Meet Mary...

Meet Mary...

Even back when Jim's dad was farming, the nicest cow in the barn was named Mary.  She wasn't necessarily the heaviest milker, but definitely had the best personality.  Our last Mary hung around until she was eleven years old, and that was a few years ago.  There haven't been any stand out personalities until this past week when #399 freshened!  She's a beautiful two year old...first calf heifer...and it took only a few days until the name Mary started coming up in conversations.

She hasn't lifted a foot yet while being prepped or while being milked...

Here's to a happy heifer!

The Polar Vortex Has Arrived...

The dreaded polar vortex arrived this week.  Oh how I dislike that term! Early yesterday morning the winds picked up and the temperature dropped. Brrrrr...  Cold weather has it's benefits, but I'm such a fair weather fan that I have a hard time seeing them.  Instead, I think of the headaches that come in the barn.

The box pens in the barn are full of young heifers, so we have a couple of them still at the hutches.  They have shelter, but no running water over winter.  Thus, we have to carry water for them several times a day.  Our trusty green wagon gets a lot of use these days...

Drink fast girls, before it freezes again...

My negligence in gathering eggs last evening resulted in this...

Jim had ordered a truckload of sawdust, but postponed the delivery yesterday because of the strong winds.  The barn doors are quite heavy, and if the winds catch them, there could be some pretty serious damage...both to the doors and to whoever might be in the vicinity.  The barn hill catches the brunt of the brutal north and west winds...

The winds died down over night, so the sawdust was delivered this morning...

All the animals keep the inside of the barn much warmer...although we often drain the water lines on the west side of the barn when it's really cold and windy.  Yesterday (and again this morning) we used a hose to fill a big water tub for the outside pen heifers.

In the calf pens, this young heifer and Jolyn enjoyed some playful moments this morning while I was feeding a newborn...

...and when I turned my back, Phoebe crawled into the pen and curled up in a feed tub.  It's not a good place for a dog to be, but I must say that once again, she was being resourceful!  She found a warm place and made the best of it...near her people...

And of course there's always the dilemma of the glasses steaming up, going from warm to cold and back again.  I wish I could just take them off, but...

Hopefully you're keeping warm where you are!

Boxwood Tree 2016...

My friend Brenda and I have a fun tradition...if a couple of years counts as that...of making boxwood trees at Christmas time.

I didn't trim our boxwood bushes again this year (oops!) so we had plenty for cutting and making our trees.  We started with several blocks of wet foam and a dish/vase for a base.  (sorry no pictures of this part...we were having too much fun!!)  We then headed out around the house with our clippers and filled containers with snippets of boxwood.  After about 2 1/2 hours, and numerous trips out to the boxwood bushes, we were finally satisfied with the finished products.

Here's my tree last night after I finished decorating it with some of my favorites from my angel collection.  The tree skirt was a score at our local Ten Thousand Villages store a couple of years ago on after Christmas clearance...

Here are some closeups of a couple of favorite ornaments from my collection.  I don't like to put them on our family tree because some of them are rather small and I don't want them to get lost when we undecorate, and go out with the tree!

I bought this one in Heidelberg Germany in 2006 when I took a trip to visit my sister's family...

This tree topping angel/star ornament came from my sister.  I don't remember for sure, but it might have come from her mother in law in Germany...

This one was my latest find at Ten Thousand Villages.  It's made out of tin cans, and is from Burkina Faso...

This one was also a gift, but I don't remember if it was from Germany, or from an estate sale in Chicago!

This pasta angel caroler was made by another sister...

And this one came from Lancaster Central Market in 2008.  It's not a great picture, with the glare from my flash, but it's a Springerle cookie with an angel...

I have other angel ornaments from various people and places, but these are just a few of the ones that had "stories" behind them that "made" the blog today!

Brenda and I had a fun afternoon, creating and reconnecting since our busy lives have gotten in the way!

Phoebe the Resourceful Puppy...

Winter finally feels like it's threatening to pay us a visit, and the dogs are finding warm places to sleep at night.  They have numerous options...upstairs in the barn in either the sawdust pile, the hay mow or the straw mow (their usual first choice)...in the dog house with the flannel blanket...or downstairs in the barn with the cows.  We let the door open so they can go in and out as they please.

This morning when we went out to milk, I found Phoebe curled up in the cow stable in a pile of corn fodder...

Last night this bale was intact, but by this morning, she had torn it apart and made a nice warm nest for sleeping.  She's a late riser, and was still quite sleepy and calm when I found her.  I actually curled up beside her for a few minutes before I had to get back to work!

Some may think she made a mess by tearing up a fodder bale...but since it was going into the gutter in a few short hours anyway, I call it "being resourceful"!  :)