That Time Of Year
Yearend Vacation, Mandatory time off, call it what you want...
Saturday 12/19 it's damned cold this morning -1 Degrees F opened the back door to let the dogs out, Zebulon went out on his own he's got thick fur, Hannah wouldn't go out until Rosie went out with her. Pellet stove and furnace are both running this morning desperately trying to keep up. Once the sun came out this morning it did warm up to 26 degrees.
Rose made Banana bread today, yum!
Deer are still coming in nightly, they just plow right through the 20" of light stuff we got on Thursday.
First Day of Winter 12/21/2020
The 2020, winter solstice falls on December 21. The Farmer’s Almanac explains
that the date is always December 21 or 22.
We had a kitty visit here on the farm, this cat, Bobcat or domestic though we're thinking domestic because this cat walked all over the farm literally, there were paw prints everywhere, up and down the pathways, out in the deeryard, over to the barn and down to the workshop. Bobcats do come through, but they stick to the margins of the property usually.
Interesting Story if you have a few minutes read this about Honest Abe stopping a murder.
Rosie saw some big prints over by the shed I need to go take a look and get a few pics.
We went out to see if we could see the planet alignment, it was cloudy in that direction. Maybe in another 800 years, lol.
Dec 24th It's here, dog bath day... Hannah will get a bath finally today.
May the Christmas season fill your home with joy, your heart with love and your life with laughter. Wishing you a very Merry Christmas, and we look forward to seeing you in 2021.
Halfway through December
Has anyone else’s gardening skills improved during this quarantine like mine have?
I planted myself on the sofa at the start of April, and I’ve grown bigger ever since.
Our 2021 garden catalogs should start arriving momentarily. Always good reading and dreaming on a cold winter night. Our first 2021 seed order was placed last weekend and I just got an email saying the order is on its way! Yay! Our seed order has arrived! More seed catalogs on the way always on the hunt for the perfect tomato.
Snow yesterday 12/17 they were saying 6-10" then upped it to 8-12" then 12-16" and we finally ended up with a whopping 20" of snow. We spent a good couple hours cleaning up the snow, we snow blow the front yard so that we can pull the cars up, and of course we clear the deer yard too. We were a little worried, our plow guy usually shows up early then at the end of the storm, he did come right as the snow was stopping around 3pm so all's good.
The deer yard is surprisingly bust with the deer coming in from 2-3 directions.
The dogs are having a blast in the snow
We have some clean-up to finish up today, the cars still need to be cleared off, and some shoveling at the workshop too.
Have to start thinking about vehicle inspections this month we can get inspected up to a month early...
Stay warm...
Later!
Is it over yet?
The November Nightmare!
We still don't know who'll be president here in the US, Biden and Trump have both claimed the presidency... The news is giving it to Biden before it is certified/verified or whatever we are calling it... Trump is suing several states for mismanaging the votes. Oh what fun...
Last of the never ending Fall chores, we put the boat away on Saturday, bungieing a tarp on it and putting it in the Carport we use in summer for equipment, then we were off to vacuum the remaining leaves from the yard using the mower with the bagger attached creating huge clouds of dust. If you don't mow them up they'll kill the grass.
 |
| Crazy Bat |
Two BIG lab males a Chocolate and a Yellow strolled into the yard, of course no License tags, one of the dogs has a valid 2020 rabies tag though, I took a pic of it and we're going to call the vet listed there on the tag. Hannah wasn't impressed and barked the entire time, we managed to corral them along with our neighbor Gary into our enclosed garden, just then the dogs owners drove by in a pickup, they jumped out grabbed the two dogs, and were off... That never happens, we usually end up with a few strays every year... normally having to hold the dogs in a pen or barn until animal control, or the police can get here, or we end up taking them to the town shelter until their owners arrive.
 |
| Hannah & Zebulon |
We were sitting admiring our raking and mowing job on Saturday when I saw a cat walking across the neighbors yard, "Look a cat" I said to Rose, "Bobcat she said, no tail..." I took a quick pic with my phone and yeah its a crappy cell phone pic... You can just barely make out the Bobcat kitten in the pic (just above center in the opening between the gazebo and garden fence in the pic below).
We put a tarp cover on the Camper today, Rose coated the roof in the spring but we don't want to take a chance, the tarp is cheap insurance.
While we were looking at the Bat I couldn't help noticing the huge load of pine cones in our pines. Lets hope this isn't a forewarning of the winter we're going to have.
VETERAN'S DAY
Thank you Veterans. Thank you to all those who served! Thank you to those who died protecting our freedoms.
That's all for now!
The Well Saga of 2020
The water well saga, continues here on the homestead
I
heard the pump kick on a couple times the other night, we only hear it when we're running something and we weren't, so I went down
cellar and I hear a hissing sound over by the well pump. I assumed we were
sucking air as the water levels in the state are bad with this drought, I found there was a hole in the housing where it had rusted out. (too much sand being
sucked up?). I shut it down for the night and powered it off, we went to Home Depot the
next morning and purchased a new one. $300 later I had the new pump and expansion tank.
 |
| The newly installed pump |
As this was out 4th pump in 20+ years I was determined to make the change out process faster and easier. Off to Ace hardware to pick up some new pieces, mainly a union and a reducer, the union will allow me to disconnect the pump from the inlet pipe from the The reducer will allow me to install a Shark Bite connector to the outlet side of the pump from the PEX piping we installed last year in a few seconds too. I am assuming that I'll be able to disconnect the power in about 5 minutes so all told it should be a 20 minute job to completely replace the entire system next time, let's hope there isn't a next time though...
