They will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them. They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens and eat their fruit.
With the arrival of the Hold Fasts from Grammercy Tools, our work horses are now complete! As others have said in online forums, we had to rough up the shaft a bit with sandpaper to improve the friction in the hole. I also had to plane the bench top a little flatter, but once we… Continue reading Hold Fasts
After the setback with the trestles for the new workbench, Seppi and Daddy figured out how to glue the split section back on, clamp it, and then reinforce it with decking screws. Of course then we had to re-trim the notches to compensate for the torque that split the piece off in the first place.… Continue reading New Workbench, Part 2
This is a project I started 6 or 7 years ago, when we took down an old shed in the backyard at the house. I borrowed a thickness planer from a friend and planed a bunch of 2x4's and 2x6's, and glued them into rough pieces for a pair of work horses. These are like… Continue reading Work Horses
Everything on the farm is interconnected, whether we like it or not. Because we want to be able to give our customers an accurate live-weight assessment for the pigs they bought, we need a scale. Because the scale needs to be on a flat, firm surface, under cover, accessible to all the livestock, it needed… Continue reading Gates around the scale, and Hog Live Weights
Welcome to the first farm day of 2026! That is, the first day Daddy was able to spend more than a few minutes at the farm with time to get some actual work done. Winnie is finally winning over Matilda. The key is snacks (a.k.a. Alfalfa). Pancakes for Candlemas! Tuesday morning began with the usual… Continue reading A Farm Day (Finally!)
Way back at the beginning of December.... We built a fence. We got a lot of work done in a single day, but left some of the brackets unattached, but this was no big deal we came back and got 3/4 of them put in a few days later. Couldn't quite finish before sundown and… Continue reading Finishing the Fence
Recently we bought Seppi a new book called "Everyday Woodworking" by Youtube woodworker Rex Krueger. This is because he has been showing more and more interest in building stuff with wood. For example, last week when we got to the farm and started school, Daddy was too busy to help Seppi with his schoolwork for… Continue reading Tool Tote
Lots of people (myself included) watch homesteaders on Youtube, and that show about early Victorian farms, and read John Seymour's "Self-Sufficient Life" and get all fired up about living the more simple life. Some even buy or rent or borrow some land and make a start at homesteading. But there is a dark side of… Continue reading Subdividing the South Pasture: First two Fence Anchors
Sometimes doing school in the shop is fun. Sometimes it is not. Sometimes, when your sisters get done before you and get to play with the world's greatest toy (the shop vac), it is just downright awful. That's why it is important to have an incentive for a small man to work for. In this… Continue reading The Box
We are getting into the final stretch (get it?) of our North Pasture fencing project. Our friend Vincent came over to help us stretch it. He has never done any fencing before, but that did not prevent him from learning quickly and being a great help. We anchored section one at the west end and… Continue reading Subdividing the North Pasture: Stretching the Fence.
Little Farm in the Big City 