Winter Wonderland

We have had some serious connectivity issues of late so the blog has had to be shelved for awhile but I think we finally have it fixed. This winter has proved to be cold and snowy so far but like all of the seasons in the Ozarks winter has a particular beauty and we don't let a little cold weather stop us from enjoying all that it offers.

Temps have ranged from below zero to a couple of days in the 50s but on average we are about 10 degrees below normal so far this year.

There is something profoundly bucolic about a barn covered in snow and its so quiet and serene it melts away any cares or worries.....until you have to shovel or load the wood stove!

We live in the country, we don't have neighbors we can see or hear (other than cows or the occasional rooster from Roy's farm or Ed's braying donkeys a couple miles away), but a good snow cover makes us feel even more remote for some reason...and we like that.

We get asked a lot if a stone house is warm in the winter and it is. The concrete and stone acts as a heat sink and because there are no gaps in the walls (particularly since we replaced all of the windows and doors) we get absolutely no drafts or cold spots. Also unique to this area because of the rocky substrata, we have a full basement so all of the plumbing is well below the frost line where it enters the basement and we have never had any issue with frozen water lines; something that has been a serious issue in this area this year.

One thing that is a constant in the Ozarks is the ever changing weather and after a dreary snowy day we usually get days of sunny bliss.

These Oaks behind the big barn are like a bird sanctuary and we often will have hundreds of varying species competing for attention.

I much prefer warmer weather but I look out at our small farm on days like this and know that we ended up in the right place.

Our daily routine involves breaking up the ice in the water troughs a couple times a day, feeding a little grain to the cattle and sheep, laying out some hay for the ruminants, feeding the chickens and collecting eggs, and on days like this mending fences (literally), splitting wood, or other tasks that are easier to do in sunny weather.

We check fence lines every afternoon and normally use the 4 wheeler but when its too cold we will take one of the trucks...age has made us a bit soft. Here we are heading to the back pasture which is beyond those trees.

And here looking back in the opposite direction of the previous shot towards the shop. I like it back here as its in the middle of a couple hundred acres of nothing but pasture and woods (wish we owned it all) and its full of wildlife.

From the south pasture you can see some of the corn stalks we left standing after the corn harvest. Birds and deer like it and we like watching them so its a good match.

This old hog barn in the south pasture is beyond repair as its literally only held up by some trees growing through it but I like to imagine what this place looked like back in the 1950s and 1960s when it was in its prime. We are still attempting to find some old photos of the place and I will post them if  we find some.

Our farmhouse is old and very old fashioned and we are keeping it that way but its homey in a way that's hard to describe. There isn't a level surface or right angle in the place but when you come inside its warm, it has that infinitely pleasing old house smell, the old Sessions clock is slowly ticking in the living room and on a cold winters day like this your likely to smell a hearty stew or soup cooking away in the kitchen...and I guarantee it will make you sleepy.

Now that we don't have to worry about septic lines we can drive through the barnyard and up to the hay mow instead of going through a couple of gates and we take advantage of that luxury.

We haven't started on wiring up the shop yet but the power pole with its dedicated transformer is just waiting and tormenting me. We got the pole put it but haven't progressed further and I am itching to start.

As Judy is demonstrating we actually got quite a bit of snow and this is a lot for this area; schools were out for a couple of weeks and we have had some interesting EMS and fire calls...some of which required me to use my 4WD pickup to reach patients as our rescue rig just isn't set up for this amount of snow.

Was it cold this day? Yes it was but Holly keeps me warm!

Our little lamb Cocoa has had no problem with the cold or snow.

She is still nursing but has taken to eating hay and some grain and Tulip continues to be a good mother.

I have been struggling with physical pain from my back lately and its easy to feel down or sorry for myself but then I walk out to the sheep corral and see something like this and its hard not to smile. With all of the craziness in the world and peoples busy lives I sometimes just want to have people follow me around for a day on the farm to show them why we jumped out of the rat race and gave up good careers

Nike our ram has been a pistol and we have to keep him in a separate pen because he is so aggressive. Rams naturally are going to challenge you and try to head butt you (he is a good example of why they call them "Rams") but its just their nature and he is actually very affectionate. He jumps and plays in the snow and though we take precautions in never turning our backs on him, he is enjoyable to have around.

One of the things we like to do when it snows is to find all of the many wildlife habitats on the farm and a good way to do that is to identify tracks like these rabbit tracks which are all over.

Or these really clear wild turkey tracks....

or a raccoon...

and even these Coyote tracks which aren't very clear but were  very close to the sheep pen.

Bandit has gotten old and has decided that he likes riding in the truck when we check fence lines as we were doing here in the south pasture. He has to be helped into the 4wd trucks now and he shakes from his doggy Parkinson's but he is a good old boy and my ever constant companion. He has learned how to roll down the automatic windows though and I am just waiting for the day when he puts it in gear and takes off.

