Winter comes to Mulino

Not too long ago I was busy making plans for spring - ordering seed, picking up a bale of plug mix and a case of 4" pots. Getting things ready to set up work benches in the greenhouse I'm going to set up in a month or so. Ah, spring fever, I was deep in its grip and it wasn't even officially winter yet.

Then last week it started to get cold. OK, so I can deal with that, no problem. Batten down the hatches, fill everyone's water troughs up to over flowing, drain the hoses, seal up the underside of the house, you know, the usual stuff.

Things were going along fairly well, I got into a regular routine. First off the feeding, then go out with a hatchet and chop ice off of the water tanks. The primary idea behind topping off the water tanks for everyone, is not so much because they'll drink a lot of water, but that I'll loose a 1-2 inches per day to ice formation. On the 4th day, I had to hook up all the hoses and fill everyone back up, then drain, but no biggie.

Portland was getting snow and ice, but out here, in Mulino, aka the Bananna Belt as we were informed when we first moved out here, it was just frozen water tanks and bare, dry pavement.

Then it started to snow -

And snow -

And snow some more -

Fortunately I have plenty of hay put up in the barn and Harold had a fellow come and help him with the back part of the barn which got completely remodeled -

It is kind of pretty -

This is what the back yard looked like this morning (the blog isn't showing the whole picture, to see it mouse over the image, right click, and select open link in new window or tab) -
If you look close, you can see the path going out to the barn (it runs behind the little red truck), and the path that goes out to the emu compound (to your left) and the arena.

The animals are doing pretty good, the goats have to kind of bound through the snow, and now that there are paths beaten into it, they pretty much use the paths, but they don't seem to mind it much as long as they have plenty of hay and some warm water to drink -

This is Whiskers, she's due to kid in mid January. Hope it's a bit warmer by then....


Red Goat, she's a wooly bear right now.


Neapolitano Deborah - aka Gizmo, who's greatest concern is when dinner's coming....


And Little Flash, who would really like to be in with the mares right now, but who is in the back yard so he can shelter in the barn if he so chooses.

Ah, well. I've had a chance to do a lot of photography, especially of the little wild birds that are coming down to eat now that everything is covered with snow and ice. By the end of the week it's supposed to warm up, they're saying 50, that'll be like a heat wave. This will all eventually melt off and I can get back to planning and building for seed starting season which should start in a month or so.

I'm currently putting my time in the house to good use. I'm designing some really nifty Windows wall paper. A gallery of them will be up on the art website soon. I'll post a notice here when that happens, and you can download one or more if you like.

Gardening comes full circle

Over at Food Democracy, there's an interesting article posted on the Burpee seed company.

Burpee seeds have been around for as long as I can remember. According to the article for over 100 years. I remember when I was a little kid my dad buying seeds produced by Brupee. I even thought that the burpless cucumber was called that because it had something to do with the Burpee company, but that's another story...

Burpee had seen a drop over the years in the popularity of it's seeds, which makes sense as gardening had gone out of favor. But now, with fuel and food prices increasing and taking a bigger bite out of the average family's pocket book, gardening is enjoying a resurgence. Burpee's sales are on the rise and hopefully gardening will continue to gain in popularity.

I also have an idea that, in addition to higher fuel and food prices, greater sensitivity to people's 'carbon footprint' (I've never been fond of that phrase), etc., media has something to do with the interest in gardening as well.

With the popularity of Food Network, and shows on cooking broadcast by other networks, I have to believe that people are becoming more interested in cooking with fresh ingredients. Once you find out how easy it is to raise your own produce, and how much better it usually tastes when you pick it fresh off the plant, or dig it fresh out of the ground, if you like food, you'll be hooked for the rest of your life.

Cooking with fresh foods just tastes different, and often times better. It does require some basic cooking skills and these food shows are very good at teaching those skills to people who, perhaps as children and young adults, didn't have the opportunity or inclination to learn them. One of my favorite shows on Food Network is Alton Brown's Good Eats. He makes the process and art of cooking interesting and explains and illustrates cooking techniques and styles in an easy to remember and understand, at least for me, way. He also highlights and demistifies foods from around the country and the world.

Even Iron Chef America, a show that pits professional chefs against one another in culinary battle, offers fodder for the budding cook. Preparing often easily obtained ingredients and presenting them in interesting and innovative ways that make meats, poultry, seafood, vegitables and grains more interesting than your usual fare made from these ingredients. Most of the dishes I've seen prepared on Iron Chef can be easily prepared by the home cook.

For more information on Alton Brown visit his website - AltonBrown.com

The New Way Is The Old Way

How about this - a couple of Tennessee farmers have gone back to using mules to farm with. According to this article in The Horse, they've parked the tractor and hitched up the team. With the price of diesel, they claim that the mules, while working slower than the tractor, are less expensive to run. I suppose this makes sense as they are harvesting hay. Be kind of like pumping your own oil and refining your own diesel. They've made some adjustments and converted the hay rake that was used on their tractor so that it can be pulled by the mule team staffed by Molly and Dolly.

They say it's the wave of the future.

Well, what do you know, maybe the Amish and the Mennonites were right after all.....

High Gas Prices Force Farmer To Switch To Mules at thehorse.com