unicornduke | Entries tagged with personal

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

we took two small truck loads of things over to the fun house in the past week and we are working on getting my parents' office stuff over there in the next few days, which will actually happen! They are taking this very seriously finally which is super appreciated. I feel like I'm not helping enough but my job is to carry things and boxes to the vehicle and into the house, not to pack their things. My mom keeps asking me about their stuff though, "did you want to keep this counter/cabinet/applicance???" and every time I just say "if you want to take it, take it, if you don't want to take it, I will figure it out" which I don't know that it is helpful to her but I also can't deal with managing this anxiety spiral stuff. She has been diverted into having anxiety about christmas gifts since my siblings finally sent their gift lists. "is hardcover or paperback better??? they're the same price, which one should I get him???" jesus. I'm trying to figure out a way to tell her this is not a normal level of anxiety.

We did get the rental flooring completed Sunday, which is great, there's still a bunch of stuff to do, putting trim back on, some other minor things but we are working on all sorts of things. I am looking at the upstairs bathroom in the farm house, which needs drywall and flooring before the toilet and sink can go in, but I got my mom to order the flooring at least. That should be coming this week. I need to learn to do drywall which doesn't look difficult just tedious. I mentioned this to my mom and was subjected to a whole rant about spackling. to which I said, "okay"

saturday nights, I have a standing hangout with former roommate Jade, where we watch the Great British Baking Show. We did a rewatch in the past year or so until this new season came out and then we've switched to playing co-op stardew. When we watch things, we do discord text chat but when we play games, we hop on voice. I guess I never really got into the frustrations with living with my parents very deeply via text because I mentioned a couple things that had been frustrating me and she said that I wasn't being unreasonable and it all sounded really really irritating and unreasonable of them. I know you all have been reassuring me but I couldn't really tell if I was being persnickety but Jade lived with me for 8 years, so she knows what I'm like so it was nice to get someone's perspective on it that knows me a little better. I couldn't tell if I was just being a bad roommate because I felt a little like this with F in NY as well. But I suspect I have just been living with incompatible roommates lately. I do miss living with Jade, it was really nice to live together if not long term viable due to life plans. I need to try and find someone to move in within ten years or so, I suspect I will not do well living on my own longterm.

Today we are getting anywhere from 1 to 4 inches of potential snow, ice and/or rain depending on location so that will be interesting. I'm going to do some outdoor work this morning and some baking this afternoon.

my parents are Making Progress

thank all the gods

it does help that the farm is basically asleep and I am working on those things but really only get 4-6 hours of work done each day on outdoor tasks, so everything is taking a lot of days there. so now all my dad's free time is on house stuff plus he absolutely loves deadlines to work to and my mom is only stressing about moving instead of about everything including the farm.

so yesterday before I hit the road, I helped my mom load and move three large bins and two small boxes over to the fun house and she thanked me so much for helping and how it was so difficult and she couldn't have done it without me!!!!

in my mind I am thinking "dear god moving isn't this difficult, it truly isn't that hard, this was so little stuff and so easy" but I am trying to remind myself that I have moved six times in eleven years and I have practice moving. They moved twice in 33 years. Wildly different experiences. It is a skill that needs to be developed. My mom is very good at losing her mind about things. She also is pretty clearly procrastinating on actual important moving tasks by having me help her with other stuff (we forked two cabinets from the front porch where they have sat in their boxes for literal years, which they may actually set up for use in the garage) or suggesting I fix unimportant things (the upstairs hallway light doesn't have a fixture and she wanted me to work on it). I am going to have to kick her out when it comes time to actually set the house up for guests because our ideas of housekeeping are very very different and I will lose my mind if she comes over here to clean more before guests come over. The front porch is an example, she wanted to start cleaning the front porch off because the cardboard boxes look terrible but I won't be able to host guests at all if the fucking guest bedrooms aren't empty of their stuff. We come into the house via the back porch, the front porch steps don't even work. PRIORITIES

I just got back after 24 hours away (drove to MD for continuing education credits for sidejob) and my dad has almost fully emptied his work desk of things, plus the giant shelf next to his work desk (they are leaving me the giant shelf, I am SO EXCITED about it for crafting supplies, it is HUGE. It is floor to ceiling, four feet wide, 2 or 2 1/2 feet deep with four shelves. It will be the perfect shelf for roving and fleeces). Now it's all piled on the couch, but it has been sorted at least.

