It was cool and cloudy this morning. It felt like rain, but no rain came until my morning work was done.
Comfrey flowers and a baby persimmon tree
First things first. I'd been drying my carbon fiber reinforced nylon filament all week, forgetting to run the printer at all until the filament had already cooled and needed dried again. So I started the ten hour program Wednesday night before work so that the filament would still be warm and dry when I got home. I loaded the program onto the drive and set it to print. It's still printing as I write this now, as this program is about seventeen hours.
3D printer go brrrr
Previous prints with this material were about .035" out of spec overall, and I'm assuming that's because the filament wasn't dry. The other material using the same exact .stl file fits fine, so I expect when I get home in the morning that I'll have a far better product.
After that was set and running, I got to work outside. As stated, I had to bury the railroad timbers in the pig pen to discourage digging out. All went according to plan, and I was then off to yow the mard.
Pig pen
Pig pen
Out came the mawn lower, and we made rabbit food. I'm surprised. This mower has done our yard over one and a half times now. This engine must be way more efficient than our old mower, combined with the fact that we're mowing less and less every season with the expanding garden operations. So it's going to pay itself off quickly while also reducing our overall carbon footprint both by giving us rabbit food and by consuming less fuel. Excellent news all around. It's still a fair bit of work to mow the half acre with a 21" mower, but at least now we get something out of it. Before, it was just an exercise in the mimicry of nobility. Now it feeds us.
A pile of rabbit food
When that was done, I dragged a load of wood chips to the pig pen on my way to put up the mower. It still felt like rain, so I made a point to pick up things around the yard. I think with this load of chips, we'll have nearly enough to make the year with the pig compost. I think Justin Rhodes said he used about two yards with his two pigs, producing about the same yield in fresh garden compost over the season. The man scouts asked when the pig roast was going to be, and I've tentatively scheduled a festival gathering for around Christmas or New year's. That depends of course on both our success and good weather.
I call it a glop 19.
When those things were completed outside, I came in to fiddle with a printed gun. It's a Glock 19 that has affectionately become known to man scouts as a glop 19. The nylon frames, though the material is superior, don't fit the pieces right because they're out of spec. Into the buyback pile they go. I've been fiddling with everything slowly, a pin one day, a little oil another day, and not really worrying about things. There's no real hurry. But today I still had a couple hours to stay up before Melissa got home from Bible study, so I figured I'd move everything to the PLA frame and see how it lined out. After no small amount of coercion, I can declare that it is functional except that the magwell needs sanded and smoothed a touch. I'll have an opportunity to function test it soon, and I'll update when that happens.
Plans have changed a bit with the pigs. I won't be headed to Oklahoma in the morning. It's supposed to rain all day Friday, meaning we won't be able to get much done, so I'll be headed up early on Saturday morning to put in a full well-rested day in better weather. A little less learning, but I'll have a lot of time tomorrow to work on printer stuff and start getting my closet cleaned up. It's a giant godawful mess right now, with parts, piles, and pieces strewn about all over. It needs intervention.
I'm gonna call that a night. I keep getting distracted by tonight's learning about ancient gaulic and proto-celtic language. We'll see y'all later with another post, probably Sunday night/Monday morning. Thanks for reading :)
Love from Texas
Nate 💚
I suspect those timbers will make nice play toys for the pigs. You under estimate how strong and determined they are....
Also, stacked fresh cut grass ferments and can heat up rather quickly....
I specifically logged in today to come tell you that I think I underestimated how strong and determined these animals are.
But after seeing the farm and partaking of some of the meat from the animals raised there, this is gonna be worth it.
Also, I wanted to report back on the pork they harvested the night of the trespassing hunters. We are sausage and pork steaks from those animals, and it was utterly delicious.
He said they tried to bleed them as best they could under the circumstances, but of course he said it wasn't perfect. The animals harvested were adult intact board, and I didn't taste any off flavoring at all. Just excellent red meat with beautiful marbling and edge fat.
Here's one of the mamas:
That's great it came out alright in the end. We ended up with boar taint in one of our weaner pigs. After that we only got barrows or gilts.
These guys we are didnt have any boar taint. What is it like?
It's a nasty taste and smell to the meat. But apparently there are people who can't taste and smell it....