Wow! That's cold!

The storm hit us yesterday and it's really really cold out there. Moo looked out from her pole barn and came running for the grain bucket but went right back in and refused to come out. She didn't even come over an admire my work with a sledge hammer in the biting below freezing temperatures with 200 mph (well it felt like it anyway) winds and take a drink. I'm sure her water's frozen over again so I reminded Ed that I'd bought the tank heater last week and he'll put it out for her this evening.

The goat's refused to go out as well and looked at me like I was crazy when I opened their pen. They ran back inside and batted cute little eyes at me asking for hay and grain. They even resorted to shoving Fifteen up front so I could see a very pregnant goat and feel sorry for them. Yes it worked. I'm a sucker.

The little kittens haven't seen their mama in about three days and we're hoping Precious is still alive. She runs off sometimes and usually comes back pregnant so hopefully we'll see her soon. The little ones are doing fine though and have figured out how to scale the fencing next to the 5 gallon water buckets in the goat stalls to get water. When we noticed the other cats doing this we just never filled the cat water bucket again and I never even thought about the little ones so I was glad to see they are able to get water. They're very warm and toasty in their home which is under the hay pallets. They've got several little burros in there and the hay totally blocks any drafts.

The chickens are fine and still insist on having their time outside. They run out and scratch for a few minutes then run back in. We're getting one lousy egg every other day and I'm just very disappointed in these girls. Come spring, we'll be having serious discussions or a lot of chicken soup.

Jack. Well Jack's decided that he needs to be in the house. Right. Next. To. The. Woodstove. As you walk by he lays as flat as he can so you won't notice him and put him back out.

We're burning hedge and hickory exclusively and I'm stoking every hour at least. Last night we were at 74' at one point in the dining room and probably 20' cooler upstairs. Did I mention it's REALLY cold? And guess what we forgot this fall? Our uptown in-style hillbilly insulation. Yup, we've got snow coming in the original from door which is right at the stairwell. Ed finished the truck and we'll be picking up 20 bales of straw this evening or tomorrow for house baling. Doesn't look purty but we had NO drafts from the north side last year so I'm anxious to get it up.

I'm so happy to say that I caught a glimpse of Ed's back as he was working on the truck and his rash is down to some pinkish-ness, not even as red as a sunburn. His hands and arms are totally 100% cleared and even his knuckles are smooth. In 12 years I've never seen his hands smooth! He tells me his legs still itch and are still raised but they are definitely healing. He sees the doctor tomorrow for a two month visit and I'm anxious to hear her opinion.

But the biggest bestest news is that Vincent turned 5 yesterday! Oh my sweet baby is getting so big! He even pointed out to me that he's *this* close to reaching into the cabinets now. LOL

Me? Well I've been hard at work picking up extra hours for Christmas and working on a couple projects. It's wonderful to be home for the holidays.

The Holidays are upon us

I love the holiday season. It always makes me feel snuggly in my home and thankful for great friends and family. And I love the decorations.

We had Ed's sister and her dh up over the weekend and spent a wonderful day with them. She loves my lasagne and says it's even better than Olive Garden's, so naturally I made a huge batch so she would have take home leftovers. She had hosted Thanksgiving so I think it was a nice for her to comfortably hang out for the day. I love having her over because we are both kitchen-bodies and make ourselves totally at home in the other's kitchen. As soon as we walk in the door of the other's home we are in there washing the working dishes, wiping counters, grabbing table service, and shooing children away from dessert platters. We work very well together.

Even though Christmas will be at Aunt Betty's this year, everyone did agree to come out the Saturday before for an afternoon and dinner here. It's an hour drive out to the farm for some of them, but I do think everyone loves visiting the "farm" during the holidays and seeing the animals. Since Betty's doing a traditional holiday meal, I need to plan something a little different for Saturday's dinner for about 15. I'll need a meal with fantabulous desserts and then snacks for the gaming tables later. You know what this means. You got it, a binder! Lists, tabs, color coding, and all that will be in order.

We put our tree up on Sunday and then after I ran into town for some shopping yesterday I finished the decorations. Well, the figurines and all that, I still need to arrange three full totes of garland and get out the holiday dishes. That's the project for today.

