ice

This morning when I stepped outside to pick up an armful of stovewood, I was delighted to find the air warmer than expected. Maybe as high as 20F, I thought. Almost balmy.

I can generally estimate the temperature within a few degrees, so on the way back inside I checked the thermometer by the door: 11F.

Eleven.

Balmy.

After a series of very cold days and nights, I apparently need to recalibrate my internal thermometer!

There is ice everywhere, and most of it is now under six or more inches of powder. This is not a great situation, and I've been very careful going from house to barn to workshop to stilt barn and into the paddocks to fill water buckets and distribute hay.

There are de-icers in both big water buckets - huzzah! - but I still use smaller buckets at times, and they freeze quickly. If they freeze overnight I can't just break the layer of ice on top - I must thaw the ice enough to get it out of the bucket. Here's how, in case you've never done it and ever need to: turn the frozen bucket upside-down and slowly pour a little warm water over the bottom and sides. Listen for the sound of cracking, and then one quiet thud. Lift the bucket off with a boot - to keep dry gloves off the wet bucket - and find a wide-based crystalline vase of ice, with a core of water that trickles out and leaves an huge ice goblet.

Last week I took photographs from inside these hollow cores, looking out through the curved walls of ice. There's one at the top of this post, and here's another:

Winter can be hard. Why miss an opportunity to have fun?

Today I actually had to leave the place for the first time in a week: get in the truck, deliver the recycling, pick up a book from interlibrary loan, and do some grocery shopping. When I got home in the afternoon it was still very cold but not too windy and off-and-on sunny, so I decided to take time to visit with all the goats and then do evening chores early.

Tsuga says, "Yes, do come visit!
And do you have something good in your pocket?"

While I was sitting in the barn waiting for the last goats to finish their grub,

Rocket discovered bootlaces.

He'd never seen them before, because I usually wear pull-on rubber barn boots. But today, since I had just gotten home after being out In Public, I was wearing my "nice boots" which I bought last month. They are like calf-height, waterproof, insulated slippers with rubber soles. And very long laces. Rocket took one look and knew what had to be done.

Here are Azalea and her little boy Mallow - not so little anymore! - hanging out on a bench after having their buckets of oats. Everyone gets a little something extra to help stay cheerful in this ongoing cold, snowy, icy snap; extra oats, with a little sweet feed on top, and carrot pennies for afters. Even my careful rationing of hay - I feed multiple times in smaller amounts each day instead of the total amount all at once, to reduce waste - has gone by the boards for the time being. In weather like this, I believe it's more important to have hay available to everybody, all the time, than to avoid waste.

The sky looked like this for just a few minutes,

as I was coming back to the house after chores.

I'm so glad I didn't miss it!

The forecast says the weather is going to change tomorrow.

Warmer.

And then warmer.

I'll definitely be wearing the pull-on rubber barn boots.

~~~~~

iris

Iris, Vinca, Rocket

My Very Occasional Helper was here for 3 hours yesterday,

so together we made a little progress on the barn.

Iris was also a Big Help.

Although I couldn't help feeling that she had questions about the whole idea of turning the airy, spacious barn into four narrow cubicles.

Not exactly cubicles; more like slip stalls.

Rectanguloids?

"Why? WHYYYY?"

Lately I've been noticing that tiny Iris has grown.

There have even been a couple of times when she was standing apart from the other goats - so, no frame of reference - I wasn't sure if I was looking at Iris or her brother, the chunky Rocket.

"Now I am a BIG goat!"

But then I see her next to an average-size human,

and she immediately becomes tiny again.

Big on personality, though!

That's one thing that hasn't changed since the day she was born.

~~~~~

wednesday with words

Quite often when I'm on the porch looking out at the goats,

there's a goat standing in the barn or paddock looking back at me.

We've had some genuinely brutal weather since the snowstorm on Saturday and Sunday; bitter cold and high winds. This has meant extra rations for all, and an extra check every day to make sure everyone is comfortable. I shifted Violet and Sambucus up to the barn paddock which has extra options for shelter; that just leaves LeShodu and the four biggest boys in the stilt barn and south paddock.

