Well, the promised heavy snow fall arrived, so I decided to include a photo that's from a similar angle to the one from Tuesday. We got about 14" of snow, which is barely more than the valley below us which is unusual. Most of the time we get a crazy amount of snow in relation, so it was nice to have a fairly average amount to deal with. The only wrinkle was that I broke my first shearing pin on the snow blower! I haven't replaced the pin yet because I finished up without it, and actually only noticed due to a friend seeing down the mouth of the monster and seeing it wasn't all spinning.
The rabbits as usual are coping fairly well with the snow as usual. It is interesting though, when it snows they don't drink much water even though it's not as cold. They drink so little we get a bit concerned about it actually. I'm starting to think that they're eating snow to get liquid during this sort of weather. Yesterday was also the day that Halley and Comet's litter got processed. It is amazing how much longer it takes to process rabbits when they're only a few weeks older than normal processing date due to the increased connective tissue. It isn't a huge deal, but it is remarkable with 7 rabbits to process how much extra time 5 - 10 minutes extra a rabbit actually is. That said, Halley and Comet's litter turned out big, healthy, and happy. We definitely have figured out feed ratios and watering better this winter than we had last winter. It's natural to figure things out more over time, but it is a noticeable difference. With the teens it basically has come down to fill both feeders, have 2 water bottles available that are changed at least once a day, and a flake or so of hay. Now that the teens are out of that hutch, and given our hutch situation some time tomorrow probably the Lady of the House and I will be moving Sunshine and her brood into the big growing out hutch, and moving Halley and Comet into the smaller hutch since they're baby free right now.
The thing I am probably happiest about right now seems so inconsequential. We are down to 2 pallets of wood left of the 7 we started the winter with. I planned out our wood usage nearly perfectly it seems! Of course this means that when we get the wood stove in the studio installed and the studio is up and running year round I'll need to have twice that for the winter, or more. That's fine though, knowing what is needed is actually a big part of it. We don't want to be running out of wood, but nearly equally, we don't want to have so much we end up with a pile of over seasoned or rotted wood sitting around for years. So, just a little point of feeling like I got something right. Obviously we still have lots to learn, but this winter hasn't been a series of emergencies for us, it's been a slightly tougher but doable routine. A nice change. Next week hopefully with the extra time I have I'll be having more stuff done around the homestead to share.
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