Finally an update

It looks like it has been a while since I have posted anything so I guess it’s about time for me to do so! I haven’t forgotten or lost interest in writing but I just don’t pack this almost worn out dinosaur of a laptop over to Kyle and Jenifer’s place in order to use the internet much anymore, not only do I not get enough emails to make it worth the trouble (meaning almost zero emails) but I just have so many other things I need to be doing!

I haven’t really been doing anything of any great interest, mostly weeding or fencing or mowing. There seems to be no end of the mowing that needs to be done, I guess I don’t need to do any of it but I sure like the way it controls ticks, mosquitoes and weeds as well as how it makes the place look somewhat neat and tidy, so I persist day after day with my little 21 inch mower and by the time I get over everyplace that I mow it is time to go back to the beginning and start over with the grass that is already too tall to mow easily. The gasoline consumption is enormous, especially when I include the weed eater.

Weeding is somewhat under control so far, which is a good thing because if I can keep the weeds out until it starts to dry out in July or August I will have a much easier time of things. There are still plenty of Canada thistle working their way through my strawberry and potato patch, which is a big problem for me because Canada thistle is my worst weed enemy, I hate it more than any other weed around here, I can stand a few mustard plants or wild oats or even a little quackgrass here and there but one thistle plant really upsets me.

The new additions to this farm (being the pigs and a dog) are really providing a lot of entertainment for me since they have arrived, especially the pigs! Pigs are one animal that I have never had experience with so this is an all new thing for me, so far I really like them though fencing them in looks like it will be a challenge. They are hilarious, the latest trick being their little hideout under the floor mat in the stock trailer. I have them in there because there is no way they can get out and it is giving me a chance to get a better fence built as the first one I tried didn’t work for long. Today when I opened the door to water them all I could see was a big bump in the mat and two noses sticking out one end and two tails wiggling out of the other! Usually they run away like I am the scariest thing on earth but this time for whatever reason they thought their hideout was safe and they didn’t move. I put some grass in front of them (they love grass) and they ate like I wasn’t even there. Soon I’ll need to find a boar for them to visit so I can have loads of babies that will hopefully root up weeds and eat up the extra junk grain and other waste I have around here as well as work over the compost piles.

After the deer decided that my garden and orchard was a good place to have a superhighway I figured there was nothing else to do but to get a dog, after every other thing I tried failed to work completely, I would get rid of two and five would seem to take their place and they weren’t scared of me at all anymore, I could jump and wave and yell like a fool and they might walk into the trees a little bit and then stare back at me like they were expecting a handout. I put blood meal all over every plant and they seemed to dislike that enough to leave those plants alone so the garden still is looking good even though everything has been trampled a few times, at least it’s not all eaten to the ground. So far with the blood meal, the dog, and my filthiest and sweatiest clothes hanging around the garden I haven’t had them destroy anything yet! Our family has had a long list of problem dogs from car chasing to chicken eating and my pet peeve of making a bed in my prize flower bed or trampling the entire garden. As a result I have not wanted to get a dog because I am not used to good ones but I finally did and I am so glad I did as this is a really nice one, so far I can’t complain about a single thing other than that she is scared of the cows but I think she will get over that soon enough.

Oh, before I forget, the most useful and most wished for upgrade around here is almost up and running! Indoor plumbing with hot and cold water is one of the very few modern conveniences that I absolutely love and never want to do without, today I finished cleaning up the old pump, bolted it down again, built a new rod to transfer the power, added a new belt and I robbed the engine from the garden tiller to test everything out. It worked! I stood there with the pipe gushing the clear, icy cold and wonderfully good tasting water and the drudgery of almost 8 months worth of hauling buckets and jugs of water in the back of the car just seemed to vanish and all I could think of doing was singing! The pump is about as old as pumps can get and it has sat unused and partially under water in a 14 foot deep brick room for the past 25 years, who knows how long it was in service before they quit using it. I figured I would for sure have to buy a new submersible deep well pump and use a generator to power it so this super simple and reliable, cheap (free), and easy to use pump is more than an answer to prayer, it’s a blessing heaped up, beaten down and running over! The second huge blessing is that the well has good drinkable water, most of the water around here is so salty it’s impossible to drink or wash anything in unless you want a scum of salt on whatever you are washing; clean dishes are not possible unless you wipe every one very thoroughly and even then there is still a scum, it appears that this well is not like that and I’ll be able to have the spot free dishes that I like so well, without having to scrub and wipe and pretend that I don’t see the remaining scum.

Right after I got the well going I put the last piece back on the tractor and got that working so it has really been a productive day! I think I mentioned when I bought the Farmall H tractor a while back and it has sat here all of this time while I did other things but now I need it so it became time to figure out what it needed to get it into running condition. Before I got it it had sat outside for over 6 years so I knew there was going to be some work involved in starting it, I put new points in, cleaned all of the magneto connections, plug wires etc because everything was covered in corrosion. After trying the starter and finding that it had a broken spring for engaging the gear I thought I would try pulling it so I gave it a little gas and pulled it and it popped a little so I knew it would be worth going further. I took the carburetor apart and cleaned out the old gas and crud and then hooked up the gas line properly, put some gas in and then I couldn’t try starting it because Kyle was gone and couldn’t help me tow start it. I figured I could try and make a hand crank because there was no way I was going to find that spring for the starter at the local parts store and I didn’t want to wait until I could order it so I went to the barn to look through the old parts to see what I could find. It appears that there was a similar tractor here at some point because I found loads of parts for it just sitting there on the shelf! A belt pulley, a factory hand crank, tune up parts and even the starter spring I needed! Out of curiosity I took the hand crank over and tried it to see how hard it would be to turn the engine over with it and surprise! It started! After driving it around the yard a little I put the starter back together and installed that but it’s ridiculously easy to start it by hand so I haven’t bothered with scrounging a battery for it yet to use the electric start, I prefer simple things and it’s hard to get more simple than a hand crank start. One day when I go to town I’ll buy a new 6 volt battery for it but in the meantime I’ll just do without.

I’ve been reading a book about “super successful” farms called ‘Creating Abundance’ by Hiram Drache, and it’s really quite interesting to read a different perspective than the one I usually do. This book is giving glowing reports of mega factory farms that have a personal banker that is almost like a member of the family. I’ve noticed one common thread is that all of these farms borrow millions and millions of dollars and get bigger and bigger until they cease to be a family farm and are a great big corporate conglomerate puppet of the banks and chemical companies (who are two peas in the same pod). This is what is touted as being successful, bigger, more debt, more cash flow, more employees, a better benefit package for the employees, more land (all mortgaged), more cows being milked more times per day or more steers in that feedlot or more pigs in that barn or more acres in crops. To me it sounds like a nightmare and if that is what it takes to be successful then I don’t want to be successful! I guess I have a different definition of success than the author of this book (and most people I am sure) and a far different definition of wealth to go along with it! Their definition of wealth seems to be whoever can borrow the most money is the wealthiest. I actually know people who calculate their net worth by how much money they can borrow! I can’t seem to figure how they compute that but they do somehow. Scripture says that it is God that gives us the ability to obtain wealth and I have yet to see Him bent over a printing press making up one hundred dollar bills. I have however, noted that He gave us land, animals, seeds, air, water, sun and a mind and body with which to make use of those things. I can’t quite feel peaceful about putting my trust in the worldly form of wealth which is just debt anyway.

Well, I guess summer is here! I know because I am typing with one hand and slapping mosquitoes with the other; slapping mosquitoes is a summer project that usually keeps me busy day and night. I have yet to figure out why God made such misery causing creatures, I wish I could think of one good thing to say about them but I can’t.