It is a mystery

Crafting

2026-04-06T20:51:33Z

Hey all, if you'd like to join the crafting hangout, it is tonight from 6-8pm ET!

Video encouraged but not required!

Topic: Crafting Hangout

Time: Mondays 6:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting

Link

Meeting ID: 973 2674 2763

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A bunch of things in the last week

2026-04-05T12:37:39Z

I got the complicated drywall piece cut and carried it upstairs, so pleased with myself on doing a good job. It fit in well! And then I realized that I must have bought a different thickness drywall when I did the lower piece, so the upper piece of drywall is 3/8" thick and the lower piece is 1/4" thick and visibly different. I'm debating on what to do. I could go buy another piece of drywall but that's incredibly wasteful. I could try and piece together bits of other drywall and make it different. Or just use spackle and smooth between the pieces. Probably no one will notice it. Or put a piece of trim across that spot.

I'm still thinking about it.

My neck issue no longer is in my neck which is nice, I can turn my head properly all the time now. It has moved down into my shoulder which is less nice. It's not an issue for work but it does hurt a bit to sleep on that side now.

I spent a lot of the last few days pruning blueberries, down to three rows left which is great progress. Before they left, my dad and I were supposed to spread straw (we're putting a light layer down on the ones we didn't get covered in the winter so the berries can rest on something) but he was tired that night, so we delayed it and then it rained an inch overnight. And then I discovered the donkey cart tire had gone completely flat. So that sat until yesterday, when I asked the neighbor if he could drive the tractor. He helps out with tractor work when he's got time, so I was flexible with time and day and he was able to help. I pumped up the donkey cart tire enough to get through the spreading and brought it back. I had to get the straw spread because I couldn't unhook the donkey cart with it loaded and I needed the tractor for other things, so getting it done was super important.

Yesterday, I spread fertilizer on the strawberries and raspberries and granular herbicide on the raspberries and blueberries. These both needed to get applied before it rained again. We are getting the hang of the web based farm management system that we decided to use and it's working decently. FarmOS is an open source farm management software. Right now we are paying ($75 per year) for them to host the webserver while we get all the logistics worked out but we plan to host our own at some point since dad knows all that stuff and we can make edits to systems that we want to change. I can use it on my phone which is so so so valuable.

I ate something Thursday which super upset my stomach, so it was good it rained and I took that day off except for getting some sidejob work done. Took a nap. Had a headache too. But it went away overnight, so no idea what that was about. My stomach has been sensitive lately, not really sure why since I am eating the same stuff as always.

My aunt, uncle, cousin and her husband were in town and borrowed the garage at the fun house for working on their car brakes since it has a concrete floor and is mostly empty. I wandered through to chat with them since my parents are out of town and they invited me down for dinner last night. I went down and they fed me delicious food and made gluten free peanut butter cookies and I got to pet so many dogs. They have a dog problem (as in they've adopted too many, my cousin worked at a rescue for a while) but they're working on it. My cousin is pregnant and honestly doesn't sound thrilled about it, but it's hard to tell. She's always been no kids but her sister had a kid two years ago and they seem to get on well, so many that's why she decided it was fine? But it also sounded like it wasn't planned. So I don't know! I suspect she might not have been feeling well too and was a little cranky. But dogs, there was...eight dogs in the house, three of them great danes. One tiny sausage dog that hid the entire time. The great danes were very well behaved. I got many dog snuggles and my cousin asked if I wanted one of the great danes, who she is fostering. She's a sweet, well behaved dog. Solid maybe, my parents need to move out first.

My dad's surgery apparently went well, I heard there was some painkiller high texting. I believe he's got a followup monday, so my parents won't be back yet. I gotta say, it's nice having a quiet, empty house for now. I think that's the thing that bugs me, not that they talk to me, but that they're constantly around. Constantly. And napping in the living room a ton which means I can't do loud things.

I am taking today off work since it has started raining. I need to get the peppers started but that's easy. Technically there is a family dinner this afternoon for easter but I didn't actually get a invite text to it and I think I'm going to skip it anyway with that as an excuse if anyone asks. I probably should go. Hmm. I could hand off the blanket to my aunt if I did that. I'll think about it. I should also bake food. Augh. Why do I need to eat food so much.

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December to March Book Roundup

2026-04-01T23:07:20Z

Abruptly, my brain decided about two weeks ago that original fiction was okay again after five months of beaming a full blast of fanfiction directly into my eyeballs so that's nice. Some of my DNF were in those five months, so I may swing back and try some of them again

Read

Beware of Chicken by Casualfarmer - incredibly fun story, 10/10 so delightful and weird. library audiobook definitely recommended since Travis Baldree is a great narrator
The Game of Courts by Victoria Goddard - short story in the HOTE world. purchased ebook
The Art of Prophecy by Wesley Chu - martial arts fantasy, delightful and amusing, lots of drama but it is over the top dramatic drama. library ebook
Beware of Chicken Book 2 by Casualfarmer - fun, very good, expanding cast of characters is delightful. library audiobook
Brigands and Breadknives by Travis Baldree - light hearted, good little read. library ebook
The Will of the Many by James Islington - magical pyramid power sharing scheme in ye olde fantasy rome gets really really dramatic, lots of people die, the protag is very angry, interesting ending to set up the second book. library ebook
Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman -the premise is terrible and the book is aware of it, things get very weird. Very dnd. library ebook
Carl's Doomsdat Scenario by Matt Dinniman - second in the series, more things happen , much drama. library ebook
Like Real People Do by xiaq/EL Massey - technically this is Check Please fanfiction, but it has been removed from AO3 and is actually published now as two short books. I read the downloaded fanfic version and got the second book out of the library to see how different it was. Not very different at all. Xiaq is currently posting the most recent book in the series on AO3, so highly recommend checking there for updates and then once it's complete, she updates on when it will be taken down so you have time to download. Current book is absolute feral transguy/hockey dude romance that is eating my brain, it's so good
Free From Falling by EL Massey - now this one is very different from the fanfic version, so much so that I only realized I had actually read it when I was halfway through. But basically, two young hockey players fall in love, lots of stuff happens. It's very sweet. Definitely diverges from the Check Please fanfic it sprouted from. Library ebook
All Hail the Underdogs by EL Massey - really really liked this romance. hockey player falls in love with rockstar. there's a ranch and horses involved. It's extremely sweet and very realistic. Kinda melancholy but in a good way. library ebook - going to get it out again and reread.
Of Monsters and Mainframes by Barbara Truelove - literary monsters on a spaceship - premise seems weird but it is excellent. library ebook

Notable fanfics

The Snake Prince and The King's Goose by Castillon02 and greedy_dancer - there are curses and it is so funny. This is delightfully weird nonsense, it's perfect.
(when you just can't seem) to shake the weight of living by WingedQuill - Witchers are forced to stay on the path and this fic hurts so good and there's a happy ending. So good!
give me sharper teeth by Anonymous - A/B/O Heated Rivalry - hear me out - Ilya is trans and it is such a good exploration of it and also the author cites academic papers in the end note.

Reread

A Sorceress Comes to Call by T Kingfisher - it's good. it's good! library ebook

DNF

Lucky Day by Chuck Tingle - don't love the mass death/body horror/horror horror - library ebook
The Dad Rock That Made Me a Woman by Niko Stratis - don't remember this at all, might try again - library ebook
Everybody wants to rule the world but me by Django Wexler - I liked the first one, second one the protag caught feelings but in a useless way, I might try again but we'll see. library ebook

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unicornduke @ 2026-03-31T10:08:00

2026-03-31T16:38:38Z

I have tweaked a muscle in my neck sometime in the last few days, possibly saturday. I think it was during pruning saturday since I stood up from pruning and was weirdly sore but I have no idea what would have done it. It's fine most of the time except when I turn my head in one direction but that's not the worst it hurts. Worst it hurts is when I'm doing stuff with my arm and turn my head or when I put my elbow on the desk and rest my head on my hand. I can sleep on that side without it hurting. But it's annoying. And makes my shoulder feel funny. I'm trying to baby it but I don't know what hurts it so ??? And honestly, pruning seems to stretch it out and it feels better? So who knows honestly.

