Unpredictable weather extremes.

Shoveling snow while rain is pouring down, and the snow sublimates due to the temperature is one of the more surreal experiences I've had recently. Especially after multiple days of below zer temperatures.

Unfortunately with the snowblower out of commission, and out for repair right now it was a purely shovel job. With a few inches of snow, almost an inch of ice, and rain it was heavy work. This is definitely an example of me not injury managing well enough, because I actually wasn't able to complete shoveling the whole driveway.  As you can see on the Right since I figured out I wasn't going to be able to do the whole thing, I shoveled down as far as I could to the snow/ice mix that wasn't going to move. I got tire tracks, and then did a ladder pattern with a "cross bar" every 10 - 15 feet or so. I figured that gets things down as the melt happens. Now, the ladder pattern is sheets of black ice, and the parts in between are thick sheets of heavy ice with a bit of crunch to it. Wintery mix after serious snow is one of the worst types of weather in the world, but it can be pretty.

Mother Nature reminds us it is winter for some time still.

So one of the problems with talking about how mild the winter has been in late January is, there's a lot of winter yet. She heard us, and has delivered the missing winter. We'll see how long it stays, but She seems to be aimed to drop enough snow for us to remember right quick. On the up side, the Critter still loves every moment of snow.

The worst kind of winter weather.

Christmas has come and gone, as has our strange late fall that felt more like spring. The turkeys of course, are still roosting in the trees over the rabbit hutches. Once the ice storm came they were less thrilled about it though, and have been reluctant to come down. I can't really blame them. If I didn't have reason to be outside I wouldn't be. Of course, with livestock we have reason to be outside.

We'll get to the snow shortly.

First, we are doing well, Christmas was lovely and many people were very generous to us and the Critter. We felt very fortunate, and feel extremely fortunate to have the friends both proximate, and connected through networked media. Thank you to everyone that reads this as we come in to the end of the year, and thanks especially to the Patreon patrons that have helped us significantly this year. That said, let's get on to what's occupying us right now. The weather.

Planning for future poultry.

The challenge with living so far from where I work right now is, as the shorter days set in, I'm having problems getting photos for the blog! It's especially true when I've been working some extra hours between my primary job, and doing some overnight shifts for a second job. It's been a bit inconvenient honestly, but one of the challenges with something like small farming/homesteading like we are is, you have to make enough to pay for the "normal" life expenses like food, and home costs. Right now, the money side of things is a bit of a focus since I have some opportunities.

Snow at greater than dog depth, and success in sourdough

It just keeps snowing here, and while we are certainly able to handle it, snow has reached greater than dog depth in non drift areas which is officially too much snow on the ground, we need a break. Mind you, we aren't as bad off as Worcester for instance. That said, looks like we Might have another good solid snow fall Thursday into Friday. There are good parts about this of course, especially when it comes to having a drought free spring.

The importance of correct and working equipment.

So, today's post is a little scattered and last minute because this morning we were thinking about getting the car to the right place at the right time to get repaired within our budget. So I got to the internet this morning and said, "Shit, no blog post!" and the Lady of the House suggested the topic, so I'm running with it.

She actually suggested the importance of a car, which is a big deal. I just decided to expand it because of how often the correct tool or a working piece of equipment would make our lives much easier. The importance of a car is obvious to all of us living outside of a city like Boston, New York, or Prague. You have to have a car, or you can't go anywhere, can't get to work, can't see people. Effectively you can't live without a car in day to day life. That sort of vital necessity of a car that we are all familiar with is especially important in homesteading. It's come up all the time in our lives since we started on this mad adventure. A splitting maul makes life much more bearable

The reason the tractor photo is up top is simple, our first piece of equipment we really needed to work, and didn't have working was a tractor. With a tractor digging beds would be done by now, I could have started work on a cold storage facility, and we wouldn't have needed to buy the snow blower. But, lacking the snow blower, our first winter we lacked the proper equipment, and shoveled the driveway until our bodies gave out, and we had a sheet ice slide instead for months. There's plenty of other examples going on around the house, even right now. Having the correct shovel, and yes there is a difference. Those of you who keep up with us recognize the broken shovel. We Had to get a new shovel to keep digging garden beds because a flat nosed transfer shovel is not a round nosed digging shovel, not even a little bit. So I guess the point of this post is, make sure you spend the money to get the right tools to do what you are aiming to do, without them your life will be much more difficult! Right now, we're looking at what sorts of tools would make our lives more tenable.
1: A vehicle with more transportation space, probably a pickup truck.
2: A tractor.
3: A wheel barrow because carting around 5 gallon buckets of dirt and rocks isn't the most efficient thing ever.
4: A mattock for digging because, while shovels are great for digging, if you want to break up hard ground you use a mattock if you don't have a back hoe.

