My awesome, wonderful, lovely husband bought me a new toy that arrived in today’s mail!
Isn’t it beautiful?
I know, shortly after we moved here, I saw a draw knife in one of the sheds. I remember using it when I was a kid, stripping bark off of spruce logs. It was old and rusty when I found it, but I’m pretty sure it was still solid.
Now, I can find no trace of it. It’s just gone. I’m still positive I saw it, though. I just can’t remember where!
So my husband bought me a new one!
It’s really solid and wonderfully sharp. My husband made a quick and dirty leather sheath for the blade. Just a strip of heavy leather wrapped around it with snaps to hold it in place. He says he’ll make me a prettier one, later.
After all the running around yesterday, I wasn’t expecting to do more of it today!
However, my husband got a notification that a package of his was at the post office. At the same time, he got a call that his Purolator package was at their drop off in the town my mother’s in, because apparently they don’t drop off in the town closer to us.
He knew what the one at the post office was supposed to be, but had no idea what was being shipped by Purolator. We thought it might be the cast iron Dutch oven he ordered for me as an early Mother’s Day gift, but when I double checked, I confirmed it was coming by mail – and was supposed to arrive tomorrow. His expected package was going to be much, much smaller and lighter, too!
When the post office reopened for the afternoon, I headed there first. There turned out to be another package waiting for one of my daughters, plus a large, heavy box!
Not as heavy as I was expecting a cast iron pot to be, though. Plus, it came with a lid lifter that should have made for a longer box.
After loading the boxes up, I then drove to the town to pick up the Purolator package. The drop off was at an auto mechanic’s shop I’d never been to before. After telling the lady at the desk why I was there and showing my ID, she left to get the package.
When is when the most gorgeous, long haired calico came out to follow her until the door closed.
A friendly calico that came over and let me pet it!
I’m a sucker for cats.
The parcel turned out to be a large, flat envelop that weight basically nothing.
It turned out to be the package my husband was expecting at the post office.
So what was in the big box?
Well, it turned out to be my new Dutch oven after all!
So the skinny, virtually weightless package was sent by Purolator, while the big heavy item went by post!
The cats wouldn’t move to let me take pictures. 😀
Of course, everything was immediately covered in cat hair.
While the whole thing turned out to be lighter than I was expecting, my other surprise was how short the lid lifter is. Somehow, even with the photos, I thought it would be much longer. It’ll still make move the lid around much easier, than trying to manage with something else.
You can see the base of the carry bag, which is quite solid, plus it has the extra support from the straps that make the handles, wrapped all the way around.
I do like that lid design.
Do does Cheddar!
Well, one thing about the lid lifter being shorter than expected, is that it fits on the carrier, along with the pot itself.
The set also came with a thank you card, as well as care instructions in several languages.
The other side of the thank you card included the QR code to download the free recipe e-book for the Dutch oven.
Unfortunately, all I got was a message on my phone saying that it couldn’t open that type of link.
So I went to the website to see if I could find it there. While looking around, I did find a link to download a free recipe book, however it was for tortilla recipes. This place makes quite a lot of products, including quite a few for Mexican cooking. It took some searching before I found the Dutch oven we got. I did find their recipes section, and was eventually able to find their recipes for Dutch oven cooking. They also sell enamelled Dutch ovens, too, so the recipes were for both, but at least I found some.
I ended up using their contact form, told them what the issue I was having was, and asked if they could just email the e-book to me. We’ll see how that works out. Of course, it’s easy enough to find recipes for this type of Dutch oven. I recently took advantage of a sale on whole chickens, and I think that would be a great thing to try first. We have time to decide, though. It’s way too windy and muddy to get the fire pit going, for the next few days, at least. Plenty of time to prepare!
Since I was in town anyway, I swung by the grocery store and got a few things for a cookout, including the ingredients for S’mores. We tried making those for the first time, during one of the rare times it was safe to light a fire, a couple of summers ago, and they were quite fun.
This Dutch oven is pre-seasoned, and ready to use immediately. I’ll likely give it at least a hot water rinse, though, before it’s used.
My older daughter came with me when it was time to pick up her sister from work. Since UPS hadn’t delivered my birthday present yet, I asked my husband, who had had to lie down again, to be up in case they came while we were gone. We also made sure the gate wasn’t locked when we left; it was just closed and not even latched.
Along the way, we saw our shaggy friends again.
I wish you could see the babies better! They are so adorable.
When we got home, we found this.
Yeah. They just slid? tossed? pushed? it past the gate.
Seriously? Could they not figure out how to open it? Or did they just decide not to come in? I mean, I know UPS will leave packages at doors when no one was home, but this isn’t even anywhere near the house!
But you know what? I don’t care. IT’S FINALLY HERE!!
*doing the happy dance*
There she is! My new toy!
Yes, I made sure to read the instructions first.
Then I went and took down part of that big branch that was hanging off a tree behind the storage house. I couldn’t get all of it; the pole isn’t anywhere near long enough for that, but at least I won’t be having to push past the hanging branches when I mow through there.
Then I went around different areas, taking down some branches with the extended pole, then converting back to chain saw mode and starting on some trees and stumps. I got a couple of larger dead tree trunks down, which required some careful maneuvering with a blade that’s only 8 inches long. Then I started cutting some of the tall stumps I’d left behind to ground level. Turned on its side, it can cut quite close to the ground, which I really appreciate!
I even got the smaller of the two dead spruce trees that had been covered with vines down. Not to ground level, as it is too wide at the base, and the second tree will have to wait for a full size chain saw.
Unfortunately, I’m already out of bar and chain oil.
I expected it to be used up quickly after the first fill, since it’s a first use and the whole thing would have been bone dry. However, I also did a dumb. I refilled it once, noticing it was already completely empty (there is a window on the side where you can see the oil level). Shortly after, I noticed it was getting low again, so I added more. After topping up the oil, I put the bottle away, came back, used the saw once to cut a skinny tree stump to ground level, and suddenly realized I hadn’t put the oil cap back on.
I just just poured all the out out by accident.
I used the last of my oil to refill it, but it was only a small bottle (which you can see in the photo), so there wasn’t enough left to completely fill it. I was able to finish cutting flat as many stumps as I could for now. There are some older ones from trees cut down before we moved here that are higher, but also too thick for my little blade.
I am so happy with this thing! I can hardly wait to get into the last section of the spruce grove. I already went through it yesterday evening, taking out the dead branches that were already on the ground.
I just have to pick some more bar and chain oil, first!
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! 😀 ), 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.
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.
The Re-Farmer 