The good news is that I'm nearly done pruning the blueberries, I've got 7 rows left and only one row of the irritating varieties that produce a lot of shoots. Something went wrong with the battery of the electric pruner, I think charging it in the unheated garage when it was below freezing. Now it only holds charge for an hour or two of pruning, so I alternate pruning with something else while it charges. The batteries are really expensive, so we're going to run the winterizing routine as soon as there's a good rainy couple of days or I finish the blueberries, whichever comes first and see if that helps.

I have been ravenously hungry since I got back from my trip and can't seem to eat enough. I need to make a grocery store run and do some food planning. I've hit the craving fruit point of the season so I've been digging into my chest freezer to bake desserts with fruit. I made a ton of progress on my knitted sweater and actually bound off the sleeves during crafting last night, the end is in sight!

My dad is making progress on the floor of their house, actual boards are being laid but it won't be finished before his surgery on friday. They will be down at my brother's thursday through monday I think, so I'll get some peace and quiet while they're away. That's okay that the floor won't get done. There is progress. I need to get his help moving the drywall piece before his surgery, the drywall is upstairs but there's no room to cut it there, so I need help getting it to the front porch. It should be easy to move after I get it cut since the piece will be much smaller.

Spring is abruptly here, it's been warm and sunny, the crocus have emerged, I uncovered the strawberries the other day and have been sweating as I prune. Ahh spring. Much to do!

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NYC fun!

2026-03-29T23:03:42Z

I had this trip planned since December and nice weather wasn't going to stop me from going away.

I left around 7am Tuesday morning, driving out to the closet NJ train station, which is around an hour and 40 minutes, so not too bad of a drive at all. The train left a bit after 9 am and got to the city in around 2 1/2 hours, down to Penn Station with only one transfer. It was bitter cold that morning and I packed as light as I could manage, so I got quite cold on the train platform but the train itself was plenty warm. I brought my sweater to knit and also brought my work bluetooth ear protection, so used that on the train to listen to a book while I knitted. I managed with a duffel bag and a large backpack, which was more than I wanted to bring, but four days of clothes meant I needed more room so I had to haul a duffel bag. It was a small one at least and it was easy to tuck at my feet or hold close to me on stairs or in tight spaces, so it worked.

Originally I was supposed to meet my sister at her place in Brooklyn, but for mysterious reasons, she was 10 minutes from Penn Station when I got there and I saw her text before I got on the subway, so we got to hang out more!

We dropped my stuff at her apartment and went to the corner grocery store where we got snacks and lunch. Then we hung out for a bit and took a nap. Then we headed back to Manhatten and grabbed dinner at a place called the Grey Dog. Food was decent, they had gluten free bread for all their sandwiches. Fries were mid. We stopped by Z's workplace and chatted with her coworkers while killing time and drinking hot chocolate and then headed for the venue.

We were seeing Big Richard at the Bitter End and the band was fantastic as always. The venue and crowd were odd. The venue was a long narrow room with the stage at the center facing small tables and standing room to either side with a few tables. All of the tables directly facing the stage were reserved and it must have been for friends and family because there wasn't any VIP options when I bought the tickets. But also, not everyone showed up so some of those tables were empty. It was a tiny crowd for the space, which wasn't very big. The music as per usual was too loud but my sister introduced me to Mack's Earplugs and hoo boy, they are amazing! I hate traditional ear plugs and haven't tried the expensive loops or anything. Only downside is my ears got sweaty on the inside by the end of the concert but so worth it.

The music and band were amazing as always though and what a freaking delight. They're incredible at playing live and have really good chemistry and banter. They had another gig in CT the next night and my sister and I did actual research to see if it would make sense for us to go, but it wouldn't unfortunately.

Then we headed back to Z's. Got home at 11:30ish and had to do the come down thing, so it was after midnight that I finally fell asleep.

We slept in the next morning. Well. Z slept in until around 10. I slept in until 7, got up, showered, ate breakfast, knitted and then took a nap for an hour until she got up. Worked great honestly. Ate food before we left.

The we went to the Brooklyn Central Library, where we got a personalized tour from a friend of Z's who works there including some exciting maintenance areas which showed how many different addons there were to the building over time, even if the outside looks like one solid building. And we got to see all the creepy stacks in the basement. Love that. She gave me a brooklyn library card which was very nice.

We got ice cream at Ample Hills Creamery, which was delicious and then went to the Brooklyn Art Museum. We went up to the small exhibit Sakimatwemtwe: A Century of Reflection on the Arts of Africa which was a collection of items that had previously been on exhibit in the 1920s by ye olde colonizers and gave actual context on what the artifacts were and their significance in specific Congolese cultures since most of the artifacts came from Belgian controlled Congo at the time. It was right next to the Egyptian wing, so we wandered through there admiring the craftsmanship of the items. Then we sat down on the bench in the middle of the exhibit and had a lovely conversation about making art and craft and convenience culture and disposablility and all sorts of cool things since the place was pretty much empty. It was nearly closing time, so we left and walked back, admiring some cool architecture we saw. We got takeout from a local mexican grocery for dinner and then did our favorite thing, which is doing music exchange by playing youtube videos on the tv of cool music we've heard recently.

Thursday morning, I had a lay around for a bit, the packed, said goodbye to my sister and headed to the Tenement Museum to meet up with Jade. Hilariously, she accidentally took an express train and ended up in Brooklyn, so I found a little park with seating and hung out there until she managed to get back. Thankfully, our tour was at 10:45, so we had enough time for her to make it back. The museum had storage, so I was able to store my backpack and duffel bag there which was fantastic. We first did the Moores tour, about Irish immigrants and had such a good time that we asked the tour guide if she had a favorite tour and she recommended the Levines, which was about Jewish immigrant women. All the tours center around people who actually lived in the house and they had both recreated living spaces and the ruined spaces as it was in the 1980s when the founders opened the place up. The building sat mostly empty from the 1930s to the 1980s. We went and got lunch in the middle of that from a deli, which had delicious chicken and rice for me and empanadas for Jade.

After the tours, we walked up to Bub's Bakery, in a different neighborhood for breakfast and snacks for me for travel day friday. The food was amazing! I got two bagels, a biscuit, a cinnamon roll and a kouign amann which is a fancy folded donut with jam and lemon pastry cream. It was all very expensive but really really good. I wish they had recipes because these were so good. The kouign amann was the first donut like thing I've had since I had to go gluten free and it was phenomenal. The bagels were extremely bagel. The cinnamon roll is decent, but I think I've got better recipes. I ate the kouign amann on the bench outside, Jade got a banana pudding cup and everything else was for later.

We took the bus back to her place and then went wandering around jersey city, got ice cream, went to the park, enjoyed the wonderful warm weather and checked out her local library. And sat and chatted and admired the NYC skyline. We got dinner at a crepe place that did savory crepes which were fucking incredible and so so so tasty.

Friday morning, Jade went to work and I took the bus down to the Hoboken Terminal and caught my train from there, which worked extremely well since it is a train hub for the trains leaving the city. The conductor was so nice and moved the seats for the people traveling to the end of the line so we got more knee room. I was back to my truck by 10:30 and home by 12:30 where I took a two hour nap.

The whole trip was a freaking delight, I'm so glad I went before the season got busy. The weather was great and I got to spent time with Jade and Z and it was so lovely.

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The Boiling

2026-03-19T00:17:18Z

Here's the thing about maple sap: it is much much sweeter than all other tree saps (I think), but it is still 1-2% sugar. There's some information out there that maple trees in the middle of fields without any competition can get up to 4% sugar.

Maple syrup is 66% sugar minimum.

So typically, the ratio is around 50 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup. Depending on the sugar content, this may be higher or lower. On a small scale, someone sets up a pan of sap over a fire, sits around and drinks alcohol while adding sap every so often and at the end, you might get a gallon or so of syrup. As soon as you move up in scale, then you move to continuous flow syrup production, where the sap is flowing in all the time and syrup is drawn off every so often.

