Even after a few short days, a homebody is already pining for home. It has been delightful to settle back in after a rather quick six-day trip to Illinois, realizing just how much I had to miss in the short time I was gone. So many relatively unnoticed things become vitally beautiful and important when they are suddenly absent.
Like waking up next to my best friend. Like the daily morning rhythm of coffee, breakfast, and chores. Like reading my Bible in my chair by the window. Like trudging down to the barn to release the chaos of the puppies, and trudging down again at night to put them to bed.
I missed the wonderful pandemonium of pups yipping and cats purring and chickens squawking and horses nickering. I missed the sight of the pups clamoring around Brad’s legs as he walked to the barn, or wading through them myself on my way to the chicken coop, or up to the house, or anywhere the puppies happened to be. I missed my chores throughout the day, the various times of checking in with my critters. Coffee with the in-laws after a quick hour or morning of working cows. Our walks in the evening. Cooking supper in my own home.
I missed the mud and the smell of horses, the spicy breath of the puppies, the sharp little teeth and dark, sparkling eyes. Polly on my shoulder and Betsy on my head. Gathering eggs and doing nightly chicken chores. I missed feeding my sourdough starter. Isn’t that silly? And sweeping my kitchen. Doing our dishes and hanging our laundry up to dry. Homemade bread and jam, and homegrown beef. My wonderful family.
Evening cuddles on the couch watching a movie and devouring a bowl of popcorn. Having my pillows stolen and the endless teasing.
Home is a place of belonging. Of safety. Of shelter and protection. Of growth and growing, of work and working. Of life and love and laughter, a shoulder to cry on, a hand to hold.
Home. What a wonderful place to be.
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We’re only a calendar month into winter but already we’re enjoying hints of the coming spring. The first hint is that Runnings has their seed display up! There has been moisture in the air, bluebird skies, and the excitement of springtime approaching! It has been a whirlwind of sourdough baking and chickens, puppies and our first two calves, housework and laundry and getting ready to visit my sister in Illinois.
Calving has officially started for us with the excitement (and puzzlement) of our first two calves of the year, beautiful full-term babies in spite of being born a solid month sooner than expected. That’s called a bull with initiative. The first calf showed up on Sunday, and the second one was found Monday. Both pairs are safely settled into the nursery pen on our end of the ranch. What a beautiful sight! Gorgeous, lanky-legged, satin-sleek calves tripping along daintily behind their protective mamas.
Puppies are (literally) underfoot during most of chores and throughout the day, finding everything absolutely fascinating. They watch attentively while chickens get fed, torment the cats, and come running in a black and white wave when they’re called. It takes about ten times longer just to walk up the hill to the house, with half a dozen puppies chasing my feet and scheming to trip me. All our females are spoken for and we are looking for homes for our two boy pups, Max and Teddy. We’re excited to see how they all turn out. They are so smart, it’s a little scary!
The chickens are already going gangbusters (for a flock the size of mine), with fourteen eggs today and a dozen yesterday. They have come through their first cold snaps beautifully with only a couple mild incidents of frostbite on a couple larger-combed hens, have been healthy overall, and I’m excited to embark on my second year of chicken keeping. I have learned so much this year, dealing with coccidiosis in my chicks, bumblefoot in a few hens, a few unfortunate dog attacks and resulting chicken first aid, and dealing with a crossbeak chicken who, after today’s beak work, is able to eat again!I’m very thankful for the customers I have and am looking forward to being able to provide eggs for more people this year! It was satisfying to know that my family always had eggs, even when the stores didn’t! And they’re better eggs anyway.
I hauled a bunch of loose hay up from the stackyard this week to give the chickens something to scratch in when they’re locked up and to help with mud when we get snow. The run looks better and the chickens love it. I’m excited to work on making chicken farming more sustainable this year and to try growing some fodder crops specifically for feeding my flock.
So we are off to a running start this year, excited for calving, excited to get planning my garden, excited to grow my flock, excited for what this year will hold. Spring really is just around the corner. The winter, it will pass.
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When the puppies were first born, it was impossible to really distinguish one from the other, at least as far as four of them were concerned. Bessie was named pretty quickly, because of her milk cow markings, and there was an all black male that was quickly identifiable, but for some reason hadn’t earned a name.
They are now coming up on 7 weeks old and are a riot of activity, eager for attention, friendly, boisterous, and just a bundle of fun. We’ve got the sweet and sleepy one, the go-getter, the playful and clumsy one, the smart one, and a couple that haven’t really distinguished themselves but are plenty adorable with more energy than should fit in a body that size. It doesn’t get much more fun than going down to the barn and yelling, “Puppies!” and have six puppies and sometimes their mother come pouring out of the barn or out from under the trailers.
Over the last couple of weeks, we have let them start to explore outside and it is hilarious to watch the fat little pandas barreling full-tilt across the yard in protection of their pinecones, tumble down remnants of snow drifts, and learn the about the delicacy of horse manure.
They also enjoy terrorizing the cats, many of which actually invite the terrorizing and enjoy a playful romp with the pups. Polly in particular. It is only since the puppies have significantly outweighed her that the novelty of them is wearing a little thin. One pup is generally tolerable, but four or more is less so. But she still comes back and invites another mauling.
It doesn’t get much cuter.
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All of South Dakota has been gearing up for a major snow event, since the meteorologists first started talking about the potential a week ago.
