When the weather gives you spring...

We've had basically no snow this winter, and lately the temperature has been getting above freezing during the sunny daytimes. It feels like spring, but it is still January. My husband said the other day, well, if the weather is acting like spring, then we should act like spring, and start working on our normal spring-time chores and property fixups.

We walked around, and decided where the next side of the yard fence would go, to keep the dogs a bit better contained (hard to stop the disgusting poo-eating behavior when you can't see them, ahem), and to better define the distinction between maintained yard/orchard/future pasture.

One of our goals this year is to get the rest of the yard fenced, so we have a safer place for the dogs to be, and a safer place for the kids to be, requiring a little less parent supervision. This way we are hoping that the dogs and kids (and thus us!) can be outside a lot more, but in a more contained space. That was part of the idea behind having the new side garden, and the playstructure right there, so that we could be close enough, but each be doing our own thing if desired.

As you can see from the pictures (taken at dawn as the moon set and the sun rays then started to hit the mountains to our west), there really isn't much snow! It might be a bad year for the river levels, and for wildfires, if we don't get any significant snow in the next couple of months. And this canadian expat is seriously jonesing for some white blanketed views!

I think this is going to be one of those 'when life gives you lemons, make lemonade' times, and the mister was already out earlier this week doing some pick up of leftover logs/boards from the side garden fencing we did last spring, and used them to keep working on burning the stumps out of the bottom of the yard. There is always work to be done, and if winter snow isn't going to force the work to stop, then I guess we had better make use of this time, who knows what weather the next months will hold!

Weekend in Pictures

This weekend I finally figured out what setting had been changed on our DSLR camera months & months ago that made my manual setting pictures come out really consistently crappy. Not sure at all why it took me so long, likely because I rarely have time to just sit down and play around with the camera, usually when I have it in my hands its because I'm trying to take a picture... Regardless, I was quite satisfied with myself, and I think I even got a few nice shots after I cleaned off the smudged lens!

Our feet of snow is finally starting to melt away, disappearing really rapidly from the steep south facing hills north of the house. Normally this time of the year, when those hills brown up very quickly after snowfalls due to the increased sun exposure we're starting to get, I am very disappointed and just yearn for more white-covered days. This year, with the significant dumps we got in December that kept everything white for almost 2 months, I'm quite satisfied with our winter, and so I'm yearning for the snow to melt & the growing season to be upon us!

The main thing I accomplished this weekend was finishing clearing out the spare room, which used to serve as our guest bedroom/office, and which will soon become Little M's big girl room. She requested it be painted in purple, her favorite color, so we carefully selected a purple that would match the other colors in the house. We ended up with a light purple with hints of grey in it. Quite pretty, and rather reminds me of the color I had my room painted growing up! Yesterday I got all of the walls painted, and hopefully this afternoon I'll be able to do any touchups that are needed. We likely won't finish converting it to her big girl room until around when the baby is due, and so have kept the spare bed in the center of the room in the meantime, although basically everything else that was once stored in that room (including 2 desks!), is now elsewhere in the house or up into the attic of the garage for storage (or thrown out!). I've got lots of ideas for DIY decorations and such for her big girl room, although we'll see how many of my ideas come to fruition over the next few months as I get a larger & larger belly!

Fog & Hoar Frost

Its been a bit chilly around here of late, and we've had a bit of a temperature inversion as well. So we've had some serious valley fog, which has made for some really impressive hoar frost days when the fog clears enough to see around. I love the trees when they look all crystal-y!

When the sun comes out from the fog, the trees start to warm up, and the hoar frost crystals fall down like snow, although they are far more sparkly. Beautiful!

At lower elevations, on the way out of our little side valley & nearing the main valley, there have been some spots where the shrubs and fences are just laden down with hoar frost crystals - we're talking an inch or more thick of crystals coating branches & wire. Some spots on the trees there the hoar frost is so thick it looks like clumps of snow weighing down the branches!

Little M's first snowshoe

For Christmas we gave Little M her first pair of snowshoes. They are basically purple in color, her favorite color these days, and she just loves them! It took us several weeks to have a daylight moment to go outside and help her take her first steps around the driveway in them, but this past weekend we finally had the right combination of circumstances & were able to get out just at dusk for a quick trip around the house, out to the mailbox, and down in the yard a bit.

At first, I walked behind her to keep her upright, as it took her a little time to get the hang of having to not step on the other snowshoe then try to lift it. Once she figured it out better, all three of us walked hand-in-hand which helped her keep upright, but by the end she was going off on her own, stumbling occasionally still, but she didn't have any real falls! We even got her up on the actual snowpack for the second half of our walk (the first half we just walked on the cleared path and up the driveway to get her used to walking with extra large feet!).

She did really great, and I'm excited for snowshoeing with her in years to come! I've been snowshoeing since I was a little kid, as well as cross country skiing, but snowshoeing was always my favorite. I could go off trail and wander through the woods following whatever animal track I felt like, which was always quite appealing to me.

I'm so glad we got her these snowshoes this year, as she is getting much heavier to carry, especially now that I'm pregnant. The last couple years we just put her in the Ergo pack on my back, or the frame backpack on my husband's back when we went out hiking in the winter, but now that she has her own snowshoes she'll be able to walk around herself for at least part of our hikes!

First egg of the new year

Back in November sometime the chickens all started molting for the first time, at about 1.5 years old. Now I'm fairly sure they had molted previously in turns, but never before had they all gone through a period where they were definitely all shedding feathers & really not laying. Then with the failing light and cold temps, they stopped laying altogether. It was a sad time.

