The Reality of Winter

It was a weekend of fickle weather.

Friday morning, we awoke to fresh snow on the ground.

With a winter storm forecasted for the rest of the weekend,

we decided to run our errands Friday morning.

We took our recycling to our local recycling center,

passing this lovely pond on the way...

Then we stopped by our local grocery/hardware store for a few necessities

and saw this (a common sight around here)...

The feed store was last on our list.

The only thing left to do, was to get the guineas into the duck yard for the

coming snow.  Roosting indoors is so much better in a snowstorm!

Not an easy task...but we were not about to give up.

Victory!

Saturday we took the dogs on a long hike through the woods.

Even with most of the hemlock trees removed,

the woods still felt peaceful.

(I had mentioned in an earlier post that our woods, densely populated with

hemlock trees, had suffered in the past few years due to an infestation

of the Wooly Adelgid - a migrant insect from China that has decimated the

hemlock forests on the east coast by sucking the sap out of the trees and causing their trunks to splinter... sending the massive trees to the ground.

  After much research and the advice from several forestry professionals, we had decided to have these trees removed so that the woods could be repopulated by the hardwood saplings 

growing beneath.  Because our woods were so heavily populated by hemlocks,

the young trees were unable to get the necessary sunlight for growth.

Removing the diseased hemlocks will allow for our woods to regenerate

at a faster pace.)

I noticed several trees, on our walk, that had a "W" painted on them.

Jack explained that although these trees were dead,

they were to be left intact because it had been deemed that they were

important to wildlife.

We had made it clear that we wanted to maintain a haven for wildlife.

And so, there are many of these "W" trees still standing

that provide food and habitat for tiny creatures of our forest.

Sunday morning we awoke to an additional 5 or 6 inches of snow, followed by rain.

Needless to say, travel around the farm was difficult.

The snow and rain mixture caused our lanes to be slushy and slippery...

and difficult for the gator to navigate.

Jack used the tractor to clear as much snow as he could so that we could get

water and feed to all of the animals.

This is the part of farm life that is not so romantic.

This is the hard part.

This is the part that we know will eventually make farm-living a challenge as we age.
For now, though, we will keep on trudging.

Sunday morning chores took 2 ½ hours and by the end,

we felt like we had done a week's worth of work.

Pulling snow-laden manure in manure carts whose wheels don't work in the snow

was just one of the things that slowed us down.

Eventually, all necessary work was accomplished and all of our friends had

everything they would need until our next trip to the barn.

Sunday Farm Breakfast ran into lunchtime as we all played a few rounds

of Mexican Train Dominoes.
(I lost... badly!)

The afternoon was spent like this....

And when Ivy wasn't staring at me knitting,

she was busy (un)doing floral arrangements!

Sunday ended with a bit of sunshine before the temperatures

plummeted into the single digits.

Lots and lots of hay was distributed to keep the animal furnaces warm.

As long as they all have hay to eat, we don't worry about them.

Their metabolism and furry coats keep them warm.

Us?  It takes a little more than just metabolism.