Below is OUR version of the 12 days of Christmas. Study carefully and learn the words below so that you can sing along with the video at the end! (inspired by the ‘accordionist’ in us all)
On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me:
Guinea Fowl in a pine tree… Read the rest of this entry »
The cats are fascinated with the Christmas tree. They think we bring in a tree and decorate it every year just for their amusement. It is a game. We decorate it, THEY undecorate it. See below:
Here we are, only 9 days till Christmas. Do you have your shopping done? I DON’T. And neither do the sheep. Well, I take that back. Madison and Lydia are “cooking” something in their ovens and will present their gifts in the spring. The others also will give their WOOLY gifts to us in the form of fleeces in the spring as well. Read the rest of this entry »
We have been VERY busy. I had to make an unscheduled trip to Seattle to see my mom who was in the hospital. So I am behind on EVERYTHING. The good news is my mom is getting better (slowly).
The day after I got back from Seattle, I had to go to Spokane area to get the “girls”. The “girls” being my 2 ewes–Madison and Lydia, who were bred by Bluster at Thistledown sheep. Read the rest of this entry »
There are a few things NOT to do when living off the power grid in North Central Washington.
1. Do not forget to plug in the heat tape. You’ll have DIRE consequences if you forget (as we found out AGAIN this am). There is no water AND no toilet flushing. But we won’t go there. This happens every year.
2. Do not try to dry your hair using the propane heater. Since we can’t use hair dryers, and I was in a hurry and didn’t want to wait for my hair to dry, I sat in front of the propane heater in the kitchen with the back of my hair CLOSE to the heater for awhile. MISTAKE! I didn’t get a clue either when I heard my son FROM THE LIVINGROOM say, “What’s that smell?” I found out what a propane heater can do to hair. I ran my fingers through it to see how dry it was and low and behold it was singed! A nice little glob of it. Fortunately, it was near the bottom so when I get my hair cut, most of it will be gone.
3. Do not FORGET to put antifreeze in your car and in single digit weather drive to town. This happened LAST year, but we won’t open up THAT wound. I’ll just say, we learned from our mistake.
I know there are other “DO NOTS” but I can’t think of them right now. No, it’s more like I don’t WANT to think of them right now! But I will list them as I remember them.
In spite of frozen pipes etc, we are enduring the weather bravely. The chickens are taking turns getting hypothermia and spending time in front of the fire. We are going do something different out in our “chicken palace” to warm things up. Even one of the llamas was shivering so I had to put a blanket on her and put electrolytes in the animal water (before it froze). One of the goats has a sheep coat on him. The shetlands act like it isn’t cold. They seem to not be affected by it all (yet).
May your Christmas season be merry and bright. Notice I said CHRISTmas and not holiday season. It is becoming one of my pet peeves this year. People are becoming afraid to say CHRISTMAS anymore for some reason, like they will offend someone. Our country was founded on christian principles. In our house we say CHRISTmas. So……CHRISTMAS, CHRISTMAS, CHRISTMAS. Oops, I’m on a soap box again. Until next time…..
I guess it is not really joy I feel right now. When you look outside and it is cold, real cold, say 5F and you flush the toilet. Then you remember that, “oh I forgot to plug in the heat tape last night”. What this all means is we have no water at the moment. I plugged in the heat tape and water should be back in a couple hours, I HOPE.
Something we all take for granted, but without it, just makes for a few anxious hours. I don’t relish the thought of bundling up and crawling under the house to try something else! Of course now, we think, do we have any jugs of water around to make coffee? Anyway, this too will pass. Snow will arrive any day now, so its time to work on the snow mobiles!
Time for more winter projects fun!!
I have been very busy lately so haven’t posted anything. My husband says my blog is “stale”. I guess in blog talk that means I haven’t posted anything lately and people will lose interest.
It is very cold here right now–6 degrees!!! In weather like this the old chickens suffer the most. Since Eric and Ondra won’t let us eat anyone, our place has turned into an unofficial chicken sanctuary and old chicken’s home. Read the rest of this entry »
Yesterday was an active animal day at our place. Ondra had spent the night in her new chicken coop. Yes, that’s right, spent the night! Read the rest of this entry »
