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
The Kitchen's Garden 
36 responses to “House – Work in a Windy Barn”
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!!