G had surgery last Friday. He had been having a lot of pain and managed to be diagnosed with an inguinal hernia on Monday, and get in for surgery by Friday. The wonders of the US medical system I guess. He's been in a substantial amount of pain which I don't think either of us expected, but he's on the mend. So now he knows how I've felt in the past when my back is bad! While I was struggling to help him put on his socks over his high insteps, we started laughing that I could bandage chicken feet all by myself more skillfully than I put on his socks.
Our hen Cornish is recovering from crop surgery. I'm hoping I can attach the photo the vet took of the crop contents. It was a huge mass of tangled hay, and there was no way it was going to pass by itself.
We still haven't put in seed orders yet, but we are really close, and getting excited for the spring. In the meantime the variable winter weather is keeping me busy taking care of the animals. Dry bedding always has to be added, air quality managed and monitored, drafts, humidity, animal boredom dealt with. I'm making more runs to the feed store these days, and this has renewed my commitment to planting more forage kale next year--a huge patch if possible. I still have apples to give them, but since I didn't shred and freeze any zucchini this year I have to keep buying cabbages for them. They are desperate for greens. In England the shepherds will plant huge plots of forage plants, so when the grass is dead and covered by snow there are still living cold-hardy plants for their flocks.
So on a day like yesterday, the wind was strong and gusting from the south. I could open the big barn door on the north side of the barn, and get a nice flow through and air exchange. For the chicken palace, I could do the same thing. The ducks stayed in their shelter until it warmed up late in the afternoon, and the backyard chicken flock stayed warm in their run but I could open the small pop door to give them fresh air. I fed the sheep in various places where they had shelter from the SW wind. Today, everything is backwards, so I manage them all differently. Today the usual brutal NW wind means I feed them in different spots, and the big barn door stays closed, otherwise the wind whips through the barn and chills everything down, and the door bends and groans on it's tracks. Yesterday I added a more southern wind break for the bee hives, since they have been flying a bit due to milder weather. Next year I hope to make wind breaks for all four directions.
We should have a pretty warm day on Saturday, so I need to suit up and inspect the hives to check if the colonies are alive, and how their food stores are.
Zane our new dog is doing well, but we haven't had time to really work with him around the horses or sheep. He still barks at them quite a bit. Just doing the best we can. He's taken quite an interest to fearless Cornish, who I let range in the hallway once or twice a day. Zane watches her from the other side of the pet gate, and I practice calling him back to me.
The horses are doing well, although likely a little bored. When G is recovered I'm hoping we can get to building Oakley's slow feeder, and another sheep feeder. He's focused on designing a new greenhouse, and figuring out where crops will go, and possibly a garden expansion. We haven't had our yearly 'farm meeting' yet. That usually involves heading to Wisconsin to our favourite vegetarian Indian restaurant, getting blissed on curry and then only getting through part of our list because we are too full.
Only a few months until we will tap our silver maple again. We still have syrup from last year!
It's just a shame we have no one here to share it all with.
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