Louise was apparently not impregnated when we thought she was and it now looks like February before she is due, Her udder is filling nicely and it looks like the calf has dropped lower but I think we have a few weeks left.

We have two outside runs for the chickens with this one being roofed so we piled straw bales on each side to give them a wind break and with the heat lamp we have in their coop they are staying nice and comfortable....and they are back to producing a lot of eggs.

When we don't have a lot of snow we have had ice storms which are pretty but very destructive as they break branches off trees and often bring down power lines. So far we haven't been without power here (though they have all around us) but we have test run the generator and have plenty of fuel stockpiled to we feel like we are prepared. I have never understood how people can go through life expecting everyone else to do thing for them instead of taking care of things themselves. Even around here people crowd the stores when a storm is brewing and strip all of the shelves of every bit of milk, bread, or canned good.

And finally, watching the different animals interact is fascinating. Bandit and Rose the Farm Dog often rub noses with Cocoa and run up and down the fence line playing with her, the cats all lay on poor Bandit and nap with him, and Nike the ram likes to rub noses and play with our youngest heifer Maybelle.

 

So that is winter at the Stonehouse farm. We have burned about a cord and a half of wood so far, its snowing as I type this, and winter just started......

 

 

A Touch of Winter

Our weather here has been rather mild this winter but we finally got enough of a dusting of snow to use our new sleds. Last Thursday we had snow and highs in the low 20s, today its sunny and 65 while our family and friends still in Alaska are burried under record breaking snow. I like sunny and 65 a whole lot better thank you.

 

Today is also a Federal holiday in honor of Dr Martin Luther King and I think sometimes the meaning of this gets lost through focusing on MLK the man instead of MLK the symbol. He was a fascinating person with many flaws like most men but he came to represent something that grew out of the times when he lived and the fact that I was alive myself during those times makes MLK as a symbol more real to me. I mean, when I was in school there were still segregated schools (though I did not attend one) and other aspects of Jim Crow were alive and well...its kind of hard to comprehend in light of the progress we have made today but these things were not that long ago and at least for me, this holiday makes sense as part of our national history and development.

 

We are also continuing our quest to improve our health through targeted exercise, healthy eating and stopping or reducing some bad habits. We both started with blood work from the clinic and for Holly a breast x-ray and it will conclude with a colonoscopy for both of us (I shudder even typing that word). Holly turns 50 in a few months and I am going to turn 52 and though we have always been physically active injuries have dragged both of us down for about 3 years now. I have been given a green light from the neurosurgeon to return to running, lifting weights and other strenuous activities and Holly is starting a conditioning walking program and will return to weight lifting herself soon. We are sharing this personal information for those who have reached a point like we have where you just dont feel as healthy as you could and dont know where to start to change things. We are starting with blood work to get a baseline and then targeting diet and exercise towards specific goals. We have both been athletic our whole lives and already have the knowledge and experience with our training regimes so for us this is just returning to a life style we previously enjoyed; if your not a gym rat or prior gym rat I would encourage you to get some professional training advice from a local gym or community center before embarking on a vigorous training program....bad technique can get you injured in a hurry and you just get discouraged.

 

Here is our baseline test results:

 

                                           Andy                             Holly

•  
• Weight                          207                          Yea Right
• BP at Clinic                120/80                       107/65
•  
• Pulse                              82                                  72
• Total Cholesterol          189                               100
•  
• Blood Glucose                99                                 71
•  
• TriGlycerides                216                                 97
• PSAs                               2.1                                 --

As you can see we are starting from a pretty good point and since neither of us take any medications at all these are not bad (particularly for Holly) but my Triglycerides are higher than I want, my blood glucose is at the high end of normal and accompanying that were slightly elevated liver enzymes .......for me personally that can be attributed almost wholly to my nightly happy hour. I do not have a sweet tooth and eat little refined sugar and I also dont drink much in the way of soda pop but I do have 2 or 3 mixed drinks of an evening. Changing this one habit will likely have a significant impact on those areas I am targeting; Holly stopped her personal happy hour a while ago and the results are likely showing in her great test results. I have returned to running 3 times a week and am beginning a lifting program with a friend from the Sheriffs Dept and feel great...I missed the runners high in particular. Oh...and I stopped chewing tobacco by using a Nicoderm patch for 2 days then I just said to heck with it and even stopped using the patch.

 

We will keep posting updates on the low fat diet, the exercise and the blood test results scheduled for 3 months to see if our modest efforts to feel better, lose some weight, and improve our heart health pay off. For us some of this is a bit harder to do here on the farm than it was in the city where we both belonged to a nice club and literally hit the gym everyday but in some ways its even more important. Trying to stay healthy and fit not only allows us to work the farm more efficiently it just has to become part of your financial planning in todays sky rocketing medical costs/dwindling insurance benefits environment. Physical health is part of financial planning?...Absolutely.