The order of operations currently is: finish laying new flooring in the rental (currently around half done), do all other repairs in rental (new renter is moving in Jan 1st), then sand and finish flooring in fun house office so all office supplies can be moved directly in (due to computer/server/network things I know nothing about, it is easier to move offices only once), their bedroom moves to fun house, (once those two rooms are emptied, I can move a bunch of my stuff from shed to here, and set up guest bedrooms for christmas and I can start cleaning and organizing the house to my liking), they move either to the fun house or to the rental temporarily, I don't really care which, they do the rest of the flooring in the fun house and all the other renovation things. They may have to move back into the guest bedroom here temporarily while they seal and finish the hallway floor but if we get to that point, it will be a minor miracle. They would also still be using the kitchen here to cook. I just suggested to my mom that she use the church which would be closer but she didn't seem thrilled. Can't imagine why.

The couch will remain until after christmas which is fine by me, it's a very nice and comfortable couch, so I don't mind borrowing it. I will probably rearrange things so we have more space and can fit things. I did send around the christmas gift list but my asks were help moving things after christmas day and not much in the way of physical gifts because I need help with tasks, not stuff.

I did get the indoor woodstove working, I did not clean the chimney out, I got up there and started the attempt and gave up but! the actual up/down part of the chimney was mostly smoke and the pipes to the stove were full of creosote, so I cleaned the pipes and top of the stove out, plus the basement cleanout and started that bad boy up. it's so so so nice to have the woodstove to warm up next to after working outside, I warm up so much faster.

anyway, so many parentheses and I'm very tired after my drive home, thank you to the moon for being so bright for the drive.

Cover crops are getting in the ground this week. I am going to crack garlic tonight and plant it tomorrow as soon as I get the rototiller on the tractor and get the ground prepared. Better late than never. Probably.

I went to the local spinning/weaving guild yesterday. I got there a little after 1pm, but will make it for 1 next time. It runs from 1-5pm which is a great amount of time. It was primarily spinners, although a bunch of folks were knitting and crocheting. It was great to chat with people, very casual and nice to talk with folks who know spinning so well. Some people were even working on fleeces! I brought my supported spindles and worked on my cotton spinning which was fun to chat about. I didn't stay super long, had to get back but it was overall good. There was an actual guild meeting in there, casually run but fun. I'll go back again.

I came home early to run the giant bushel gourd down the road to a neighbor who is going to dry it out and save the seeds for us to split before it got dark. It will be below 20F tonight so everything needs to be cleaned up and put away.

Then, I badgered my parents into tagging a room for the move. I had to ask three times but they got up and we did it. We are doing a system of using four different colors of painters tape to tag items in a room, purple is staying here at the farm house/farm, yellow is going to parents' new house, green is traveling with parents to whichever house they end up in and blue is to get rid of the item. Then I write on the painters tape details of what the item is, what room it is going to and any other info needed. So we got one room done, my future office and then I moved some things to their proper location (AC unit to basement, server to upstairs bedroom, office supplies onto the shelf that is staying), stacked some other things up and staged a few things that will go to new house near the front door. Progress! I made a sheet of what colors go with what tapes so they know. I'm just going to wander around tagging things as we go since some stuff is easy.

I am taking my truck to the garage later for an oil change and new tires. Probably time to stop driving around on the spare. It's been years since the last new tires, so I figured it was a good time to get that all handled before Thursday's trip. I'm falling down on arranging things for the trip, I still haven't confirmed where I'm sleeping, but oh well.

yesterday I took another day off work, made pumpkin pie, granola, cheesy puff pastry thingies and went and got my covid and flu shots. no big deal, my day off! and then I got a hell of a nasty period all at once, the first in several months. then at 1:30am I was woken up by very bright headlights shining in my second story bedroom window and car door slams. I went to investigate in the cold, just someone broken down who's ride got there already and they left pretty quickly. I took aleve at this point because my shoulder was very sore despite my best efforts and I was pretty nauseous and extremely thirsty.

didn't get back to sleep for a bit.