We have the syrup production set up in the milkhouse of our barn. I found out recently that not everyone know what a milkhouse is, my experiences are not universal! This farm used to be a dairy, so the barn was set up for milking cows and the milkhouse is an attached room or building with cinderblock/stone whitewashed walls, concrete floor and a drain. In the milking days, this is where the milk would be stored in tanks for easy chilling until the milk truck comes to pick it up. It is easy to clean, away from the bacteria of the cows and easy to keep birds and other pests out of. (sidenote: do not ever drink raw milk unless you are the farmer or really really really trust the sanitation practices of the farmer (don't do this, raw milk farmers are fucking wackos) because cows have so much bacteria and poop pretty much on their udders. Pasteurization is a miraculous process to prevent illnesses)

To start, we have the sap run into 250 gallon food safe, cleaned totes with a filter. Once they are full, they get brought from the mountain and placed for gravity feeding into the milkhouse. The setup is beautiful, professional and normal. haha

( lots of words and photos )

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Sleepy tired

2026-03-14T14:49:26Z

I have slept like crap all week, waking up at 2:30 or 3am and unable to get back to sleep for several hours. Last night was the first night where I woke up and was able to fall back asleep but I was so tired at that point that it was inevitable. I'm a sleepy beepy even now.

We boiled 5 days this week starting sunday, I'll make a separate post about that since it's A Lot and also I'm still learning all the boil stuff. The days are long. I am taking today off farm work instead of taking off this past monday since monday was a nice day and there was so much to do. I was planning to take one of the rainy days off but boiled and did other stuff instead.

Most of the wood I split didn't really dry in time, which was kinda expected so my dad ran out and bought a cord of dried firewood and he pulled some dead birches off the mountain that we'll cut and split in the next few days. We really need to work a year ahead. So the basswood will be set aside for next year I think.

The weather was really far too warm for several days and then it dropped dramatically. The cold temps now are mostly due to high winds which are terrible and irritating. I'd rather it just be cold instead of windy.

My sister was in town all week which was great because we swapped off who was watching the boiling and could give each other breaks and chat when in passing.

I have gotten some weaving done which is nice, I kinda want to crank through a bunch of it. I need to plan out my next sewing project since the coat is done. I decided not to type up a separate post for February crafting goals since I only finished the coat and made progress on a bunch of stuff.

I have a lot of sidejob work to do, which I'm going to get at least three plans done today if I can. Might go take a brief nap first though.

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unicornduke @ 2026-03-09T08:43:00

2026-03-09T13:44:13Z

As expected, the time change has absolutely fucked up my sleep schedule. Not helped by a skunk spraying something in the front yard at 4:30am this morning so my bedroom smelled intensely of skunk while I was laying there awake for no reason and the house still smells faintly. We are going to have to trap it if it's living under the porch. And also not helped by covering the boiling for an hour until 10:30pm last night.

We have successfully started boiling sap although I'm not super involved in it. I don't know what I'm doing, never really have done it, so I panic a lot about it while taking over for my dad so he gets a break. Like last night, the sap started drawing off but the container with the filters nearly overflowed because the filters were ??? and there was some panicking. My dad said it probably wasn't going to draw off at all in the hour he went inside. So you know. Normal stuff. My sister is in town for a couple of days to help with it at least. Once I get some better idea on how it all works, I'll make a post about it. Currently, we are producing delicate grade, which my sister called cotton candy tasting. That changes over the tapping season as the microbes change.

I finished splitting all the basswood on the ground, just need to stack it. Not sure we have quite enough wood for the season, but I think it'll be a bit shorter anyway. I have started shifting focus to the field season, it is time to start outside work. Blueberry pruning is up first since that needs to be done dormant. I should crank through that quick. Then moving and mulching with woodchips. I need to order grow lights for our starts, I need to get peppers started in the next two weeks or so, figure out pumpkin orders, etc etc.

There's some health stuff going on with my parents that we are waiting to hear on, so I am scaling back farm stuff that was going to be a bit of a stretch to complete. The weird fruits like currants and expanding the elderberries.

I am working on sidejob stuff and need to bill that client. Need to nap and eat more food. I made chocolate cake and pizza the other night. Also split three loads of wood for the burner once I got the bobcat tire fixed. I took the bobcat tire to the tire place to get fixed on the day we had freezing rain, not my best move and there was only one hairy moment on a backroad until I kicked it into 4 wheel and slowed way down. Skipped that road on the way back. Main roads were fine. The bobcat had to come back to the main farm to pick up the sap totes because of where we put them for good gravity feeding since regular tractor forks can't lift high enough.

Also went to a grower meeting about christmas trees, looks like a really good enterprise, don't have the capacity this year, but should next year if all goes well. Interesting thing, a lot of the christmas tree farms have been in business for 50-100 years. Wildly long time.

I keep focusing on farm stuff because the world is such a shitshow. My local rep emailed me some propaganda so I sent back a little rant on how immoral bombing Iran is. I don't think it will do anything.

But yesterday instead of going to spinning group, I drove an hour and a half to an event put on by the regional trans org which was performances and a makers market and I felt like such shit driving down, but afterwards I was so happy. It was so nice to just see all the queer folks, and so many! And bought some weird art. And saw some performances. What a delight. Did get to talk to someone who is localish to me and they said they are trying to get some more folks together up our way at various places, so I'm excited to keep an eye out for that.

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Four and a bit days on the mountain

2026-03-02T00:11:00Z

Most of this was typed up Friday evening and is only somewhat coherent but that gives you a sense of how tired I was.

This became The Big Push to Get Shit Done for Maple Syrup. My whole body is sore. Wednesday was my first day on the mountain this week, replacing drops. We do maple syrup on a small/medium scale by tubes, around 600 taps. Smaller or more old fashioned producers do spouts and buckets where the buckets hang from the spouts or at the bottom of trees but that works best on flatter ground accessible by vehicle or horse drawn sleds. They also need to be emptied every day. We have a small mountain.

It is still a mountain. Actually, I think technically it is a ridge at the top of it, which isn’t where we are working, it’s further up and to the right of the below photo where my uncle’s orchard is. I don’t have a good sense of how high it is. In the view, we go up to the top of what is visible straight ahead and a little to the right.

( this is a long and rambly explanation with pictures and linked videos )

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Hobbies and wood splitting and other assorted things

2026-02-23T14:49:06Z

We only got two inches of snow here, we're too far west of this storm. I hope everyone else has power and can shovel out quick! Jade in NYC still has power and sent me some photos of a lot of snow but I'm waiting to hear back from my siblings on their snow situations. Z should be good, she's in NYC but my brother in MD hasn't responded yet but pictures last night indicated he also got a bunch of snow.

The weather was fairly miserable this week, it rained, it snowed a little, it rained some more. Everything is properly mud and the ground has started defrosting. It's gross. We are preparing to tap maple trees this week, so all the focus has gone there for work.

I baked Wednesday since it was proper nasty and made potato rolls, fig newtons, yogurt and blueberry bars. I ordered more sorghum flour and tapioca flour from Bulk Foods and they had black mission figs on sale, so I got some and made Stella Parks' Fig Newtons recipe. I hope she's doing okay, she left the internet as far as I can tell. The potato rolls are fine, I ate them for lunches all week. I keep trying new recipes in the hopes that I can finally have the perfect gluten free bread recipe but I think I will always be disappointed. I want them to be wheat bread and they simply will not be that. I have had the best luck with delicious flatbreads like the pita which aren't so tied up in delicious bread memories and are reasonably tasty. I do want to try sourdough since I bought a whole book of gluten free sourdough recipes but I think I need to stop getting my hopes up in general. Of course they won't taste like wheat. Sourdough will happen when my parents move out and I have a fridge to myself for experiments. I miss making wheat bread. And eating it.

I signed up for a pottery class in February and I'm thoroughly enjoying it, I went both Wednesday and Thursday night to the studio and have been enjoying it. I don't think I'll continue it, I don't actually need another hobby and one that is so time consuming but it is a lot of fun and the teacher has been reasonably impressed with my progress. I've made a bunch of bowls, a mug and a pot. I think I'm just going to keep making bowls because I need bowls in my life.

