Waiting

The last time I put a post here was the day before Kevin's knee replacement surgery.  I am happy to report that almost two weeks later he's doing fine.  It's been painful for him; still is, but he's been following orders, doing his excercises, icing regularly, etc. and will be better than new in a few weeks. 

These past two weeks have been typical Minnesota. Cold mostly, and some snow.  Everyone I know is ready to be done with winter.  Today it seems like spring it is almost here...finally a warm up.  It was very, very nice outdoors and Kevin almost had to be restrained from heading out to the shed and firing up a tractor.  Patience man!

The snow is mostly melted off the shed roof.

The chickens have been indoors a lot lately.  Today they enjoyed the mild temps and were curious about Ranger's supper!

They also enjoy picking through his hay for tasty morsels...

I'm anticipating a package in the mail any day now... my main seed order has been shipped.  I'm thinking it's about time to get some lettuce started to go into the greenhouse next month.

Spring is not the only thing we are waiting for; goat kids are only about three weeks away! 

And the BIG BELLY award goes to....

So, I am rambling a bit here.  I'll add a couple a pictures and call it a night. 

Spot poses on my shoulder for a "selfie".  All of our cats have their own unique personalities and one of the things I love about Spot is that she is a shoulder-rider.  She is always looking for a ride.  In the summer this can be quite uncomfortable for the person giving the ride but when I am wearing my thick barn coat I am always happy to oblige.  I am rewarded by her musical purring.

Be well friends, until next time!

Woodworking

It’s cold again in these parts.  17 below this morning at chore-time with a high just above.  Earlier in the week we had 28 below.  Don’t worry, I am not about to launch into another diatribe against the cold.  Today, I am sharing a few more pictures of “putting up” wood. 

Fortunately yesterday was a much warmer day; sunny with a high in the mid teens I believe.  Everyone was out to help and when you are talking about firewood, while many hands don’t make this light work exactly (just ask my sore muscles!), they do make the task go faster, more enjoyable, and more productive. You will see most of us in the photos that follow, but somehow I missed Kori, who came to help out - sorry Kori, but you know we really appreciated your help!!!

So, starting with some tracks from out in the wood cutting clearing and finishing up with a couple of wide does, here are some pictures from the weekend that I wanted to share. 

 

 

 

There were three sets of these crossing the clearing.  The glove measures 4.75 inches across.

Mickey's track (and paws) for comparison purposes...

Small logs and limbs waiting to be "buzz sawed" into firewood size

Big chunks ready to be split

Kurt brings out the splitter

Ardis runs the splitter and helps pull chunks over

This piece was too long to fit the splitter so Kevin is sizing it down.  Rollie, just a couple weeks out of his 2nd knee replacement surgery helps out.

A BIG load of split firewood

I didn't get any pictures in the afternoon when Kevin, Kurt, Kori and I did the buzz-sawing... we were just too busy!   Suffice to say it was a good days work!

Today, Kevin was very busy unloading and moving wood around... he has his own knee surgery tomorrow and is doing everything he can to make chores easy for Kurt and me.  We also got the goat pen cleaned out... just a month to go until kidding time!  The does were shut outside for a short time while we worked at it (complaining vociferously most of the time) and I managed to get just these 2 photos before the camera shut down from the cold...

Until next time my friends, be well and stay warm.

Big Bellied Daisy

and Wide Load Vinca

Mid-Winter Ice

Here it is the last day of January and very little snow to be had around here.  Ice we have plenty of!

 We all shuffle and slide to get about and do the chores.

I give Vinca a tummy rub... "How many babies are in there?"

We had a little goat exchange today.  Ranger moved out of the pole barn where he has been co-habitating with Vinca and Daisy, and went to the bachelor quarters at the Winter Coop where he will be hanging out with his little buddy Billy-Dude.  Chicky has moved out of the Winter Coop yard and will be with mom Daisy and Vinca while they finish their pregnancies.

Comfortable in the house, Mickey takes a post-run nap. 

Be well folks, spring will be here before we know it!

