Whew!! It was really close this year! We had snow earlier in the month but last week, a day of rain washed most of the snow away. It did, however, melt the snow and bumpy ice on the pond, so beneath this new snow is a very smooth skating rink. In another week or two of cold weather I'll shovel the snow off and be skating for the first time this year. If you're a believer in Santa, I hope he brings you a gift of wonder.
The elves came early this year to build a gingerbread house...actually it was Bev and Cooper who built it. I just monitored the progress and indexed the sweets as they were added. Sadly, it is the tradition to wait until after Christmas to start nibbling on it, so it's a waiting game now.
Happy Holidays from Alewive Farm! As winter gains a foothold, and the water buckets start to fill with ice overnight, we settle into a more reflective frame of mind--that's code for sitting near the wood stove with a warm drink and a good book :-) The ice skates are ready for the pond to freeze and the x-country skis are on the front porch waiting the first snow.
Wishing you all the very best for the holidays and Hope for the New Year!
The first snow this year arrived on December 2, which felt early, although I recall recent tears we've had snow on Halloween. It didn't last long, within a day or two. There is nothing in the forecast to suggest it will me melting any time soon. time to get out the skis and throw more wood in the stove!
The Fall colors this year are subdued. We've experienced an extended drought which meant watering the garden every day. It's also meant spectacular weather for the later half of the summer. In the Spring we had what seemed like a dozen Saturdays in a row when it rained :-)
One of the late summer chores this rear became scooping fibrous algae our of the pond. As the water level got lower and the sun shone, the algae bloomed at such a rapid pace that it began to form mats on the surface of the pond. I'd fill a large plastic storage box in the center of the canoe with algae skimmed out of the pond with a rake, and after several days of drying on the shore, would take it to the compost pile. I lost track of how may trips out and back I made!
Free-ranging our hens is more difficult than I first imagined. Much of the summer we've had at least one hawk in the area. Periodically we watched the crows get together, harass the hawk, and then escort if out of the ari space around the barn. We have lost hens, in the past to both hawks and a fox. they can be relentless and on alert.
As a result, the hens are in a stall in the evening roosting in the barn. During the day, they are most often in a pen behind the barn that has a small house and a run of about 30 feet. When we bring them in, in the evening, we often let them roam for several minutes in the barnyard before moving them to their stall. Does this qualify as free range?
Early Fall brings its own special chores. Loading hay into the hayloft makes for great pics of farm life but it is a chore loading it in. In recent years, we've tried picking it up ourselves at a local farm in the pickup. I noted on several occasions that when we loaded the truck we got about 22 bails of hay stacked in. Then, after it was strapped in place it looked like a spider web around the truck. When the "real" farmers at the hay field loaded it, we got about 10 more bales stacked in, and it was so neat and tidy we barely had to tie it to keep it in place! Thank goodness for the conveyer belt!
