I know, we’ve been absent a lot recently. We’ve been busy, and sick, and injured. So the blog has taken a back seat. What’s been going on? Let’s do a really quick recap.

I can’t remember. Ha! Wouldn’t it be funny if I just left it there. Sometimes that’s exactly what I feel like doing. Anyway~ let’s start over with the every day stuff. So, our friend and neighbor, Elise, had a birthday. Sue made her a Vodka-Lemon Cake… delicious! I think that was the highlight of our week. By Friday I was coming down with a cold hand felt like crud. THEN- we started in on a wind storm that lasted 3 days.

This is a photo off of my phone that is connected to our weather station in the back yard. The wind gauge is attached to the southernmost gabion garden. You can see that we had a micro-burst of around 98 mph. The winds gusted between 25 and 80 mph all tha rest of the night and finally stayed down in the 20-30 mph range starting at 3pm.

Monday morning we found quite a bit of wind damage. I stayed home from work for a few hours and we worked on the Chestnut trees in the orchard. Many of the tree stakes had broke off and blown down and we didn’t want them to end up taking the trees as well, in case the winds came up badly again. The white electrified netting that is around the chickens was also down in several places – we were still fixing that this morning. The large century plant near the road that bloomed this summer took a hit, you can see it here pulled up by the roots.

When the winds are that bad, I always have difficulty sleeping. We are so grateful that we didn’t loose any chickens, nor any of their shelters. The RCW remained steadfast throughout the storm. The youngsters that are in the coop by the goat boys were fine as well. They seem quite happy there. We did more winterizing this morning by putting up covers on the Dove Enclosure and the goat’s chickens’ window… I took this photo this evening, and you can see that the light still comes in, but the wind will no longer blower right in there. Helps keep things warmer.

We are hopeful that we’ll be able to get back to normal soon. Last night our overnight temperature was 30°… so normal is relative. I guess you never quite know what the weather is going to throw at you; even when you watch the forecast. Hopefully Saturday we’ll be able to finish our 2nd concrete planters by the big coop. I think I still owe you an unveiling of the first one. So maybe that’s what we’ll do on Thursday. Until then, as always~
Thanks for reading!

Hello. I hope your Christmas was wonderful. We started out with breakfast with Sue’s Son’s family. Got some cute photos of Irie opening presents. I didn’t blog on Thursday because I was studying for a final on Friday (which I passed, FYI). We’ve had some cold, cold days. Yesterday we had snow, which was beautiful coming down in the morning. Our first inkling was when SweetPea, the German Shepherd, came back in with snowflakes all over her back. It was still quite dark and we couldn’t see past the porch. As it began to lighten, it was obvious it had been snowing for some time. Continue reading →

…winter isn’t coming, it’s already here! So, I knit and I read, so after I read the “Game of Thrones” I chuckled heartily when this little phrase started popping up all over after the series started to air. I always try to knit faster, but I’m easily distracted. Now winter has arrived with truly gale force winds heralding its frigid arrival. Continue reading →