Another day, another 6″ (15cm) of snow. This time, it came down in a proper, visibility-reducing mini-blizzard for just a while. I haven’t been listening to the news, which includes weather news, so I’m not sure whether we’re setting any records for early, wintry behavior, but compared to the last five-six years, this is something different. White Christmas, coming up!
Barn shortcut
A rear-end view of the cows leaving the barn has become a familiar every-morning sight. For the last few weeks, since the weather took a turn for the freezing, I’ve been walking through the dim lower barn, toting buckets of warm water and feed, on the way to the chickenhouse. In nice weather, it’s easier and more pleasant to walk outside through the barnyard. This route has the advantage of no wind and no icy patches. It’s a bit of a winding road: into the minimally heated well pump room (heated so the pipes don’t freeze) where the 40kg (88lb) sacks of feed are stored, out the inner door into the dark and chilly lower barn, head down past the empty milking stalls (from dairy farm days), straight towards the window into the loafing barn where the cows come in at night, hard left, down another stretch between pens, unlatch a side door, head outside for a short walk, and it’s in with the chickens… A new daily routine for my first winter with the birds.
Visiting down the road
Ryan, Corrie and their girls moved onto their farm this summer, new to the experience, and they’re already eating their own chickens, turkey, lamb and eggs, and managed to get some veggies out of a late-planted garden. CSA members last year, next year, they’ll be growing their own. Pretty cool! Yesterday, Lynn came by, and we dropped in for a visit that included home-baked muffins and bread, pots of coffee and tea, seed catalogs and my first encounter with The Lorax. Hmm… A lot different than the usually high-octane “visiting” from big-city-living days not so long ago. More and more over the last couple of years, I’ve realized how much tiny farming is actually about people, and simply farming a piece of land is only the half of it (of course, the all-important “we need to eat” half!). It’s exciting. Change is in the air. Something is happening… :) (I forgot to take photos, so today, Ryan sent along one of his.)
All-weather chickens
A weird, one-day break from the cold, fully forecast a few days back, that came to pass. It was a little milder yesterday, and this morning, the temperature jumped, hitting somewhere around 10°C (50°F). Pretty tricky trying to walk around on the treacherous wet ice, but the chickens seemed to love it, charging right in! And then, by late afternoon, the heat was gone. Personally, I choose warmth, even for a few slippery hours…!
The goats
Haven’t been paying much attention to the goats lately, so I checked ’em out for a while this morning. They have absolutely no problem with the cold, eating hay and hanging out pretty much as usual. Of course, serving them is a lot more work when it’s freezing, lugging buckets of hot water from the main barn, since the pipe to the convenient goat barn tap is frozen. I did goat chores for a winter, but right now, it’s Bob’s thing. Oh, well. :) This gang of girls has had the same line-up for the last couple of years, and some I’ve known since birth… Familiar faces. A couple even have names…
Snow load watch
Time once again to keep an eye on the snow build-up on the Milkhouse roof. From the last two year’s experience, this shouldn’t be a problem. Still, it bears watching, because of all the heavy ice formation lately, including the extra load that slides off the much steeper barn roof. There hasn’t been that much snow, and usually, between wind and the radiant warmth of sunny days, this roof has cleared. But the crazy amount of sub-freezing cold this year has left a thick, dense, icy, layered crust that’s a little more of a concern. Hope it doesn’t get to the point where I have to clear it! A day of warmth and rain is forecast for Monday. That ought to fix things for a while. Count on climate change! :)
Drive shed clean-up continues
You can see the back wall! The fairly massive, once-in-a-century farm clean-up continues, and the two-floor drive shed, home of a million parts and pieces of not-junk, is an action center. I can’t imagine how one could capture a real feel for all of the stuff that was in there, you had to poke around and experience it first-hand. It was literally packed to the rafters with EVERYTHING. There were all sorts of shelves, racks, parts drawers, crates, boxes, a couple of decommissioned fridges used as storage, stuff hanging off endless nails and hooks, and much of it in murky half-darkness. All of that is being slowly and carefully peeled away. The superficial mess of tiny farming gear from a couple of weeks back is long sorted out. And as cluttered as this one corner still looks, that’s nothing compared to what was there even a few days ago. What impresses me now is not seeing, but FEELING the amount of life and time it’s taken to accumulate all of this, through having built and fixed so many things, with unexpected parts and tools that’ve magically appeared out of there. This is the history of a generations-old family farm recorded in its spare parts, methodically being unravelled… The whole clean-up is fascinating and kinda awesome to observe, in a low-key, mildly melancholy, wheels-keep-turning way… Life on a farm!