 

Our big snow storm...about an inch and temps to the high teens.

 

I actually enjoy running in this kind of weather but one of my 2 mile routes involves driving to our small town and then running along some township streets (the population is 109) and I can only imagine what some of the locals think. Folks just dont run for pleasure or health much around here and I can imagine them watching me run by and saying things like "that boy from Alaska is a bit touched" or "he was in the war you know" or "he runs pretty good for a big fella"

 

I always enjoy a bit of snow each year because its so peaceful and serene....but now that we have had it I'm ready for spring!

 

Holly spoils the cows. She puts out hay bales and then if they dont see it right away she will walk to the back pasture and call them in...they follow her like she is the pied piper.

 

Its not that cold and the snow isnt really keeping the girls from grazing but cows are generally lazy and will seek the easiest tastiest feed just like we would. We have been putting our 1 bale of our first cut hay about every other day and they really go at it. We also give them grain in the evening and that is a choice we consciously made; some folks see more benefits in a purely pasture raised beef than we do and we wont try to convence them our way is better. But we like things the way they are and you would be amazed how some people (many who dont even have cattle) feel compelled to criticise us for using grain.

 

Now this is what I would call "The Good Wife".

 

We have burned about a cord and a half so far this year but we keep our house warm so we dont think thats too bad.

 

This was a high for this day but compared to winters past we dont complain.

 

This is our view from our kitchen dining are in the bay window (you can see the screen) and I posted it to show how peaceful it looks with a little snow. The girls tend to stay close to the barn when its cold and windy, we have a ton of birds in the feeders, and mornings are quiet and with the sun rising in the back of the pasture (this view faces East) so breakfasts generally have some great visages.

 

Not a lot of snow but since we paid $9.98 for a couple of plastic sleds we are determined to use them.

 

Chris had some fun anyway. We know winter isnt over, we know there will likely be a lot more cold weather and snow but togay as I write this its 66 degrees outside and I am heading out in shirt sleeves to do some chores....we are ready for spring.

Fencing Project

To us the winters here are mild and we have been doing projects outside pretty much all winter long. Folks around here say this is a 100 years bad winter with a blizzard, extended cold weather, lots of moisture etc. and they hate it. We have been having fun sledding, getting stupid on the 4 wheeler, and believe it or not we even have a bit of a tan. It will get cold and then snow then it gets sunny and then 3 or 4 days later its in the 50s or 60s. I will post pictures of the blizzard that shut schools down for 14 days, froze everyones pipes (we didnt have a problem even with the trailer) and was called snowzilla on anothe post to follow so to put this in perspective this is the end of January when we worked on the fence.

The week before the big blizzard was sunny and it got into the mid to high 60s a couple of days but it was windy. Everytime we post pictures of digging post holes by hand we get comments that we should get an auger...we know and we have access to a 3 point auger for the tractor. Call me crazy but I like the exercise involved with punching through rocky soil with a breaker bar, a post hole digger, and a shovel. We set the posts about 3 foot deep and set them in concrete (we get the concrete for $1.00 an 80lb bag at Lowews by purchasing torn and leaking bags they are trying to get rid of).

It was a beautiful couple of days and everyone participated.

Judy wanted me to be sure and point out she fully participates in the projects and indeed she does, she often embarrasses us with her stamina but it motivates us to keep going.

You get a great upper body workout digging by hand like that but I cant imagine doing it for a living.

Making progress. We only put an 8 foot gate on this end of the barn because we are no longer going to be driving anything but the tractors through here. There will be a separate vehicle gate through the pasture fence in back of the oak grove that will be accessed seperately.

We are trying to make it functional first of all but also we want it to look decent. Fences are also good for planting against and this entire fenceline between the barn and pasture fence will be covered in flowering vines and bushes.

Judy wanted a people gate through the fencve as she often sits under the oak grove (you can see the bench in the background) where its cool in the summer. This part of the farm is always a bit cooler and usually has a good breeze.

In prep for the blizzard where they were predicting high winds, ice, sleet, hail, snow, and 30º below wind chills we trimmed some branches overhanging the garage and house. I had a ladder in the back of the GMC and was very careful but of course one branch hung up, swung in almost slow motion....and doink put a small dent in the truck.

The dastardly branch!! It was just a small dent but you know we try and maintain our stuff and we tend to keep things forever because of that.

Here is a progress photo taken today. Its been slow going because I hurt my shoulder and have had other projects getting in the way of finishing this. We still need to finish the part on the other side of the people gate and tie this into the pasture fence.

We decided to use cattle panels for this part of the fence...better for the vines.