Winter’s coming like a freight train

And we’re hustling around, trying to get everything done before it hits. Today, Will and Hondo went to Matt’s clearcut again and brought home another load of firewood. That pile is getting bigger and bigger. We can’t burn it this year as it’s semi-green, being cut this spring. But next winter, it’ll be perfect. We’ve still got some dead wood down by the woods to cut and split, to fill up the woodshed completely. I’m hoping our nice weather will hold a little longer, but it doesn’t look like it, according to the forecast. Saturday, the high is supposed to be 30 degrees.

I’ve got bulbs planted in the front flower bed and wood chips mulching over them. The peonies are planted in the new flower bed, along the drive but I still have a few crocus and grape hyacinths to stick in at the end. The rain we had yesterday and last night should help. The soil was very hard the day before yesterday!

Will has the hay yard stuffed full of hay. All the new hay has been hauled home, and we have a lot of last year’s hay left, which the cows still eat happily. We moved them into the winter cow yard as deer hunting season starts this coming Saturday. As I have had (in the very far back past) a mare and colt shot during hunting season, we like to keep everyone close to the buildings during hunting season, just to be safe.

I’ve got to get the onions — which are all trimmed up — in the greenhouse, hauled down to the basement. Boy, we’ll have a lot of very nice onions all winter to go along with our wonderful harvest of potatoes. You can sure make a lot of different recipes with potatoes and onions, can’t you? Yumm.

We’ve been seeing a beautiful Red Fox lately. He’s been sunning himself on the top of a blown down tree’s root ball. I’ve tried to get a picture, but he’s too smart. We enjoy seeing him … as long as he stays down in the woods, not up by our chicken coop! — Jackie