Organizing

There are two kinds of work that need to be done on the farm. First, there is what might be called infrastructure work. This is work, mostly one-time projects, that hopefully set the conditions for life and work on the farm for years to come, everything from setting up the workshop to running water and fencing out to the pasture.

Second, there is maintenance work. These are the day-to-day, weekly, monthly and seasonal chores that constitute the actual business of farming.

Right now, because we are still getting set up, both are always taking place simultaneously. This is partially because we moved into a place with a lot of raw materials but little finished infrastructure and no systems, and immediately set to work raising chickens. Partially this is also because, although we set up some infrastructure and systems, after we have actually lived with them and worked them for a few months, or a year, we may find issues that we didn’t anticipate, or friction points that need to be smoothed. When this happens we have to go back to the old drawing board and refine or redesign the infrastructure and systems.

Yesterday was an example of that. We hoped to get the pump set up for the water catchment tank, but before we could do that, the trash needed to be taken out. Unfortunately, modern life generates trash and we are not yet off grid enough to be completely out of that cycle. So every few months we have to collect up all the trash and take it to the dump. Ideally we would have little or no waste. God-willing maybe someday we will. For now, this is a necessary part of maintenance.

Moving the trash out of the barn revealed electric netting, currently not in use until the pastures recover from the drought, was thrown on the shelves here and there, in untidy rolls. This is because the rolls are 54 inches long (counting the step in spikes) but the shelf is only 24 inches deep. Obviously, this doesn’t work.

So Seppi and I set out to fix this.

To support the shelf extension we decided to add a (probably unnecessary) mortice and tenon joint at the end of the angle brace. This looks cool, is stronger than merely screwing it together, and is good practice for fancier wood working later.

Seppi enjoyed being able to tap the waste off the tenon with his hammer and my pocket knife. Incidentally, that is why I have loved the “shenanigans” clip pocket folder from Ken Onion for many years, because it is one of the few folders I have found that has a large enough handle to fit my hand, good blade ergonomics, and is solid enough to handle all the abuse I dish out to it. I have even used it as a mini-froe to split firewood before (that was rather pushing it). At any rate, it handled this job quite well. I regret to say CRKT no longer makes or sells them, except a silly version with a partially serrated blade (yuck!)

For having cut this without measuring, using only makeshift scribing on a scrap of wood…

I’d call it not bad at all.

Seppi! Master of the saw! Not quite so good at knowing which foot to put his shoes on.

He wandered off for a little bit, so after I hadn’t seen or heard from him for 10 minutes or so I went to go see where he was and what he was up to.

He had decided to dig for a while. I approve of this!

I went back to work, and then I heard Seppi’s voice, “Hey, Daddy! Check out one of my moves!”

Yep. That’s a move all right.

He did not care for this move as much. He was perfectly happy to hold onto the finished shelf extender, but not happy when I stepped back to take the picture.

There it is. Finished. At a pinch that will hold all our electric netting, although most of the year most of it will be out in the pasture. Which reminds me. Now that the grass is re-growing, we need to get the roles of netting up off the ground so the grass doesn’t grow through them and tangle them up and make it hard to get them up.

Always something to do around here.