November 19, 2021
It seems like a cruel joke that the closer it gets to winter, the less daylight there is to prepare. We have so much to do and too little daylight in which to get it done. And whoever came up with the idea of setting clocks back clearly never owned a dog, I waste precious time each day trying to convince our dogs that 5pm is now 4 pm and they have to wait another hour to be fed.
We have firewood to cut and split, fences to repair, trees to plant, and miles of hoses that are getting lost in the leaves.
There is a field full of corn, free for the picking, as long as we can get there before the farmer plows it under.
We collected over 2 tons of pumpkins, which the pigs, the sheep and the chickens have been happily picking their way through.
The shiitakes are done for the season so the logs all need to be restacked in their low-slung “resting” piles which will protect them from the dehydrating winter winds. The leaves need to be chased out of the mushroom yard, as well, before pests decide to make it their winter home.
We ran the sheep through our vegetable garden last week and now it’s the pigs turn to finish off what little the sheep left behind - but with 2 tons of pumpkins at their disposal, they are highly unmotivated to do anything that remotely resembles work, and according to them, walking the 100 yards to the garden is definitely work.
We still have sheep to shear, and that needs to happen now or they won’t have enough wool to stay warm when the temperature really drops. I’m afraid that window is rapidly closing.
We keep a light on in our main chicken coop, so egg production hasn’t slowed down very much, but the smaller coop on Mountain Spring has no power and no light, so the hens have decided to take the winter off.
That sounds really nice! Perhaps this weekend, Anne and I can spend a lazy afternoon in front of the fire, pretending to have the winter off as well. A cup of tea, a plate of cookies and even that novel that’s been patiently waiting to be read.
It sounds wonderful, but all that will have to wait until we feed the dogs their dinner - which by their calculation, is still an hour late….