad but I dug through my pictures and couldn't find any good ones.

( Read more... )

January crafting goals

• finish weaving yarn inventory - spreadsheet already set up and entry started
• get loom into crafting room
• spin! and ply the two things I've got languishing
• knit the sweater, maybe try and finish it? I've got two crochet projects that I want to make
• finish the coat?!?!?!
• hang some art on the crafting room walls

Monday I painted the crafting room. I hadn't mean to get it all done but that's what ended up happening. My parents keep making cracks about leaving the house then coming home to me finishing a project, to which I go, hmm unlikely but what if

and then doing it

I taped all the important bits, cleaned the room out and rolled the walls in the afternoon while the light was good. I had been planning on doing a test corner to make sure I liked it and when I let it dry and I liked the color a lot, I just got a move on. I took a decent amount of breaks during the day, so painted the detail work during crafting that night, the edges near the windows, corners, near the ceiling and above the windows. Then I stayed late on the call and re-rolled the big areas for a second coat since it had dried by then.

Tuesday morning as soon as the light was good, I did touchups to all the places that I had missed, which wasn't too much. It wasn't actually noticeable from a distance but if you were close, it was possible to see the tan. Then I split more wood to get the pile of logs finish off. The creek down at west has frozen over far earlier than expected, so we won't be able to get a tractor across to skid logs from that hill. We have plans to go on the back hill at the main farm and get some trees from there. 9/25 bags for maple processing and a half tote for house wood. We think there's some basswood in one of the hedgerows that is shading future christmas tree fields, so we are going to take that down for wood.

This post has pre-paint photos. Room all painted. It's a very good color, in sunlight, it is more purple/blue and at night, it is more blue/grey. I like it a lot! It's lighter in person, the phone camera struggles.


( more house renovation details )

I attempted to do social things twice this weekend and neither attempt happened. Saturday was an SCA event, but I looked at the weather and our wood levels and decided that I needed to split wood on Saturday instead. It was the only day that even approached near freezing, it hovered around 30F with only a little wind. In contrast, yesterday was 25F with 10-20 mph winds. Freezing cold, I was displeased, today is also supposed to be windy.

So Saturday, I split wood. I had to chainsaw a lot of the logs as I went since the bobcat can only pick up 16 foot lengths and the logs we had delivered were 32. That warmed me up nicely for sure. Nothing wanted to start and run well since it was so chilly first thing in the morning. Once I did that, I started with our outdoor burner wood, I split big logs into big chunks in the back of the dump trailer. This is probably two weeks of wood. We split this pretty much as big as we can lift, although I like a eight inch diameter log to be split in half for ease of throwing into the burner. Once it gets heavier, it is hard to throw it to the back of the burner. 



( cut for more wood info and house renovation fun )

we took two small truck loads of things over to the fun house in the past week and we are working on getting my parents' office stuff over there in the next few days, which will actually happen! They are taking this very seriously finally which is super appreciated. I feel like I'm not helping enough but my job is to carry things and boxes to the vehicle and into the house, not to pack their things. My mom keeps asking me about their stuff though, "did you want to keep this counter/cabinet/applicance???" and every time I just say "if you want to take it, take it, if you don't want to take it, I will figure it out" which I don't know that it is helpful to her but I also can't deal with managing this anxiety spiral stuff. She has been diverted into having anxiety about christmas gifts since my siblings finally sent their gift lists. "is hardcover or paperback better??? they're the same price, which one should I get him???" jesus. I'm trying to figure out a way to tell her this is not a normal level of anxiety. 

We did get the rental flooring completed Sunday, which is great, there's still a bunch of stuff to do, putting trim back on, some other minor things but we are working on all sorts of things. I am looking at the upstairs bathroom in the farm house, which needs drywall and flooring before the toilet and sink can go in, but I got my mom to order the flooring at least. That should be coming this week. I need to learn to do drywall which doesn't look difficult just tedious. I mentioned this to my mom and was subjected to a whole rant about spackling. to which I said, "okay" 

saturday nights, I have a standing hangout with former roommate Jade, where we watch the Great British Baking Show. We did a rewatch in the past year or so until this new season came out and then we've switched to playing co-op stardew. When we watch things, we do discord text chat but when we play games, we hop on voice. I guess I never really got into the frustrations with living with my parents very deeply via text because I mentioned a couple things that had been frustrating me and she said that I wasn't being unreasonable and it all sounded really really irritating and unreasonable of them. I know you all have been reassuring me but I couldn't really tell if I was being persnickety but Jade lived with me for 8 years, so she knows what I'm like so it was nice to get someone's perspective on it that knows me a little better. I couldn't tell if I was just being a bad roommate because I felt a little like this with F in NY as well. But I suspect I have just been living with incompatible roommates lately. I do miss living with Jade, it was really nice to live together if not long term viable due to life plans. I need to try and find someone to move in within ten years or so, I suspect I will not do well living on my own longterm. 

Today we are getting anywhere from 1 to 4 inches of potential snow, ice and/or rain depending on location so that will be interesting. I'm going to do some outdoor work this morning and some baking this afternoon.