( more rambling and photos )

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It's gross out

2026-02-18T15:30:48Z

False spring hasn't been treating us particularly well. The top inch of exposed soil melts during the day but refreezes at night. The snow hasn't quite melted off despite multiple days of around 50F. The melting snow water has nowhere to go because the ground below the top inch is too frozen, but the soil on the top is just pure muddy muck, so the ground is either laying water, mud or both. It is currently 34F and raining. The ground refroze overnight, so the rain is just laying there. Winter returns this weekend, we'll be down below freezing during the day by Sunday, so everything will just be solid ice soon.

I spent the last four days splitting wood as is expected. I cut and split two bins of basswood for maple syrup and cut up another whole log that is sitting on the ground right now. I still haven't worked on the huge chonker log but that is next for cutting, need to sharpen the chains again. I split another half tote of dead wood for the indoor wood stove. I also split most of a dump trailer of wood for the outdoor burner because the bobcat doesn't do well with mud or muck and I figured it would be nice to have the wood ready to go before the rain. Only goof with that I forgot one of the front tires has a slow leak and I popped the tire off the rim while I was running it. womp womp. But it should be easy to get it onto blocks and the tire off to see if we can get it back on the rim. The good thing is that the tires are really sturdy, so it should have survived the experience.

Bin of wood. I could fill them a little more but I worry about the stakes breaking and also the tractor being able to lift them. We have a pretty beefy tractor with forks, but we put the bins/bags on top of a stack of pallets outside the milk house, so we don't need to go up and down stairs to fetch wood while boiling.

Wood ready to split. I was so pleased to finish the one log before dark and the chainsaw ran out of gas last night.

My finger that I cut several weeks ago has fully healed up, I trimmed the skin flaps back once they callused up and starting catching on things, but more than a week after that, the skin is still really sensitive and not good with pressure. It should get sturdy again.

I am making good progress on a number of crafting projects and with this rain, I'm planning to make some progress on the upstairs bathroom. Just haven't been super motivated. I've been reading a lot of fanfiction lately. Tis the season I guess. I am enjoying the increased light in the afternoons, trying to spent as much time outside as possible when the weather is decent.

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more heated blanket woes

2026-02-15T01:14:23Z

I emailed the heated blanket company for blanket #1 and they have sent me a new one (yay!). I need to ship the old one back to them but they sent me a label for it.

The day after I got that confirmation, I sat on my bed on top of the controller for my bed blanket and broke it. The light flickered, it didn't really work well. I took it apart and I can't see anything that would be causing a short or issue with it and the light doesn't even turn on now. I'm guessing it is broken for good.

I don't want to go shopping for a new heated blanket because I like that one so much. It's small, it has excellent heating across the whole blanket, it stays evenly heated. I hate shopping for new things these days, I can't tell what will work. Jade bought that one for me at least five years ago now, possibly longer and getting a new one that works well is going to be a pain in the butt.

I'm not entirely thrilled with the quality of blanket #1 and they don't make them small enough, so I don't want to go with that company. And just looking up blankets is terrible. So I don't know what I'm going to do.

Suffer I guess. have cold feet all night. ugh

if anyone has any recommendations for heated blanket companies that make ones that around around 48x60 inches, let me know

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trips

2026-02-14T01:01:06Z

monday, I drove 2.5 hours each way down to a meeting for nutrient management credits. The one state has decided that consultants don't get to do online programs for credits anymore, so I need to go to in person meetings now. Its not the worst now that I live closer. I made it down and back in plenty of time, the meeting was fine, I got a decent amount of knitting done and chatted with some folks from my old company that I haven't seen in years.

Tuesday I cut and split more wood, my dad brought down more trees. I filled a wood bin full and got it under cover.

Wednesday, I drove to Ohio. This trip was originally to purchase and pickup a used donut machine for the farm. Late last week, the ebay guy bailed on me, we had been negotiating prices in messages and abruptly, the listing was gone and he stopped responding. Not sure what that was about because he said he had two of them, but whatever. Since the donut machine was in Ohio, in the city where Tyronicbob (A- from crafting night) lived, I arranged to stay with her a while ago. When the ebay guy bailed, I let her know but figured it's February, I didn't really have anything urgent going on, I could totally drive to Ohio.

I never did anything irresponsible or impulsive in my 20s, when I feel most people do their silly impulse trips, so why not now?

It was a 7 hour drive which on the way down, I hadn't slept super well that night and the drive dragged, I was Too Aware. I stopped several times and took at nap at one rest stop just to make sure I could keep going. Snacks and podcasts got me to A's house by 4:30 or so. I have learned that Ohio culture is putting the name of the town on the overpass bridge in case you don't know where you are and all the other signs aren't helpful enough. The city A- is in had some traffic but overall, the drive was quiet. I didn't have any long haul driving buddies which always makes me a little sad.

When I arrived, I was pretty tired, but we settled in and chatted and watched some olympics events as background noise and then we ate tacos that she had made ahead of time and put in the fridge. We relaxed, watched some stuff and chatted more, then we got talking about the podcast Kill James Bond and Abigail Thorne's writing/directing/performance of The Prince and A- put it on the tv. It was phenomenal! What a cool play, cast and performance. The recording is on Nebula, not sure if a subscription is required, but wow, super worth it if you do have to pay. The plot is that people get stuck in Shakespeare performances as the characters and are trying to escape. It's so full of feelings and it's so good as a recorded live performance. After that, sleep time for me.

A- did some funky stuff to adjust her sleep schedule enough to be awake and aware during the daytime and we watched some hockey before heading over to the conservatory. It was absolutely so cool! There was beautiful glasswork interspersed with the plants and they had an orchid greenhouse on display with all sorts of winding paths and absolutely bursting with plants. They also had a desert greenhouse and a butterfly greenhouse although the butterflies were only just hatching and being released. Extremely cool and the colors of plants and different shapes and layouts, the rocks, the paths, the glassworks. Super cool and really awesome work.

Then we went and ate lunch at a nearby market, which had a bunch of small food stalls inside a big warehouse building. We got somali food, which was stuff on rice, absolutely delicious and warm and filling. Then we got ice cream, which was from a local place, smooth and creamy and delicious. A- drove the long way everywhere we went to give me a tour of the city and all the neat things, then we headed to a historic neighborhood to an incredible bookstore.

This bookstore is in two back to back connected uhh, closest thing I can describe them as is triplexes, but really they took these buildings and opened up some doors between them and created just a labyrinth bookstore. The website says it has 32 rooms, but they're all small and narrow and weirdly laid out and there's nooks of shelves everywhere. It's so cool. It took us over an hour to find our way up to the third floor where the scifi and fantasy section was. All the books they carry are new but they had a ton of more obscure books. Really cool. I bought a bunch of books, some nonfiction, some fiction.

A- was starting to get tired, so we headed back to the house and I settled in to watch some snowboarding and she took a nap. We ate lunch leftovers for dinner and then watched more olympics. We created a delightful game as we watched the pairs ice dance free skate replay. So pairs figure skating is mostly about having dramatic feelings (love or tragic) and most of the music is pretty boring. So instead of listening to the music, we created better romance stories for the pairs based on an element of the performance and hashed it out to a movie plot. It was so much fun. For instance, the USA team had the flamenco/matador inspired performance, so we decided that the plot was actually about the movie that was being made about matadors, the woman was the talent scout for the local area, the man was the local bull wrangler who loved his bulls very much. The movie was a disaster due to the director's conflict with the lead actor and the talent scout pulled the bull wrangler into being her local guide and help until she got frustrated with the director and just shoved the bull wrangler into being the lead in the movie. He does it under protest and that's his only acting role ever. The talent scout decides to stay in spain to stay with the bull wrangler because he just wants to go back to taking care of his sweet little babies (the bulls) and she's a bitch with a clipboard (h/t to Sonnet from craft nights for this phrase/person type) and can wrangle people in spain who need wrangling and they live happily ever after.

