Sorry for the last week of postlessness, but I’ve been running the farm solo while the family goes a-visiting friends and relatives for a few weeks, so blog posts don’t often make it up to top priority on the daily to-do lists.

The weather has been crisp with lots of below-zero nights but not too much wind.  Interestingly the pigs, even the little ones, choose to sleep under the stars in rolled out bales of hay rather than sleeping indoors.  So I’ve been keeping busy feeding hay to all the animals, feeding whey to the pigs, feeding grain to the chickens, and feeding wood to the stove.  And freshening livestock bedding, fixing cracked PVC whey valves, fiddling with frozen hydraulic couplers, coaxing the diesel tractor to start, plowing snow in the driveway and at the neighbors, and all the other usual concomitants of chilly weather.  I don’t mind it.  Once I’m out the door I am always glad to be there.