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.

 Our good start came crashing down around us yesterday.  Winter Storm Elliot came bustling through our area, and while most of the country was left buried in snow in its wake, we warmed up to 50*F and had the strangest winter storm I can remember.  Hurricane force wind gusts, inches of rain, severe thunderstorm alerts, and temperatures plunging into the teens to single digits overnight.  We've lost most of our snow pack and everything froze.  

 

Friday morning, December 23rd

Saturday morning, December 24th

Once again, thousands are without power.  The winds from this storm came from the southwest, when typically they come from the northeast.  Trees toppled, limbs fell, and low areas flooded.  What a mess.  Thankfully for us the bitter cold is nowhere near as bad as it is in the Midwest right now.  And the long range forecast?  Well, there's another oddity.

I can only hope that things will settle into a more normal pattern in the latter part of winter. 

< reset preferences/winter=cold,snow >

 What in the world?

 

 

Another one of these warm up, rain, deep freeze, rinse, repeat winters.  

Thanks a lot, climate change.

I'm still holding out hope that I'll get a chance to use my new(used) cross-country skis that I bought two winters ago.  We'll see.  

The Catching Up (again) Post

 Things haven't slowed down, but the work that's being done now is hard to see.  Little things structurally, and the plumber, heating man, and electrician have all been here in the past week working away.  Lots of wires and tubes and pipes have sprung up everywhere.  It's not that exciting or noticeable, so days 37 through 43 are combined together.

The biggest thing has been...drumroll please...stairs!

 

No more going outside and all the way around to get into the basement.  It's a magical thing.

And the wires and tubes and such...

It's the unglamorous phase of the construction, but the most important.  My plans for gas heat in the form of a woodstove-like appliance were nixed as there wasn't enough room between the floors to place a vent.  Instead we've gone back to the 4 head mini-split, which is rated to work efficiently to -13*F.  There will be one head in my bedroom, one in the corner of the diningroom, one in the livingroom, and one downstairs in the den.  The money I was going to sink into a gas stove will go toward a generator; if we lose power, I lose heat since the mini-split is electric.  The electrician is wiring for an ample sized manual start generator which will handle the mini-split, the water pump, the refrigerator, and a few outlets.

After seeing what the electrician has set up, I have more outlets than I know what to do with.  Love that!  

Last weekend Mom and Neil were able to burn one of the brush piles, too.  I hate burning brush, so I just watched.

Just a dark spot in the pasture, now.  That makes me very happy!  Mom tried to get the other pile burned, but it just wouldn't catch.  That one may be there for a while.

In the meantime, more rain.  The way the leach field is raised up, it's turned a normally small damp area into a rather large area that collects and keeps water.

I hope to bring in some material to fill in the drop between the leach field and the pasture to make it a little less drastic.  I may take advantage of this wet area and create a large water garden in this spot. 

Yuck.  There's just ice everywhere now.  Spring can't come soon enough.

Over This Nonsense

Here we go again with another massive, potentially dangerous nor'easter.  This one is full of rain and possibly heavy, wet snow.  We somehow missed the splitting of the polar vortex and our cold air drifted over to Europe, which is getting all kinds of snow.  I wouldn't mind a regular snow storm, but these massive 5 alarm storms are just too much.  We're soooo close to spring!  A few more weeks and all of this will be a distant memory, and I'll be turning myself inside out with worry at every thunderstorm.  Huzzah!

Post Thaw

Temperatures soared into the high forties this weekend, which meant a lot of melting.  Unfortunately, everything was a block of ice beforehand, so it just turned wet and now it's freezing back up.  Can't seem to catch a break these days.  I'm a little surprised at the effect this thaw has had on me.  I like winter.  I love snow shoeing, I love cross country skiing, I love the way the sun lights up a snow covered field, so why am I so ready for winter to be over before it's really begun?  It seems that each winter has become more of a chore than a welcomed distraction, and I can't help but wonder if the season has changed, or am I just getting old and even more cranky?  At any rate, I am so ready for April.

Photos before the thaw.

The last storm was pretty gross; about 2" of snow and then a day of sleet and freezing rain.  The weight of the slop brought down a massive limb off one of the pines near the main paddock.  I came home to find the run in shed entrance completely blocked by one limb the size of a small tree, and three limbs laying on the run in shed roof.  Some of the pipe panels were bent and one had a weld let go.  Thank goodness for a very kind neighbor with a chainsaw, because it was much too heavy and large for me to simply move.  The mules were thankfully unscathed, but cold, wet, and on edge.

Yeah, I've had enough.

The More Things Change...

I found a photo from last year and had to laugh.  At that point I was lamenting the warm up, rain, freeze up pattern of weather we were in.  Hmmmm...a driveway of solid ice?  Yes, indeed.

1/12/17

1/12/18

Well now.
Next on the horizon?  A two day snowfall that may replenish our snow pack, perhaps over a foot of white stuff between Wednesday and Thursday.  Thankfully it's looking like there won't be freezing temperatures or high winds along with this system.  I haven't been out yet today, but I'm sure after the hours of rain last night there's even less snow this morning.  We should drop nearly 40 degrees between now and dinnertime, but as of 5am I had a reading of 50*F.  Things are going to freeze solid, so I'll be spending some time chiseling channels in the ice to divert surface water and laying down traction sand.  Beats cleaning house any day!