The Dark of Winter

Not much from me on the blog front lately.  I’ve been at home, playing with my kids, cooking and knitting in front of the fire.  These dark days of winter seemed to be designed for just this kind of activity.  Leaving the house turns out to be really hard, because abandoning the warmth of the fire proves difficult indeed.  Even the kids are drawn to it, and most days they bring their toys out of their perfectly warm playroom to sit on the floor by the fire and play trains or build Lego towers.

I spend just enough time outside in the barn to make sure that everyone is fed, warm and cozy.  None of the livestock venture from their shelters these days.  Except of course the geese and the ducks.  The more rain and mud we have, the happier they are.  They love to paddle around outside in the muck.  Those of us without oil glands sit and watch the winter weather go by from the comfort of our cover.  New life is just around the corner.  The night temperature are creeping up into the 40’s, which is a sign that the grass is ready to get busy on the important business of growing.  New lambs and kids are in the bellies of their mamas getting a last few weeks of growth in before they are to be evicted into the cold February.  Daisee is enjoying her 60 days off from the milk shed.  She’s preparing to give us a calf (hopefully a bull calf) in the cold February as well.  All the new life is exciting, and I enjoy giving out extra handfuls of grain to these mamas and unborn babes.

Speaking of babies, the rabbits LOVE this time of year for breeding, so we’ve got one litter of rabbits just weaned and two more on the way.  We are picking up our new double color dominant angora buck this weekend, so we will have angora babies just in time for spring and Easter!

My big horse Pearl is really enjoying her new place.  We rescued her, so she spent the first month being worried about if she was going to be fed a next meal.  A hundred pounds later and a constantly full hay feeder has convinced her that she really would like to stay.  That, and I think we own the only horse that really enjoys a good roll in the mud.  She must be part pig because she waits until just after a REALLY good rain before going out for a nice roll in the mud.  She has started to feel like I’m her person.  We even managed to get her saddled up yesterday.  Just a test, I didn’t manage to ride her, but getting the saddle on her was one step closer to that exciting goal.

And so, I continue to clean and bed and clean and feed out in the barn.  I enjoy the greetings of everyone as I close the door and make the trek out to them in the cold and wet.