stovewood

After morning barn chores each day, it's time to fetch in more wood for the stove.

Got to the bottom of the first pallet this week.

Started on the second pallet:

Every morning I load up the smaller cargo sled.

It's enough stovewood for one day.

The next step is pulling the sled around to the portico and unloading it stick by stick into a log tote. It usually takes five or six trips with the tote to empty the sled. Since I can't walk through my house wearing cleats, the boots and gaiters have to come off before I can carry a tote through the kitchen to the parlor.

And there's another warm day and night for Moxie and Della and me

 and the water lines (so far, fingers crossed).

How are your mornings going?

~~~~~

one more time

We had more hours and inches of snow yesterday, but the forecast is for flurries only for the rest of the week. So just one more roof-edge snap of the total accumulation:

I've been trying to persuade Violet, one of my two oldest goats, to wear a coat - made from my old fleece coat - at least at night in this ongoing extremely cold weather. So far I am having limited success. She has been patient about fittings only up til the moment when a girth strap of soft fleece goes around her rib cage, and then she says NO THANK YOU GO AWAY and we have to negotiate every time. I am persisting because I am worried about her, and one night last week I got out of bed and shuffled along the ice-path to the barn because I saw on the barncam that the coat had shifted around and was bunched up and Violet was looked justifiably unhappy. The design modifications have been ongoing; during evening chores tonight I was out there with a needle and thread making on-the-spot adjustments by the light of my headlamp, with Mallow as spellbound audience. The temp is dropping into negative degrees again tonight, so fingers crossed the coat stays in place this time and Violet enjoys the warmth.

Remember when I used to make little fleece coats for the babies who were born during very cold weather? I distinctly remember kneeling on the hard cold ground in the original paddock, cutting up fleece scarfs and designing on the spot. Very quickly, very simply. Turns out cobbling together a coat to fit a 120 pound doe is a little more complicated. Who knew?

~~~~~

following up

 Well the snow started again before I even got out the door.

I think the last time we had this much snow, Piper was out doing chores with me.

I miss Piper so much.

The vantage point chair on the Upper West Side.

I did not sit and enjoy the view today.

The house seen from the barn, with smoke rising from the chimney.

I stayed in the barn for a few minutes sharing out peanuts to these two:

Azalea

and Azalea's mum, Lily of the Valley.

Many of the goats will be going a little stir-crazy if we don't see the sun soon.

When the sun appears, the goats will all be out regardless of the snow.

None of them have to be out in this weather, but maybe you could see the snowflakes on Azalea? And here is Bud, wading between the stilt barn and the temporary shelter:

I don't know if you can see it clearly in the snaps, but the wide shadow 

along the edge of each roof indicates the depth of the snow. It's a lot. 

But as long as we don't lose power (and therefore water), we're fine here. 

Plenty of access to feed, shelters, and water.

Plenty of wood for the stove.

All's well.

Touch wood.

~~~~~

weather happening

 

Terrible phone snap taken through window.

We've had quite a lot of new snow, and more expected today. 

I'm heading out during this lull to do the chores and break trails for the herd.

And put out more seed for the many birds like the jay above waiting a turn at the feeders.

Hope all is well where you are.

~~~~~

thoughts on ice

For what seems like months - and indeed may actually be months - every path between house and barns and paddocks has been an unbroken sheet of thick ice. Paddocks, ditto. My boots are permanently cleated and my pace is a slow penguin-waddle. Last week we had a couple of warmer days and some of the ice had finally begun to melt, exposing rocks like little islands that provided welcome moments of surefooted relief along the still ice-covered paths. Yesterday evening when I came in from carrying water buckets to the paddock trough, I was so happy to reach the house without falling. I was hopeful that more warmish days would melt the rest of the ice before we got more snow. Lovely soft snow. I've often said I'd rather have two feet of snow than a quarter-inch of ice.

But we got more snow last night, insulating the remaining icepack. Despite my cleats, I nearly fell twice this morning just carefully putting out the birdfeeders right next to the house. The fresh snow was already four inches deep at that point and has continued to fall all day. It is genuinely dangerous walking, because even knowing that the ice is under the powder doesn't prevent it from taking your feet out from under you.

These days, icy or not, I am far more conscious of the risk of falling than I was prior to the shoulder dislocation in 2024. Or, more accurately, I was always quite conscious of the risk of falling, and of course knew that a fall could have very bad results, but I had never experienced the very bad results. I've fallen countless times, just as I've bumped into things quite often; I am a clumsy person and even at my advanced age seem to have only a vague concept of where my body begins and ends. I think the worst injury I had had from an earlier fall occurred - wait for it, and I don't mind if you laugh - was when I cracked a rib while vacuuming. I have always said that housework is dangerous.

Thinking back now, my hardest landings have probably been falls from horses. This isn't even about being clumsy; I'd wager anyone who spends much time on horses also comes off now and then. I recall one fall before a training jump when I got up from the ground with the wind knocked out of me and so jelly-legged I could hardly stand, but of course got back in the saddle and rode to the jump again. That whole thing about "getting back on the horse"? It's true.

So that bizarre little plunge from my own doorstep with the resulting shoulder injury was a watershed experience for me. I had plenty of time during the months of one-armed chores and physical therapy to rethink the way I do things, and to simply not do some of the things I had always done. But...chores are chores, and must be done, one way or another, period. Which brings us to this evening's chores. And all this nattering about horses and vacuums and such is looking a bit like procrastination, isn't it? Hmmm. Out I go.

I was about to post this but just realized that it might be better to post it when I'm back inside, chores done, everyone fed and watered and tucked in for the night. So here I go. Hang on a sec.

...

Okay, back again. Fell once, on a slippery slope. Got up. Reassured the three frightened goats who saw it happen and were poised to flee. Checked to see if the packet of banana buttons in my pocket had become a banana smoothie. Miraculously they hadn't, so I handed them out. We were all happy.

Onward!

~~~~~