having the right tools makes all the difference in the world

Testing it out: new folding wagon

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With having to use a wheelbarrow to haul things from the basement to the barn, one of the things I really wanted to do this pay period was pick up a utility wagon of some kind.

Yesterday, at Costco, I found one. Today, I got to break it in!

Ideally, I would have picked up one of the types with rigid metal mesh sides and bottom, with removable sides. They cost about $250, though, which was not in the budget this month. Instead, I picked up a folding version with fabric lining, which has almost the same dimensions as the metal version I was looking at.

While I ran into town to run errands, the girls assembled it and left it waiting for me in the garage, so I could test it out.

It folds up to a nice, compact size, and it quite light.

It isn’t visible in this photo, but there is a loop in the middle of the wagon to pull on to fold it up again. On the handle, near the frame, is a lever that lets you adjust the handle length. In the first photo, you can see a red button on one side of the handle. That is the release button to unlock the handle for use.

I picked up a lot of larger, heavier things while running errands. One of the reasons I chose this specific wagon is because it’s rated to 300 pounds. Normally, I would have had to drive into the yard and unload at the house. Instead…

… I got almost everything in the wagon!

I did have to use the neck of one of the two 18L water bottles to hang bags off of, and had one last bag I needed to carry, but I was able to get everything from the van to the house in one trip. This included a 20kg (44 pounds) bag of bird seed and, along with the big water bottles, a couple of gallons of distilled water for my husband’s CPAP humidifier, and a 12 pk of cola, on top of everything else.

It did a great job of rolling all that over the rough ground to the yard; only the one Amazon box ended up falling off part way through.

This would have made hauling all that stuff to the barn SO much easier! We’re going to get a lot of use out of this.

Because it is fabric sided, though, we plan to cut a board to fit on the bottom. One of the things we expect to use it for is to roll 5 gallon buckets of water around the garden, once we start transplanting things. Having a “floor” will be a help with that.

Oh, and the Amazon box that fell of had this in it.

Yay!!!

It will be some weeks before we need to use the soil auger, but I’ll be putting one of those soil testers in the garden bed we’re working on as soon as I can!

It has been a very productive day today – and it’s only half over. Much better than trying to get things done in the city, yesterday!! And no snarky people. Not one.

One of the things I picked up today was a bottle of white wine. Historical Italian Cooking released another video recently, and I am really looking forward to trying it!

The Re-Farmer

My new toy

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After bringing my mother home from the hospital yesterday (I called her this morning and she is doing well today, and did not have any episodes during the night), I’d gone to the hardware store in her town to pick up the paint we needed to finish the replacement door for the sun room.

I also got myself a new toy.

Since I am cutting so many slices from the lilac wood, and plan to do more with maple and cherry that I’ve set aside. I even have a couple more branches of lilac waiting outside, so I decided it was worth the splurge. With the kittens in the basement, I’m not as comfortable using loud power tools. I have hand saws that are done the job, but when I saw this saw – and its affordable price – I went for it.

This is a fine toothed, fine bladed pull saw. I hoped that it would cut more smoothly than the saws I was already using, so of course I had to test it out.

On the left are the round slices I’d cut using a regular carpenter saw, which is what I had that worked the best at the time. To the right are slices I cut using the new saw, in the miter box at 45 degrees. None of these have been sanded.

It’s hard to see, but the cut edges with the new saw are smoother than the other ones. They also didn’t leave that jagged edge that sometimes happens at the very end of a cut. The larger saw also left occasional black marks that need to be sanded away. So, right off the top, the new saw will save me on sand paper. I also splurged on sheets of sand paper in grits starting at 50, up to 220. The slices I cut with the old saw needed that 50 grit, but the new slices don’t need to be started with such coarse sandpaper.

