Tag Archives: cute

Snow Day with the Goats

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Snow got caught between the barn screen and winter window, made amazing patterns!

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Little Lal and Beverly are all warm and toasty inside! Used a mini- space heater to dry off beverly while we milked her, now a heat lamp is on to help the chickens.

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It may be cold and dreary out, but at least the chickens gave me breakfast!

Baby it’s Cold Out There

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View from the last big storm a few weeks ago

BREAKING NEWS: There is yet another winter storm!!! Surprisingly the joy and magic of a snow day is starting to evaporating now that I have hit snow day from work #5. While a snow day from a long commute and a luke-warm position is generally a blessing, there isn’t a snow day with livestock. When I first became interested in building a self-sufficient lifestyle I did what any person my generation do: INTERNET! What I found was  a rich community of bloggers, farmers, crafters, DIYers, and more that were sharing their stories both the positive and the negative, the joys and the heartbreak, and the good and the bad. One common theme that quickly developed was that no matter the time of night, weather, events, or scheduling that you no longer own your own schedule and have to go out and look after some animals. Most days this is a complete and utter joy, but some mornings it can be tough and we only have 2 chickens and two goats.  When Lal was first born we had to take her outside for feedings every few hours, going out into a snowstorm at 2am was not optional.  When discussing about my life goals of self sufficiency with a farmer several years ago we talked about just this issue. I would like to think my enthusiasm and choices were not TOO idealistic and that I didn’t fully understand the intense commitment to those choices. I framed it as, “I don’t know what its like to be sick and tired and have to get up at 5am go out in the snow, break ice in water buckets and look after animals. Once I do know what thats like and still want to do this, then I have made the right choice.” Frankly, I still don’t know what thats like. My brood is very small and very close to the house all I have is a little taste, a little nibble, a little soupçon of what that life looks like.

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2am Snowy Feeding for Lal

Right now, its snowing- not the pretty magical snowing, but the icy slushing snowing- and it’s almost milking time. All I have now is an open door, a mini snow storm, a goat that needs to be milked, chickens and goats that need to be fed, and ice to break in water buckets. I have to give myself a little pep talk before I step out into the elements- because after all, there is a hot cup of coffee, warm shower, and an indescribable sense of completion and joy after. Well, until night milking. 

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“Ok, let’s do this thing!”