Oops

Sigh.  The caption beneath the first picture in my Christmas 2011 post was supposed to read "December 2010" NOT "December 2012."  I don't have a magic camera that will take pictures of the future.  Too bad, no?

Christmas 2011

Well, our second winter in Wisconsin is underway.  It certainly bears no resemblance whatsoever to last winter!  Where we had lots of pretty, clean, powdery snow last year at this time:

December of 2012, looking from the barn to the house

This year we have had very little snow and many warm-ish (mid-30s, quite balmy for our neck of the woods) days so we've ended up with the sort of mess we usually have in late February/early March--that nasty, half-melted, half-frozen stuff that is hard to live with:

 

Yuck.

Fortunately, we got an inch of new snow the day before Christmas Eve, so everything looked properly festive.  We did just a little bit of decorating (we STILL have boxes to unpack!) and had a quiet, but really nice, Christmas with Janette.

 

Everyone enjoyed themselves, and Santa Claus didn't forget anyone

Hadjo got 2 new babies and a giant cow bone from Santa Dog

Bones appropriates one of my gifts as her own.

Now that the holiday is done with, we will move ahead with our plans for the winter, which involve many days of weaving, sewing and interior home improvement.  Winter will pass just as quickly as the rest of the year has, and in no time at all it will be time to start planting and mending fences again.  2012 will be another year marked by a lot of hysteria over dire predictions of The End Of Life As We Know It--I suspect the Last Day "predicted" by the Mayans will be just about as shocking and eventful as 1/1/2000 was.  Looming world destruction or not, we will continue plodding along at our snail's pace, slowly improving our little farm and enjoying the process.  I hope the coming year will find my little group of readers well and happy, and we both wish you all the best.  Happy New Year!!

All Buttoned Up

We have spent the last couple of weeks finishing up some odds and ends that needed to be done before winter.  First off, we got a start on putting in the winter's supply of hay.  Check out Mom positioning bales so I could haul them in with the wheelbarrow--she never could have done that down in NC!

We put in about a third of what we need and will get the rest a little at a time, as usual.  We're stacking the hay on the ground floor of the barn because I didn't have help throwing it up in the loft this fall, and had a lot of trouble with the stairs toward the end of last winter.  We'll see how it goes this year--already Bella has broken in and stolen hay so I suspect I'll have to come up with another solution for next year...

The pasture grass is gone for the season, but I never got around to mowing the back yard before it got cold so we let the Barn People mow it for us.  It gave them another 2 weeks of fresh grass and saved me that much on hay.

Al has a nice shaggy coat coming in for the season.

My southern belle, though, is still working on hers.  She looks like a giraffe in places!

 One project I wanted to complete was an insulated contaner for my water tank.  Running the electric heater last year to keep the animals' water from freezing really had an impact on our electric bill so when I saw the plans for this thing in one of our magazines, I jumped on it!  I'll still need to use the heater in the really cold weather, but this should save us quite a bit.

3/4" plywood and 2" rigid foam insulation should help!

While I worked on that, Mom got Mr Trailer all set for the cold and snow:

Looks like we're leaving with the next wagon train, doesn't it?

 She also spent a day painting the south barn door, which we build last year but never sealed against the weather.  I like the green we picked out!  The barn will someday be white with that green on the doors and trim, to match our outbuildings.  Someday...

Once it was dry, we used a few inexpensive rubber doormats to keep the cold winds and snow out.  All of our heavy snow comes from the south, so it's good to have this end of the barn buttoned up.

I finished my insulated stock tank just as the first snow started falling!  I wasn't sure the animals would drink out of an opening that was so much smaller than they were used to, so for the first few days I left the other, open tank sitting there to help them ease into the transition.  All of them are now using the new water tank.

Just in the nick of time!

 We ended up getting about 4 inches of snow that day.  It was beautiful!

Here's how the open tank looked, the next morning.

The new one, though, only had a tiny, thin piece of ice where the hole is  The rest was just fine.  It works!!

  The snow was gone by the end of last week and we had some warmer weather (mid-40s) for the week of Thanksgiving.  Mom cooked up a storm for two days and we had enough Thanksgiving dinner to feed the whole family!  It was just the three of us, though.  We had a very nice holiday dinner.

Lots of good stuff!  We're still eating leftovers a week later!

Hadjo and Bones thought they were invited to celebrate too.

It's been a busy time, but we're all set now for the winter weather.  My next project is the tiny front bedroom, which I'm going to use as my office and temporary studio (I plan someday to build a small  freestanding studio for all of my spinning and weaving equipment, but for now I will just use the smaller loom in the house.)  I hope to do a lot of weaving this winter!

We hope you all had a great Thanksgiving!  We are very thankful for another year up in the big woods, for our little farm, for our friends and for our family, both 2- and 4-legged.

We Say Goodbye to Another Old Friend

Yesterday we had to sadly say goodbye to Mom's faithful companion of 17 years, Rex the Farm Dog.  He had been declining over the last year or two and recently had suffered a series of what I think were minor strokes.  The night before last he had a major episode after which he was unable to stand at all, and yesterday afternoon he left this world for a better one.

He was the gentlest of dogs, yet a fierce defender of his turf and his people.  He was a champion mole hunter, a friend to small children, and the only dog I've ever known who had his own pet cats.

He leaves us heartbroken but better for having had him in our lives.  Happy hunting, old man.

