Category: Farm

Oh, here we go again

The snow from last weekend is nearly gone on our south facing farm. The north facing hillsides still have snow on them as do the woods. And again something is scheduled for which being snowed in is a problem, but there is a winter storm warning for tonight into tomorrow morning with 3-5 inches expected again. I got a recall on my old CRV for the master switch in the driver’s door which failed about 2 years ago requiring that you manually lock and unlock the driver’s door then you can unlock the other doors. Because I am not willing to sit in a dealer’s waiting room while it is repaired for an hour or more on Monday and because we decided to go on and have the state inspection and an oil change by our local mechanic, we rented a car to use for two days, but said car will lack the clearance of the CRV and not have all wheel drive.

The good news is that it will stop in the morning and begin warming up quickly, so hopefully, by Monday afternoon, the driveway won’t be an issue. Hopefully, we will have the CRV back before the next round of winter storm weather comes in mid week. This is from the winter that was supposed to be warm and wet according to the Farmer’s Almanac and the weather prognosticators. After a couple of warm winters with little or no snow, we have returned to true Virginia winter weather. Our electric power bill compares each month with the same month from last year and it showed we averaged 8 degrees colder this year than last.

This morning, we went and picked up my new bird feeder and some bird and chicken feed. Since I use lidded 5 gallon buckets for storage, I did a clean up around them and the workbench in the garage before filling the buckets from the bags purchased. The new feeder was filled and hung and it didn’t take the little mixed flock of Chickadees, Tufted Titmouse, assorted Finches, Wrens, and Juncos to find it. I haven’t seen any of the larger birds or woodpeckers yet, but they will discover the change too. You can see the new split tube feeder and the suet tube on the shepherd’s crook in the top photo.

The sky has grayed, the barometer is falling, the snow will begin after dark tonight and we will see in the morning what the storm brought us this time. No matter what the groundhog saw or didn’t see, there are 6 more weeks of winter and here we won’t see the last frost until near Mother’s Day.

Occupying time?

There was only so much sledding my senior body could take and the snow has gotten thin and icy. After a very frustrating year of trying to keep my online shop open, paying fees to list, fees if I did sell something, still paying personal property taxes on my equipment and inventory, I closed my shop and debated whether I would continue to do in person events when it was again safe. When I do in person events, I use Squareup for payment when the buyer doesn’t want to use cash. As I was going through my inventory on their site which I hadn’t been on because of no events, I saw that for only a few dollars more than I was spending on my domain name, that I could transfer it to them and build a free website. The last couple of snowy days have been spent taking photographs, removing stock that was no longer there, adding stock that had never been added, and building the website. Squareup does not charge me to list items, I do pay a fee if something sells, but it is actually less than the prior “store.” My efforts can be seen by clicking the “Go to my shop” link at the top of the blog or here. And because the domain name remained the same, just moved to a different server, my business cards and labels are still good.

We can finally drive down our driveway, turn up into the extra parking/turn around spot and backing down into the garage. The other two trips out this week have required me to back the car down the nearly quarter mile driveway or leave it out at the top of the steep drive and walk to and from. The car has been living in the garage because even after two applications to seal the windshield, water is still coming in somewhere, soaking the rug and mat on the passenger side when the car is left out in rain. Yesterday I got a recall on my 16 year old car. I wonder how many people still have their 2005 CRVs. Because it also needs an oil change and a state inspection soon, appointments were scheduled with the dealership for the recall and the local mechanic for the other work and we have reserved a rental for two days while we continue to research new vehicles to replace the one that died and was sold. The CRV will live in the garage and be our backup vehicle once we get a new one.

After stomping down snow and spreading hay to coax the hens out a few days ago, we had more light snow and very strong winds that covered the hay with snow again and the hens just gave me the stink eye like it was my fault they couldn’t go out. Yesterday, I took a rake with me and exposed the hay again so they would come out. It has been so cold until today that the water bucket in their coop freezes all but a little pocket in the middle of the bucket, so it has to be changed out twice a day and the frozen one brought inside the house to thaw enough to dump and refill. It is finally above freezing today and supposed to stay above freezing tonight before the nights fall back into the 20’s and we have more snow showers tomorrow. It is interesting to walk around the west and south sides of the house and see where yesterday’s sunshine on the stone masonry walls has melted the snow away from the house. The areas that the deer have come close to the house have melted patches away exposing grass as well.

I still won’t walk on the stones from the steps to the grass or over to the wild bird feeders, I cross on the upper edge of the walled garden where I know there is soil beneath the snow to fill the feeders each morning. The little birds are emptying them daily. The wind has been blowing the smaller two feeders down, so I have ordered a larger feeder that can be filled in one half with Nyger seed and the other half with black oil sunflower seed. As soon as it comes in for curbside pickup, I will replace the feeders with that one and the suet feeder.

Snow day is becoming snow week

Where is the sun, oh where can it be? It has been thick and gray since the snow began Saturday night and it snowed again last night and this morning, adding another inch. Though the temperature had held in the upper 20’s to low 30’s for days, it dropped last night to 20, staying in the 20s today and dropping into the teens tonight so no melt today. The wind kicked up last night with 40-50 mph gusts. When that happens, sleep does not. I live in a sturdy log home, but the screens rattle, the dormers quiver, and I worry about the shelter over the heat pump blowing over and taking out the heat pump. When we were building the house, we made the decision to place it on the south side of the house instead of the west side, so the snow sliding off the roof caused a bent fan blade twice one winter before Son 1 built the shelter, very sturdy with an angled roof of left over matching metal roof on top. I’m sure it is quite stable, but still I fret, and snow guards were added to the roof, so snow doesn’t crash down from three stories up anymore. I did inquire about moving it to the west side as some point but didn’t want to incur the expense.

I venture out a couple times a day to toss down scratch for the hens, refill their frozen water bucket, gather eggs before they freeze, and keep the bird feeders full. Yesterday I walked up to the mailbox, a steep uphill walk, twice. The driveway was icy and the snow beside it almost deep enough to go over the tops of my garden boots. I figure the nearly quarter mile walk up, then back twice in the snow was my exercise for the day. Two crunchy walks to the coop so far have garnered two warm eggs. Glad the hens are cooperating in the cold this year.

But I guess at 73, I’m not too old to play in the snow at least once. My ski pants still fit, even over three layers of wool tops including the heavier hoodie. With my hooded parka, ski gloves, ski pants and one of the sleds, I managed a few fun runs on the hills and one on the driveway on the way down from the mailbox. It is harder to get up than it used to be, I get more winded walking uphill in the snow, but exhilarating fun all the same. It would have been more fun with the grandkids and daughter, but fun just the same. Though they said the snow would stop by noon, it is almost 3 and still lightly snowing. So much for the mild, wet winter. So far it has been cold and most of the wet has been white.