Cabin Crafted

Tag: winter

  • Go Away, Just Go Away

    Spring is just around the corner, I know it is.  The calendar shows First Day Of Spring in just a couple of weeks.  I know that we will have continued periods of cold, even snow flurries well into April and can’t put most things into the garden until mid May, but winter needs to stop already.  We had a reprieve for a day or two and last week’s snow mostly melted, but between the melt, the roof drip off and the rain, the county is now under a flood watch.  This isn’t a problem for us as we are high on the side of the mountain and our creek flows into a sink hole that when flooded, rushes down the west side of our property, still well below the house.

    The roadsides that are steep from blasting to put the 4 lane main road through the valley are seeing minor mudslides, but the ground is totally saturated and pudding soft, so the fear of a more major mudslide that could block our ingress to town is possible.

    Yesterday it rained, then sleeted, then rained and sleeted again and this is ongoing today.  The high for the day, right at freezing and headed down about 30 degrees by midnight is turning the rain to more freezing rain and sleet with another 5 inches of snow due by nightfall.

    imageThe trees and shrubs are ice coated and if we really get a few inches of wet snow, there will be branches breaking and threats of loss of power.  We have enough firewood to get us through a couple of days, but that is all.   The grill’s propane tank is about half full and we have plenty of beans, rice, and frozen foods to make meals.

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    When I went over for chicken chores this morning, I realized that a small 5 year old dogwood near the side of the house has been seriously gnawed, probably by hungry deer.  It was sleeting out and the ground is still too hard to try to pound in stakes to put a piece of fence around it, but I was able to force a couple of fiberglass poles around it and drape a piece of row cover fabric over it to thwart more chewing until I can get a fence around it to try to protect it.  Perhaps I should check my fruit trees as well.

  • Welcome change

    A warm sunny day!  Yay.  Much of last week’s snow melted today, though the driveway is a muddy mess developing deep ruts in several places.  The chooks are happy to have more than a few square feet to move about.  We are happy because they had school for the first time in two full weeks and grandson returned.  The extended weather forecast is looking generally more positive with milder temperatures during the days, but still a lot of nights that are very cold and will freeze then thaw cycle.  We still have a treacherous path to the house both the front door and the garage doors as the areas that were “cleared” by the tractor developed ice several inches thick.

    The beast, our 210 lb English Mastiff is finding the walk in and out of the house scary as he has slipped a few times.  The German Shepherd and the Golden Retriever both bound over it like it isn’t there.  I tried to break it up today, but even when the chunks were manageable, they pulled up the sparse grass just off the front stoop.

    We fear at least a late start for school tomorrow as we are expecting frozen rain and sleet tonight.  We are ready for spring, dry yards and driveways and a garden that can be worked.

  • Winter’s Roar

    Our winter has been unusual to say the least. Until a couple of weeks ago, I think the temperatures had been above normal with occasional snow flurries, a few barely covered the ground snow falls that didn’t last. Then things changed. We haven’t seen daytime temperatures rising above 20° (-6.7°c) and night time temperatures near zero (-17.8°c) in more than a week. On Saturday, we were expecting flurries and got several inches with sharp temperature drops. We had driven in to town to a nice restaurant to celebrate our 37th Valentine Day and Anniversary and the drive back home was a white knuckle ride.

    Yesterday we took Son#1 and Grandson#1 to the bus to return home from bringing my car home and a weekend visit and it was brutally cold and windy, wind chills in the double digit negatives.
    There were severe weather warnings posted for today and the school makeup day that had been scheduled for today was canceled.

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    We woke to the expected snow. So far about 5″ with the heaviest part of the system due this evening and overnight. We may be looking at a foot or more with extremely cold temperatures and expected to drop to -10°f (-23.3°c) Thursday night. We aren’t used to that type of temperature. Our firewood supply is running low and our heat pump is struggling.
    My chooks won’t come out of the coop when there is snow on the ground and with the temperatures as they are, I didn’t even open the pop door today. I have gone out 3 times to change out the frozen water, twice to throw down a scoop of feed into the straw and collect the eggs before they freeze.
    Our neighbor has two very pregnant cows and we saw her go down to check on them before the snow cover got too deep. Our steep gravel road will be difficult to traverse in a couple more inches of snow. I hope the cows don’t calve before we have a moderation in weather back to around freezing this weekend.
    The grands are playing in the rec room, I am knitting, reading, and cooking stew and homemade bread. A good way to spend a frigid snowy day.

