February Thaw

We’ve had a 75* (41* in Celcius) shift in temperatures between Thursday morning and Sunday afternoon.  We are positively warm today!  It’s 50*F (10*C).  That means we’ve shifted to melting and fog.

It’s a horrible mess in the barnyard.

Haley

Friday afternoon, you could barely see the top edge of the wading pool because of all the snow.

Widow goose

The snow is melting from pasture.  I can see dead grass out there again.

Aurora

That also means it’s mud season in my kitchen with all the paws tracking it inside.

Sky

Don’t worry, we’ll be back to cold by Tuesday, which means the barnyard will be solid ice then.

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That’s My Milk!

That’s my milk, Athena!

Cinnamon and Athena

I still cannot convine Cinnamon and Athena that I should get all of Cinnamon’s milk.

And since Athena is much more efficient at milking than I am, she gets all the day milk.  I do still get milk from Cinnamon in the morning.

Haley waiting to get milked

All three of the girls I’m milking are drying up though.

I am getting less than a quart a day.  I’m thinking I might quit soon.  Like today might be my last day.

Winter Storm

We were under a winter storm warning most of yesterday.  It really missed us.  Thankfully.  We only had a few flurries.  There was lots of wind, and it got cold, but we missed almost all of the storm.

Haley

I did decide to take precautions.  I got the window tarps stapled down in the barn.  I also covered the window in the soap room.

Penny Lou

I’m hoping since my nephew finished harvest on Thanksgiving day, we can get my barn cleaned out and bedding brought in to make that much cleaner and warmer for the goats.  It really has been a rough year for getting all the fall work done.

I made sure I had a new shorter bucket for the chickens.  Hopefully, the geese don’t just splash it all out.

I also scooped some of the dirt from in front of their door, so I can get it shut when the ground freezes.  They’ll get fresh bedding when it gets here too.

It looks like the cold is here to stay for a while unfortunately.  I don’t like to trim hooves and expose that newly exposed hoof to bitter cold and hard frozen ground.  Thankfully, I did get a few more sets of hooves trimmed over Thanksgiving weekend.

Margarita

I still have a handful of girls to do, and they are not going to be the easy ones.

LilyAnn

I am back to almost being able to touch Hera, and I know that trimming hooves will ruin that.

Hera

I might try to save her (and Antigone, Cupid, and the little bucks) until winter break.  Hopefully, we aren’t going to stay with January temperatures until then.