Just saying hello from Ole Lake

Hi folks,  I just popped in here and I see from the "stats" that you've been stopping by now and then even though  I haven't posted for a couple of weeks.  Maybe between wood chores, a birthday bash, and the Superbowl I will get a post in here this coming weekend.  Everybody is good here; hens laying, does getting wider.. and us people keeping busy.  I just wish for some snow for snowshoeing! 

Cold

It’s been cold lately.  Beyond cold.  Cold is when the lake is 50 degrees when you jump in to it on a 90 degree July day.  This is something else. 

It’s cold.  Friday was 8 degrees below 0.   Earlier in the week colder still.  I think the lowest we’ve have seen this week was 15 below.  This morning it was a comparatively balmy 0. Sure, it could be colder.  It could be 30 below.  We’ve had worse but… damn, it’s COLD!

I commiserate with the other hardy souls that live in this frigid environment.  Low temperatures are compared... who had the lowest?  What about that wind chill? I complain.  I whine.  Then I berate myself for whining.  Aren’t I a tough Minnesotan?  Don’t I choose to live here?  Not originally I didn’t… my ancestors did.  What the heck were they thinking? Really, I want to know!  Maybe they were made of tougher stuff than me.

Cold makes us crabby.  Our language deteriorates into sniffs, grunts, pants, and occasional swear words.  Cold makes everything harder.  Especially water … har har har!!!  Ok, not funny.  Chores are more complicated but we hurry through them to get back into the house.  So far the hydrant has not frozen up.  When that happens, the real cussing begins.

Wardrobe selections have become limited.  Only pants baggy enough to layer over long underwear are worn.  Undershirts under turtlenecks under sweaters, sometimes with a scarf become daily attire.  Laundry is closely monitored.  Is there clean long underwear for tomorrow?  How ‘bout the Smartwool socks supply?

I can think of one (only one, mind you) upside of it being really cold.  It’s a thing I doubt many, if any people reading this will have thought about.  Ok, here it is.  Frozen chicken turds.  Yep.  Frozen chicken turds are (as Martha (I’m sure) would say if she actually had to tidy up her cold chicken coop at 5:30 AM on an 8 below morning) a Good Thing.  Easy to pick up and separate from the bedding with the manure fork.  This makes it  much easier to maintain the coop.

I’m beginning to understand (a little) why some of our retired friends and family head for other states in the winter.  I’m pretty sure Kevin and I will never join that migration though.  My retirement plans include plenty of poultry and goats, and possibly other livestock.  The logistics of packing up that kind of menagerie and heading for Texas or New Mexico just doesn’t warrant my think time.

Instead, I am thinking wouldn’t a tunnel out to the barn be nice?  Or maybe just add on to the house so the animal housing is attached.  Didn’t they used to do that in the old days (the really old days) in Scandinavian countries?

I could fill pages of lists of things that are bad about cold weather, but being an optimist, I got to thinking that there must be other good things about it besides frozen chicken turds.  Here is what I came up with:

1.        It feels really, really good to come in from outside

2.       There are no bugs

3.       The back-entry way (the part of our house that some would call a mud room) serves as an auxiliary refrigerator.  And we now have a LOT of freezer space.  An entire garage of it.

4.       Snuggling under a heavy pile of bedding is pure heaven.

That’s all I can come up with.   How about you?  Use the comment section below.

I'm adding some photos taken this  morning down below.  I'm not sure how to take a picture of cold.  

Stay warm people.

Chicky and Billy-Dood were so cute cuddled up together.  Of course they had to get up and come out when I tried to take a picture... so this is all you get of them. You can see we had a little snow shower going on at the time.

Hens are curious and opportunistic.  Here some of my flock are pecking around in the entry way of the Winter Coop while I am filling their waterer with the hose (a major pain in the winter).  I am not worried about them going outside and running off... They don't like going out in the snow.

After filling the water up, I gave them a bag of leaves to peck around in. 

Filling the horse waterer this morning, you can sort of see the steam rising. 

New Year Greetings!

Happy New Year to All who may happen upon this blog, whether on purpose or by accident!