For ranchers in drought-stricken parts of the state, including here, predictions of moisture can be pretty disheartening, since the outcome seems to always be less than hoped. We watched as this storm seemed to drift further south and tried not to get our hopes up for any significant moisture, but we were still a little disappointed when at 3am there was little to no snow yet.
Well, it has blown in, and we are just trusting God for His provision of the needed moisture over this winter, and praying for safety as the temps plummet and the wind kicks up. There isn’t much snow yet and it seems to have let up, but this is supposed to be a multi day snowstorm, so it should keep coming.
We have plenty of water in case of power outages, have oil in the lanterns, and are thankful for a working generator. Brad brought the calves closer yesterday and into the timber, and now the order of the day is just keeping critters fed and watered.
My usual entourage of cats had no interest in chicken chores this morning, and stayed snug in their cat house, looking pretty miffed. Except for Polly. She darted inside and since she’s getting a little daily doctoring (and will keep me company while I work on some projects inside…) I didn’t feel like stripping down to go catch her. And she really is good company, even if rather obnoxious.
The chickens needed a fair amount of coaxing and a makeshift windbreak before they’d set foot outside. My footsteps had already drifted in when I trudged back up the hill to the house.
But those cold, blustery, blizzardy days make for the perfect opportunity for finishing some Christmas presents, doing some mending, photo editing, a couple online webinars tomorrow, and getting a start on my Christmas cookie baking.
There’s always something!
And so we’re battened down.
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All summer long, we race against the clock to beat the heat of the day in whatever project it is we are working on. We freeze old apple juice bottles full of water to take with us when we head out in the morning, and drink greedily from them as the day heats up, wearily wishing for the heat to lessen. It doesn’t. Until the autumn months begin to slip by, and then that first real cold snap does it. You wake up in the morning and see 7 degrees plain as plain on the thermometer and start shivering sympathetically.
The cold sets in and complicates the simplest of tasks. Whether it is snow, or a particularly heavy frost, or just bitter, biting cold and the requisite South Dakota winds, impending winter is a force to be reckoned with. And when I say it complicates the simplest of tasks, I truly mean that. In warm weather, we can bounce out the door in the morning as quickly as it takes to put on a pair of boots and grab a hat. The colder it gets, the longer it takes. It gets a little brisk, and now you’re finding a jacket and a scarf. Then it’s a jacket under a heavier coat. Then coveralls. Then a warmer hat, maybe even a ski-mask type hood under the hat. Then it’s remembering to put on long underwear first thing, and nice, thick wool socks. Then, at that point, it honestly feels like you’re wearing the entire coat closet plus some after 15 minutes of buttoning and wrapping and layering, and the inevitable strip down for that irritating search for a forgotten or misplaced item that you only remembered after buttoning the final button on your coat, or the sudden need to “get rid of some coffee” as some might say.
Now, finally, you’re out shuffling the door feeling rather like a spring-loaded marshmallow and can stumble through the seasonal comedy of chores, encumbered by the entire coat closet, fumbling with gate chains and lids and dropping stuff from mittened fingers, snagging gloves and coat and hat on this, that, and the other thing, remembering – oh so fondly – when these little tasks were simple, you know, just two weeks ago, but which have by degrees become more difficult. Pun intended.
And this is now the new normal for the next several months and it isn’t even technically winter yet.
Every water source freezes up, causing the animals to walk out onto ice in the dams looking for a drink, risking a deadly fall through the ice. On stock tanks, floats can be used during the day if the temps creep up sufficiently, but have to be taken off at night so as to not freeze the entire hydrant. Jugs of hot water get hauled down to the chickens and the cats, multiple times a day unless there’s enough sun to warm the water tubs. Fingers and toes get cold and stop cooperating, in spite of efforts to keep them warm. I carelessly left my vet kit in the chicken coop and obviously everything turned to a block of ice, including what I needed right then. The mud room in the back of our house truly earns its name, in spite of good faith efforts to keep it tidy. Boy, I’m thankful for a mud room! The cats come up to the back door looking miffed or something a little more potentially violent than just miffed, and I honestly don’t blame the chickens for kind of going on strike.
And so we settle in for the coming winter and adjust to the seasonal changes of shorter days, colder temperatures, and literally everything that can turn to a block of ice turning to a block of ice, and I thank God for all of his blessings.
Instead of rushing out the door to beat the heat, we linger pleasantly over that cup of coffee, or maybe a second, letting the sun take the edge off the cold a bit, and get to work on the overnight ice. It is hard to beat the pleasure of warming up cold fingers on a hot mug of coffee or tea mid-morning or at dinner time. That blast of warm air when first coming in from outside is delightful. Hot showers even the evening never feel so good as when you’ve been borderline chilled all day long. There’s nothing quite like filling the house with the warmth and the aromas of baking, and as things out of necessity slow down outside as the days get shorter, I honestly enjoy having the time for some of those projects that get neglected during nicer weather. And having someone to spend long winter evenings with makes me actually look forward to them. And then there are those inevitable warm days or afternoons, like this afternoon, generously sprinkled through our Black Hills winters, little breaths of springtime reminding us that winter, too, will pass.
But golly, I’m pretty thankful for a good pair of insulated coveralls. And sturdy muck boots. And a warm coat. And scarves and mittens and hats, and whatever blessed person it was who invented hand warmers. And long underwear.
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