ARE WE READY FOR WINTER?

      

Boy did winter come early this year. Of course, for a procrastinator like myself, as long as there are warm sunny days I can make myself believe that winter will stay away for quite a while. Therefore, I didn’t get my garden cleaned out like I needed to but did get the hoses put away.

            The farm work is about finished. Hay and straw is stacked and it looks like we have enough to see us through the winter, even  if we have another bad one. The one stack shuts off my view of the road to the east of our home. I like to stand at my kitchen window and watch that road for my family coming home from town, or coming from out of town. But that view is gone until spring.

The men have moved the equipment into the shed at the ranch, finished their fall planting of winter wheat, and now just have to check the cattle daily. The calves have been weaned though the cows are still at the ranch, but not for long. The guys have cleaned out the corrals and spread manure in the stubble fields.

The propane tank has been filled, so we will keep warm.

            I was looking in our pantry today, and I think we, too, are prepared to eat well throughout a hard winter. I’ve been canning and freezing produce since early summer, starting with rhubarb, strawberries, and ending with winter squash. I tried canning some new things this year – one is Swiss chard. Don’t know if we’ll like it or not, but we had such a big crop of it, I hated to see it wasted. I’ve got flour and sugar in, plus wheat to grind. And the freezer is full of meat along with the frozen fruit and vegetables.

            I remember as a child looking forward to spring when we could once again have a fresh green salad. Aren’t we blessed to have fresh fruits and vegetables available at the grocery stores all year long, to supplement our canned goods?

            We took our chickens to Boise to Chris & Asa, our daughter and son-in-law. They wanted some bigger chickens and I didn’t want to go through another winter with them. In order to keep the chickens comfortable, we would put small bales of straw up around the coop, plastic on the roof, and have a heat lamp on. With all of that done, we still had to unthaw their drinking water every morning.

AND, to get to the chicken coop we’d have to go down a decline and cross a small wooden bridge. Last winter when I took care of the chickens, I would side step down the small hill and across the bridge. I fell off the bridge a couple of times and ended up knee deep in snow. The fear of falling and hurting myself was always with me, actually the fear that if I did fall no one would look for me until supper time. Then it would probably be too late and I would be found frozen solid. So I’m glad to have the chickens in Boise.

All in all, I think we are close to being ready for winter both in the house and on the farm. That’s a good feeling!