Wednesday, February 05, 2014

Snow Day - Hooray!!

What a gift...a snow day!  Teacher's rejoice.  There was enough notice about this storm to build anticipation and give me time to hit the grocery store for coffee, cat food, and a meal to cook and make the house smell good while I'm home.  Spouse is home, too, sick with a nasty cold which I'm praying I don't catch.  So many colleagues out with various vague illnesses.  Keeping as healthy as I can with vitamins, veggies and rest.  Farmers are in the same boat with moms of little children. We can't get sick.   I'm blessed with good health and if this old ski injury on my right knee - the one that a sheep decided to bash a few years back - would leave me alone I'm pretty good to go.  On deck for today... enjoy the storm, tend to critters, and do some sewing.  I finished my friend Rebecca's purple faux leather messenger tote and will get it shipped tomorrow with the Blood Orange Mother Fiber she wants.   I can't wait to see what she does with it.   I'm waiting on an order of lavender essential oil that was delayed down the line due to weather.  Can't be without lavender.  The piggies must be doing their happy dance out there in the barn, waiting for the sound of the door to the milk room where I mix their slop.  I love to see them jumping out of their hay bed and running to the fence.  I don't love the way they fight over the warm mash and flip the pan to make it easier to get to.  Lilly's aged ewes line up for the bottom of the buckets but are now being joined by some fatties who don't need the extra food.  One cute addition to the bucket brigade is the little wether,
Cinco, born on May 5 while I was on the way home from Maryland Sheep and Wool.  He is my youngest sheep and is sporting a lovely hogget (first fleece) coat.  He was a surprise, born to an aged ewe with a twin that didn't survive despite bottle supplements and much TLC.  With no ram on the farm there won't be any lambs this spring.  I am working on finding a new ram for some fall lambs.  We'll see.  A sheep farm with no lambs in the spring is not the same.  I have a duck who is trying to decide if she wants to sit on a clutch of eggs under a little igloo in the duck pen.  I saw her sitting on them and feathering the nest around her, so I didn't pull the eggs.  Last night she was not sitting.  I'll keep an eye on her and if she's not intent on hatching them I will pull them for us to eat.  Not a lot of eggs right now.  I got one last night in the chicken room where they get steady food, water and hay.  I get more eggs from the birds loose in the barn but I have to find them.  Still snowing out there and I'm in from the morning doggie walk.   It's a fine, silty snow and the road in front of the farm is covered.  Wonder if we can hope for another snow day tomorrow?  Not a chance.

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