Country Musings

First Snow Fall

Not much, but it would have been enough to ground the planes. It was a real wet, heavy snow. Then rain and some sleet and some more snow. It was enough to turn a few areas of bare ground white.

It’s been a little busy computer-wise around here. Shari is working like a fiend trying to get her online business up and running. She has been working with the owners, rewriting pages, and changing things around. While she has been doing that, I have been reading, reading and reading some more about affiliate marketing, getting ready to throw my hat into the earning online market.

With all this going on I forgot to post a few days, and missed 2 important days;

Thanksgiving: We had a nice dinner with the couple across the way from us. They just moved up here full-time from California where he was a Civilian employee for the Air Force, and also in the reserves. He used to get up here about every 3 weeks. He got out of service, got married, and moved up here full time late this summer. So,,, we decided to have them over. It was a nice time. Lots of good food, and a lot to be thankful for.
My Birthday: Yup, it was that time of the year again. Nov. 19. Another year older, and hopefully a little wiser. Didn’t do anything special. Stayed home and had a fantastic steak dinner.

We have been into the wood pile already, have had the fireplace going just about every day this week. The wind has been blowing NE for a couple days and it’s just as miserable out here as it is in Ohio in a NE wind. Morning lows have been as far down as 6 above. It still gets nice later in the day though so it’s not real bad yet.

The animal’s water containers have had to be chipped out all week except this morning. The chickens are still using little plastic water containers that freeze in a heartbeat. It’s amazing how much water those silly birds drink. We have a light bulb in coop to help them stay on a laying schedule. It’s not enough to keep water from freezing though. The eggs have dropped off a little bit, but still getting 9-14 a day. They are almost full size now. We have had a lot of double yolks.

Tomorrow is the Christmas Bazaar at the Enterprise Senior Center. We all got volunteered to work kitchen. Shari is on the grill, I take orders to Bev and she gets them put together and back to me to get out the door. Mom wanders around talking to the people, clearing tables, popping corn, and whatever else needs to be done outside the kitchen. Hamburgs, hot dogs, fries and ice cream. Its a good time and we all enjoy it.

That’s all for now, and Y’all take care

Cindy

November 30th, 2007 Posted by Cindy | Musings | no comments

Wood Pile

Here are the before and after pictures of the infamous “Winter Wood Pile”. Split by hand I might add.

This wood is Quaking Aspen. Not bad wood to split at all. Supposedly it burns hot and fast and very few ashes. Guess we will see since we have 2 cords of it.

It’s not the greatest, but better than most sheep have out here.

Cindy

November 18th, 2007 Posted by Cindy | Musings | no comments

Winter Project Pics

Here are a few pictures of the completed fall/winter projects. Before and afters if I had them.

This is the Horse Barn Project. Next post will be a couple pictures of the Wood Pile, before and after

Cindy

November 18th, 2007 Posted by Cindy | Musings | no comments

The Dentist’s Chair

Shari, Bev, and Mom. Sheesh sure glad I don’t have to worry about Dentist anymore. Good thing we don’t have a family Dentist, he could have retired in the last 2 weeks alone just from this crew.

When Bev was taking chemo for her cancer 5 years ago, it messed up her teeth big time. (she is cancer free little over 5 yrs now) She decided she had had enough and went looking for a dentist that her insurance would cover. She found one and started the appointment for castings and fittings. On Monday the 12th, she is gonna be a very unhappy girl for awhile. So are we when it comes to meals. Her diet is going to be soup, juices, jello, pudding, mashed taters, and whatever else we can find short of baby food. (which I might do just to agitate a little) Partial dentures aren’t too hard to adjust to, but both at the same time is a little rigorous. Good time to loose some weight though.

The enter Shari to the picture. Sunday night last week she started with a tooth ache. By Monday morning she looked like one of the chippies in the front yard with a pouch full. She was miserable. First she put heat on it, then an ice pack, then heat again……for 2 days this went on. Aspirin, Tylenol, Advil did nothing to take even the slightest edge off the pain.