How's your shopping going? Is your list huge or managable? Do you even know what half the things are on your children's list (I don't have a clue)?

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

The rest of my afternoon will be spent baking and tomorrow will be a day spent with the kids cleaning the house so we can put up Christmas decorations over the weekend. I hope everyone enjoys this holiday and time with their family. I know I have so much to be thankful for - just getting to spend the day with my family is top of the list!

See you back here soon.

Ice storm survival

We moved out to the farm in September 2004 and immediately after that I increased my hours at Walmart. Ed was home alone with the boys in the evenings and those evenings were getting dark earlier and earlier. A few months later we endured an ice storm like this part of the country had never seen - entire cities were without electricity. Naturally, one of our trees fell into our electric pole so four days later when the neighbors could once again flip a switch the linemen informed us, "Y'all have a real mess here. It's still be a few days before we can get a new pole out to you." In the end, we were without electricity for nearly nine days and all of those nine days had temps below zero and winds that would cut through the best down coats.

We brought the mattress from out bed downstairs on the only carpeted section of the house and closed off the entire upstairs and downstairs rooms so we were confined to the living room, dining room, and kitchen. I drove around to the neighbors and offered grey water (we have a shallow well with the original 100 year old hand pump) for animals or toilet flushing and compiled lists of things to bring them from work each evening. The two with stoves offered to let us come stay with them but we were actually doing fine with the stove and the propane heater attachment. On day five we were lucky enough to be at Sears when the truck showed up with a deliver of generators. Finally, fresh water from the facet!

Here's what I learned during that storm:

• Great grandma was right, a foil covered brick heated in an oven for an hour can keep you warm through the night. It also brings the satisfaction of having your husband tell you were right after he made fun of you for snuggling with several bricks.
• Always, always, without fail, have 10 gallons of clean water on hand.
• It really *is* the humidity! Boiling water (even grey) on a stove to obtain a humid environment can make 40' seem positively balmy.
• You can never have too many candles and oil lamps.
• Paper plates and plastic service settings kept in a storm survival kit are a Good Thing.
• You can go weeks without speaking to your neighbors but it's a tear inducing experience to know you can depend on them during a crisis.
• Keep 10 gallons of fresh gas on hand.
• Keep enough feed for several days for each animal.

We lost electricity last Thursday for an entire evening and it jump started me into making sure that our storage room held everything we needed should we face it again. Snow and ice are beautiful to behold but can turn mean and frightening if one's not prepared.

An actual conversation with my husband

"Hey Lisa, when you go into town this afternoon can you pick me up another pair of work gloves. The cow ate mine this morning."

"What do you mean the cow ate your gloves? You mean she chewed them up?"

"No. I mean the cow ate my gloves. You know. Ate. As in, she dined on them."

"Right, I get that, but where are they? Are they still out there?"

"Woman, you never listen. I'm telling you she ate them. They are gone. They're in her belly like the big guy on Austin Powers."

"Do you mean to tell me that Moo swallowed them??"

"Exactly. My God this is taking forever."

"But Eddie, they were leather! Isn't that just wrong?"

"Well I really don't think she cares Lisa. Just buy me another pair would you?"

"Well ok, but can she digest them? Won't they........"

"Oh, yeah. If you happen to see them in a cow patty, grab them. They were good gloves."

Not so much.

Farm pics

Here are some more pics of the farm. It was a beautiful afternoon so I decided to let Moo out to enjoy the cut milo field. After convincing her that it was ok to come out of her pen, she took off like lightening just a stomping, bucking, kicking her heels in the air, and smelling everything. She walked around the house a time or two, checking to make sure I was following her, and then headed out into the fields. She's pretty good about staying on the property but to be sure, I quickly installed a hillbilly gate:

She kept mooing at me to walk with her so I headed out myself. Don't you just love that face?

I walked to the barn and threw some milo over the fence for the goats. Look at this angle of poor Fifteen. Doesn't she look uncomfortable?