There were a couple of other benefits I noticed. The sawing itself is quieter, which means less noise to disturb the babies nearby. It cuts faster, and with less vibration, so things are not being shaken off the shelf on the work table quite as much. :-D

The blade is so much thinner, there is less loss of wood as sawdust, and it’s easier to cut thinner pieces. However, this also means the blade bends more easily. Since it’s shorter than the other saw, I had to take greater care while sawing in the miter box, as the blade would sometimes bend and hit the inside of the miter box rather than go through the slot. After a while, because the piece of wood I was working on was wonky in shape, I started to use the miter box just to start a cut, then take it out and hold it in my hand to finish the cut. After a while, I didn’t even do that, and just eyeballed the angle and started it without a guide. I don’t know that I would have been able to do that with the other saw. Previously, I’d used the vice to hold the wood, but this branch had too many bends in it for the vice to be able to grip it.

As before, I use the last 3 1/2 inches of the branch to make lengthwise cuts in the miter box, and found an unexpected problem. Cutting the wood lengthwise resulted in sawdust clogging the teeth very quickly. I kept having to pull the blade out, remove the sawdust in the teeth, then make a few more passes before I had to do it again. So while cross cutting went faster than when using the other saw, cutting lengthwise took longer.

Of the branch I brought downstairs, I’ve now cut the two thickest sections into pieces. There are more smaller branches I’d taken off to work on later. I’m still thinking of what to make with the pieces I’ve already cut, but the smaller pieces will be of a size and weight suitable for earrings, so I know I will be making at least a few of those.

My new toy will make it much faster and smoother to cut the pieces to size. I hadn’t planned on getting a new saw, just for this project, but now that I have, I’m already glad I did. Definitely worth it.

The Re-Farmer

Progress: sun room door and garden stuff

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I got a little reminder today, of why I need to start using the sun room as a greenhouse.

The cats have already knocked the mini-greenhouse over once, and despite our best efforts at making sure the bottom of the plastic is pushed under the frame, the cats are determined to get in. Especially Susan! They’ve even clawed a hole in the plastic at one corner. As adorable as she was, taking a nap half in and half out, this is just not a good thing. :-(

The first order of business was to measure and cut the door down to size. We did remember to remove the hinges first, though. ;-)

I’m so excited. I got to use the chalk line we found in the basement to mark where I needed to cut! :-)

I also got to use the circular saw that was gifted to use last year. I’ve never actually used one before. With so many older brothers, I didn’t get to use a lot of the tools we had. Still, it’s pretty self explanatory.

I am, however, a lefty.

It wasn’t the straightest of cuts, but that’s okay!

When we put the hinges back on, we’ll make sure to line them up with the existing spaces on the door frame.

Speaking of which…

The door knobs on the replacement door turned out to be about half an inch off from the old door. So, while the girls scrubbed and cleaned the door, I removed the plate from the door frame, then measured off where it needed to be moved to. After a bit of hunting, I found a chisel and prepped the new location for the plate.

I won’t put the plate back on until the door is installed, in case I have to make any adjustments.

I also moved my seedling trays into the sun room.

The sun room has been reaching more than 20C (68F) during the day. It’s the night time temperature that concerns me a bit, which is why I also moved the mini-greenhouse in. The plastic cover will help keep heat in a bit, so the trays can be moved into there before it gets too chilly.

All clean! This is the outside of the door. It’s not in the best of shape, but it’s better than the old one, and will do just fine.

While it was drying, I decided to check out the future garden space where the old wood pile used to be. I figured I would use the potato fork and see how the soil is, where we covered it with black plastic.

The soil is amazing! The tines of the fork sank all the way into the soil. No ice in there at all, and it is so soft. It will be perfect for the beets and carrots we plan to plant there.

Except…

It’s also full of roots. You can see the dark pile to the side in the above photo; those are the cherry roots I’ve pulled up so far.

The area is just cris-crossed with cherry roots that we will need to dig out. I was also finding pieces of rotten pallet wood I’d missed last year, and some huge roots from the old spruce stumps nearby. We’ll need axes or saws to get those out.

Hopefully, the girls will be able to give me a hand and we’ll get this entire area free of roots tomorrow. Beets are supposed to be planted as soon as the soil can be worked, so as soon as we get it cleared, we can get those started. The ground is so soft that, when it comes time to plant, I’ll have to make sure to put boards between the rows to walk on, so I don’t sink. !!

