New Year's Eve at Ole Lake Farm

Wow - it's cold around here!

We been in an extended cold snap since before Christmas.  Today's high was -6℉.  Tomorrow we are expected to get up to a blistering 1℉ Yahoo!

I do enjoy the frost art on the the coop windows though:

Speaking of the coop...when I posted here last (if the turkey topic hadn't bored you so much that you skipped that part) you read about my struggles to coax the turkeys indoors at night.  At that time, I was having partial success.  Now there is no problem - everyone with feathers goes in at night.  In the past I would not open the coop up during the day when the weather is this cold, but with 32 hens, Julio the rooster, and 8 full grown turkeys it's just too crowded in there.  I open the little door each morning and the turkeys roam about, seemingly oblivious to the temperatures.

It seems that 4 of Penolope's 5 offspring are males.  Here are a couple of them strutting their stuff.

The pigs are pretty pretty hardy creatures and are handling the cold just fine - although it is difficult for Kevin to keep their food troughs and water nipple thawed out.  The goats have good shelters, plenty of straw bedding, and heated water pails - even so I am sure they will be happier when it warms up.

At least we have snow.  This is the view from the milking stand that I like to put out here now and then.  Vinca and I are done milking for this season, thank goodness!  Although some years we continue into January, this year we finished up just before Christmas.

 With the extreme cold, we are really going through the wood!

I want to share a special Christmas gift.  Kevin's sister Lori had this really neat rock painted for him - looks a little incongruous on the deck right now though!  It is very heavy - we will NOT be using it for a sign at the farmer's market next summer, though I wish we could!

That's all for 2017.  From Ole Lake Farm to where ever you are reading this post, we wish you a healthy and happy NEW YEAR - Have Peace and Be Well!

Wood Work and Turkey Turmoil

With the growing season and hunting seasons both over, wood working has begun in earnest.  Last weekend Kevin, Rollie, and Kurt tackled part of a large stack with the buzz saw.  They made a dent in the pile and brought up a lot of fuel.

I had another market this weekend - Sister-in-Law Lori stopped by and took this picture:
 

 The three adopted hens that were introduced in the last post are doing just fine.  They are good friends and hang out together.

About those turkeys... two posts back I described our efforts to get them indoors at night out of the elements.  The plan was that they would over-winter in the summer coop, whether they wanted to or not.  They did not.  Last weekend since the weather was so nice I let them out again, and again they did not return to the summer coop in the evening (although they did go in during the day to eat).  They ended up down in the winter coop yard with the hens and the other turkeys.  I shut them into the coop-yard and after dark was able to get most of them into the coop with some gentle persuasion - one (and I think it was the wary Penelope) was a little more difficult  but in the end they all spent the night crowded into the winter coop.  It looks like that is where they will be staying.  Every evening some of them still need to be herded into the coop, but it's getting to be less of them and easier to accomplish. 

It's pretty crowded in the coop, and utter chaos in in the morning when I am in there trying to do my chores.   I turn on the light to pick up under the roosts a bit - Julio starts chasing the hens around and eight big turkeys try to stay as far away from me as they can but the space is small.  There is much squawking and .... I don't know what to call the sounds the turkey's make - chirping maybe?  Anyway, it gets noisy.

Maybe I should get some ducks...

Until next time, be well folks!