Off The Beaten Path

Maggie decided to challenge my leadership today. My 10 month old, sassy little kneehigh princess of a doeling tried to stage a coup. It was hilarious. If she was a bigger goat, I could see it being somewhat terrifying, but she’s half pygmy. I’m not sure if she’s currently in season, or if she is…

Yesterday was +7. Today is -6 and freezing rain/snow. Tomorrow is -20, and by Monday, it is supposed to be +5 and raining. The weather is having a bipolar spell. To go with the psychotic weather, we have Maggie’s somewhat unstable state of mind. Her whole world changed abruptly, so I’m certainly not surprised she…

Today is warm. Like 7 degrees above freezing warm. Which is lovely, but it means a vast amount of thick sticky mud. Never my favourite, but a reality out here in the swamps. We’re stranded here until it freezes again early Saturday morning. Barn chores this morning. Not just feeding and watering, but a good…

Today started fairly early, and goodNESS was it cold! Frost on the windows and the inside of the doors, hard on the toes and fingers. I headed off to the hardware store for more strapping and burlap, for corner brackets to stop the bed frames from wobbling, and to check on my insulation order. Sadly,…

On hygeine days, nothing much else gets accomplished. We have a minimum of 3 hours drive, plus 3 hours of laundry, and interspersed in there we have bathing and charging up all the things. This time we had a longer drive, as the truck ahead of us for quite a stretch was carrying about 30…

I find the days with little to do the hardest. The waiting days. Animal chores in the morning don’t take terribly long, and then today we drove to the city for the big grocery store. The local one is small, expensive, and lacking in options. And since the big one has redeemable points that I’ve…

There are days when we are on top of stuff, really killing it and making our mark with confidence. And then there are days like yesterday. Yesterday, the snow needed cleared, so after breakfast, out went husband to plug the tractor in. It wasnt terribly cold, so it only took an hour or so to…

Having relatively little to accomplish until the insulation comes in creates opportunities for laziness. Yesterday being sabbath, I didnt get out of my pajamas at all. Today, I haven’t yet but have to soon. The big task today is to get the snow cleared. Hopefully the tractor works well today, and nothing got damaged with…

Until the rest of the insulation arrives, there’s only so much we can do. We’ll putter away at it. Yesterday, we finished covering the East dividing wall. That one has the door in it, so it was a bit more complicated than the West wall the day before. The over-strapping still needs to go up,…

We ended yesterdsy with being unable to remove the plug bolt in the tractor’s oil pan. We began this morning with new plans of attack. Couldn’t find the propane torch, so after trying a few more times with the wrench, bring out the hammer and bang on it awhile. It did eventually come off. Between…