Extreme weather also meant two nights of going out around 8PM with a flashlight, and tying the three meanest does in one side of the barn so everyone else could get into a shelter for the night. The wind was blowing from the northwest - not typical - which made one of the shelters into a wind-tunnel; more goats than usual needed to be in the barn. I don't like tying goats (except when they are having their buckets of grain) but there was simply no alternative.

As a result, I've decided to replace the old bashed-up stockpanel dividers in the barn, using solid boards. It will make the barn much less convenient to work in every day, but for the rare situation like this recent weather, it will be helpful to have the option of four separate stalls with doors. Small group suites. No tying.

Today it was warm enough to work outside for an extended time - halelujah! - so I began making one such divider. I had a lot of help.

That's Rocket, above.

And here's little Iris:

Unfortunately I had to stop when I needed an extra pair of hands to help shift long, heavy boards from a stack under a snow-covered tarp.

Despite years of practice at looking on the bright side, hitting that kind of previously-surmountable hurdle in the middle of a task can still sometimes mean discouragement or frustration. Today it was discouragement, because I was too exhausted to feel frustration! I'll shift those boards soon, when I've got someone here to lend a hand.

Meanwhile, we are now expecting 24 hours of rain, on top of the frozen snow. Should be interesting out there. I'll be dusting off my cleats.

Winter is here!

~~~~~

gardening tip

It may seem early, but isn't Winter the best time for planning gardens? I learned a useful thing today, so I'm going to share it now, lest I forget to mention it when Spring rolls around.

Last year, with the luxury of the little tinkertoy greenhouse ("Q" as I called it, which I genuinely believe is the only pun I have ever made in my life), I planted many types of seed in a variety of containers, but all filled with a high-quality organic soil purchased in bags at the feed store. I puttered in the greenhouse every day, and enjoyed it tremendously.

Fortunately, the last of the trays of seedlings had just been removed to transplant when a tree fell right across the greenhouse, destroying most of the frame.

In happy times. Before the smash.

I haven't yet decided how I'm going to start everything from seed again this year. I loved having the headstart of a little greenhouse, but I don't think I can afford to buy another - I bought the first one on a half-price sale, and was hoping to use it carefully for years. The method of having little covered trays on windowsills has never worked out well for me, so I really don't want to do that this year. Well, perhaps I can cobble together some way of reusing the greenhouse cover, which survived.

Anyway, back to the gardening tip.

Since some of my flats had low germination and some seedlings were attacked by invisible bugs and died after sprouting, I'd like to re-use the organic soil from those trays. So I emailed the company and asked if I should sterilize it first.

Here is the answer, which I hope a reader or two may find useful. I'll skip the part where the person recommends buying new soil, and skip to the good news:

"Old mix can, however, be sterilized for reuse. It will not be as fresh, but the sterilization process will ensure it is pest and disease free. In fact, I sometimes sterilize fresh seedling mix when I am starting prized seeds. To sterilize mix, I place it in a large, oven-safe pan, add some water to moisten the mix, and then cover it with aluminum foil. Then I bake it at 180-200 degrees Fahrenheit for at least 30 minutes. The soil’s internal temperature should be at least 180 degrees F for sterilization. Allow the mix to cool before use."

So there we are. It will be interesting to see what baking soil smells like. If anyone tries it - or has tried it in the past - please share in the comments!

A real snowstorm is predicted to begin this afternoon and continue right through Sunday as either snow or freezing rain. I'm going out to batten down the hatches and also take Piper for a little walk in the woods before it begins.
Happy weekend, everyone!

~~~~~

more color

Remember "Daily Markmaking 2018"?

Reflections below the Dam

I actually did it.

Some kind of markmaking, each day, for a year.

Dried Tansy from the Garden

As the year ended, I thought about whether or not to continue,

and I just didn't see any reason to stop.

This watercolor was from the first of January:

Shoreline reflection in Pond

Now I must decide whether to count continuously - in which case, tonight's effort will be #378 - or to restart the clock with January 1st being #1.

The digital files add up, and it is fun to look back at a month or a season.

It will be easier to do so if I keep them labelled and organized.

The Moon on a Cloudy Night

Isn't it hard to believe that January is already halfway gone?

~~~~~