whiling away the days

 

There's not much to do in winter when temperatures are below freezing and snow is on the ground,  especially if one is once again physically deterred.  After doing a half pirouette followed by a James Brown-esque split in slushy conditions, I find myself gimping along with what's known as avulsion fractures.  Per the National Health Institute "An avulsion fracture occurs when a ligament or other soft tissue attachment to bone overcomes the stress capacity of the bony attachment and tears off a portion of the bone."...doesn't that sound fun?  Thankfully it seems to be healing quickly, but I don't think snowshoeing or skiing are on the docket this winter.  And what was I doing that was so important that I needed to be slogging through slush and ice?  Ensuring these little beggars had food for their bellies.

To my delight, any of the soaked kibble they don't eat during the daylight hours is hoovered up by a pair of fox and one of the coyotes at night.

To pass the time I've been ordering and starting seeds in anticipation of spring.  I've decided to try potatoes in grow bags this year, and have Red Luna and Kennebec seed potatoes on order.  

For onions I normally grow Walla Walla, which have always produced a bumper crop of large onions. This year I'm trying a new variety of onion, Highlander, that claims a longer storage life and yields decent sized sweet yellow onions.  I left my leeks in the ground over winter and am curious to see if they survive and continue to grow this spring, but I've ordered more just in case.

I'm planning to use the former daylily bed for sweet corn, and am going to grow cucumbers up the hay ring trellis.

In the house, my pastel yarrows are doing well and have survived their first transplant.

 

And I've started some Verbena bonariensis, which I'm germinating in two environments.  Since these seeds need to be stratified before germinating, I had poured them onto a damp paper towel and tucked them in the fridge for a few weeks.  When I was ready to start them, I scraped them off the towel and sprinkled them onto coir pellets, setting them under the grow lights.  The seeds that were still stuck to the paper towel were transported outdoors to my oversized planter, where they were laid, towel and all, on top of the soil and then covered with snow.  If those germinate, it will be interesting to see which plants end up being healthier; the indoors or outdoors sown seed. 

My next seed sowing will be Baptisia (collected by a friend) and allium (collected from my own plants).  After that it should be time to sow some annuals for window boxes and containers.  I'm not sure if I want to start any vegetable seed indoors this year or not, but I have plenty of time to decide.

Since my hot pepper plants didn't fare well in the gardens last year, I decided to try overwintering a half dozen plants.  Unfortunately, four of them were infested with white fly and found themselves disposed of in the compost pile quickly.  The two that were relatively healthy have been under a grow light and are surviving, but I wouldn't say thriving.  If I can keep them going  I'm hoping they will set fruit early and provide me with a decent crop of peppers.  I'm not even sure what variety they are, but I think probably Hungarian Hot Wax.  

pretty sad looking plants!

 

In the pasture, the autumn's bounty is being foraged by deer.  The fall of 2023 was what is known as a mast year for oaks, where they produce an over abundance of acorns.  I don't see the deer, but their presence is unmistakable; you can see where the snow has been tossed and turned around the fence posts and in the back corner of the pasture from their nightly foraging.

I'll wrap this up with a shout out to Mad Barn, a company that offers supplements for equines.  Flea began having trouble getting up and staying on his feet again this winter.  For a week I fed him while he was laying down, and he'd only struggle to his feet to go to the bathroom where he stood, then adjust himself and lie back down for hours.  We've been through this before, and I've always been under the impression it was either his insulin being out of control (cold weather can spike insulin in IR equines) or what's called winter laminitis; a circulatory issue that causes a kind of neuropathy in the feet due to damage from previous laminitic episodes.  I have him on supplements and herbs that promote circulation, blankets for different degrees of cold, and keep him in wool socks, boots, and thick leg warmers in an effort to keep him warm.  When he wasn't responding to these protocols, one of the moderators from the ECIR group asked if his feet and legs were warm when I changed his socks and boots, which they were.  She suggested I wasn't seeing cold induced hoof pain, but there was something going on that the cold was affecting.  Dr. Kellon suggested adding Mad Barn's W-3 oil, which has Vitamin E, Omega 3 from algae, and flax oil.  Within a few doses I saw results in Flea's mobility, and within a week he was able to tolerate low temperatures better.  The results point to arthritis somewhere, and I'm hoping to get x-rays to pinpoint what's going on.  In the meantime, even in temperatures with a real feel in the negative single numbers, he's up and moving.  He's not 100%, but this is just amazing.  I think this will be a game changer for many winters to come.

Now, to go back into hibernation for the day.

Now that's what I call a good start.

 

 Our first good storm of the 2022-23 winter, and it was a doozie.  It snowed from around 7 a.m. on Friday morning until about noon on Saturday.  At 6 a.m. Saturday morning I measured 14 1/2 inches of heavy, wet snow.  We probably had another two inches fall after that.  Thousands lost power and cleanup was insane.  The ground wasn't quite frozen, so many dirt and gravel driveways are a complete mess after being plowed.  Thankfully we had power back after six hours, but in the meantime I re-learned how to start my generator and actually used it to power the mini-split and a few other items.  The day before the storm I remembered that I had started to replace the chute deflector cable on my snowblower back in the spring but never completed the job, so there's another skill I quickly mastered.  Happy to say the old snowblower is still working perfectly!  