So it's been a couple of weeks since my last post and Christmas has come and gone.  Our winter routine is pretty established now. We've had some pretty cold weather, but it could be worse.

Last weekend Kevin and I got in some quality couple time cleaning out the big goats' living quarters again.  I had to take a picture of the steam rising from the bedding which was composting on the bottom.

In years past, January 1 would be a day to stay in bed quite late, and then spend some relaxing time watching a little football on TV.  Not any more.  Today, Kevin took advantage of the day off from his "real" job (the one that pays the bills) and spent quite a bit of the day at wood related activities.  Kori was home to spend New Year's with us, so she joined in and all four of us worked together to buzz-saw up a smallish pile of wood. 

Setting up

It really is true that many hands make light work.  The pile was cut up and in the trailer in no time.

Because this beast and his brother at the North House are always hungry!

Speaking of beasts, they are all just fine.  The hens are laying better and Vinca is still providing milk, but just once a day now.  I didn't have any critter pictures lined up for this post, but here's a shot of my running buddy, enjoying the good life of a part-time house dog...

Mickey

So, just a short update from me today.  It won't be long and I will be ordering seed, mixing up some soil and compost and starting some plants for the greenhouse.  You just have to be an optimist to be a gardener in Minnesota!  Winter is just a little stepping stone between harvest and planting, right?  The days are already getting longer  and the does will be soon getting wider as their babies grow.  Thanks for stopping by!

Foggy December Weekend

Our part of Minnesota has been having some unpleasant weather lately.  Not so cold but damp and down-right gloomy… we haven’t seen the sun for a week or more.  I will take 10-20 degrees with sun over this damp cloudy 30-40 degrees anytime.  Everything outdoors is wet; the dirt roads like ours are a sloppy mess.  Grumble, grumble. Yesterday and again today have been very foggy.  The picture I have here was taken yesterday at 2:30 PM.  Today it's even foggier, but a lot of the snow has melted.

Here at the farm we have settled into our winter pattern.  Feed the animals.  Water the animals.  Feed the stove.  Cut and haul wood whenever time allows.  Go to bed early; some of us anyway!

Our Lily, arguably our most beloved cat, developed a troubling eye condition in November and appears to have lost the vision in that eye.  It does not seem to bother her a bit but it’s pretty unattractive to look at.

Rollie and Ardis dispatched the three roosters last week.   There is an optimal population of birds that I like to keep over the winter; too many and the air quality suffers, too few and it just doesn’t stay as warm in the coop as I would like.  Because of some miscalculation on my part, I sent too many birds to be butchered this fall. After the extra gentlemen left, the Winter Coop census was a bit low. I know, you’re thinking “and you call yourself The Chicken Lady”… well I actually never called myself that, other folks do, but I can’t help that!  Anyway, yesterday, four young hens arrived to fill the vacancies.  I believe that there are now twenty-eight hens plus Javier out there now.

The newcomers did not travel far, just from my cousin Richard’s place about three miles away.  He and Lisa have a pretty assortment of birds.  The ones that came home with me appear to be a Rhode Island Red and three Red Star layers. 

Richard hands over a bird

Four new residents of the Winter Coop

Over in the goat pen, the odor from Ranger is a much more tolerable.  We’ve been putting off giving him a hoof trim, but he got one today.  Daisy is completely done milking for the season, but Vinca is still giving us milk twice a day.  I intend to cut her down to once a day soon, maybe even later this week, and then dry her up completely sometime in January. She needs to take a break and just grow her new kid(s). 

Spooky-eyed Ranger!  Here is a little trivia for you.  People sometimes get "red-eye" in photographs.  My Kodak software has a fix for that that works pretty well.  Goats get "blue-eye" and the fix does not work! 

A little Christmas related activity as we chose a tree yesterday from the Scout 52 lot in Aitkin.  Kurt and Kori got it set up (not without a few tense moments) and decorated.  Thanks guys!

And so life goes on.  Rollie is due for a knee surgery on Monday; please send good thoughts his way.