The only ones we didn't make up stories for were the Cleopatra performance (look ma, no hands was the absolute best lift ever), the matrix performance, the Dune one and the scottish performance (so oddly done that we didn't think they really thought it through. they could have changed the music and the costumes to be so much better, We Had Opinions). We came up with first mate/captain on the high seas Moby Dick style, jewel heist, spy romance, research historian/archivist, godzilla attacking the city and only the jet fighter/nuclear scientists could stop it but it's a tragedy so godzilla won in the end, an alien invasion blows up paris and they have to flee and he's secretly a parasitic alien and they blow up the other aliens and fall in love, and some others that I can't remember right now, but what an absolute delight to banter back and forth and build a little story out of pretty meh music. The performances were all great but honestly, dramatic/tragic feelings is very boring at this point. I wish I could find photos of everyone competing since that would help me remember all the stories, but I can't find a good feed for just photos and the replays have been removed, so oh well.

I went to bed after that because it was responsible of me to do.

This morning I got up around 6, ate breakfast and was on the road by 7am. A- did some split sleep to see me off and so she'd be good for work tonight and I drove home. I did have a tractor trailer driving buddy for a couple hours on the highway which was nice. I got into a good driving zone today, let the podcasts roll and the time passed quickly and I wasn't too aware of it which was nice.

I got in, went and laid in bed for an hour, went to take a shower and my dad accidentally let the outdoor burner go mostly out so the water was cold, so I went and got that started back up and took a shower at my parents house instead.

It was an absolute delight to hang out with A-, she is so sweet and fun and great to hang out with in person, not just on the internet. Her cat was a chatty little goof too. It was so nice and I'm so glad I went even though it was a long drive and a short trip. So much fun! That's 3/3 internet friends being absolute delights in person, so I'm on a roll.

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Chily chilly

2026-02-07T20:51:28Z

I knew this cold was coming, so I spent the last few days cranking out some firewood. Thursday, I split all of the log that I cut up, just dropping it onto the ground. This is split as small as I can make it to help it dry out and burn fast and hot. The basswood is very nice to split, the centers of the log, I could push it an inch into the wedge and it would pop the whole thing, so I could stick a section on and split four logs out of it in about 20 seconds. Very good. Then I went and did another dump trailer load of wood for the burner. I didn't really need it yet, but I had the time and also the storage space for it next to the burner. Plus I knew I'd go through a lot of wood with this weather and I'll be busy next week.

Friday, I played musical equipment. The winch was on the M which is our biggest and beefiest tractor. The dump trailer was hooked up to the E. I had to take the winch off the M, unhook the trailer, put the winch on the E, put the forks on the M and also rescue the winch cable from the logs my dad skidded because the PTO pull button on the M was frozen and he couldn't pull the cable back in. I dropped the winch in place, put the forks on, lifted the logs so I could pull the cable out, then hooked the E up and got everything put away.

Then I used the forks to get wood storage and stack the split wood. My dad built a bunch of U shaped things out of three pallets to hold wood, so I fetched those from the heifer shed which was irritating because of the things stacked in front of them. I did discover that the deer had broken into and fully emptied a bag of cover crop seed that had gotten left out there. Rude. I moved the rest of the seed back to where they shouldn't be able to get to them. Hopefully. I filled two of the holders with wood. In the picture, you can see one of the two rows of logs that fit in the holder.

Then I started cutting those logs. Only got most of one done before it got dark and the wind started picking up.

It was 9F when I woke up this morning at 5:30am, by 8am it had dropped to 1F and it's come back up to 5F but we've had some intense wind so far. I can't run the indoor stove with these kinds of winds (the chimney isn't tall enough for our roofline, so the wind will blow down the chimney and smoke the inside of the house. we are on the hunt for the right size chimney pipe to pop on top to help with that), so I loaded the outdoor burner up but it isn't quite keeping up. It's currently 61F in the kitchen, which on the east side of the house, so I'd say the living room is probably 58F. I am wearing layers and blankets. It's not the burner's fault, there's only one loop in the whole house in the downstairs, so there's only so much it can do. I just added a couple of logs to the burner when I went out a few minutes ago. To be fair, we run around 63, 64F in the kitchen normally, so we aren't much below normal. ETA: the wind dropped off right around dark, so I've started the stove back up!

I did get dog blankets and towels and covered some of the windows and doors that are problematic. We should make it through tonight with enough ambient warmth (-4F plus wind predicted) and it will be less windy tomorrow, so I'll start the stove back up even with some wind. We never get the predicted wind speeds because of the mountains, so 30mph winds predicted tomorrow will be ~20 and that's good enough for me. We have 48mph predicted today and we've only gotten 33mph. It is extremely cold outside, I'm running between buildings when I have to go out because it's so cold. I'll need to fully bundle for the next burner load up tonight.

One of my heated blankets has bit the dust, the one that I keep downstairs. It has made a funny smell the last few times I've used it and I found an area where the heating wire seemed twisted up, so I picked open a seam and the wire is normally white, but in that section it was red and coiled up very tightly. Seems bad. So I'm just using it as a regular blanket now and I've emailed the company I bought it from.

I feel like maybe I should try and do some computer work but the cold is making me sleepy, so I've been spinning and working on my loom and watching olympics, mostly hockey. Some of the big air skateboarding which is just a bonkers sport. I feel like we've gone too far. It's too much. Humans shouldn't go that high or spin or land like that.

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actual progress on wood splitting

2026-02-04T22:52:14Z

I am getting ahead on it finally. Finally!

Sunday, I baked which turned out very well. More pita bread, oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, granola, yogurt and blueberry muffins (bars? It's the blueberry muffin recipe but in a square pan because I can't be bothered to clean a muffin tin or silicon molds and I hate the paper). Delicious all around. I realized I was missing some key flours for two other recipes I planned to do, so I put them off.

I worked Monday instead because it was better weather for sure, plowed the wood splitting area and some other small preparation tasks. Then that afternoon, my dad and I went up on the back hill and he cut down two basswood trees in a hedgerow. According to a website on the internet (who has never been wrong ever), basswood is a hot fast burner, which is perfect for maple syrup. He limbed them while I went down the hill to do more prep work and brought one down before dark. I greased, added oil to the wood splitter and fueled the bobcat, then ran it down the road to the pile of logs there. Nothing more hilarious than driving a skidsteer on the road that has a top speed of about 2mph. No that's not a typo. It's a solid easy walking speed. Takes forever to get anywhere.

Tuesday morning I had a doctors appointment for a pap smear, less said about that, the better. I won't need to get another until 2031 thank fucking god. (hey fucked up thing is that anyone on medicare can't be seen at a planned parenthood in PA starting in two weeks even if we pay out of pocket except for some STD screening. what the fuck) Since I was up in the city, I stopped by Wegmans for sweet rice flour and millet flour since they have more esoteric stuff and also picked up some other misc things that are harder to get. I also stopped by Michaels to do one last search for yarn to match my aunt's blanket and found one very close color and one kinda close color. My order from Bulk Foods also came in that day, a restock on sorghum flour and tapioca starch. I'm going through quite a bit of those right now since I'm baking so much. Right now it's my best bet for larger quantities, I haven't figured out a buying co-op in this area yet although I'd love to. I'm getting low on gluten free oats, usually I have a 25lb bag on hand and it's almost out.

Tuesday afternoon I hooked up the wood splitter properly and got to splitting. This was outdoor burner wood, oak logs that are decently green but we can put some real crap green wood through the burner and it does fine. I split a dump trailer full which is 8ft wide by 12ft long by 4ft high. It's really nice, I can just pop the end of the splitter over top of the trailer and most of the logs fall right into the trailer. This will last 1.5 to 2 weeks which is great.

This morning, I dropped two dead trees down in the woods for indoor stove wood. It made me pretty nervous to drop a tree myself, especially dead ones but they were small and I was careful. Probably too careful as I used a wedge and that made the whole thing go over in the wedge's direction really easily rather than the hinge. But! The tree didn't hit me or anything else and it was fine. (what wasn't fine is that I realized several hours later that both of my parents weren't on the farm, so I was doing dangerous things all by myself with no one around. great! very safe!) I cut that all up plus half of another log that has been sitting in the woods for who knows how long. But it was still in decent condition. After lunch, I went back down and split it all, then grabbed the dump trailer and loaded it up. I did run the tractor out of fuel (oops) but it made me remember that the dash dials don't actually work on it. I was able to bleed it pretty easily, the hardest part of the whole process was walking up to the house to fetch my truck to bring fuel back down. Safety toes are great on boots, but walking in the snow in them is so slow.

