Here’s a summary of what we accomplished in September on our various projects.
- Personnel—(Not exactly an accomplishment, but…) COVID-19 reared its ugly head late this month and we didn’t realize that’s what it was until most of us were already exposed. We have been able to keep Mark and Kim from getting sick, and we don’t appear to have spread it to any of our friends and neighbors. This is a definite setback. We’re all getting a little better each day, but we’re probably going to lose at least a person-month of production.
- Barn
- North wall
- Identified and repaired all remaining pockets of wood decay in existing framing
- Installed hardware to resist uplift and overturning forces (wind and seismic)
- North aisle wall—Began identification and repair of wood decay in existing framing
- North wall
- Garden
- Tomato harvest continued—wow!
- Zucchini harvest continued
- Tomatillo harvest continued
- Harvested a few more purple snap beans
- I don’t have a total, but Kim has been canning produce with all of her spare moments. It’s safe to say that we will not run out of tomatoes or pickled zucchini this winter.
- Hayfields
- As noted last month, our fescue in the north field is still green!
- We hauled in composted horse manure from our friends at Northwood Farms in preparation for spreading on the south field.
- We determined that the combination of Nemo’s arrival and our less-than-stellar 2024 hay means that we are going to be short on hay this winter. Fortunately, we were able to work out a deal with our friends at Northwood Farms, who have extra hay. Everybody wins!
- Pastures—Still closed off to grazing, but late in the month we saw our first signs of new grass growth, so we’ll see.
- Forestry
- Joined Oregon Woodland Co-operative, which is a co-operative of small woodland owners like us that engage in joint marketing of forest products.
- Acquired a LogRite ATV arch, which is the perfect mate to our LogRite Fetching Arch.
- Moved logs from Nola’s Hollow to the mill yard using the Fetching and ATV arches with the Toolcat. These were trees we cut last winter. This was a test of our log-forwarding systems, and it worked pretty well.
- The two-arch system (one at each end of the logs being forwarded) did a pretty good job of keeping the logs out of the dirt. We put the ATV arch up front as the hitch and the Fetching arch in back as the tail. The Fetching arch’s tongs didn’t allow us to get the logs as high off the ground as we wanted, so we ordered an accessory for the Fetching arch that will allow us to use a choker chain and get a few more inches of lift.
- Placing the hitch arch as close to the end of the log as possible allows for better turning, as the end of the log is less prone to binding. The tail arch gets strapped to the logs, so its position doesn’t effect turning as much. Having the tail arch as far back as possible generally gets the logs higher off the ground, though.
- Moving single logs is easy. Moving multiple logs at a time requires some planning, but for a 1/4-mile haul, it’s worth it.
- When empty, the two arches are towed in tandem, so backing up is not really feasible.
- The biggest challenge was turning around at the loading point on the skid trail. What seemed to work okay was driving in, unhooking both arches and setting them aside, turning the Toolcat around, rolling the logs into position, the putting the arches in place and hitching up. It would be a lot easier with a turn-around.
- Firewood
- Acquired a SuperSplit Model J kinetic wood splitter (electric)
- Trained Mark to use the splitter
- Built still more firewood boxes
- Refined firewood box design to use 1×4 for diagonal bracing instead of 2×4
- Sawmill
- Milled 1943 board feet of Douglas-fir lumber (including a new best of 289 bf in one day)
- Horses
- Hay consumption steady at three bales a day.
- Elf, Simon, Nemo, and Herc: all doing well
- Shasta: still underweight, but appetite is excellent. Started her on Cool Calories, which she likes.