Equinox

I haven’t written in more than a week!  I am so bad at sticking to things, but I feel like I have a decent reason?  I had an extremely busy week in my off-farm job which is what actually pays the bills around here.  We have been working toward the farm becoming profitable, but a new farm means new expenses, so definitely not this year!

https://videopress.com/v/X4OCYPBm?resizeToParent=true&cover=true&preloadContent=metadata&useAverageColor=true

Snowing inside a barn door that is usually perfectly sheltered from the wind.

In the middle of the already busy week we got a significant amount of snow, leaving us with about 30” total snow on the ground.  I know this because in order to sit in the snow I only had to slightly bend my knees.  I needed to do this frequently because trudging through it was exhausting.  It took at least 3 days to finally move all of the snow because the wind kept blowing it back to its original place.  The old farm was in an extremely windy spot and we were hoping for an improvement here, but no dice.

Mother Nature showing me who's boss.

In the middle of this snow removal merry go round, the first installment of sheep pen panels arrived!  Obviously the delivery truck couldn’t get up the driveway so he unloaded by the road and we had to drag them up to the barn.  Don't order equipment in the winter!

When I complain about heavy lifting, always keep in mind that I do 25% and Chris does 75%, but to keep it fair, I do 75% of the complaining.  It was hard, I am still disappointed in the bad timing. 

The pen panels (some assembly required) filling up the milk room.

THEN, the next day, the skid steer absolutely would not start, so we had to assemble the new hay spear for the tractor and I had to teach myself super fast to work it while an extremely judgmental group of ewes looked on in anticipation.  But first! I had to plow the tractor out.  It actually went pretty well, I haven’t shown an aptitude for plowing snow in the past, but maybe I’m getting better!  We had had a couple of warm days and a lot of the snow had melted and compressed, so I was hopeful about getting back to the bales without additional plowing.  It was dicey, but I managed!  I wish I had video, but alas, you’ll have to take my word for it.

Pre-chores selfie on a crazy windy, snowy day. Extreme bundled-up-ness!

In writing this, the week doesn’t sound nearly as harrowing as it felt, but believe me, I was worn OUT!  Saturday I took a glorious day off.  We cleaned the house and hung up this collection of china plates that I’ve been meaning to hang and then I went to town for lunch with a friend (practically no snow in town!) and watched totally irredeemable television all afternoon.  Just what I needed.

#oldladystyle - clearly we didn't find the energy to hang the sweet sconces that I scored on eBay - maybe this weekend?

Actually, now that I think of it, we took Sunday off from everything farm related except chores so we could organize the attic.  I know, the glamour!  The excitement!  When we moved in, things got put in there in no particular order.  We needed to put away the christmas decorations which have been piled up outside the attic door, but I didn’t want to just stuff them in and add to the chaos.  It does make me feel calm and happy to have an orderly attic.  That is definitely on the “how to tell if you are a loser” list.

that's right, I have a label maker and I'm not afraid to use it

Well, that sums up a rough week. I edited out all of the weeping and stress eating to make myself seem tougher, but I was a disaster every day of last week and it required a lot of support from Frito-lay.