That's probably two weeks of indoor stove wood, currently dumped in a pile but I loaded about half of it into the tote already and I'll do the rest in the next day or two. I'll hopefully go work on the rest of that big log and get a bunch more, plus some other trees I know are down in the woods in the next week or so.

Indoor wood. Very left hand part of the photo you can see the pile of outdoor burner wood since the burner is just left of where this picture shows. There's an overhang there to keep the wood out of the weather.

To finish off the day, I cut up the basswood tree that my dad brought down the hill. I'll split that tomorrow, nice and small. I've got an audiobook due in three days, so I plan to listen to that. Then probably do another load of outdoor burner wood with the skidsteer in the afternoon and dump that next to the burner. Then I can split it into a heap to help it dry.

Basswood log cut up

It has been such nice weather these last two days, 28F but incredibly sunny. There has been a little bit of wind that brings the feels like down to 20F but it's really warm compared to the last two weeks. I've been removing layers as I work! It's going to be cold again this weekend, so I'm trying to push through and get as much done as I can.

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Olympics approaching, mixed feelings

2026-02-02T16:52:46Z

I'm divided on whether to watch or not. Normally I love watching, I put on all sorts of sports I would never watch normally and enjoy the hell out of it. I don't root for USA, I think the national fever over it is pretty gross and weird (I have a lot of feelings on being at the Hockey World's for the gold medal game in the US and they are not good feelings, something something gross nationalism, not sure I can really articulate it), but I enjoy watching people be really good at what they do. I also usually watch the Paralympics because again, people being good at what they do.

This year, it feels not great. Supporting the whole thing even as I know the huge costs to the locations and people and the constant failures of the committees to get things done on time (is the ice rink even ready for the women's tournament happening in three days?) has been on my mind the last few games. The fascism machine we've got going on right now makes me wonder if I can stand to listen to the commentators who I typically hate listening to due to the gross nationalism.

Something in there also about the politics of who goes to the olympics, the current actions of many sporting associations to ban transwomen from competing (USA hockey just banned all trans people from playing in any gendered leagues, even from beer leagues, fuck those bastards), the issues with money, the issues that lots of countries face for their athletes trying to get to the olympics.

I usually buy a peacock subscription for the month, so I can watch the full streams which generally don't have the worst commentary or the replays if I miss things. I will watch the women's hockey tournament even if through perhaps not fully legal means (hmu if you want that link), but I dunno.

I can't really articulate a lot of it, I'm sure someone out there has said it better. Doesn't feel good, feels really weird.

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January crafting update and February goals

2026-02-01T12:45:48Z

January crafting goals

finish weaving yarn inventory - spreadsheet already set up and entry started - entry all done except for two cones that I found well after the fact and still need to enter
get loom into crafting room - done! and started putting a project on it already
spin! and ply the two things I've got languishing - I have been spinning, but no finishes. I've done three bobbins and almost done with the fourth of the big spin on my CPW. Also been working on spindle projects
knit the sweater, maybe try and finish it? I've got two crochet projects that I want to make - ugh, I was making progress on this until I hurt my finger
finish the coat?!?!?! - okay, this was ambitious, but I'm now working on buttonholes, so I'm getting clsoe
hang some art on the crafting room walls - hung three pieces of art!
other - wound an 8 yard warp and have been tying it onto the previous warp that I left on there so I can just pull it through the heddles and reed. My tensioning sucks on this warp, so I'll have a lot of adjustments to make. But I'm mostly done tying on and I'm getting very good at the knot.

Weaving yarn inventory! This was really good to do. I found a bunch of things that are very similar and I can use together in projects and a bunch of weird stuff that I might give away. I took each item, weighed it, figured out fiber content, yardage or estimated yardage, yards per pound, and recorded some other useful information (handspun, where I got it, haloing, etc). I had to burn test some cones since there wasn't labels and there's a bunch where I estimated yardage because I couldn't actually tell what weight yarn it was. But I can now sort by color, ypp or anything else and get a bunch of yarns that are very similar. I also tagged them all with numbers and sorted them into two boxes, one of synthetic yarns and one of natural yarns. I also included a bunch of lace weight knitting yarns in here because I'm not going to knit or crochet with lace weight. Probably not. So they would make a great weaving project all together is my guess. Total number of weaving yarns: 73. Technically more since I haven't entered the current projects yarn but shhh

( Read more... )

February goals

hang up more art
weave!
finish coat?
spin - finish the big project? ply and clear some bobbins, I need to free some up for big spin.
Knit sweater
fix blanket that my aunt wants me to fix, big problem is that none of the yarn I can find will color match it and it is 50 years old.

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All I do is split wood

2026-01-31T23:05:14Z

It has been so cold and I don't have wood stocked up, so I've been cutting and splitting wood as I can. Given the temps (today was a balmy 16F with only 8mph winds!) I only do around an hour and a half or two hours at a time, once or twice a day. I'm so tired once I've done that too. I fill the back of my pickup truck with wood and it really is only two or three days of wood. But! I finished the last of the pin oak today, the whole pile is now gone which is great. It was in the way of mowing in the summer. Tomorrow I'm going to sharpen a bunch of chains and bake since it's supposed to be 30mph winds.

Then Monday, I will start setting up down the road for splitting with the bobcat, so I need to plow around the log pile and the bag splitting setup. My dad keeps saying we need to cut some basswood on the hill for maple syrup but I don't feel comfortable cutting a tree down by myself yet and he keeps getting caught up in other things. I think I will wander down to the woods across the road and see if I can find and cut more wood for the indoor wood burner. The logs down the road will be too green for it, but they'll work fine for the outdoor burner. This coming week looks positively warm, temps in the 20s all week which will keep the snow soft but be warmer than the last two weeks. Last night, the temps dropped to around -5F around 8pm, then rose up to 0F by 10pm when I went to bed and was up to 12F when I got up. Weird.

I have reopened my finger wound every time I've split wood but it is callusing up really well, so it doesn't really bleed anymore. I've started using it for things again, I've typed this all out using it and I've been spinning with it as well. Nothing too major since harder pressure still causes issues but better than it was. The lack of feeling in that area is still disconcerting.

We went to a farming conference wednesday, mixed usefulness on sessions, I was one of three people wearing a mask but the coughing. Ew.

We got the rental finally finished up with the new renters moving in yesterday. I mostly helped my mom with cleanup and things thursday, putting shelves back in closets, vacuuming and caulking things. And of course, last night the water line froze. My dad took care of it, but it turns out that the well head in the garage had a pit with the pipe next to it that was just open to the air, that no one had actually noticed in the 8 years they owned the place. Hilariously weird. But he got it defrosted in the end.

I haven't made progress on the upstairs bathroom but I've got all the measurements to build the wall framing. I might work on that tomorrow if I feel giddy.

I did remember the other day that the attic has been missing a window pane for like, two years now. It just decided to jump out of the window frame one night and my parents never covered it in any way. It's original to the house, so it wasn't great in the first place. So I took two layers of plastic window stuff and managed to get it reasonably secure. I don't know if it makes a difference, the house has the open eaves, but eh it'll keep birds out next summer. Pain in the butt to get to that window though, there isn't a floor, just the joists plus insulation and there's a bunch of stuff up there in the way.

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Snow fanfic etc

2026-01-27T14:31:47Z

We got around a foot of snow, no ice at all. It stayed aroudn 7F all day sunday and rose to a balmy 20F yesterday. My dad got giddy and spent a good portion of the day plowing all the snow, I think he's missed doing it since I came back and have doing it. I cleaned off all the vehicles and shoveled the sidewalk at least. It was -8F this morning somewhat unexpectedly, but I left the faucet dripping and everything was okay there.

I felt under the weather the last two days, I think I stressed myself out too much with Friday and Saturday work, especially the straw spreading so intensely. My problem elbow (right) feels weird. Not super sore, just weird. I was using it more when putting bales in the shredder to keep pressure off the wound in my left index finger and I think it's unhappy because of that. Someday I will get that checked out. But also I suspect I have a period coming up this week which is always a terrible time. I was able to get a new T prescription finally but the effects won't kick back in for a bit. I suspect my tiredness is hormonal related generally. Bleh.

