House – Work in a Windy Barn
The wind is blowing hard and is a Nor/West. In this hemisphere – the Northerly one is the cold one. It was a Sou-west when I went to bed and it turned in the night and I know I left the big north door open a bit for the calves to come in and forgot to close it last night on my rounds.
Which means an icy wind is blowing straight through the barn. The piglets do have their pig house to hide in but I always fret about wind and babies. How old are those piglets now anyway? I need to go back and have a look. October 16. Goodness they are already a month old. How did that happen.
As it is blowing a gale and at freezing point I will be working inside the barn today cleaning windows and patching up holes, sweeping floors and cleaning cobwebs out of the milking room, even the barn needs housekeeping and with winter on the way we need as much light and sun in there as possible and no drafts. Drafts are bad. An open door is better than a thin bitter knifey draft. 
I love light. I cannot bear to be shut in. I hate curtains. I hate closed doors. So I am cleaning windows out there too.
I am miserable in the winter when the windows have to be closed. So I imagine my fellow four legged animals are the same.
Tima and Tane are still working on their bedroom. I have put a thick layer of newspaper and old National Geographics on their floor, then a thick layer of flakes of unbroken straw, then a very large double layer of cardboard making a kind of sandwich, then an even deeper layer of fluffed up straw. This has given Tane and Tima a soft bed lifted right off the concrete floor. As the winter progresses the straw will get deeper and deeper.
I had better get going early so I can wrestle that north door shut. I hate the thought of freezing cold blowing into the barn. Animals use a lot of energy to keep warm. The wind is at about 40 miles an hour (around 70k). And will blow all day I think.
Winter is coming for real today. I must be off.
We can chat later in the comments.
Have a lovely day.
celi
36 Comments on “House – Work in a Windy Barn”
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I’m glad Tane and Tima have something to read! National Geographics will keep them entertained in the cold weather.
The trouble with National Geographics is that they are very hard to throw away – with all their interesting articles – esp the old ones – as kids we always collected the maps. I bet they survuve being slept on by pigs and will be perfectly fine by the spring clean up.
Something to read and redecoration – what a busy time those pigs have!
Do try and keep warm. There really is nothing colder than an icy draft, hope you get everything patched up quickly. Then a big mug of chocolate for breakfast is called for.
It’s going to be windy here too, and it has got a lot colder. Tima and Tanes bedroom sounds fab! Have a lovely if a windy day.💨💨😃
BRR! Your words always remind me how cushy we have it in the south. I remember the years living in Nebraska and I wondered how people manage the brutal winters as they get older? I am having a second cup of coffee to bolster myself to go out in our 27 degree temps this morning. We have had wind for three days and today will be much calmer. But the cold has arrived. I prepared everything outside… but in my heart, I am never ready to brave the cold.
Remember to put some rocks in your pockets. Keep warm. Laura
Heated rocks !!
I couldn’t tell on the weather map this morning if the band of snow was going to be moving over your location, but it kinda looked that way. It’s headed for us in the next day or two, but I believe it will leave it’s worst in the western mountains of Maine and just give us coastal folks a dusting. I am not ready for winter yet, either. Have been lulled by these warm and sunny November days! Good luck with those recalcitrant doors! (I can’t stand curtains either. We only have them in our bathroom. Luckily we live where there are no close neighbors!).
Oh boy, here it comes. Sadly, in the north, there is no escaping winter. Yesterday was glorious but today will only get to about 10 c. and then tomorrow it plummets with snow in the forecast. Temps will rise again next week a little, up to about 7c or 8c degrees, but I do believe we’ve seen the last of the gentle warm autumn we’ve had so far.
You really do build up a great layer of insulation for those kunekunes and I guess Tane really needs it specially, but I have a question I hope you don’t mind. What about all the piggie waste product that is inevitable over the course of four or five months? Are they ‘house trained’? I can’t imagine they would be but perhaps it’s their practise to perhaps not poo on their bedding, like cats and dogs? A rather tasteless question but it begs to be answered…. haha Hope you have a lovely day too! ~ Mame 🙂
we have our first real snow storm complete with gusts of wind up to at least 50mph….since we need to recover from 4 years of drought- I’ll
welcome all the snow and rain we can get! Your dedication to your animals and windows and ridding the barns of any drafts is awesome!
Have a lovely day “inside”.
Yes, it does seem that Winter is stealing up our driveways. Just 6deg C. here in Oregon and nearly an inch of rain since midnight. Hopefully a good snow cover above 3,000 feet.