So I primed the new pump and is started drawing water Yay! Our hopes were dashed though as it was pulling up mud and sand... then stopped working.
Saturday was overcast and humid as hell, we were off to the well to have a look to see why we were getting sand and silt. Eversource called, our power would be out for 4 hours to make a repair somewhere, great, no water, and no power...
The wild roses had completely overtaken the well, I'd brought my Machete assuming the worst and I was right, I went and got a couple snow shovels so we could take al the leaves and debris off the partially collapsed well cover. Rose walked back and got a couple loppers even then it took us an hour or so and numerous ouch, ouch, ouch from the damned thorns to get the wild roses all hacked back and away from the well so we could begin work.
You could see where a couple of the 2"x6" boards that made up the well cover had rotted and fell into the well as there was a small puddle of water in the tarp cover with a frog in it on top.
We slow pulled back the cover revealing more rotted boards that had to be carefully extricated so they too didn't fall into the well. Rose saw the yellow rope used to keep the foot valve down towards the bottom of the well and noticed the rope was cut, I could see saw the rope against the left side of the well heading down the side of the well and into the water, somehow the rope though severed didn't fall in the water, that would have made the job a lot harder. I grabbed the end and tied it back to the other end, whew!
 |
| The Well |
Looking down into the well we could see the water level was way down but it appeared there was still 4 feet of water at the bottom, there was a good 12' or so to the top of the water.
It appears that a board fell on that rope causing it to pull the water line and one way foot valve down to the bottom of the well and into the mud. The foot valve at the end of the water pipe keeps the pipe full of water so we're not pulling water al the way from the well each time we ask for water. I was able to temporarily relocate the water line and foot valve a foot or so off the bottom where it belongs.
Tired and sore, we finished up covering the well with some leftover metal roofing panels for the night. Back to the house, still no power, changed out of our dirty, wet, and sweat drenched clothes, no power and no water meant no shower, we were both exhausted. Power came back on at 4pm I started up the pellet stove to take the chill off the house and decided to take a quick nap, two hours later it was time to see if I could get the pump to go.
The priming process is simple really, you need to fill the pump housing and completely fill the water line all the way from the house to the well by pouring water into a priming tee at the pump inlet, luckily we had 6 or so 4 gallon jugs of water ready for when we lose power in the basement. Priming the line took all 6 of the 4 gallon jugs, several hours pouring water down the water line and 8 or so frustrating tries of turning the pump on only to have the pressure fall back to zero again time after time. FINALLY it took apparently we finally got enough water into the line and water poured out of the bathroom sink upstairs YAY!
 |
| The well cover on, we'll come back and trim the excess from around the cover later. |
The Birds, sparrows are playing house this morning.
A Busy Weekend
Been a busy couple of days
Septic tank was pumped out Friday, Zebulon was less than impressed...
We picked up the boys Saturday morning.
FROST
A forgotten post... it was stuck in drafts...
September 22nd frost last night 4th night in a row.
Fall chores in full swing, Rose took the Cabana down for the year
Hummingbirds have gone south
Still no rain in sight, the well is holding so far, knock on wood...
Our well appears to be dry at this point, a local pond on Rt 114 is completely dry, no water at all, all you can see is mud. Went down to our pond yesterday we still have a small volume of water in it, but with no wet weather in sight we're still concerned.
Rose and I took a drive up to Hogback Mt. last week, nice view.
October already!
Our water well issues continue, we'll have some water in the morning not so much after that. The Laundromat is our friend now. Times have changed, I remember $1.25 per load it's now $4.00 per load in the commercial machines, these things do a load in 23 minutes flat though so because we can still dry all of our clothes at home we're in and out in 30 minutes.
Strikes me funny what impresses me as I get older, how fast a clothes washer is, or how efficient the new 1.4 gallon toilet upstairs is...
Jarrod's Birthday today as I write this on Oct. 1st, he's 38 years old!
Our pond is still really low (therefore our dug well). Our pond is normally 80' across, now is probably 20' across. The water level must be down 12-16 feet. Our well is stone lined 9 feet in diameter and 19 feet deep, that's 9,042 gallons, normally a lot of water.
 |
| This is for Lisa, the stuff works great on Poison Ivy! |
We've had four frosts since mid September time to pick the Kale still in the Garden.
Friday evening October 2nd went food shopping, Market Basket was packed, not sure if this is the 2nd panic wave the news is talking about, the checker said it had been like this since 9 AM that morning. the shelf stockers were busy but most stuff seemed in good supply.
I think our fall color is about done, we drove a bit north to Concord Saturday the 3rd and found mostly browns and very muted colors there.
We'll start raking leaves today, oh, Hell No, no raking of leaves we'll be using the bagger on the mower to vacuum them all up and put them in the garden. Two hours later the yard is all Vacuumed up! We'll have to do it again in two weeks as the Maples haven't lost all their leaves yet.
Zeb likes the leaves more than Hanna does
Rose is cutting back and pulling the weeds out of the various flower beds around the house and found this little toad had dug himself in for the fall.
We have a little friend on the back porch. Sparrow that sits up under the back porch roof, he's there every night, and every morning when I let the dogs out before morning light.
LOL
So, I've been trying to get the blog post alerts working and I think I got it. BUT, You have to follow by email! It's on the upper right side of my Blog screen.
LOOKS LIKE THIS!
Put in your email address, push submit, that'll subscribe you!
That's really all...
Fixing the yard hill: Tuesday we're got 8 yards of 3/4" crushed stone, and 18 yards of loam delivered to fix a lot of sloped are...
.JPG)