Actually, it was even sadder because around Christmas time, when we got our pork back from the butcher, and as I started really having a huge appetite as the baby decided that food was a good thing - give me lots - now, we started eating serious breakfasts again. Eggs, bacon, sausage, hash browns. Yummy. But not with our own eggs! Sad to be supplying the bacon & sausage from the home-grown pig, the hash browns from the home-grown potatoes, but not the eggs due to our winter chickens!

The chicken coop shortly before Christmas. Note the top netting tore and fell down under the weight of the snow! That will take some sewing to fix come spring I'm sure! Oh, and don't mind those 2 dogs tearing across towards the coop, with the deep snow they get their exercise where they can!

Well sometime around New Years I had enough with the lack of eggs and decided that we needed to supplement their light situation. So I ran a couple extension cords over, wrapped an indoor timer in a plastic bag (we do have an outdoor one but I wasn't able to locate it... not quite sure where it has gotten itself to), and I dusted off the old heat lamp we had in the coop from when the chickens were little chicks. I added about an hour or two before daylight and an hour or two after dusk, in the hopes that that additional light would convince them we were coming out of winter and into spring.

Sure enough, yesterday my husband found a (frozen) egg in one of the nest boxes! YAY! I'm now pretty curious as to which of our hardy breeds is the one laying first, but will have to wait until the weekend to sneak over there repeatedly and try and figure it out. In the meantime, hopefully whoever it is keeps it up and we start getting some eggs to eat! Not only do I hate to buy the store-bought ones when we're feeding our own laying hens at home, but they just aren't anywhere near as good (and fresh!) as ours are!

The chilly view into 2013

What the new year looked like out our window this morning, complete with bright blue skies, a pretty setting moon, and...

... a chilly 1.7 degrees F (that's -17 degrees C)! Brrr! Luckily the mister had brought in plenty of firewood and kindling for me to get the fire started, because with those kinds of outside temps, even the inside of the house was pretty chilly!

Merry Christmas!

From our home to yours, Merry Christmas!

Snowfall!

We've gotten our first snowfall that makes it feel like winter is here to stay, and so I finally feel like I have something to blog about! I love waking up to the house looking so bright and white from all the snow outside the windows covering all the trees and grasses. With the woodstove burning bright and the only other light coming in from the windows, the house just feels like it's already christmas, even though there aren't any decorations up yet at all :)

The world feels still and calm and pure. I don't know if I could live in a place that never got snow. Even the amount we get here in a normal winter isn't quite enough for me. I just love snow and all that winter means!

Well hello there!

When I wrote my last post (ahem) 2 weeks ago or thereabouts, and included 'slowing down for winter' in the title, I really didn't anticipate slowing down quite this much on the blogging front... But, life happens, and here it is 2 weeks later! Nothing really to report on the home front, it's been cold, and wet, and wet, and cold. And we haven't really been doing all that much at all!

Luckily the forecast is finally looking a bit more promising on the white stuff front, and hopefully soon we will be sitting cozy under our winter blanket of snow. This in between time is hard for me, all the outside chores that could be done now but could wait until spring, the damp cold, the dreary days. Snow makes everything just so much cheerier in my books.

In the meantime, I'll try and get in as many hours of work as I can manage (the office has really gotten slow in the past month, I've been lucky to get 3 billable hours a day lately, which hurts the budget (aka mortgage payoff) just a wee bit). We've been managing to stay pretty much on top of the housework, Little M and I, although the length of the house is spread with the lego's, toys, and blankets that almost 3 year old productivity entails!

Well, that's likely it for updates, hopefully it won't be quite so long until my next post here, and even more hopefully the next one will include glorious snow pictures! (we'll see - fingers crossed!)

First snowflakes & slowing down for winter

This morning I saw the first of the season's snowflakes falling gently by the windows. While the cooler temperatures over the past week have been slowing me down, making me huddle inside, the first snow always invigorates me. I can't wait for true winter, when the cold temperatures can be ignored because of all of the beauty the snowy landscape creates.

I doubt we will get snow that stays for weeks if not longer, but I'm looking forward to the slower pace that our lives takes after the busyness that is fall. Once the garden is harvested and put to sleep until spring. Once hunting season is over as lakes start to freeze (ps, I didn't get my deer, in fact we didn't even go out deer hunting again after my post last week, although we kept a sharp eye on the fields around the house). Once the roads get icy or closed for the season. Once the snow gets deep and walking around becomes significantly more effort.

Time for enjoying hot chocolate, lots of good books, fires in the woodstove, birds at the feeder, sledding & snowshoeing, and lots of shoveling!

What about you - are you looking forward to slowing down for the winter?

First freeze

After we pulled all our last veggies from the garden in the afternoon early last week, we went back out after supper and mulched around the overwintering plants to make them hardy enough to hopefully last until spring.

the mulched herb bed in front, strawberries behind

lone sunflower at the garden's edge

the one kale that wasn't hidden by the tomatoes grew huge, likewise the marigolds behind it

common chives peeking out of their mulch covering

garlic chive seed heads

The next morning, it was obvious we had a hard frost from the ice formed under the sprinklers in the alfalfa field next door. We still aren't sure what the farmer is thinking leaving his sprinklers on so late, but we really aren't surprised at his latest level of seemingly inept farming, and heck, maybe, just maybe, he knows something we don't about irrigating alfalfa into the late fall. And either way, it makes for some good stories, and interesting ice pictures!