I always feel rather guilty when the rest of the country begins the winter cold and snow cycle, although it is not me personally that makes the weather. I live in the PNW-Washington state, in a valley between coastal mountains and the Cascades. All those weather systems begin slowly to gather their strength in our mountains, then pick up speed over the Rockies and hit the flat middle of our country running with force, slamming into some of those northern systems and then we read about the cold animals and windy barns and freezing water buckets. I feel as if I should start a “blanket drive” donation box…
Don’t you just hate it when you forget to close the door? I know I do. You made me laugh with the National Geographic part. I tell people that all my books, magazines (quilting, writing, sewing) and tubs of fabric are the insulation for my home. I could build walls with them. The floors are the coldest part of my little trailer. Wish I could but the magazines under my feet without sliding on them. 🙂 Autumn barely made it’s appearance and you are already getting winter! Oh, my. The dark and being closed in is hard on everyone. We get so little sunlight in winter but at least not wind like that. Good luck with the window cleaning. Tie a rock to your waist.
Winter is arriving here this afternoon. It is coming directly from your fields to ours … This time of year I can often see our weather coming through your posts. Only the systems tend to pick up a whopper load of snow once they cross the Great Lakes. Hope you have everyone well tucked in. Looks like a doozy!
We have had a skiff of snow in the Winnipeg area. It’s crisp and cold and nice when the sun is shining. The wind however is the misery making part. You are wise to make everything as wind proof as you can. I hope your winter is gentle on the farm and it’s inhabitants.
LIke you I do not like being inside without open windows…therefore, I always have a film of dust on my furniture…but I don’t care. Then come winter I try to be outside the most I can. I so love the out-of-doors!
Linda
Completely off-topic! Are you a rugby fan at all? Just watched NZ do the Hakka before they play my team, Ireland! I’m a big fan 🙂
Growing up in New Zealand pretty much ensures a pride in the All Blacks. The Haka is awesome! c
I thought it was with one K! iPad corrected it. It’s a great game so far, and Ireland never minds losing to the All Blacks. But still what a fight we are giving them tonight!
Most excellent – do the irish sing like the welsh?
No, and I was saying yet again that all the anthems seem so dire! You are winning, by the way – 21-9
Love the picture of the peacock, chicken, piggies and mama pig.. Such a delightful representation of the farm.
Yes – not balanced at all or even technically good but that is exactly how the pigs corridor looks.. c
NOTE TO ALL: Gayle Hoover died November 12, 2016. She has many friends, and we were all taken by surprise. Her life was not an easy one, but she met all conditions with great buoyancy. I told her about Celi, and we often chatted privately with oooh, aahs and statements of wonder about this blog; she would want to have me send her love, and so here it is, love to all from Gayle.
Thank you. We were talking about this the Monday after she died – so sad and so sudden – we are all sorry to hear the news and miss her here in The Lounge. Please accept our condolences. c
I must start to remember to close things too… Summer is here, and the season of Big Heat and Big Wet and Big Winds. For the rest of the year, doos and windows stand open, and like Linda, I have (and live happily with) dust everywhere. But that’s over for the time being. Cyclone Season starts just after Christmas and lasts till the beginning of April, and before that, the weather has practice sessions! I have one blessing though: no vicious knives of cold, no snow. Just heat, lashing rain and howling winds 🙂 I miss comparing tropical cyclone notes with Viv… She’s got her feet up on a comfy cloud somewhere and is laughing at the rest of us. I expect Gayle’s sitting next to her with a nice drink….
Love that visual of Viv …she and Gayle will share some stories and perhaps tea.. Thanks to “The Farmy “
Well. hello Barbara! I sure am finding a lot of ‘old’ friends on this blog! Good to see your name here! Me? I was a lurker, but not by choice! It took me over a year to figure out how to respond in the Lounge – didn’t know about the ‘post comment’ way down at the bottom! Silly, inept me!
smile; she definitely has been released, but she was a fan, oh was she a fan, recommended it to several; i told her about this site!
I too have an image of the animals flicking through back copies of National Geographic! Storm Angus is heading towards us on the south coast of England tonight with heavy rain and gusts of wind up to 80mph…eeek!
Absolutely love that top window photograph.. feels really stormy.
Yesterday we were near 70* with wind, today we can’t get out of the 30’s and the wind is at gale force! It felt a little odd to be plugging in heat lamps and tank heaters while it was 70* out. I’m afraid winter is here for good. I, however, keep a bedroom window cracked all year round so I don’t feel like I’m suffocating. My John burrows under like Percy the pig in his straw. I tell him if he had some hair he wouldn’t be so chilly!
I, too, love fresh air and leave my bedroom opened a bit even in the winter. Today has been beautiful here in western Massachusetts – didn’t even need a coat. But those days are limited, for sure. I tell you… it sure does’t feel – at least right this moment – that Thanksgiving is just a few days away. But for you, your John and your animals – winter has arrived… FOR SURE!! ; o )
Thinking of Gayle; we assuredly could use more pig lovers and Celi and John lovers in the next Kingdoms!
Yes! Having members of the Fellowship in the Next Kingdoms sounds so grown up!!