I stopped by the coop to get a picture of the frizzle rooster. This guy is just the cutest thing but man he is the meanest one to the hens. I'm not sure if he'll make it through the winter.

I noticed a couple of the bearded hens were up in the rafters and the buff has been laying sporadically so I checked the boxes and found a beautiful blue egg.

I have some more pics of the kittens but I think Blogger has a limit on the number you can put in one post and it won't take them. I'll try to post them soon.

"Eddie grab your shotgun!"

What a way to wakeup your husband. Even better, uh, we don't have a shotgun. Well we do somewhere, locked up in a box, but I think it would take an entire afternoon to find it and then there's the matter of not having any shells. I know the question your asking though, did Eddie act like a man who knows his wife is scared out of her wits as she runs headlong out of the house in her nightgown to face untold dangers?

Not so much.

I came back into the house breathless and he was laying on the couch where he responded with, "What in the world are you doing?" Yep, that's my man. LOL

I was washing dishes at the sink when I saw a beautiful silver/gray fox stroll buy heading into the pile of chickens that had just come out of the coop for breakfast. I hollered at Jack (the crackerjack watchdog we have installed here on the farm as I ran through the garage and making as much noise as I could along the way.... you know, expecting to see Eddie running after me at any second carrying the non-existent shotgun. The fox headed around the goat pen towards the pond and then our through our west pasture to who knows where. Jack was on his heels though. I'm he's wondering if the fox would like to play. Jack plays with all the animals here, including baby chicks and kittens. Sigh. I sort of wished for Skittles and M&M at the moment as they were proficient at killing predators and I've seen them tackle a several coyotes several times. Unfortunately they killed everything including kittens and chickens.

It was interesting to me that not a single animal made a sound as I ran out there though. I could hear Jack panting clear on the other side of the barn. All the goats huddled in a tight ball right in the center of their pen and I couldn't find a chicken to save my life. Y'all know that goats go crazy when they see their feeder first thing in the morning and it sounds like a nursery full of screaming babies until they get their grain. The roosters are after the hens for some morning delight (well, except for the gay one) and the cow is moo-ing at me to pet her. Not this morning. It was deadly quiet. I walked quitely around the barns and watched Jack race through the pastures to all edges of our property picking up scent and then losing it. As I was heading back to the house I noticed a few hens fly down from trees and the roosters came out from under the old well house. The goats still never uttered a sound.

And no, Ed never showed up to rescue me from the jaws of danger. LOL


I took some pics yesterday. Can you see Fifteen on the left and that belly of her's? I keep thinking any day now she'll go into labor.












Here's Moo getting her treat of leftover milo brought in from the field. I tried to get her two seconds earlier jumping up and down and shaking her head left to right but couldn't quite capture it.





These are the three separate woodpiles that I've stacked. One is seasoned hedge with kindling, then seasoned other woods, then fresh wood. It doesn't really look like much but you can see through the trees the pile that's ready that I haven't brought over yet. When you add the pile of hedge fenceposts that's dry but only needs sliced with a chop saw, we're in pretty good shape.








And here's me. I'm trying to figure out how to get this up on the sidebar like I've seen other blogs. The most interesting thing about this is the new feature called "cartooning" on my editor. I had no idea what it was so I clicked it and look what happened!







I think I like the cartoon better! LOL

Blogger ate my posts

It never fails, I sit down with a time limit and write out a couple posts only to have them disappear into the blogger wasteland.

Ed continues to improve and has even shaken the mild chest cold he caught. He told me this morning that last night he felt like he did a few days after the dr. had given him the shot of steroids. Basically, awesome. This is wonderful news! His hands and arms are now totally clear with just a handful of little tiny pink spots - like chigger bites, nothing to worry about. his chest is a very mild pink color and the itching is nearly gone. His legs are still healing. As I've said, they were the worst so will probably take the longest to heal. Overall, we are very pleased and excited.

The farmer finally harvested the remaining milo and this means I'm in a time crunch to get the west pasture electrified for the goats. The idea of letting the graze through the winter and cutting the need for hay is very appetizing indeed. It's cold though and very hard work getting those posts in the ground. This is one of those times when we really miss not having a tractor.