I'm still here

You could say that this winter hasn't exactly gone as planned in many ways!

I have many legitimate excuses for blog fade.

A main one is that I'm taking an online course from back home and it's taking a lot more time out of my life than I'd anticipated.  That in itself is stress inducing. I haven't done any technical writing in about six years so it has been difficult and not so great for the self confidence.

 Most days I'd rather be outside doing chores or doing some spinning or felting or working on my new training courses with the horses.

March weather is all over the place.  We've had extremely high winds and a thunderstorm this week.  A tornado touched down near our friend's farm the other day too.  Climate change in Minnesota...things are going to get even tougher.

Meanwhile on the west coast my friends and family have been struggling with an unusual snowy winter.  They just aren't accustomed to it and the extra work and preparations in regular daily life are hard to take.  Perhaps this will let them know on a very small scale how much effort it takes to run a small hobby farm in Minnesota.  If we have a lot of snow it makes for slow going of course, but it's much more pleasant than this horrible icy winter we've had.

My ice cleats broke back in early January, and even though we spread shavings and ash on our walking paths I managed to fall hard on my left arm and scapula and was pretty messed up for a while.  It was basically like walking the length of a skating rink multiple times a day to get to the barn and to the various outbuildings. Of course I ordered a new pair right away. Even the horses were afraid to move in their paddock.

 Now we're in the midst of spring thaw-freeze thaw.  It was 15C last week and tomorrow it will be -15C overnight.

Little Red the rescue rooster has turned out to be a very sweet bird.  He's lost two toes so far and has one more on the way to falling off.  This is how long it takes with frostbite! I've been changing his bandages every two to three days for a few months now. He's worth it.

G has been doing a great job of building proper composts for us and turning them weekly (with help from the flock).  We're hoping we will have plenty of proper compost to amend our gardens with this spring.