Wednesday, December 24, 2008

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.