Shades of Brown

The last of the green is fading and the many shades of brown are creeping in.  Winter is nearly here.  The only sign of life in the garden is the parsley, who seems to be unaffected by the frost or snow.  The cilantro is hanging on by a breath, but starting to turn brown as well.

We had a lot of rain recently.  The creek gushed and swelled, and over-filled the little pond.  The dog dared not go for his usual swim.  He learned a time before after getting swept away a few hundred feet down little rapids in the creek. 

 

I miss the eggs from my hens.  I haven't found an egg in the nest box since late November.  I've heard from other fellow farmers everyone is experiencing the same thing at the moment.  Even my young hens won't lay. Store bought, factory farmed eggs are an abomination... Really!

~A

And so December arrives...

The last month of the calendar year has arrived. These last two months of the year have been so much easier than last year.  Much warmer. Much kinder. Much quieter.

I took a walk around the property over the weekend and noticed how much bigger the little pine trees were this year as compared to last.  Theses trees were not planted by me, they appeared on their own.  There are around ten of them total.  Last year they were no more then around six inches tall. Look at them now!

In anticipation of the upcoming Christmas / New Year's holiday break from work, I ordered a few books to get me even more excited about the coming year on the farm...Backyard Meat Rabbits, Butchering, and Goats, small scale.  Who doesn't like diving into a new book?

Happy December ~A

What would you like to see more of?

I often wonder why I like to blog.  Is it that it helps me clear my head, or because I believe that if there's one tiny possibility that I can make some person's life better in some way, whether it be entertainment, or learning something new from my simple farmstead happenings, then it must be a good thing.  And if it is a good thing, then I should most certainly carry on. Right?

 

Winter is here... Snow is here... Ice is here...

This weather makes taking care of the animals a lot less fun. But still fun!  The chickens are not at all pleased with the snow.  The pig is growing restless and bored.  Yesterday, he ate all the feathers off a chicken that flew into his stall.  Only the feathers he wanted.  Needless to say, the chicken was quite dead when I found it.  The temperatures outside were only in the 20's.  Poor cold bird.  Bad, bad Pig.

Winter is here.  We may as well carry on then and get through it.

Enjoy the snow.  ~A

The Herd before the Storm

Just before the snow arrived...

Soon the day will come

 

About one more month and the pig will be sent off to the butcher.  It seems cruel.  It's been fun, and an interesting learning experience raising my first pig.  They're very intelligent animals, which makes the process of ending his life even more difficult.  But he has a led a very good life.  More like that of a farm dog I would suppose.  Allowed to run and play each day, get his belly scratched and his back brushed on a daily basis, and lots of good food and treats.  Okay, so maybe he has led a life a tad better than the average "farm dog."  Regardless, it will be hard, and sad to send him off when the day comes.  ~A

And the "Polar Vortex" continues...

Yep, its still c-o-l-d...  I know because I checked this morning, and the temperature read -23 degrees.  So it is true!.  This was the first time the big dog ever had frozen, stinging paws after running outside for a quick poop this morning. Poor Louie.  Because it was too cold to let the dog play outside, I took him along with me to the feed mill to pick up some grain.  He looked a tad concerned with my driving skills.  But in my defense it was snowing, and icy!



Louie riding" shotgun"

Snow and cold.  Cold and snow.  More cold, more snow. Cold snow. It appears never-ending. I'm going to loose my mind.  Have I already?



Heading to the Feed Mill

What have we been doing to get through all of this polar despair?  Drooling over spring seed catalogues and eating of course!  Lately we've just been hanging out in the kitchen, throwing ingredients together and playing around with our food to see what we could come up with.  So far the results have not been disappointing.



Perfect Seafood Soup



Red Skin Mashed Potatoes with Bacon



A little bit of everything omelet



French Toast and More Bacon!



Sausage Bean and Veg Soup (Spicy)



Simple Salad with Feta and Chickpeas

Limbo

Life on the farm feels madly stuck in a sort of "limbo" stage at the moment.  Everything is frozen. And still. And nearly lifeless.  I rode one of the horses all over the property last weekend to inspect everything and see what was new.  Not much.

In the garden, the garlic had poked their little heads through the soil at some point during this winter and the little green tips were frozen solid.  But I'm not concerned, the same thing happened last year and everything was fine come July. The only thing that appeared to show tiny signs of life were the blackberry bushes. They seem to be growing a little, like the buds on the trees.  But it could be my imagination.  Or just my lust to see something green and growing!

The goat is still waddling around looking like a small pregnant cow. The woodpile continues to shrink.  I'm worried about the goat because if she is actually pregnant and does go into labor please, please, please, don't let it be in the next ten days when the temperatures are in the low "teens" and dipping below zero during the nights.  Otherwise, I will have to bring her and any babies into the house.  No question there!



