Sending on the coop.

One of the hard things about getting the house ready is how much we'd done to make it ours. Some of that is the chicken coops. Unfortunately when the chickens are gone I'm going to have to just disassemble the big coop in the back. Fortunately, the Lady of the House's father wants to get into chickens so I was able to offload the smaller red coop we used for so long back to him. He actually found that coop for us for free, and hauled it up in the first place. He came up on Saturday, and the two of us moved the coop onto the trailer he brought, took down the chicken run, and packed it up into his trailer. Once that was done we loaded up a lot of the Critters toys, and the electric fencing for the chickens and sent it off to his house. Once that's set up we're going to bring the chickens to his place to watch over until we have a place we can have chickens again.

On the subject of the GoFundMe, we are doing well, and with the donation matching we're getting close to the $5,500 point where we need to be to get the heat and hot water installation begun. Any help you can give before the 1st while the donation matching is still going on would be greatly appreciated. All of the help and sharing we've gotten has been amazing to us. Thank you all.

On the farm side of things, we still desperately need rain.

Continuing rapid changes.

This weekend we had a really nice time with a fire pit and a lot of good friends visiting, and in the interests of that, we got the cleaning of the yard that was so desperately needed done! It also reminded me of just how much I like cooking over wood, despite how inefficient it is over an open fire. I shifted things around in the fire pit to make a shielded cooking area with a radiating fire box, but it's still much cooler as a cooking surface than if I had a purpose built cooking area. Probably not a project for this summer, though it very well may be given some of the other changes around the house.

The biggest change is we now have a housemate. I offered to use an alias for him, but he's fine with just being himself. Lucas is now going to be living with us, and he's going to be working at one of the local stone quarries. He's the gentleman that provided the tools and expertise on building the stone floor in the kitchen, and in addition to being handy, he's indicated he'd like to help out around the property. With that, we'll see what becomes possible with more help around the property on a regular basis!

Turkey fuzz, and air flow.

There are a few things going on around the house as our weather vacillates wildly between warm and bitter cold. The biggest upside of this is that the driveway is relatively clear, and the shoveling I did completely paid off. There's still plenty of ice of course, and lots of snow still on the ground, but as you can see there are areas of ground peeking through.

A surprising event

My apologies for the silence for over a week now, things got very busy at both work and home, and of all the things that I could afford to slip on, the blog ended up having to be one. I've been sick, and we've had a lot going on. I'm going to be posting today. and tomorrow. I'm also going to be aiming to get in a third post next week to make up for the lack of posts last week. For today I'd been intending to get back into things by talking about wood and the wood stove, but my plan for the day has changed a bit due to a surprise event.

Sounds of melt.

After a remarkably nasty couple of days with every branch of every tree covered in ice and sagging low, this morning we woke up to the sounds of rain. In our location the sounds of rain when the sun is shining isn't unheard of, but in this case it was a different sound. A sound that is unique to the woods really, it is the rain of melt pouring off the branches and leaves of the trees. Outside it was loud, and continuous, and exactly what we were hoping for. A nice day of 36 degrees Fahrenheit was enough to get things really going in the warm sun. 

While this goes on in the trees, our hope is that it does everything we need to get the driveway safe enough to use that we can effectively sand it. Right now it's bad enough going up and down that it takes a long time to get anywhere, and requires care with every step well beyond that of tromping through a normal frozen landscape. Last night things were so frozen up and so slippery that the chickens had some trouble getting home. One of them even required a rescue to get back to her house. Fortunately they're friendly and tame enough it wasn't a big deal to pick her up.

It was this white hen that was stuck, and she just let me walk up and pick her up, squirming curious toddler strapped to me and all. I just picked her up under my arm, and walked her to the coop. Why do the chickens take the trip up when it's tough to do in any kind of inclement weather. For one, the area under the rabbit hutches is full of delicious piles of manure that have to have lots of things to devour for chickens. Second, any spilled rabbit food is delightful for them. Third, they can see much of the property from there. Fourth, and probably not finally but definitely most important, there is ready access to water nearly year round. It's not that I don't give them water, but free flowing or seeping water seems to be their favorite. When it's moving their favorite area is the drainage stream in the back near the rabbit hutches. Right now it's lovely, but even when it's frozen over it isn't usually too much work to get to some water. Even when it is, there's a seep back there.

Today after much rearranging and child proofing, we finally lit our first fire of the season. Honestly with the weather it hasn't been a huge thing to not have going as long as you're ok with 60 degree house temperatures which is warmer than keep life going temperatures. The Critter really enjoyed watching the fire being lit, and our challenge for the wood stove this year is going to be more tending it while the kid is around than tending it to keep it lit. He's moving fast, so we're just going to have to team tend, tend when he's sleeping meaning more timing than I think we have with the fire and kid combined, or tend fast. I'm guessing it's going to come to tend fast.

A touch of frost, greens, and more.

On this cold morning, we have lots still on plants, and some that I strongly suspect won't make it through the first killing frost, but won't be ripe by then. Always a bit of a challenge with our location. As for the beans, at this point it just comes down to picking them off the plants. Even with the weather, the beans don't seem to be done flowering as you can see Right. Even the scarlet runner beans set more flowers just recently despite being heavy with beans. 

A productive, and fun July 4th weekend.

July 4th was a very busy weekend for us around the homestead, and full of good people and good company to go with the significant amount of work there was to do. For the 4th, we had a brush clearing party, then a camp fire. When it started raining just before folks showed up I didn't expect to get much done, or have a fire. As you can see the fire happened, and below the cut you'll get to see just how much we got done in the thankfully warm rain.

All is well as the cold passes through

Well, as of this morning just at the absolute worst of the temperature and wind had passed, I went out for farm chores. Everyone was alive as of that time, and seemed relatively healthy if not happy. You can tell that rabbits aren't doing optimally when they are eating less than their normal daily consumption rate. That means they aren't getting enough water usually, and are probably huddling together. My design for the hutches has again been confirmed to me as all of the rabbits, even the ones that usually avoid the private areas were using them when checked on. Talking to them when I go out brought them out to their water bottles where they get as much as they can before they ice over.

Season of darkness and fire, and hutch vices.

The season of the wood stove is in full swing, with all of the benefits and frustrations of the same. Given how much we are relying on it, I am going to be working on getting better at it over this winter, especially as it relates to successfully banking down for the night. At this point I have coals left most mornings, but this morning I didn't which distinctly made my morning tighter in terms of getting everything done and getting out to work on time. Some of that was probably going to bed earlier, but I think that on baby time when the Lady of the House wakes up to feed the Critter I should get up and tend the fire at least once during the night since I'm awake anyhow.