Sunday, I spent a good amount of time spinning, which is something I can do so long as I remember to keep my index finger away from thr wool. Can't knit for sure.

I did remove the stitches yesterday, the skin flap finally sealed itself up solidly and the stitches touching things were hurting more than the cut, so I just got them out. Plus I think I was fussing with them in my sleep even though I had wrapped it. It still makes washing dishes extremely difficult.

Yesterday, I read fanfiction, made this cookie recipe (delicious even if it was way way way too thick to pipe even after adding a lot more milk, I wonder if the milk quantity was a typo), tried making foccacia and burned the bejeesus out of it, made risotto for dinner and crafted. I was very tired and down feeling for most of the day but I did perk up and feel better with crafting hangout time. Yay socializing! Plus I made progress on projects.

Fanfiction wise, I have started reading a few witcher fanfics. I don't even go there, but somehow ended up reading (via the author gremble rec'd below):

The Accidental Warlord and His Pack by inexplicifics - listen, I don't even go here. I know basically nothing about Witcher, but this series explains everything anyway. It's very enjoyable. Very wish fulfillment but enjoyable all the same

Then I looked at friend dragonlady7 (bomberqueen17 on Ao3 and tumblr)'s fic which I do love all the stuff she writes in other fandoms and decided to jump in and have read almost all of her witcher fics in the last three days. It's over 1 million words. It's very good. Still ongoing but she's a great writer and I do love threesomes with feelings and she likes writing those. Even her smut is usually in service of character and relationships development so I'll read it which is pretty good for my taste. Most times smut is skippable but I'll read hers mostly.

other two fanfics I've been reading lately

Bring Down Rain by gremble - ever want to think about the inherent horror of ComfortUnits in the Murderbot universe but also how they're people too???? it's so good. Still updating, but the author is pretty consistent and it's almost done

for the want of a jewel by FormLessVoidbeast - The above series reminded me of this original fic which I had read first and now that I've looked, it is inspired by it. Really fun and good, interesting worldbuilding too.

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well things did not really go according to plan

2026-01-25T12:23:30Z

Friday morning we spread three loads of straw before the wind picked up too much to spread more, personal best for me and I was pretty sore for it. But I sat around the rest of the morning and then went out just before noon to clean bale strings out of the shredder. That went fine, it goes pretty quick if you don't let them build up too much. I was putting it back together, I took my glove off to thread the nut, started tightening it, the wrench slipped and I jammed my left index finger onto one of the shredder blades. To be fair, the nut is under the shredder, so I was working crouched on the ground up over my head (equipment chocked, always always always), but it felt bad.

The cut is parallel to my fingernail and wraps around the front and went quite deep. I sat on the couch for about an hour after rinsing it and it was still bleeding decently, so I took myself to urgent care. The good news is that they weren't busy at all, so I got seen immediately and it was rinsed and I got a couple stitches in the front of my finger to help stabilize the skin flap. The shot to numb my finger hurt way worse than the actual wound.

It was bitter cold yesterday morning (3F), but dad and tried to shred straw anyway. However, we are using the Kubota which is the newest tractor and has a very fine mesh fuel filter. And it was so cold that the diesel had thickened and the tractor would start sputtering every time we tried to turn the PTO on. So we gave it up. I went back inside for a few hours. Went to cut some wood and somehow during my cutting ,the chain jumped the track and dinged up the new bar and chain. I think the side nuts loosened up somehow but now the chain won't fit on the track, so I need to see if it can be fixed. Deeply annoying, stupid mistake to not check.

Then I started moving tractors under cover. Even in the afternoon it was so cold and I ended up having to jump the 395 and still need to jump the E this morning. I split a little bit of wood with the 395 while I had it running but there are log chunks so big that I need help rolling them. They're huge. In that time, the wind died down enough and I put the 395 away in the metal shed and headed down to west. It was 11F and the kubota worked fine. We got the last two loads of straw down, working past dark even if I bunged up the final row we did by accidentally dropping two bales off the wagon and being short of what we needed. We were worried about safety after dark with making the step between platform and wagon, but it turns out the hardest part was not seeing the bale strings. Don't recommend, won't be doing that again.

At some point, I bonked my finger despite my best efforts and reopened it a bit, I think it was the wood splitting or when I whacked it on the railing. Probably not smart to split wood. I have been keeping it wrapped when out working and that's been okay, not too bad to grab bales since I can flex it backwards enough to stay out of the way.

I did drain the downstairs bathroom but I think it froze in the faucet since it was just a trickle that came out once I reopened it. I think I'm going to switch to letting it trickle instead of drain, we are suppose to have overnight temps down around zero all week and it already partially froze. Plus I'm getting tired of having water go down my sleeves when I drain the pipes. And it's annoying to fill the back of the toilet from the kitchen. Toilet line shouldn't freeze since it's closer to the basement. ETA: cleaned the faucet filter and we are back on full blast! going to trickle it at night still

The snow has started here, just about an inch or so but it's coming down fast. The plows went by once already, which is surprising but they are probably going to try and keep on top of it. I haven't seen any vehicles go by, so everyone is staying home if they can which is very good. I need to go pick up the wood I split yesterday and jump the E so we can park it under cover but otherwise we are good. I'm planning to bake today and lay around and do not much useful things

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Not really any hatches to batten at this point

2026-01-23T00:47:41Z

many people are getting The Big Storm this weekend. We are currently predicted to get 13 inches of snow starting sunday morning, so not too bad at all. I am going to spend part of tomorrow cutting and splitting wood, the new chainsaw bars came yesterday and it took me about a minute to get through a test log that was probably 30 inches in diameter, smooth and easy. So nice. We have plenty of wood to get through the storm, but I want to keep working on it.

We have around 5 gallons of gas and two generators that work to power our or the relatives houses. Plenty of food and water and I just split some more wood for the indoor burner today plus we have another tote at the other house. I will need to drain the downstairs bathroom pipes tomorrow night since they freeze when the temps get too close to 0F, oh well.

We picked up a trailer of straw today, unsure if we'll be able to get it all spread before the storm due to the intense winds we are supposed to get. But I'm hoping we get at least two loads done tomorrow, possibly three if we can, then two Saturday morning. It takes around 5 donkey cart loads to empty the trailer. I don't really want to do it because it will be either windy or cold as fuck but we can't spread when there's much snow on the ground and we can't spread if it's windy since it blows the straw before it drops. Cold as fuck it will be.

Plow is on the tractor, ready to go for snow removal. Shovel is on the back porch.

I don't think we'll lose power, my parents barely lose it compared to the house in NY which lost power a lot, so I think it's all good. We've got hot chocolate and I'm tempted to try making it on the wood stove for fun.

Good luck to everyone else, stay safe and let your pipes drip

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four things make a post

2026-01-16T21:39:35Z

I am two years overdue on moving my pictures from my Camera Uploads folder on my dropbox to my external harddrive/online only dropbox folder. So far I've done about 50GB, around 6 months and have just moved up to the end of March 2025. Since the Camera Uploads folder is mirrored on my computer harddrive, it takes up a ton of space if I haven't moved things out of it in a while. In an ideal world, I'd do the transfer every two months. I ought to go looking through and print some photos out, which is something I enjoy doing every couple of years.

I have hung two pieces of art in my crafting room using command strips. I have decided that's how I'm going to hang most things since the plaster and lathe walls don't exactly hold things well. I have a whole crate of used frames for art prints and posters which my aunt gave to me. Some need new cardboard backing but I'm excited to hang art! I think I will make some collages of photos and art as well. Main struggle is getting things to stay in place . Also had an absolute galaxy brain moment the other day when I started winding the warp to go on my loom: the warping board can be clamped to the front beam of my loom and it is the perfect height to wind a warp. The best ergonomics for winding ever. Previous places I have put it: on the floor leaning against a table, on my crafting chair arms, on the couch. All of those require leaning over or sitting on the floor. This is such a good change.

