Tuesday, January 1, 2019

Transitions


Happy New Year from Ole Lake Farm!

Today’s post is not going to be a 2018 “year in review” like you might expect – instead, this post is all about transitions.

From birth to death, life is constantly changing, or in transition. I was thinking about this as our last two pigs were butchered on Saturday – they truly have transitioned – from livestock to food.

Our outdoor climate certainly has transitioned – here is the latest view from the milking stand.
The snow is beautiful.  The temperature is not.  Milking this morning at -18 degrees was not the pleasant experience that it usually is.  This photo was taken this afternoon when we hit our high temp for the day, around -1 degree. 

Speaking of milking – the goats are transitioning too.  Echo and Vinca are down to just morning milking now and my plan is to have them dried up by the end of the month.  Ranger has moved back to his winter quarters shared with Forest, and Periwinkle is back with the does.

The Christmas tree transitioned out of the house – a traditional New Year’s Day activity for Kurt and Kori.  This year’s tree was slender (sort of skimpy actually) so shoving it out of the window was easier than usual!


Forest and Ranger got the tree to nibble on and Ranger found it handy for a good head scratch.
 I know that in my last post I reported that the hens’ egg production was picking up again.  It has continued to increase and now we have more eggs than we know what to do with!  

Today I put some old hay out on the snow for the chickens to step on and peck at – they like that and it gets them out of the coop for some fresh air. 

One last transition to share with you – the compost pile is cooking away, transforming chicken poo and bedding, coffee grounds and veggie scraps into wonderful black gold for the garden!  Pretty neat to see the snow melting over the pile when the temps are sub-zero!  At least I think so anyway.

We may not have another post for three or four weeks again, but we will be back.  Until then, stay warm and be well friends.

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