That reminds me. I got a notice today that my soil tester and garden auger have been shipped and should arrive on Friday. The soil tester measures temperature, moisture and PH levels. The auger is a drill attachment, and we won’t need that until we’re ready to plant in the old garden area, probably in late May.

While I was working on this, my daughter came out with a respirator and a can of spray paint.

This is the same blue we used on the driveway gate. :-) It took an entire can to do two coats on this side.

Then, because it looked like it was going to rain, we made space in the sun room and brought the saw horses and door in to finish curing.

Tomorrow, we would normally head into the city for a big shop. Talking to the girls about it, we decided to wait a couple of days. Instead, I’ll go into town and pick up some more paint, so we can do the other side of the door.

Plus, takeout food. I am just dying for some takeout. :-D I have no idea where; the Chinese restaurant we normally go to is closed on Tuesdays, and the pizza place we order from doesn’t open until 4 pm.

There is, however, that fish and chips place that opened their summer time take-out window early, so they could stay open during the shut down. They’ve got the best pollock and fries I’ve ever tasted – and I don’t particularly like fish and chips in the first place! :-D

Oh, wow. I’m feeling hungry just thinking about it…

So tomorrow, we should be able to go the other side of the door, and get that garden area de-rooted.

The Re-Farmer

Our new toy

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First off, many thanks to Elfidd for mentioning using a snow rake in the comments of my last post. How did I not know about such a tool? After doing some searches and discovering not only what it was, but how affordable it was, I left early to pick up my daughter, so I could stop at the hardware store.

I got their last one. A telescoping version.

I’m extra glad I left so early, though. Road conditions had deteriorated quite a bit since this morning. All the areas that had blowing snow this morning, now had blowing snow over ice and snow – which was trying to melt and freeze at the same time! I was just driving through our little hamlet when I got a warning of what was to come – a car in the ditch! There was no one inside; between a farm house nearby, and our little town in the other direction, this person would be okay. Getting that car out of there is not going to be easy, though. :-(

Driving past it, I could see the car’s tracks. My guess is, as soon as the car hit the ice, it got blown off the road. The wind made driving on the ice more dangerous than the ice itself. (I’ve been eyeballing the trees around the house with trepidation all day!)

We will be leaving early, tomorrow morning.

Anyhow.

The snow rake needed to be assembled, and tools were needed, so I set up in the living room and started working on it.

In seconds after I got my wrench, my tool kit was occupied.

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What a silly girl!

I did, however, need to get to the tray of tools under her, so I got her off, moved the foam, took out the tray, moved the other piece of foam, got my pliers and…

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That girl is faaaast!

The assembly was much easier than reading the pictographic instructions. Yeesh! But I got it done!

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There’s my other helper! Silly boy! :-D

This will be very useful over the next couple of days. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Would you like to see my chainsaw collection?

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Oh, what a day!

It turned out rather longer than expected – and that was knowing we had multiple trips to make!

This morning, we headed out to pick up a snow blower (yay!) from the place my brother bought our riding mower from, in a fairly large town about 2/3s of the way to the city.

Since we were going to a small engine place, I remembered to bring the chainsaw collection in the garage, to see if any of them are salvageable.

In the process, I found another chain saw!

Continue reading →

Christmas in July!

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It’s a good thing we didn’t have much planned for the day, other than my daughter’s shift!

After dropping my daughter off at work, I was going to take advantage of being in town to play a bit of Pokemon Go and visit the beach before it got hot and the crowds came out.

Just as I was about to park, I got a call from my older brother.

My mother had had a problem with a tire yesterday, and he was worried it was going to be a problem today, when she had plans to drive to our sister’s.  He was willing to drive all the way out from his place (1 1/2 hours!) to check on it, but was I able to do it for him?

Of course!

After double checking that I had a tire gauge in my emergency kit (otherwise, I would have tried to buy one somewhere, first), I headed out.  I checked her tire, which was good, then stopped by to let her know.  Normally, I always call before visiting, so I was prepared to just let her know and go, but I ended up being able to visit for a bit before she headed to church.  She wouldn’t have gone to check her car (visually, only) until she left for church – or after church, since it’s just across the street, and she wouldn’t have gone by her car on the way – so it was much less stressful for my brother and I to do it this way, early! :-D

Once back home, I called my brother and his wife to let them know how it went, and as we were talking, they asked if we could use various things for the farm.  They were going through my SIL’s late mother’s stuff, and wouldn’t be able to keep them.  I happily said yes.