Wednesday we went to the Enterprise Clinic so Jackie, the PA could look at it and see what she could do for an antibiotic to knock down the infection.

Well, Bev still isn’t feeling real good.  She went thru a lot of pain and sore spots and went back to dentist 2 days later and he took care of most of the high spots on dentures.  Still on real soft food though.  She will start feeling better eventually. (at least I keep telling her that)

Have some current pics of all our winter project done.  They are next on the post agenda.

Cindy

November 18th, 2007 Posted by Cindy | Musings | no comments

Al’s Home Again

Ah yes, Al, our Ram came home from the neighbors Saturday afternoon. He had been visiting Clyde and Ambers little herd of Ewes, spreading his manly charm among them. Hopefully he did a good job and Amber will have a few little “Al’s” running around long about March.

We missed it when Bill and Clyde came over to get Al, and I guess we missed a real show. Blood and all. The blood belonged to Clyde’s arm. Al tried to take Clyde into his pen area and the gate wasn’t open far enough for both of them to get thru. Clyde decided to hang on so they didn’t have to chase him again.

He’s grinning right now, and so are the ewes.  The harness he has on is a marking harness.  You can see the orange on the back of the brown lamb on the right.  Will leave that on till all his gals are marked.

I think we change colors then and let him do his thing again with the other color so we know that they indeed will be lambing in the spring.

November 12th, 2007 Posted by Cindy | Musings | no comments

Fall Project List

With fall here and winter just around the mountain, we are all about slamming shut summer things.  Those things make up the Fall Project List.

Pulling flowers, mulching tulip beds where the wild flowers also grew after the tulips.  Clearing out the garden, trimming back the Butterfly bushes, pulling the pumpkin vines, planting the Irises and mulching them with mixture of sheep manure and hay scraps.

Green house came down in a wind after the cover developed a few holes from sun rot.  We contacted the manufacture and sent pictures, receipts, etc.  We were told we were still under warranty and they would ship us out a new cover at no cost.  Wow.  The wind has been blowing to much to try to put it up, so now that it has quieted down, its time to put the cover on.

We already cleaned out the green house and stacked the buckets the tomato’s were in on top of the tables in the middle of the green house and covered with a blue poly tarp.

I am almost thru the two cords of wood.  We ran out of trees to stack it between so had to start a second row in front of the one between the trees.  If I do say so myself, that wood stacked between the trees looks darn nice.  Will get pics when the wood is all split.

We had to put sides on the sheep shelter.  During the summer all it had on it was a roof so they had shade all day if they wanted it.  For winter we just closed in the 2 open sides.  It won’t win any design contests, but will serve the purpose of providing shelter for inclement winter weather should they choose to use it.

We put the finishing touches on the new area of the barn, which included a second doorway.  Today we tore Dusty’s stall apart and rebuilt allowing for the 4′ walkway from one side of the barn to the other.  Now all the horses can be fed from inside.  I’m sure they could care less, but I do, especially when it is 25 below zero, 10 inches of snow and blowing a gale out of the NE.  The fully closed in side of the barn is the side facing the N, NE, and W.  It should be pretty cozy now.

Water is going to be a minor issue for the winter.  We haven’t figured out how to water all 3 horses at the same time yet.  We may go with a common water trough to make filling easier.  Yet by doing that,  it will make it harder to empty the ice from it.  We have already been taking about a 1/4 – 1/2 inch of ice off a few mornings last week.  Hoses have froze up, along with the auto water fillers.

History has shown us that if the sun can get to the water bucket, it will thaw it out during the daytime during the winter.  As it stands right now, we don’t have an in barn water system but we may be able to rig something to get us thru the winter till we can get it figured out in the spring.

I think all that is left to do is figure out the chicken coop.  No real good ideas on what to do there yet.  We may just go with a 60 watt light bulb that is set to an automatic timer for dusk to dawn.  The coop is small enough that it won’t take much to put a small amount of warmth in it.

Check back tomorrow for reports from the Dentist’s chair.

Cindy

November 6th, 2007 Posted by Cindy | Musings | no comments