I Can’t Wait

for the weather to break… .  It’s a little painful to watch the wood and hay stacks disappear quickly in early December.  It seems hard to accumulate a winter’s worth of wood and hay.  I think because you don’t cut firewood or make hay every day, but you sure use it every day when we get weather like this.  I know, I know, it’s much colder in other areas for longer periods of time, but here?  These cold spells don’t happen but once in a blue moon,  but I guess this was a blue moon year, so we’re due.

Earlier in the year when the newspaper went to a 4 day publication schedule, I was lamenting that I wouldn’t have enough paper to start the fire with…well, since the cold snap the fires haven’t went out, so the newspaper stack is growing even if the wood stack is disappearing.

If only he could run the wood splitter

Before the cold came, we moved to part two of plan B and moved the cows close for easy access for feeding.  We’re still feeding outside for a bit, so expect a post on how I changed my grazing plan this season to accommodate Plan B.  Chopping ice on water troughs is a twice a day chore.  Watering the hens twice a day also has kept the hens in full lay mode and us swimming in eggs.  I am loving my one blue egg a day in the nest box, it’s a bright spot in the cold of the winter weather.  The kitties have been enjoying a couple of eggs in the cold, not much hunting going on.

I chickened out on the potatoes in the straw bale root cellar, when we reached 11°F for a couple of nights, I decided to bring the potatoes to the basement.  I left some test boxes of each variety in the barn though to see how they will fare.  After the 11 degree nights, we had a three-day stretch where the nighttime temperatures got down to 5°F and 6°F, so it’ll be a grand experiment to see how the potatoes fare.  I know now 11°F is doable without anything more than straw bales for insulation, those potatoes are fine.  The vegetables left in the garden?  Only time will tell on that.  I expect it will be the weekend before we see any significant thawing of the ground.  I would have liked to see snow before the freeze for snow’s wonderful insulating factor, but it was not be.  The soil froze, then we got the snow, so now the snow will be insulating the frozen ground.  I suspect some damage, but that is why I over-plant.  I expect to lose some vegetables to something.  That’s also why I preserve vegetables too.  We’re definitely not going  hungry.

Ram overflow

A little cabin fever eh?

So it goes, I’m feeling a little like Art in the picture above despite being outside quite a bit.  I’ll be glad for our usual dreary, rainy days, but until then I’ve decided that 25°F feels a whole lot better than 10°F when you’re chopping ice!