Crazy Weather

The crazy damp, warm, cold, windy, snowy weather all mixed together is really hard on the animals.  My nephew has been treating sick calves because of it.

Trying to stay out of the crazy wind on Sunday.

Maggie came up from pasture early on Saturday, and she was obviously not feeling well.

Margarita and Maggie

I have her in the Love Shack with a heat lamp and her daughter.

Trying to stay out of the crazy wind on Sunday

She’s been treated.

Hopefully, she’ll feel better.

2019 in Review

It seems like 2019 has been a rough year, and I got to thinking about the old days when I actually used to link to blog hops and visit lots of blogs.  One of my favorite posts was always the year in review post, so I thought I’d go back and find the list and do one for this year.  Here is 2019 in review.

1. Me. This one comes from last March.  I try to avoid the front side of a camera, but I can’t help but take a picture of Aurora checking out the kids.  She does adore the babies, and I’m glad she’s willing to be close to me.  We’ve come a long way in the area of trust.

2.  I love you.  It was scary to have Leo go through surgery this fall.  He’s been my snuggle buddy for a long time.  I do love him.

Leo

3.  Still Laughing.  These girls crack me up.  I really did laugh at them following the hay wagon to eat while we were baling.  It’s not like they didn’t have a whole pasture of fresh grass.  Silly girls.

4. Winter Wonderland. Last winter was one of those years that saw record numbers of snow/cold days off school.  I definitely got in practice shoveling with all the paths I had to make for the goats. But it was beautiful.  I don’t actually mind winter horribly bad as long as I have electricity for water and can manage to get my chores done.  Although, I did get a bit tired of climbing over the bottom of the dutch doors and taking alternate routes to be able to feed everyone.

5.  Birthday.  We have so many birthdays around here, but we don’t do much in the way of celebrating.  I will say, one birthday I wasn’t sure we’d make in 2019 was actually a hatch anniversary. Mama Phoenix turned five in May.  We’ll see if she makes it to six-years-old.  She has certainly had quite the unusual year.

Mama Phoenix

6.  Friends.  These two make the strangest friends.  But they seem happy with each other’s company.

Sky and Bob

7. I Was Inspired.  This past year was certainly one that inspired me to try new things with knitting–hats, scarves, rugs, dishcloths, and all kinds of things.  It has been a lot of fun.  I do think my round rug that I knit with cored yarn from Maybeline is my favorite so far.

8. Spring Fever.  For me spring fever means spring break kidding.  Although, this last year, I was horribly sick while we were kidding, and it didn’t work out well.  Here’s to a better kidding for 2020.  Although, I am also celebrating having healthy kids.  The copper has made all the difference in the world.

Joani’s triplets: Peter Pan, Wendy, Tink

9. Travel or Vacation.  This one is hard.  I don’t travel or take vacation really.  My whole life on the farm is one giant staycation. Maybe I should try to leave the farm at least once next year.

10. Summer Days.  This year, my summer days seemed to be dominated by gardening and scooping manure.  That was a job that I was quite happy to have done.

Dahlia (with Aphrodite below)

11. A Day in My Life. The perfect day in my life is a day in pasture with the animals.

Penelope front (Pepe behind)

12. All Smiles.  I love when the goats smile.  It makes me smile too.

Zinnia

13.  Autumn Harvest.  Farming has been rough the last few years, but I am lucky with how my beans turned out this fall.  But it is the tomatoes that gave me a record harvest. I filled my pantry and gave away a ton of tomatoes and canned goods.

14.  Family or Home.  I did a lot of work on my home this year, but there’s still a lot more to come.  I have to say, I am enjoying the new windows this winter.

15. Celebrate.  One thing I got to celebrate late this month was paying off my garage!  It is all mine.  However, I refuse to call it a barn no matter what.  Even if there is a llama and a goat in it right now.

Haley, Wanda, Cinnamon, Bonnie, Blaze and Tony peeking over

16. Let’s Do It Again!  I had so much fun taking classes at C&M Acres that I plan to do more of them.

17. I Miss You.  Obviously, Snickers is at the top of my list for those I miss this year.  This image is from April.

Snickers Doodle McWhiner

18.  Beautiful.  I need to spend more time wandering with my camera this next year.  I enjoy all the natural beauty out there.

19.  Dress Up.  I am pretty pleased with how my llama coat turned out.  It’s probably not what dress up is supposed to be, but we haven’t played dress up for quite some time around here.  We might have to do that again this coming summer.

Tony

20.  Macro.  I didn’t actually do a lot of fun photography this year.  It was just too busy, but I was really thrilled to do the newborn shoot for my great-nephew, Grady.  I love the way this macro collage turned out.  I actually have it hanging on my wall.

21.  Holidays.  I’ve pretty much already decided this will be the image of my calendar next December (2021).

Penelope

22. My Favorite.  My favorite pasture birds are the bobolinks.  It really makes me happy that they nest back there, especially since our songbirds are in decline.

23.  Don’t Ever Change.  Well, everything changes, but if I could truly pick something not to change, it would be my beautiful farm.  I love the life I have here.

24.  Just Because…So There!  I can’t help it. Pluto is cute and sweet, and I do adore him.

Pluto

25. Hopes and Dreams.  I really do want to keep making soap and expand my artistic endeavors.  I think getting my soaps and a few other items in the store was a good start.

I guess we’ll see what happens in 2020.

Cleaning the Barn

While the weather was nice on Sunday and since it wasn’t too horribly muddy but still too wet to do a lot of things on the farm, he decided it was a good day to clean out my barn.  He actually got to borrow the skidsteer this time.

He used it to get the manure out of the barn and dump it into the spreader in my field.

It’s a lot smaller than the tractor, but it still fills the barn up pretty good.

Especially when he has to back it out.  I’m glad he’s the one that was driving it.

He managed to get a pretty good load on the spreader.

When he finished cleaning it out, he switched tools from the bucket to the hay tines.

Then he brought in a cornstalk bale.  I cut the wrapping off, and then he shook it loose.

Then he backed up and shook more off.  It worked really  well.

Then the goats decided that their new bedding was really delicious.

Astra even found some corn.

This was a good job to get done before this week’s cold weather.