This morning it is -6F (minus 21C) and still. The sun has come up into a clear brittle slit-eyed sky.
Once again we will leave the animals unbothered for a wee while yet as it is mean to get them up out of their warm beds and into these frigid temperatures until they are ready. Tima will alert us when it is time.
Breakfast will wait a little. They had a big dinner late yesterday.
John went and collected four boxes of food pantry veges from Rhonda. She swaps the bread she collects from the supermarket bread reps (culled from the shelves when it gets too close to its Best By date) for old veg at the food pantry. So the pigs have a number of good vegetable and fruit feeds ahead. And the people get the good bread. Any bread that is past that date comes out here too.
I unpackage all the food quickly – it is only given to us when it starts to go off. And plastic around fruit and veg only hurries the rot. I take everything out of its plastic packaging and drop it into buckets and chop it up in the buckets with my sharp spade. Everything but the feed for today is stored outside on the porch in the environmental freezer. Then thawed and fed out over the next few days. Lots of apples and the ever-present capsicum plus blueberries and zuchinni. And a few boxes of bread of course.
After a little more snow; yesterday was a day of squalls that would spring up out across the tundra and rush through. Ripping at the farm with high winds and blowing snow.
The image above is a storm coming, not a mountain. There are no mountains or hills here. The wind whips up the snow and hurls it through at speed.
I got to the house in time, this time, as behind me the landscape was engulfed in windy whiteout conditions. It was freezing cold. And dangerous. The air filled with excoriating blowing snow.
The cows spent most of the day in the barn. They knew it was not a day to get far from home. Even domesticated cows have better instincts than people.
John’s son came out to help me with waters and wearing all our clothes and two pairs of gloves each we filled buckets with water in the kitchen and carried them out to the barns, over and over again until we got all the barrels filled up. The Tall Teenager who is no longer a teenager but still tall did most of the heavy carrying when I peeled off to feed out. There is talk of the weather going above freezing in the next few days but I am not sure the outside faucet will unfreeze that fast because it drops back to these below freezing temperatures quite quickly.
This weather will have frozen the ground down deep. It is like our old winters this year. Twenty years ago it was always like this.
The prolonged freeze will be good for the fruit trees and the wheat though.
I had soup bubbling on the wood burning stove.
So when I came inside each time the warmth was very welcome.
The first chapter of Wind in The Willows read by me is up and ready for you to listen to when you give yourselves your time out from the day. Do rest. I am finding the news of the world and all these other life stresses – all the challenges we set ourselves – hard to cope with unless I give myself permission to take some proper down time.
Wind in the Willows – by Kenneth Grahame
Chapter One. Leave a like or a comment – this helps a lot with the old algorithm. There are lots and lots of people out there who might want to join us in a little bedtime story. Thank you!
Have a wonderful day.
Take good care.
Celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
26 responses to “waiting for tima’s call to breakfast”
It looks like the pigs are being well fed. Those snow mountains look amazing!
They are literally clouds of snow racing across the plains as high speed squalls . Horrible.
I suppose it’s better than dust, but you wouldn’t want to be out in it!
We had a big snowfall here, last week, almost a foot, and it is slowly melting. But like you, after the next couple of days we get very, very cold again here. The ducks and chickens just look out at the snow and do not venture out. Fortunately with all of our forested land we don’t have mountains of snow racing towards us. That looks quite frightening, I must admit!!!
the chickens here are the same – they will not venture out at all! Same with Wai!
That storm is ominous to see barrelling toward you. That was an amazing catch but I suspect rather frightening to see something like that in person rolling in. Rhonda has been a treasure helping you and getting still usable and good food to the farm for the animals.
she is wonderful. On a break while it is so cold but still gathering the food!
Such an important partnership that you have formed. I know this comes up in posts but perhaps another topic to focus on or discuss as you move through ideas on sustainability- building partnerships/community- how to find and grow those relationships in both rural and city settings. I know CSA’s (community supported agriculture) come and go in my semi-rural area. The local small farmers want to provide for and support their communities but there seems to be a decisive ebb and flow response from people in general and that often isn’t enough to sustain the farmers in a way that they can keep going… anyway- just a thought!
Yes. I am soon to be living in a city as you know so I am sure I will be documenting the methods I use to develop those relationships in an urban environment plus an area like Sunbury with sandy soil and very few farmers markets. It will be interesting.
Very often l think how much l would like to be on the farmy with you, but not right now! I take my hat off to you, or l would if it was not so cold! I rather think Rhonda is worth her weight in gold(well more actually). Good help from John’s son, thank goodness. That wonderful stove.
Rhonda is a gem – but does not like the cold so I hope she will be back when it warms up. Johns son seems immune and is going to be putting in a few more hours on the farm especially after I am gone. So thankful for them both.
Good morning Celi………I pretty much start my day here; reading about all your adventures on the little farm. I must say that it does look “colder than a well-diggers bottom” out there. Ha Ha
Stay warm and cozy inside with that wonderful stove when you can.
Jo
I do try to stay warm but this cold gets right into my bones. I have never much liked the winters here.
That is an amazing haul of food for your critters! I heard a great story out of our schools today that made me think of you. A group has begun collecting the Lost and Found mitts from schools – sounded like well over 20 city schools. (As a former teacher I could well relate to the description of the FULL Lost and Found bins at the end of a school term. We would spread our Lost and Found bin out along the hallway or the gym floor whenever we had a special event for parents. Kids wouldn’t claim things – parents would! Even so each term we had a monster sized bag to go to our local second hand store.) So back to this group. They are collecting the mitts and then finding matches as they combine school bins. For home knit mitts they add a cuff – knit them on – to make a matching pair. The PAIRS are then shared back to organizations that work with schools, food banks and shelters. The woman leading the effort describes it as just another step to keeping items out of the landfill.
that is awesome! What a wonderful initiative! I love hearing stories like that!
that’s intense and I know here in michigan it is supposed to be like this next week. you have such a good system set up with food and water, even though it’s a ton of work. and I’m sure you’re so happy when you come in and see your bubbling soup
yes. The systems are working and getting set up for when I am away. Which makes me feel more confident.
Did you know there are heated mittens/gloves, heated hand warmers, heated socks and heated vests available (saw them on Amazon). They are rechargable and (for me) worth the price. I am going to be getting heated sheets soon, there isn’t much insulation in this room claimed from the former attic and the one heat vent struggles to warm it. I hate being cold.
I hate being cold too – but I just cannot bring myself to buy these things. I am saving hard to get back to my daughter.
I am just remembering that my Italian aunt on the family farm had a stove like this. It never stopped going during the winter months and was the hub of her home.
I had one in a country house I lived in for a few years in the late 70’s. It and this one was everything to the home. The kitchen table became our gathering spot in the evenings.
Do you have a frost-proof water hydrant anywhere? The pipe goes down deep below the frost level, and you can shut the water off down there, which means there’s no water to freeze anywhere above ground. Then you can hook up a hose, water the animals, empty the hose, turn off the hydrant and it’s frost proof again. They cost from US$80-$110 depending on the grade you buy. I hate the idea of you depleting your energies totally by hauling water buckets.
our pipes are about three feet down hopefully below the freeze so they don’t burst. Turning something off down there is not something I have heard of. But thank you for the thought.
I can’t imagine how cold -21°C is.
very very cold.
Oh so cold … brrrh! Great shots of the storm Celi