Those are really the big tools that we should have to do what we're trying to do. There's also things like rain barrels, fencing and so on that we'll need to do a lot of what we want long term, but those aren't so much tools as supplies. We'll work on the tools we need, but lack of them is definitely in the forefront of our minds right now as we try to get the plants we have in the ground before we run out of time.

Big storm, small problems

 The snow has come and, well, not gone. It has officially passed the three days guests are welcome. Above you can see the cars at the end of the snow fall. As a note, they were %100 cleared off a bit over half way through the storm just before midnight when we went to bed. That said, the Lady of the House and I are in a totally different situation than we were last winter. Last winter after storms like this I was out hand shoveling, and soon we were walking up and down an ice slide.

Rabbit ginger recipe, and preparing for the snow storm

For those of you not in the New England area, you may not know that a major storm is approaching. Right now our primary concern is preparation for the impending storm. How much snow we will get is up for grabs, but we are going to assume it will be on the upper end of two to three feet.

What does that mean for us? Well, mostly it means get ready to shovel and snow blow. The snow blower has a full tank, and we are getting a full extra gallon of gas just to be certain. We are considering buying another extra gas tank to fill up just to be safe. We are going to fill up our sand buckets this evening so we have that available, and load up the inside wood rack with the wood outside that is most exposed to weather so the less exposed wood isn't going to be in danger of getting soaked. I'm hoping to be able to go in to work tomorrow, but that looks unlikely to be honest depending on the snow amounts.

Above is a photo I'd wanted to share from the gifting of the box to the babies. This is one of the babies rubbing its chin on the box, claiming it. Rabbits, like cats have scent glands in their cheeks and like marking things. That was moments before the box destruction began.

One of the things we have been doing a lot lately is experimenting with various things. Some of them are really good, but not terribly exciting and covered all over the internet, like wheat berries. Great breakfast food if you can get them, and very nutritious. More interesting is recipe experimentation, and as usual we are awful about remembering to take photos of the food before we eat it, so instead,here is a picture of a rabbit staring at the camera in confusion.

Recipe: Rabbit ginger
Ingredients:
1 Fryer weight rabbit butchered out

Marinade:
3 Tablespoons soy sauce
3 Tablespoons honey
3 Tablespoons clear alcohol. We used hard cider, you could also use sake or other similar alcohol.
1 Tablespoon grated fresh ginger.
Other spices to taste.
I used:
2 generous pinches tarragon
1 generous pinch chipotle

Mix all of the marinade ingredients in a medium mixing bowl thoroughly. A whisk works best, but a fork would also do the trick. Once they are thoroughly mixed, place the pieces of rabbit in the bowl and coat them fully with the mixture. Ideally the mixture will nearly completely cover the rabbit as it sits in the bowl. Place the bowl with the marinade and the covered rabbit in the fridge for 30 minutes. During this time I'd recommend starting rice if you will be using it as the starch.

After 30 or more minutes heat a medium sauce pan so it is hot, but not oil smoking hot and coat the pan with the oil of your choice. You probably won't need more than a tablespoon. Once the pan is hot and coated take out the rabbit, and brown each piece on both sides in the pan. When you do this just take the rabbit piece by piece, and put it down. As you brown it you should also be caramelizing the marinade on it. Don't cook it, just brown each piece and remove it, placing it on a plate to the side. Don't crowd the pieces in the pan, or they won't probably brown.

Once all of the pieces are browned and set aside put 3 tablespoons of water in the remaining marinade, and place all of the rabbit and the marinade in the medium sauce pan over low medium heat to finish cooking the rabbit. This should take 15 - 20 minutes if you cook it slowly, basically simmering it. Check the thickest piece of rabbit to make sure it is cooked fully before serving.

I recommend serving with rice, broccoli, and maybe some sweet potato. This is the best rabbit recipe I've come up with yet. Obviously it takes heavily from terriyaki and ginger chicken recipes, so if you have anything similar you've tried that you know works well, pass it on!

Happy New Year!

 And a beautiful snowy new year it is. My apologies for not posting on the Thursday after Christmas, the Lady of the House and I both acquired a wonderful 36 hour stomach bug at Christmas Eve that manifested midnight ish on the 27th. We achieved exactly two things on the 27th, and those were feeding and watering the rabbits, and calling out a friend to bring us more snow blower fuel.

Day to day preparation for winter, and a seasonal retrospective.

Day by day there are fewer and fewer leaves on the trees in the back yard, and soon we are going to have to shift to heated water bottles, or crocks for water as it gets too cold every night. But we have been adjusting and getting ready for winter.

Borrowed Buck, and A Snow Blower

Meet the scab. With Umbra's sperm on strike demanding more treats, and more girls, we, much like the NFL have had to turn to replacements. Hopefully with less disastrous results.