We ended up meeting in town after I picked up my daughter.  I expected a box or two.

Nope.

Five boxes.  Including a size large one!

I gotta say, it was like Christmas in July!

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A collection of saws, a circular saw (yay!!!) a drill kit, gardening supplies and more!

There were even LED Christmas lights – with a timer – that we can put outside.  I can use them to replace the old ones at the gate. :-D

I’d already unpacked one of the boxes before I took that photo.  It included…

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Two beautiful jewelry boxes!

I’ve long pined over a really well organized jewelry box, but could never justify the expense.  Now we have two!

My younger daughter took the darker one, as it matches something she already has, and I will finally be able to take what jewelry I have (which isn’t much, really, but still) out of the slide lock baggies that I’ve been keeping them in! LOL

And when we use these, I will always think of my SIL and her late mother, and appreciate them even more.

<3

The Re-Farmer

Windblown clean up, and finding things

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While cleaning up after yesterday’s winds, I did the usual circuit around the yard, including behind the storage house.

Funny how, no matter how many times we go through different areas, we still find things we missed before.

Somehow, I missed this.

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It looks like someone dumped the lava rocks from their BBQ behind the storage house.

My parents didn’t BBQ.  Though I do remember seeing several old BBQs in the barn at some point.  I believe they are all gone now.

Well, it’s better than old cat litter and toilets, I suppose.

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By the time I finished my round, this is what I’d picked up.

Yes, there is a wheelbarrow under there.

This isn’t everything, of course.  Just the stuff that was big enough that they would be in the way of mowing.  There will always be little stuff around.  I did end up getting a rake out to pick up what was under the Chinese elm outside the kitchen window.  They were all of a size I would normally leave behind, but there was so many of them, they would have hampered mowing, while also too small to be practical to pick up by hand.  That, alone, half filled the wheelbarrow.

Before I started cutting down the apple tree that fell, I checked the few raspberries we have, and found this lovely Painted Lady.

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I’d actually seen another, larger, butterfly first – I don’t know what kind – but it flew away before I could get a photo.  This, and another Painted Lady were quite content to stay and pose for me. :-)

After breaking down the fallen tree (oh, how good it is to have my little chain saw, and a supply of chain oil!), I took a look at the next closest apple tree.  It had a dead branch that I decided to take down as well, but on closer inspection, I noticed something.  This tree splits into 3 major trunks, one of which had split off to make a fourth that grew straight up.  The part that grew outwards had already been pruned back quite a bit, but did have new green branches growing out of it.  The part growing straight up was dead.  While I had noticed a few dead branches before, it was so hidden by the leaves of the rest of the tree, I didn’t see that the whole thing was dead.  I was able to cut it free and untangle it from the living branches, finding it much larger than I expected.   By the time I took off the dead branch, plus this dead trunk, the tree looked a lot less crowded!  Which should be good for the crab apples.  More light, air and room to grow.

While talking to my sister in law about their apple trees that they’ve been pruning back due to an insect infestation, she commented that apple trees seem to be very susceptible to problems.  Judging from what I’ve been seeing with ours, I tend to agree.  Thankfully, we don’t seem to have insect issues, but I don’t think the signs of fungus I’m seeing on so many of them is any better. :-(

Ah, well.  We deal with what we find!

The Re-Farmer

Window Frogs and awesome brothers

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My older brother unexpectedly came by today, and while I was outside with him, my daughter popped out to warn me that we cannot close the kitchen window right now.

We have a guest.

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It’s been sitting there for several hours, now!

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It is so CUTE!  I love my little green friend. :-D

A nice little surprise to add to a day with a much larger, amazing surprise.