January 13, 2014

The sun sets today at 5:29 p.m. here in Northeast Ohio.  How I long for the month of May when things really start to green up and the sun sets at a more respectable time!

On another dismal note, I've discovered lately that one of my racehorses has come to despise chickens. He's bashed a few around now, but this latest outburst was downright savage! Not only did he crush this hen, but then proceeded to tear into her, toss her around a bit, and then finish her off by stomping her to death. Maybe the horse is suffering from cabin fever as well...

Preparing for a Deep Freeze on the Farm

One of the not-so-nice things about living on a farm (with animals) is dealing with cold winter weather.  The animals, but maybe not the horses so much, seem to hate it as much as I do.  The chickens want to roost and linger in the barn all day, rather than brave freezing wind and snow.  But, the chickens (and duck) were happy to get out and roam around a bit over the weekend, once the temperatures rose to about 37 degrees.  And the turkeys and bunnies were pretty active as well.

With the slight break in the weather, I jumped on the chance to get the heat lamps up and ready to get the animals through the next two nights of arctic wrath. I also took the opportunity to pin down the Billy Goat (with some help), to get his hooves trimmed and fit him with a halter.  What a chore! But the collar alone wasn't giving me enough control, and he was still able to swing his head around and puncture holes in my thighs with his horns.  Not fun.  Or safe. 

Speaking of goats, I've been struggling with castration confusion.  If my (hopefully) pregnant doe delivers a buck, is it best to castrate it by cutting or banding?  I can't decide.  If anyone out there has any advice I would greatly appreciate your feedback on this one.

We had a nice dinner to close the day.  The husband wanted steak.  We don't eat much cow, maybe a handful of times per year.  I think if we raised one of our own that could change.  But we love pork, chicken, duck, rabbit, and the occasional squirrel (don't judge).  I'd much rather have a pig or two than a cow.  Or ten goats, but that's another story...

Getting back to the dinner.  This was way too much meat for me to eat, and as expected, I only managed to get through about one quarter of it.  Really, who eats like this?  Other than my husband... But I guess this is why so many of us Americans are large, unlike the Europeans, who's plates would contain only a quarter of what mine did to begin with!  I need to make a mental note to start eating more like a European.   And of course after all that food I couldn't be bothered with taking down the Christmas Tree and putting away the decorations.  I could barely walk. 

How cold is it?

It's ten degrees out as I write this post...

 



Not that I'm complaining. This coming Tuesday they're predicting a high of -2 degrees.  And the overnight temp for Monday is supposed to be around -13.  Negative 13 degrees...  It definitely sounds negative to me! The water pump in the barn has to be thawed out every morning.  Ice has to be removed from the water buckets. This has been the routine for about two weeks now. To add to the misery, the wood pile is beginning to run low.  If my estimations are correct, and it stays this damn cold, we should run out by mid February.  Note to Self for next year - stock more wood.

My main goal for this weekend is to get the two heat lamps hooked back up in the barn's aisle-way, which will keep the barn above freezing (and the animals), the water pump running freely, and as a bonus, prompt the chickens to start laying more frequently.

Even though it's colder than $#!T! I prefer, I still manage to find a little beauty in it all during my drive to work in the mornings.

Stay warm my firends...

Hello Snow?

This morning I woke up to the first snow of the season.  I was not expecting it at all.  I still have to plant garlic!  We’ve had some rain lately, and the ground has just been too wet to use the tiller.  Honestly, where I live, we have been so spoiled this October up until this morning.  The weather has been warm, though damp, and little old naive me believed that just maybe we’d get through Halloween with nice temperatures, and after that I didn’t care what happened. 

Well folks, obviously this is my "wake up call."  This morning's weather set my mind racing, thinking about all the things that need to be done or put into place for the winter, soon.  Like, right now soon.

Time to dust off the electric water buckets, make sure the heat lamps are in place, figure out what to do with the 3-week old chicks that are camping out in my kitchen at the moment; order the
last load of hay, stock up on enough bedding to last 3-4 months, etc.  The list goes on, believe me.  It all seems too daunting really.

On another note, this colder weather has caused me to put the wood stove into action, and I must say, it is working fabulously!  The house is so warm and cozy.  Wood only has to be thrown in once before bedtime, once in the morning, and then once (or not) during the day.  I can actually walk around the house in shorts, comfortably.  Amazing.  I just hope I have enough wood to get through the winter.  And, there is still a lot more left to cut and stack, which needs to happen soon before anymore of the white stuff falls.  Gloves... OMG I need new gloves!  And flannel sheets!  I better go grab my list.