I did sleep in a bit to make up for the middle of the night interruption, so I wasn't super tired for most of the day, got some farm work done but now I'm very sleepy all of a sudden and heading to bed as soon as I finish eating my pie. I'm hoping I can fall asleep fast, we're getting a heck of a windstorm and maybe some rain, but we battened down the hatches and actually took one canopy fully down this afternoon. pie could be better tasting, I usually like a little more spices for flavor but it's tasty enough.

more thoughts occurred since I was very tired this morning

thank you for all the comments you left on posts in the past month, I was too tired to respond to most but I appreciated them!

I found out last night that my parents have come up with a more convoluted scheme for the move but seems more likely to get them out of the farm house sooner? they have a second farm down in town that has a house attached, they got the farm for the land directly from the previous owners and the house was unavoidably attached and honestly the only thing of value. The farmland is very nice though. the barn could burn down and we wouldn't be sad. I climbed into the upstairs the other week and wasn't actually sure I climbed up the way I was supposed to, but hey any hole in the ceiling will do. The people who have rented the house from them for six? seven? years moved out. The insurance company doesn't like that it's unoccupied and they have a person who is known through someone else that wants to rent it but due to potential surgery things, might not be able to move in for several months. My parents would rather have someone move in that they like and think would be a good renter for years than hit and miss shorter term people who might not be good tenants. Okay sure.

so the plan as explained to me yesterday: my parents move into the rental, taking only essential things down there, everything else going in the basement at the fun house (their "new" house), to free up room here in the farm house for me and potential December guests. Then they can work on the fun house while not breathing in wood finishing and paint fumes and it takes the pressure off them. Or something. The main problem being that their nice hardwood floors take a while to lay, sand, seal, finish with like a week curing time or something.

I dunno. this sounds like my dad's offer to move my loom into the fun house so I could use it where it's warm. unnecessary, a lot more work but nice to offer. I wish they would just crank out the fun house, but they do also have to run the wood burner at the rental to heat it and that would be easier to do with them living there. all in all, this is getting absurd. why are they like this. I had no idea them being picky about vinyl plank flooring would lead to something that is a full year of nonsense before they move in. see also: the upstairs bathroom here in the farm house only having a shower and nothing else done. I'm going to start tackling that soon I think.

but also they are being almost as picky with the flooring they plan to replace in the rental which is a house they won't even really live in! my mom was appalled that I just ordered the LVP for the NY house without getting samples or checking that I liked the pattern or whatever. like, I don't know how to tell her that her standards are too high. Because this is a reoccurring problem of: high standards -> agonizing over decisions -> delaying the work while more research occurs -> delay work because it isn't perfect -> project never gets done

there's a hole in the downstairs bathroom ceiling! the upstairs bathroom is bare drywall! and plywood! the basement stairs only has a support on one side and so sags alarmingly when you walk down it! (on my list to fix literally this week) perfect is the enemy of done! I don't understand this! they don't even half ass it, they 100% or 0%! I would take 80% of perfect because that's pretty good!

like this is a good problem to have: owning multiple properties, a thing I will only accomplish due to their achievements, but execution of tasks to make things happen is just like pulling teeth. anyway, I think I'm hungry, gonna run to the grocery store and buy snacks or something.

Almost done, just two group outings left, one Thurs night, one Fri morning. They had been scheduled for the previous Thursday but it rained a lot, so we rescheduled them. I had my employees start cleaning things up yesterday, emptying displays, cleaning up unused tables, etc. Today is the day a lot of people are stopping by to get pumpkins for their animals, so I'll have them pull off the displays and out of bins first, then from the field.

My to-do list for the next day or two:

nap - today, woke up at 3am to use the bathroom, only managed to doze on and off until 7. and I had gone to sleep late. curses upon time changes for sleep schedule disruptions
grocery store - overdue
clean out fridge - there are things alive in there that shouldn't be
fill out a form and mail it
make pumpkin pie - lots of edible squash left, so I'll keep a bunch and a bunch will go to the food pantry this week
crack garlic, get rototiller on tractor and plant it real fast

I've been playing video games and relaxing this morning, doing some spinning too. delightful

We were supposed to be open tonight for Halloween, free hayrides after dark, carved pumpkin walk, campfire, etc...

