Monday, February 15, 2021

Life on the Farm is anything but 'laid back'!

You know in the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie how the little girl named Violet turns into a GIANT blueberry?  Well, if this pandemic and snowy weather keeps up, that'll be me.  Not blue, just GIANT, lol!

I 'joined' a Cast Iron Cooking Facebook group.  OH MY WORD.  Those people do nothing but post mouth-watering dishes in their hardy iron pans!  The latest thing I saw was to make your regular baking powder biscuits, but melt a CUBE of butter in your cast iron skillet, float your lil ole biscuits on top of it and bake 'em!  If you don't see any more posts from me, it's not because I'm lazy or rarely post, it'll be because I've died and gone to Heaven, eating BISCUITS!

I can't try them today, though, because I already have Enchiladas and Maple Bacon Chicken tenders in the oven, lol.  I confess that I was considering a pan of Sin-amon Rolls, too. Good thing I don't own a bathroom scale.  Hmm.  Better take down the mirror while I'm thinking of it!

Hope ya'll are surviving Winter, snow, Covid and all the other trials and tribulations of this life.  If you've read the ending (Revelation) and believe it, you can rest easy.  It all works out in the end....

We've had a foot of snow here in our corner of the Pacific Northwest.  First thing right off, our water froze up.  Got that fixed up.  Of course the goats thought it was the prime time to produce their offspring for the season, so we sat in the half-finished, breezy, snowflake filled barn milking and bottle feeding stubborn little goat kids.

I took a tumble on the icy trail behind the barn and wondered how long it would take before anyone at the house noticed I was gone.....but thankfully wasn't really hurt (but boy-oh-boy do I have some SORE muscles!).  On the other hand, they would have noticed in another hour or so - after all, who else is gonna fix breakfast??

My 'temporary' greenhouse suffered a collapsed roof.  Now instead of imagining that I'm soon going to be sowing little cool weather seed crops, I'm going to have to do some major repairs on the roof first.  Sigh. It's always something, seems like. 

On a brighter note, I LOVE the snow.  As soon as we had a good 6 or 7" going, I went right out to make the required snow angel.  After there was a foot of it, I trudged up to the back 40 (okay, 18, but who's counting?) to look for animal tracks.  Only rabbits, squirrels, rats, mice and birds so far.  It was absolutely beautiful, however and I enjoyed my walk.  My squirrel feeder has been a wild party ground of grey squirrels and birds of all sorts.  Chickadees, Steller's Jays, Juncos, Towhees, Thrushes and an occasional Flicker.  The Robins fly here and there, but don't care for the menu offered.  The squirrels and birds don't seem to mind sharing with each other and it's great entertainment watching them all while I'm doing dishes. 

Today, all the beautiful magic is melting, as is common here in the Puget Sound.  Slush and sprinkles are the name of the game today.  By tomorrow, we should be able to get out of our driveway just fine if we wanted to.  

We had great intentions of being actually ready for the goat kidding this year.  Running water, hot water tank, electricity and lights were going to be all in and working wonderfully.  Well........did I mention Dave is working on that now and we've been sort of...winging it with long extensions cords, buckets of warm water and carrying a lot of stuff to and fro?  Ah, well, all in good time.  Maybe next year's kidding will look a lot different!

Of course, working on the barn means we are NOT working on the house, so things are at a standstill until the milk room is under control.  And that's the way we roll.  We are developing patience and character.  Right?  I did read a quote by Mark Lowery (Christian singer and comedian) where he said that this life here is boot camp for Heaven.  I think that pretty well sums it up.  On that note, I'm getting back to work now.  Wonder if those Sin-amon Rolls are going to count against me...... 
















 

2 comments:

  1. Wow you got socked this time! I remember when my hubby and I lived up north of Washougal, WA.. the first year we moved there in 2003 we had 3 feet of snow! What a shock! Washington CAN get dumped on, that's for sure. Glad your fall didn't wound you in any way.. glad the goaties have had their babies and you managed it all... good to see pictures of you and the goats! and the snow... and hubby..... and food... and oh yah.. I would be eating way too much if I did that cast iron cooking. I'm bad enough baking sweets in the oven! My "covid weight" will not go away and I'm struggling to keep it under a 10 lb. weight gain. I hope when the sunshine and warmer weather hits here, I can work it off. I don't have the trudge to the barn to keep the weight off, like I used to when I had horses and alpacas! Life is never dull on the farm! Marilyn

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  2. Whatever, the season, the two of you manage to keep me exhausted just thinking about all you do. It wasn’t clear from your description, but did you actually lie there on the cold, cold ground a little while before you were able to get back up on your feet? If so, I hope it is wasn’t for very long and that you were not seriously hurt.

    Stay well, stay dry, stay warm!

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