Dark Days and Long Nights

Yes, the dark days and long nights are fully entrenched upon us - one of my favorite times of the year.  One of my loves is to set on the couch by the wood stove in the morning and read a good mystery and drink my coffee. I usually have a couple of free hours each morning before going up to the barn.  Even then at the barn I don't have much to do.  We have only one goat in milk, and I'm only milking her in the evening.  I refresh everyone's water, give some of the ducks food, feed the bucks, and I am back to the house in 30 minutes.

Our buck Snowshoe in the newly cleaned goat area

Pam has the next two weeks off for winter break so I don't even have to cook dinner!  Oh, lazy times for me.  I'm taking these two weeks off from real estate work, having a business partner that will cover for me for most of the work, all but what I call the "non-negotiable" things, like writing up or reviewing an offer for property.  Not much of that during this time of year, but I do have a couple of projects I'm working on.  I'm going to take this time off to work on a new shelter for the bucks, plan next year's vegetable garden, and design the new chicken coop. 

Last night we had our Yule gathering, celebrating the dark nights, at a friends house in Oak Harbor.  It felt good not having to run home before dark to deal with all of the animals as they are all tucked away before 5 pm.

We continue to mulch our orchard and berry areas with soiled bedding from the goat area - it looks so nice.  Our winter garden survived the deep freeze last month, probably due to the 3 inches of snow covering everything.  Nights have been in the low 30's with days near 40 for the past few weeks, so with the light row covers our winter vegetables continue to live, giving us fresh greens for our salads.  Our birds continue to thrive, and the two little chicks are growing, starting to get their feathers.