40 mph winds. we don't actually have a real building, our selling area is a glorified pole barn. So I rescheduled it and said we'd do it all tomorrow. I have an employee coming this afternoon for farm work (just texted him to change it to sunday woot) but my main goal for this afternoon is more pumpkin carving. I've got three pumpkins bins worth already done, probably need to do another bin or so worth. jigsaws work fantastic, plus a hole saw mounted on a drill for punching out the back for gletch cleanout.

I spent this morning taking down one small canopy and strapping the corners of the other two to tractors. My dad is out of town having fun this weekend, so I'm doing it solo. Not too bad to be honest, we did a pretty good strapping a few weekends ago when we had 30 mph winds, so it was mostly getting the tractors in place and putting straps around the axles in place of the wood totes and pumpkin bins we used last time. I doubled up all the small straps since my dad took the truck and all of the nice big 2 inch straps with him by accident. My mom is going to the hardware store anyway, so she's going to pick up some extras to keep here on the farm for this sort of situation.

So now I've got the afternoon to carve, then relax tonight, so some spinning or maybe go over to my shed and finish the warp on the loom. Fantastic. I've got plans to take monday and tuesday off work, we had two groups reschedule to thursday and friday next week and then we are done for reals. But I want to bake things and make some food which works best when I have two days off in a row. I did successfully get my weavers guild show and sale inventory done, I have 25 items for the sale! Leftover key fobs from last year, a shawl and eleven skeins of yarn. I upped my price a little bit this year on the yarns but they are mostly pretty merinos or merino blends and I think they'll sell even with a slightly higher price. Still surprised I got that many done this year given everything. Someday soon I will have my CPW out of storage and it will be glorious.

My parents have floated a plan: get the office at the new house completely finished, get their desks and computers and then move their bedroom over there, so the work will be staring them in the face all the time and they'll be more motivated. They'd still need to cook here at the farm house, but if they manage that, I will be able to get a huge chunk of the shed over here in one go since their office will be my crafting room. that would be amazing, I could get the boxes in my room moved down and unpacked too. Maybe even wash a fleece??? wild. I can almost taste the off season

jeez I'm tired. naps required for today. the weekend wasn't record breaking but it was pretty close. there was some minor crises as normal like the wind. 30 mph winds, so dad and I spent some time battening down the canopies. pretty sure they all survived the night as well. the wind made our power flicker so all the registers went down, plus the card readers. came back up quick so I was able to reboot the computers and have them run cash while the internet came back enough to use the card readers.

saturday had 10 outings which went mostly smoothly, the first set ran late but it was fine in the end. not sure if people are not reading emails or what.

it's raining right now which is nice for a break. late last week I posted on facebook that we had extra tiny pumpkins and we'd offer a discount if people bought 20 or more and uhhh, people went wild for it. I couldn't believe how many people have contacted us about them. we are almost out actually. another day or so of pumpkin picking this week, primarily to scavenge enough smalls for our daytime group outings

I have rediscovered KEXP which was recommended by B ages ago and their youtube page, so I've been listening to their in-studio performances while playing some video games this morning. also late to this party but Shaboozey has some delightful country anthems especially his last album. that seems to be his whole jam that I've heard so far but they're very enjoyable

office work and planning in a bit and then some prep work for the week, then crafting tonight. I'm going to lay around on the couch a bunch and work on my laptop in between video game playing.

Another good busy weekend, excellent practice for the employees. I was very cranky Friday night but pretty sure I hadn't eaten enough lunch or dinner. Much better feeling Saturday, but I also got the chance to drive a tractor at night which was lovely and nice. I was tired again yesterday but that's because it was so hot.

We picked 24 tall bins of pumpkins this week and 8 short bins of various things. This isn't even half of what we have planted. I'm spending today, tomorrow and wed picking weird stuff because we have definite frost coming wednesday/thursday (predicted 36 and 34F so we'll be lower) and the weird stuff is often frost sensitive. Face pumpkins usually aren't to a light frost. Also rain coming tomorrow night, thank goodness because I haven't irrigated anything arg. Then thurs/fri picking big pumpkins. Plus all the group outings during the weekdays

Did find gluten free fig newtons at the store which is delightful. not as good as my homemade ones, but as good as OG fig newtons so I'm happy.

