I'd thought the winter would be a time of short days, kicking back, maybe sewing some moccasins . . . but as usual it's been nonstop work day after day. Splitting wood for the stove, planting more fruit trees, managing the garden in the low tunnels, milking the cow, putting out graywater, working with the dairy goats we got a couple months back . . . and the long, long work involved in siding the barn.Here I'm putting up gutters on the barn - just finished today:
Rita's stall now empty - we sold her 2 weeks ago. She was drying herself off, not bred, AI's cost a fortune, and temperament-wise she was becoming more and more unmanagable. We sold her for $900 - she went quick - sold 2 days after the ad went up.
Brooke and Rachael - up for the week. We got these 700lb round bales of good grass hay just down the street for $25 a piece. A great price:
That's Sascha over with Rachael feeding bunny. She's Rachel's eldest, and was up for the weekend with her baby [in other words we're grandparents]. Sascha's thinking of moving up, but is waiting for the cabin to become babyproof :)
Here is the goat stall in the barn for our two Nubians, Mabel and Onyx, who will kid this month:
The new coop in the barn for the layers:
The chick pen in the coop, right now occupied by our sexlinks. We've got a batch of day-old araucana pullets in a bin behind the wood stove, and 38 eggs in the incubator which will hatch out on Saturday:
The lone survivors of bobcat predation, Rosy, Claudia, Little Bit, and the ducks. We trapped a second bobcat and relocated him, but now have a small possibly bobcat kitten raised from the adults we moved going after the birds - he attacked a rooster but only managed to pluck a ton of feathers and leave the rooster with bare thighs - but the rooster's fine. Only one rouen and Little Bit are currently laying:
Sascha and her baby Jayce in the grass . . .
After a very mild winter, summer hit in March. Everything is either flowering or leafed out. We've abandoned spring planting and are going straight to summer vegetables. I've got mowing and mulching to do, as the grass is coming up furiously, downspouts to put on the gutters, and the upper story siding of the barn as soon as the boards get here.