One of the things that has been put on hold until the power is restored to the garage and barn is some work my older brother and his wife want to do in the barn so they can paint it.  So when my brother started talking about bringing over a compressor, I just assumed it was so they could use it in the barn somehow.  There used to be a compressor in one of the side sheds of our garage, and another in the barn, but both are gone – along with many other things, large and small.  Things have been disappearing for years, so even while my dad was still living here, my brother got into the habit of bringing everything he needed to fix things out here, because he couldn’t assume the tools and equipment he would need would still be around.

My brother ended up coming out to help our mom with something and, since he was so close and the compressor was already loaded in the truck, he came by to drop it off.

To my surprise, he didn’t want to unload it in the barn, but in the side shed of the garage.  This meant we had to move out the riding mower and a bunch of other things to clear the corner where the old compressor used to be, then he managed to back his truck in part way.  The space is just barely wide enough for the truck box, and my brother to still squeeze in.  I had intended to help at least somewhat, but I couldn’t fit.  I’m a fair bit wider than my marathon running brother! LOL  Which turned out to be handy, because I ended up being able to grab things for him from my side and pass it through.

Getting that thing unloaded was a huge job.  This thing is incredibly heavy!  But he got it in the corner and set it up.  Once he was able to, he moved the truck so I could come in, and he showed me various things about it, hooked up the hose and the new nozzle, with he had tested to ensure they worked (since we can’t test it here, until the power is hooked up).  He even drilled a hole through the wall so the plug could be passed through and plugged in in the main garage area, because it uses more power than is wired to the outlets in the shed.

At one point, we had to move things from the garage side of the wall, for access.  I have not done anything when it comes to cleaning and sorting the garage right now; we will probably work on that next spring.  So there is a lot there that I’ve never seen.

Including this strange thing with a hand grip, a long nozzle, and a hose.  I had to ask my brother, as I moved it out of the way; what is it?  Looking at it briefly, he said it was likely a torch.  Of the sort that was used to singe the hair off pig carcasses during butchering, though it could also be used for other things.  Very dangerous.  (At least it would be, if it were attached to a gas canister.)

So… It’s a flame thrower.

We have a flame thrower in our garage.  !!

Too funny!

As this was all getting done and he was showing me all these things about the compressor, I finally commented that I was surprised it wasn’t taken to the barn, since I though they were going to use it somehow when they cleaned and painted.

Oh, no, he tells me.  This is for me, in case we ever need to pump our tires.

!!!

I was totally stunned.  All that work to fix up the compressor, much of which was done after it was loaded into the back of the truck (it’s so heavy, it was easier that way), getting it out here, unloading it and setting it up, just so we could have a compressor, if we ever needed one!

I have the most awesome brother.

As we were talking about compressor, and how pleased he was with how little it ended up costing him to fix, I had to ask what a new one would cost.  One like this, he estimated about $1100, but the one that used to be there, he figured was worth about $2500.

!!!

On the one hand, I am so grateful for his generosity and amazed that he did this for us.

On the other, I am dismayed once again over the things that have grown legs and walked away over the years.

But now we have a heavy duty, industrial compressor, with working hose and nozzle (there are still hoses hanging on the wall, but some are missing their tips, and we’d have to test others to see if they were any good anymore; the good one that was being used, of course, is gone with the old compressor).

And I have the most awesome brother!

The Re-Farmer

So Excited

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My husband is awesome.

Amazing.

Kind, loving, fantastic, thoughtful, romantic.

He knows what makes my heart go pitter patter!

He got me an early birthday gift.   Kinda.  It’s not in yet.

Today included a late in the day trip to the city.  I was going to wait until after Canada Day to do the non-Costco grocery shopping, but I’ve learned there is a 24 hr Walmart in the city (except on Sundays; they close at 6pm on Sundays) and I have a planned trip there later in the month, so I figured now would be a good time to make sure I know the route, get the things I need, and still manage to miss out on the holiday weekend crowds.

There also happens to be a Home Depot basically across the street from it.

So after going online and narrowing down my birthday gift to 2 versions, my older daughter and I went into the city to look at them in the store and make a final decision.

After checking out various areas, we never found any version of it.

Eventually, I found a staff member at one of the computer terminals, talking to a customer on the phone, so I waited until she was done, then asked her about it.  She looked it up on the computer and…

… it’s only available through online ordering.