Sleep has been hard to find, I get so keyed up with farm stuff by the time I get up to the house, eat dinner and do all the things i need to do, it's 9pm and I'm not quite tired, so I read for a bit. Plus calls and emails and reservations. it is go time. thankfully mom has been feeding me, I know my temper varies entirely by how hungry I am.

Did enjoy browsing this collection of spindle whorls on the internet archive housed in the cleveland museum of art

much to do this week. at least I will have 2 hours of crafting tonight

I really should not be living and working with my parents and specifically my mother, she drives me bonkers. She struggles with prioritization and worries about the tiniest stuff. She is currently so cranky about the tshirt order who are running late for the first time in many years and she's ready to throw them out as a supplier. so much taking things personally! I am very tired right now and she is asking me how many honeys to order. I dont' know how many honeys we sell in a year, this is my first full year here. she has so much knowledge about stuff but dear god. it's so much to manage her.

The weekend went well, we were pretty prepared for things. Saturday was busier than Sunday, both days were sunny and very hot. We hit 80F on Sunday. bleh. sweating, so much sweating. I hydrated with apple cider and a little water. too much apple cider, my stomach is extremely upset right now. I also didn't eat much, but I wasn't hungry, a combo of too hot and lots to do which was an absolutely huge mistake. the first weekend is practice for busier weekends and working out the problems. I need to pack a lunch, so even if I take a bite every ten minutes, I'll get through a whole sandwich.

morning list: hiking boots (to swap to when ground dries out), lunch, water bottle x2, cash drawers, hoodie, blanket

the harvest has to start today, so I'm planning to do a half day of harvesting this afternoon and then relax some more. We got some stuff harvested yesterday morning real quick to fill out empty displays, but there's lots of pumpkins out there. we are starting daytime outings this week too. busy busy busy.

other reasons I need my parents to move out: my dad is on a computer call, so I have to take farm calls in the other room away from my computer. separate offices needed. ETA: I moved to the kitchen, they have followed me to keep talking to me! Double ETA: I went over to my shed for an hour and my mom came over to have a lot of feelings at me about baked goods, when I told her I went there for peace and quiet and she could have called me. then 45 minutes later, she needed to talk about something, she called me and when I didn't get back to her in one minute (I saw the phone call as I was calling my dad about the bad dehumidifier in the church that was leaking water everywhere), she tracked me down in the church. jesus fuck. to be fair, I'm hungry and therefore cranky but also wtf

Picking raspberries with a rainstorm coming, after finishing up work at 7pm, getting head lamps and picking in the dark
listening to podfic Embers by alfgifu, read by Rhea314 while I work
eating delicious cake out of the freezer

Monday, I worked a half day, primarily running errands to pick things up for the farm. I took advantage of this and went to Wegmans and rediscovered how amazing it is. The gluten free section is huge! And clearly labeled! I gotta say though, the gf naan I got is far inferior to the pita bread I've been making. But I stocked up on things and found some new stuff to try. I was particularly impressed by the gluten free soups.

That night during crafting, I was so fed up with how annoying it was to craft in the hallway between the spare room and my room (because there wasn't enough floor space for a 4 ft folding table to iron and assemble sewing stuff) that I spent an hour and a half of crafting cleaning and organizing. First, I took all the stuff that was stacked in my room that are important, plus all of the blankets and misc stuff that had been living on top of the box piles and tossed them all onto my bed. Then I took all of the boxes of my stuff that was in the spare room (fleeces, roving, yarn primarily) and stacked them up. I did put them in front of one of mom's shelves, but I determined nothing of urgency was on the shelf, reorganized so I could use one small shelf for my delicate keepsakes and then stacked my boxes floor to ceiling in front of the shelf. They are all light and there was enough of a corner next to my dresser that I was able to get three good stacks. this was almost every box I had in the space room. all light but bulky things

Then I took all of mom's bins that were in front of my closet, at the end of my bed and behind my door and put them in the newly cleared space in the spare room on the table there. Then moved my small shelves into my room and they are now usable! Shoved my book boxes, plus big luggage at the foot of the bed in between the bed and a shelf and then put all of my soft stuff onto the shelves.

So in the end, I actually gained floor space in my room plus storage space plus I can possibly move my little crafting table into my room monday nights. it's so nice!

