A Little Bit of Everything

Well the weather has continued with snow and periodic ice. Every time we make considerable progress forward on getting this snow melted off, we get some more. We had a rough spell with the ice a few weeks ago and lost power for 30 hours. We made do with oil lamps and bundling up for most of it. At least it was not so cold out that I was worried about our pipes freezing up.

About the time we lost power, I started working on finishing up our books from 2009 and getting ready to go in and get our taxes squared away. I have been chipping on taxes ever since and as the time has progressed, I have consumed more and more of the kitchen island. With 8 inches of new snow expected today and tomorrow, I expect to make good progress this week.

When the weather has not been too bad I have been out-side. I have finished cleaning-up the tree work that was started south of our barn building. I had to take an afternoon to clean up several large limbs in our front yard that broke from the weight of the ice. Yesterday, I stated working again in the timber, trying to remove some junky trees just behind our retail shop. That is part of the project to put-up fencing around the stream  in our property so livestock can't get down there and tear it up. I don't let livestock down in that area right now anyway, but the government wanted to have me fence the area to limit livestock access (I have some cost share dollars) and I wanted some subdivision fencing, so it seemed like a win-win situation.

South of the Barn (the old falling apart wood fence line is coming out soon)

More South of the Barn

Front Yard Mess Gone

The livestock continue indoors. I really want to move the cows outside again and moved their huts near the barn, but have not quite yet turned them out. I am running out of hay pretty fast now. I have two junk bails of hay full of stems down on our crop land. I have been trying to get the tractor running so I can go down there and snag them, but that has not worked out. Despite a new solenoid, the tractor makes more noise when you turn the key, but it still is not running. I may bribe a neighbor who has a running tractor to go down there and get those two bails. I want to put them in the cattle area before I set-up temporary fence around the pen and turn the cattle out into it

Progress continues slowly, but winter also continues with little sign of it braking. We shall see where things take us over the next few weeks.