*sigh*

But, she tells me, there’s free shipping.  Delivery or pick up.

I mentioned we lived an hour’s drive north of the city, so I wouldn’t want to make another trip if I could avoid it.  Would they send it to the post office?  She wasn’t sure.

In the end, I decided to order it (she let me use the store’s computer until it got to the part where it needed her associate’s number! :-D ), plugged in our address and…

… does not accept box numbers.

Okay.  I took that out and left just our physical address.

Much to my amazement, it accepted everything.  At the end, it said that I would be notified by email when the order was ready to ship, and that I wouldn’t be billed until it was ready for shipping.

Cool.

We finish up, I thanked the poor, overwhelmed staff member profusely (SO many people came to her while I was inputting our info!), then walked away, looking around for my daughter.

I happened to have my phone out, so I saw right away when I got a notification from my banking software, informing me that my purchase just went through.

Looks like it’s in stock and ready for shipping!

If they really will deliver right to our home in the sticks, I foresee many more online purchases in the future!

Meanwhile, this is what I’m getting. 2018.birthday.gift

It’s a telescoping pole chain saw that converts to a regular chain saw.

*swoon*

I was really torn.  This version has an 8 inch blade and is only 6 amps, but the pole can be removed completely, and convert to a little electric chainsaw.  The other one I was looking at had a 10 inch blade, 8 amps, and you could pivot the blade head for angled cutting.

Both types extend to 15 feet.  Both are electric.  The one with the 10 inch blade was more expensive, of course.

In the end, I felt the ability to convert to a small chainsaw would be more useful than the extra blade length and power, or the ability to angle the blade head.  We have been intending to get one of the multiple chainsaws in our garage fixed, and we will still do that, but this way it’s not as much of a priority.  I might get one of the push mowers fixed right away, instead.

I can hardly wait for it to come in!!

<3 Did I mention my husband is awesome? <3

The Re-Farmer

I’m so thrilled!!!

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My older brother and his wife are the best.

Awesome.  Amazing.  Fantastic.  Fabulous.  Wonderful.

They came over for a visit today, and brought me an “early birthday gift.”

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AAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I actually started crying, when I saw them pull up with the trailer, and this was on the back.

They bought us a riding mower.  Fully refurbished, heavy duty enough to handle the work we’ll be making it do AND it is fully maintainable.  It can even tow a small trailer!

I am thrilled beyond belief.

Of course, we had to start it up and test it out, and before I knew it, I’d mowed an entire section of the lawn.

Apparently, I had a huge grin on my face the entire time.

They have been beyond generous, since even before we moved out here.  I am so incredibly happy and grateful!

I can’t wait until I can finish mowing the lawn.  Which might not be until Monday, as we’re expecting rain off and on.

When they left, they even took the push mower that needs a new carburetor, to fix.  And a gas powered weed trimmer to check over and hopefully get going.

I am so incredibly happy right now!

During their visit, we went around the yard to check things out (getting our feet completely soaked in the process, so we didn’t go beyond the yard).  While seeing what was done in the flower garden, my SIL spotted a lovely little surprise.

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One, lonely little asparagus spear. LOL There was a second one, about a foot away.  Who knows?  Maybe more will show up, eventually.

Nice to know they’ve survived.

We also went looking around to see if we could find the cherry trees my mother says are in the spruce grove.  It’s so overgrown with trees in that area, all about the same size, we never did find anything we could be sure was cherry.

There were a couple of other trees I’d noticed blooming a couple of weeks back, and I now know what they are.

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Saskatoon berries!

Yum!

These were on the list of food trees we want to have.  We might some day transplant them to a better location, but for now, I’m just happy that we have them.

So we know now for sure that we have chokecherries, Saskatoon berries, some raspberries (still need to clean that area up), gooseberries and chokecherries.  Hopefully, we’ll also have cherries.  Then there’s the rhubarb, horseradish and struggling little asparagus.

Which is pretty darn good, all things considered.

Me, I’m still grinning from ear to ear, over the riding mower. :-D

The Re-Farmer