Then I had an absolutely baffling conversation with my mom which went something like: me: I cleaned my room and reorganized! her: why did you do that without me!!! I needed to look in there for a small bin!!! Me: but you'd turn it into an ordeal! and why would small bin be in my room? and you never mentioned this??? her: I told you I couldn't find small bin so you'd look for it in your room! it's gone forever!!! me: you never said it was in my room??? is that why you told me to keep an eye out for it? her: yes!

turns out I had opened small bin without ever looking at the label on it, been baffled by its contents, moved it to the spare room on top of her pile of stuff and she found it in less than a minute. if I had let her be involved, it would have been probably five hours of nonsense with lots of debate. I love her, but dear god, living with her and working with her on some farm stuff is too much. everything needs to be debated to death and back. the conversations I've had about the baked goods we're going to buy for the fall weekends is so incredibly irritating. I guess I need to get the kitchen in the church up and running so I never need to have that debate again. lol who am I kidding

tuesday night I made rice, curry chicken and roasted delicata squash and chickpeas, ate it all week, so tasty.

Myself and employees have been slowly harvesting the first pumpkins of the season. Ours are all very late but the specialty stuff is what we need harvested, so tiny pumpkins, gourds, white pumpkins (since they go yellow in the sun easily), edible squashes. We bought a load of pumpkins from the auction to supplement until ours are ready.

Yesterday, we had a big workday to get things done. I woke up at 4am and couldn't go back to sleep. We had five employees coming, one for her first day of work/training. There was an equipment auction, so my parents both went to the auction to see if any of the UTVs there would be good. A working UTV would be great but aughaugh. Trying to keep five people working on all different tasks that take different amounts of time and support is really difficult. But I managed. New employee is great so far, worked fast and came and found me when she finished things. I'll have her come back one night for training more. We're actually in decent shape as far as things go. My parents did buy me 11 nice new produce boxes with false bottoms, which are excellent for displays so I guess I can't complain that much. Me and the employees got a lot done so now we need the big stuff done, which I don't know how to do yet (hayfort, canopies) so I'm bothering dad about getting that done. Hayfort got done late yesterday, canopies this coming week.

Still absolutely baffled by the number of people that will come out to the farm without checking our facebook page, website, instagram page and/or answering machine to actually check if we are open, all of which I keep updated regularly. I think a lot of people just go: oh the grocery stores have pumpkins, so everyone is open for pumpkins

I have been irrigating so much. I'm trying to get the new grass seed to germinate that we no-tilled in, so I borrowed rainbirds from my uncle. Just. so much watering. I probably spend two hours a day on irrigation. Over a month without rain here and our total rain since beginning of August is around 4 inches. Pretty dire. But we have a 70% chance of rain on tuesday, so I'm hopeful we'll get something good. I guess I need to cover all of the things I've just been leaving outside because it hasn't rained in so long. There's also a 30-40% chance of rain the rest of the week, so we probably won't get any of that, or all of it.

On Saturday nights, Jade and I have been watching the new season of Bake Off as it is releasing with text chat and then playing stardew valley on discord voice chat afterwards. it's been so nice, I miss her a lot. We go on break in October with the farm and catch up in November.

I sent my parents away today to a n-scale train convention out in central pa somewhere. my dad sounded so wistful about going, so I decided that he should, my mom went along for fun. my dad said as he went out the door "us leaving the farm a week before opening is a sign at how good things are going because of you" which was nice to hear since I feel like we aren't ready yet but not to an extent that I can't let him go do something fun for a day. the house is nice and quiet right now. tasks for today: move rainbirds and irrigate, harvest some things, start display setup, look at phone stuff. I woke up at 4:30 and couldn't get back to sleep until 6 or so when I should have gotten up so I'm sleepy and slow to start work today. ah well.

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unicornduke

February 2026

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Page generated Feb. 3rd, 2026 10:39 pm

It is a mystery

Entries tagged with personal

All I do is split wood

Snow fanfic etc

well things did not really go according to plan

Not really any hatches to batten at this point

four things make a post

small amusing things

muddling through winter

A small list of things I did

More progress and some validation

all I had to do was give them a deadline and be lightly fed up with them...

Progress

despite all the things, I don't feel as bad as I could

this is why I post and then post again

six of six weekends complete!

Having a lazy day

four done, two to go

Two weekends down, four to go

One weekend down, five to go

Fun things in a busy week

what a week