Most of the snow arrived overnight, so here's what I woke up to. 

So festive!

...oh my.

Well then.

My poor little birch trees!

 Once it stopped snowing the sun came out and temperatures rose.  Snow came off the trees and roofs in earnest, and everything melted a little.   This morning it's all froze up and would have made for a great base if the next storm brings the initial 6 to 10 inches of snow they were predicting, unfortunately now it looks like our pre-Christmas storm will be mostly rain, thanks to temperatures rising to 50F.  

While that might not be the best outlook for skiing or other winter activities, it will make heeling in my new baby trees easier.  

I sent in a $20 donation to The Arbor Day Foundation and in return received these little gems.  5 Norway Spruce, a White Flowering Dogwood, an Eastern Redbud, 3 crab apples, and two hydrangea.  Hard to believe there are twelve trees in that bag.  Even harder to believe frozen ground and over a foot of snow are "optimal planting conditions" for my zone.😒  If the weather does get that warm, I'm thinking I might heel them in against the foundation of the house, as that would be the only diggable soil.  We'll see.

I'll end this post with some wild and not-so-wild critters out in the weather.  Like the porcupine who has been living in the old horse barn.  He appeared at dusk near the bird feeders and waddled his way through the snow to mom's big barn.

And the goldfinch who decided to wear a snowflake as a hat.

The mules were out and about - the snow would have been almost up to Flea's belly, but I did snowblow parts of their paddock.

I've recently begun feeding a pair of resident crows.  I throw soaked cat kibbles, shelled peanuts, and mealworms out for them.  They didn't show up yesterday, but I was happy to see some bluebirds were taking advantage of the feast; I think they were after the mealworms.

And all was well on the farm. 😊

February Thaw

 As of today we are at 10 hours and 24 minutes of daylight.  The sun is definitely stronger, and the 40* temperatures have been helping to settle the snow pack and even melt some of the 2-3" thick ice floe that is my driveway.  Here's one days worth of melting.  Gotta love seeing that dirt!

 

With the sun and the warmth, it's hard to resist starting some seeds.  I don't want to start my veg too early, so instead I'm working on catnip, cat grass, and seeing if some echinacea seeds collected a few years ago are still viable.  I've also started a small batch of salad greens that are coming along nicely.

Most of my herbs are still alive, which is amazing.  As much as I love gardening, I'm really not good at it.  I have lost my rosemary, and I'm fairly certain I've killed my lemon grass.  The rest seem to be struggling, but still alive.  I have my pepper plants that I'm overwintering in the basement.  If all goes well, by next month they should be showing signs of life.  I've never tried this before but I'm hopeful. 

I'm not sure if it was from the potting soil or the garden soil that the herbs came in with, but I had an insane infestation of fungus gnats this winter.  They look like fruit flies and apparently they emerge from the soil in damp conditions.  According to a YouTube video I watched, one adult can lay 300 eggs in the soil and they're constantly hatching.  It's almost like a flea infestation - you have treat to kill all life cycles, not just the pesky adults.  The video suggested a dedicated water bottle that has a chunk of mosquito killer, like Mosquito Dunks, in it.  Drop a chunk in the water, let it sit for a day or so, then whenever you water your plants, use that water.  It's the best way to kill off the larvae and the eggs in the soil.  For the adults, there are these wonderful little sticky traps you can put in your plants.  They work fantastically well!

After a couple weeks of this two-pronged approach I'm happy to report there are significantly less gnats.  I'm still using the treated water and have put out a new sticky trap, but at least there isn't a massive cloud of these buggers around my herbs anymore.

 I'm also happy to report that Flea has been doing terrific this winter.  He is moving sound, hasn't had any signs of winter laminitis during even the coldest temperatures, and has been seen cavorting and sprinting around the paddock.  

He's come a long way from the crippled up little mule he's been for the past four years, that's for certain.  He's been on the drug Invokana to regulate his insulin resistance for just over a year now.  There were small signs of improvement within the first four or five months but a few backslides, too. The last six or seven months have just seen him get better and better.  Invokana is a relatively new approach to IR in equines, so we're not sure what the long-term effects will be.  One of the side effects seen in horses has been high trigycerides, which can be life threatening.  In these cases, horses are given a less stringent diet.  This means I can relax a little on the amount and type of hay he gets.  I still have to test any hay to keep it within recommended guidelines, but the hay can be at the upper threshold of percentages for sugars and starch.  When we first started this journey of PPID/IR, Flea would typically do well all year until around the end of January, when he'd start to show signs of being footsore.  He would remain sore and have difficulty moving until around April, when temperatures would start to rise.  I'm holding my breath to see if he makes it through to May this year without issue.  If he does, I'll be elated.  The one thing he's lacking currently is exercise, so getting the track system completed is my #1 priority this spring.  I'll be happy to see both mules moving more, and I'm sure they'll appreciate being able to move outside of a tiny paddock after all these years.