Early November on the Homestead

The 1st two weeks of November have been sunny and warm with temperatures in the low to mid-50s. We took advantage of the weather and in addition to playing lots of pickleball we accomplished several homestead chores.

The last hurrah with the lawn mower mainly to mulch leaves and avoid raking. Afterwards I pulled the cab from the truck, loaded the mower onto the truck using my folding ramp and took the mower to GKS for annual servicing. In years past I always loaded up the mower using the hill by the barn and whatever planks or plywood was handy for a ramp. The problem was that if we got significant snowfall before the mower was done, then I couldn’t get the mower unloaded on the hill; hence the fold-able ramp for unloading the mower.

Kathryn and I cut 3-4 face cord of firewood, mainly off our trails. There are a lot of dead ash and several ‘leaners’. The woods were pretty moist so I was careful where I took the tractor. We cut a large ash tree from just behind Kincaid’s house that we had to carry 40 yards to reach the carry-all. We also cut an apple tree from Ridge Trail, ash from Dead Apple Trail, the Four Corners, the pasture entrance to North Trail. A full load on the carry-all is just about 1 face cord.

We had a week of down time as the JD 2020 under went a through tune up.

Kathryn bought dog houses to shelter the beasts whenever we are gone. Not as insulated as the original Dad & Kathryn dog house that was made for Choice, but also not as heavy.