  • Stay Indoors weather

    Our winter storm didn’t fizzle as we hoped, nor did it give us pretty snow.  Instead we are encrusted in ice.  The cars look like someone poured water over them in a deep freeze.  The yard is white and slick.  The chicken coop run has hay on the ground that has 1/2″ of ice on top.  The chooks aren’t happy.  I finally went out with a pitchfork and turned as much of it over as I could so that they had a place to stand and eat as they came out of the coop and practically knocked each other over trying to get back inside.

    The weather prognosticators have extended the weather warnings “until further notice” with more ice, possibly freezing drizzle, maybe snow for the next 36 hours or so.  But they are predicting 61ºf by Friday, it is 27ºf now and has been since I got up this morning.

    This is a day to stay indoors and read, just finished Jefferson Bass’ latest novel Cut to the Bone.  I am a fan of forensic science novels and found this to be a good read.  It is the prequel to the Body Farm series.  And to knit, still working on the sleeve.  I hate knitting sleeves, they are so boring.  Once I finish this sleeve, there is a feather and fan band to pick up and knit and I will have another sweater to add to my wardrobe.

    This is Virginia, it is time for the winter to go away and bring us some springtime, though last year, we had light snow for 5 Fridays straight right up to mid April.  This winter is wearing on us.

  • Yoyo Weather

    Yoyo Weather

    We have two days of spring followed by two days of winter followed by two more days of spring.  And a winter storm is on the radar for Sunday night into Tuesday morning. I’m ready for spring to come and stay. After moving the now week old chicks to the basement, I left them there until they are another week or so older or until the weather reaches more moderate temperatures and looks like it may hold.

    Each warm day, Jim goes for a ride on his motorcycle. Today while he was gone and the big chickens were free ranging, I tackled fruit tree pruning and remulching. Over the past couple of years, we have planted 5 apple trees, 3 peach trees, and 2 Asian pears. The oldest two peaches were pruned for the first time last year and responded with lots of new growth. Most of the apples planted last year needed very little work. The peach in the chicken pen is getting too much nitrogen from the chickens, it is growing like wild but probably won’t produce fruit.

    One of our goals is to fence this area this spring and then the chickens will free range within the orchard and in non growing seasons, also the vegetable garden. They have effectively cleared all of the weeds from one compost bin and started on another.

    This storm will come without the return of our generator from the shop. Most of the pre storm prep is in place from the wind storm two days ago. A few supplies will be added tomorrow and again we will hunker down and hope the storm prediction fizzles. If it doesn’t, we may be facing another ice and snow storm.

    Come on spring, we are ready.
    Life is an adventure on our mountain farm.

  • Just Another Winter Wednesday

    Flurries of snow; winds do blow; bone chilling cold; but tonight is Knit Night with friends, hot tea, and fun.

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  • Winter morn

    A light dusting of snow settled between the blades of brown grass.
    Gray sky, cold and bleak.
    A flock of Robins, harbingers of spring, feeding along side of snow juncos, a winter resident.
    The chickens showing little enthusiasm for their morning release from the night’s captivity.
    A head cold, compliments of grandson last week.
    If we aren’t going to get real snow, I wish winter would go on and exit.

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  • The Deep Freeze

    The wind howls,

    The snow blows ( wish it would stick),

    Chickens are locked in their coop with extra straw, food, water and scratch grain for entertainment and digestive warmth,

    The wood stove is blazing and will stay stoked

    As the temperature plunges to the negatives.wpid-20140106_085801.jpg

    Wish I could stay in and enjoy, but eggs will quickly freeze in these temps so forays to the coop will have to happen til late afternoon.

    Stay warm and safe my friends.