Fall Is Here

October has arrived, along with the Bug-of-the-Month, the Japanese beetle.  Thousands of them spent the first week of the month crawling up the sunny sides of the house, trying to get inside.  A certain number were successful at that, but a few minutes with the vacuum cleaner took care of them.

We had to pick buckets of green tomatoes before an early freeze, and have been waiting for them to ripen enough to can.  They finally got to the point where we could work with them, so Mom and I have spent several days canning and drying tomatoes. 

Mom's salsa, which I've already sampled--it's great!

Cherry (left) and grape (right) tomatoes ready for the dehydrator

We thought this crab apple looked like an old man smoking a cigar.

Mom's crab apple jelly, which also tastes terrific!

 We still have a few things to take care of.  I just finished dehydrating some Roma tomatoes and we want to experiment with dehydrating some apple slices:

There are plenty of apples to share with the barn people.

 And Dick next door traded a box full of his good potatoes and a couple butternut squash for a couple of loads of manure.  We certainly had enough to spare!

Indian summer is over, now and the colder weather is setting in.  Time to put in hay (we used over 200 bales last year!) and make sure all the hatches are battened, so to speak.  It's a busy time of year but one that I really love.  Getting everything set up so that everyone is warm and dry for the winter makes me feel all warm and maternal.  It's one of my favorite pastimes.
So we've been busy but happy Little Old Ladies in the Big Woods!

Images from the last post

Hmmmm.  For some reason, the images in my last post weren't viewable.  Since several people have asked me to try it again, I'm going to try to post just the photos, in the order in which they appear in the original post.  If we still can't see them, I don't know what else to do, but I suspect people will somehow go on to live perfectly happy lives without them...  Here goes:

Hadjo gets a new sweatshirt, Al gets a little more peace of mind.

Hey, check this out--I actually started and finished a project in the same afternoon!  Bella, I'm embarrassed to admit, is a bit of a bully at feeding time and has been harassing poor Al Capony while he's minding his own business in his stall.  It seems the 5-foot stock panel between them isn't tall enough to keep Ms. Giraffe Neck out of trouble, so I had to make an extension.  I used 1.5" PVC pipe, which is lightweight but strong enough to stand up to her curiosity.  It won't hold up to a determined assault, but she's pretty good at respecting visual barriers so it has worked like a charm so far.



I may look a little drunk in this picture, but I assure you I wasn't.



Seems to do the trick.

Now everyone can eat in peace.

Hadjo knows he's supposed to stay on the other side of the gate,

But he hates it when I talk nice to the horses!

Yesterday Hadjo's new sweatshirt came, finally!  The temperatures have been hovering between 55 and 65, so my little wiener dog has been shivering for a couple weeks.  His old sweater finally disintegrated and it's been a real challenge finding a new one that fits him.  This one is--ahem--a bit tight, but will keep him warm enough to get through the fall weather.  Now that I know this company's size range, I'll order him a slightly larger sweater for the winter months.

I feel so much better!

 

This property protected by Hadjo T. Dog.

Better get back to work.  It's been raining for the last 7 days straight, so I've been working on the little 9x8 foot bedroom that will house my office and the smaller loom.  The bottom of each wall is painted now; next I'll put up the wallpaper I bought five years ago for the office I never finished in North Carolina.  Maybe I'll have better luck with this one!

Odds and Ends

Here are a few miscellaneous pictures and the occasional odd thought bouncing around inside my head:

Fall has arrived!

Any other person, walking down our road:  "Gosh, those trees sure are pretty!"

Me, walking down the same road:  "Oh no, oh no!!!  Winter's almost here!!!  I don't have the stupid milk house down yet!!  I don't have the west barn wall reinforced!!  I need to put in a supply of shavings and straw!!  There's no pump in the barn well yet!!  We never got a wood stove or a generator...etc, etc"

Sigh.

A couple views of a strange-looking cloud floating by

According to the TV commercials, I'm supposed to tell my doctor to prescribe me the latest drug.  I'm also supposed to tell him what allergies I have and if I have a history of bleeding ulcers.   Then, I need to tell him about the other drugs I'm taking.  Apparently, my doctor is a total moron who should not be allowed to practice medicine.  I should start seeing my television for all my medical care instead.

Everyone here is on a diet lately:

Sasha checks her weight

 So I've started walking with Hadjo a little at a time.  The vet said to start out slow,  let him set the pace according to what's comfortable for his poor knees.  We have gone 1/4 mile so far.  He prefers to walk himself, though:

A pit bull pulling on a leash that's held together with tape.  Not reassuring to strangers.

And he's gotten to where I can just drop the leash altogether and he'll take himself inside:

The pasture is looking a little ratty so late in the year, but the Barn People are still getting plenty of snack time in.  As a matter of fact, they are putting in way more time there now than they did all summer--the frosts and the one freeze we had pretty much killed off the damned bugs.  Most of them, anyhow...

Aaaaaah!!  I didn't get that hayloft closed up over the summer!!

Whatcha doin', Mom?  Got grain?

I just trimmed Bella's bangs and she's irritated because she thinks she looks stupid.

I realized the other day that we could probably eliminate the entire national debt and balance the budget if we just declared a 6-month moratorium on personal injury and class-action lawsuits...

The apple tree is so full of ripe apples now that it's broken off a large branch.  Bad management on our part, but we were distracted by other things.

LOTS of apples!

They are baking apples, not eating apples--they're a little small and pretty tart, but really good.  So far I've picked 2 bins full.  We'll preserve some and pack several bins in straw to give to the Barn People over the winter.  They'll like that.

Well, time to go do something before winter gets here.