We spread another two loads of straw this morning to empty the trailer before it got windy and I reassembled the chainsaw. It's usable if cranky, which describes most equipment on this farm. It was having issues cutting, would more or less just stop once it got partway into the log and it seems like the bar was the problem. We ran through all the other things, sharpened chain, tightened it, cut maple instead of the pin oak, etc. I switched to an alternate bar and it actually started cutting. Spent some time this afternoon cutting up a maple tree that will be burner wood probably and also my dad got a call that the guy brought a load of oak logs. I wanted to replace the rim sprocket on the chainsaw because it's getting worn but the piston stop I bought is plastic, it was taking too much force to remove the clutch drum and I was worried about the plastic breaking and getting into the piston which would be a big pain to get out. The small chainsaw is still out of order, so we might take that to someone to fix, it runs for 15 seconds and then shuts off no matter what, so mystery. I wonder about finding a small engine repair course of some sort, we have chainsaws, weedwackers, pumps, generators, snowblowers all here on the farm. They break a lot. Could be our maintenance. We are running for more straw tomorrow afternoon.

My farm business stuff is progressing. I haven't really talked about it much, but it is happening. My parents attorney did all the paperwork for me, so now I have the EIN and operating agreement, which I'll need to set up banking accounts and go to other businesses for things. My parents are currently footing the expenses until that's all set up, but we are considering it an operating loan for now. I need to do research on the banks/credit unions and figure out who will be good to work with. We are getting back to weekly farm transition meetings so much discussion of things is happening. I am taking a six week webinar on farm insurance. thrilling stuff

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small amusing things

2026-01-15T01:27:02Z

project: get my parents moving on projects is going well, I helped my mom paint most of a room in the rental this afternoon, high priority since they finally have renters moving in feb 1st. it took 30 mins of her flitting around doing sanding and wandering away and me taping things and then we got to painting. I rollered and she did brush touchups of corners and edges. I'll need to roller the main areas again tomorrow but progress! There is a second room and then we'll switch to their house doing primer on some walls there.

My phone has decided to receive group text messages again, verizon must have changed something on their end. I'm still using a unihertz phone and just accepted that I wouldn't receive group texts, the only ones I am regularly in are my family group chat or my parents and I. So I could just ask my parents if there was group texts in the family group chat. This actually worked okay. Not great, but I didn't miss much. But something changed, I now get all the group texts.

early bedtime today I think, two loads of straw spread, moved a bunch of equipment, pulled a lot of twine out of the straw shredder too.

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muddling through winter

2026-01-13T14:09:08Z

things melted last week and everything was mud, so I got a couple days break from spreading straw. weirdly, my problem elbow hurt more when I wasn't using it constantly than when I was. Not sure what's up with that. The temperature dropped again, so the ground froze again. Did another load at dawn this morning but discovered a belt had worn weirdly on the shredder, so I need to run to town today and get a new one before we shred more.

The pottery class I was going to take isn't actually available on Wed, their only evening hours are mondays from 5-8 and they only just updated that on facebook and haven't emailed me back. I'm busy that night, so that's out. I could theoretically do day classes but with how short the days are, any daylight is needed for work hours especially if I need extra warmup time between morning and afternoon. ETA: I found another studio with wed classes and easier signup procedures. done.

I did go to spinners guild on sunday and it was a gosh dang delight including one of the longer term guild members coming this time who is queer in so many ways and everyone was lovely to him. It was so so so nice and relaxing. I think for the next meeting I'm going to get either my electric wheel battery up and running or take my smaller wheel and start an alpaca spin on it. My CPW is too big and loud for the space we've been meeting in. I got there right at 1pm and was still one of the later arrivals, so clearly I need to get there even earlier :)

We have started the wood stove indoors back up, so that's nice. I missed it. We ran out of wood that size and it had gotten warm, so there was less point in running it. Dad got on the roof and cleaned the chimney out while it was off, so that was nice and split some of the wood at the rental into wood stove size for both their house and mine.

I did kickstart my parents into doing work on their house! I sanded their office floor and then mom cleaned it and we sealed and finished it together. Definitely one of those times where it would have been faster with just one person, but so be it. My dad has been working on their living room wall drywall which is next in line. They do have renters moving into the rental Feb 1, so there is painting to be done there, plus some other small misc stuff. Parents' house also needs paint so I will be helping with some amount of painting. I didn't do drywall in my upstairs bathroom yet as expected, but I'm planning to later this week when dad is around to help me move the drywall outside to cut and then upstairs to get in place. They do have an extremely firm deadline of house renovations of June when my dad's college buddies are coming to visit, so there's that. We did discover that nice foosball tables are extremely heavy and it would be good to have more than two people to get it in a bilco basement door. I didn't get squished but it was very very heavy. After we got it down there, my dad said, you know, I think it did say something about being over 200lbs. hmm. thanks dad. Although we would have had to get a cousin or something to come help, which my parents are slightly allergic to asking for help, so I dunno if that would have happened anyway. We do have a vague plan to get the floor done which is good and there is progress happening. Given my parents hated the smell of the seal and finish, we are waiting to move them into the house until the living room/dining room/kitchen are all sealed and finished.

Winter is one of those times where I am just sleepy a lot, so I do accept this as a fact of life but also am fully aware that I am relatively isolated from the local area. In NY, I had an established friend groups, I had places I could go when I wanted a little socializing or crafting with folks, all sorts of things. Here I don't have any of that, so I'm trying to find something. Over the summer, I was so busy with the farm that I didn't really notice, but now I really can tell. To be fair, I have three nights a week where I have weekly social opportunities, but they are all digital. I know I need to push myself and get out there but it's hard and farm work is a bit unpredictable with when we need to run for straw and things. So spinners guild was excellent. I'm hoping to go to a meetup this saturday, although I'll be missing gaming with Jade that night for it. I need to do something thur/fri nights. And maybe some saturdays during the day. Hmm.

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A small list of things I did

2026-01-05T19:58:31Z

Holidays were very good

hung out with family and their dogs
we did a puzzle that friend of a friend of my SIL made of their painting - it was very good and difficult
had friends visit on their way south, they brought their dogs
played a random series of games - exploding kittens, oh hell (family fav), some kind of game about guessing on a scale, ransom notes, some kind of imposter game. most party games aren't to my taste, but I did like exploding kittens
new years day family party which was nice
I pulled all my stash out organized it and it is mostly put away
I made peanut butter chocolate chip cookies and they were so good
I made tacos for the friends that stopped by and it was good
went for many walks - christmas day with the cousins, twice with sibs and the dogs, friends around the farm
I brought some furniture, my CPW and the two extra boxes of yarn stash that I didn't know I had from the shed and am now more optimized for crafting and can watch tv on the big screen while I do it
finished upstairs bathroom floor - drywall next
started journaling my feelings in a little physical notebook
made a dr appointment for next week
my brother bought me anno 1800 - time sink it's very good if confusing
my brother and SIL came overnight because they realized their ski lesson place was closer to here and so brought their dogs for two days and I got to hang out with the dogs which was very good

today, I spread two loads of straw - person spreading counts as the one putting the bales in the shredder, not the driver. driver has easy job. we go 1.5mph and a bale goes 50 ft or so. the cart behind the shredder holds 50 bales or so. I'll try and have my mom get a video, it's very fun and decently difficult farm task. then I finishing sanding my parents office at their house. I was supposed to run for groceries and supplies from hardware store but after straw and sanding I am tired and don't want to. Might do that and baking tomorrow.

I am attempting to motivate my parents on their renovation by just simply doing parts of it for them. this is working okay so far. I need to pick up a spackle bucket. not a bucket of spackle but something for holding the spackle because my dad used it for floor patch in the rental and it apparently because extremely solid in the container. spackling and sanding is next for them and as soon as I get my drywall pieces up in the upstairs bathroom, I will be spackling and sanding.

In theory my parents are moving their bedroom over this week, the reality is that my dad went to urgent care today to get something with his jaw looked at. I have been working with an attorney on business stuff. there's a lot going on and I'm very tired right this minute so I might get my heated blanket and take a nap in my comfy chair and then crafting tonight, can't wait for more crafting

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