Our friend

Our friend has returned. He is over 7 years old now (we've known him for 7 years) and he has only one eye left... He returned this December after not seeing a sign of him for a month, with a big gouge in his nose. But he's in good shape otherwise. It's difficult not to hold your breath when you see something so beautiful. He's an old friend now, part of our family. He looks like an Elk now with the height of his antlers. 

Yesterday we split wood all day. It's been very wet and damp out and my barnyard is turning into a mud hole. I'm not loving the mud, I'm ready for it to start freezing at least a little because mud makes chores difficult and the animals hate it.  We filled our wood box up with another face cord which should get us to Christmas or very close to it, depending on the weather.

 

Today it's snowing, wet snow, which isn't really staying on the ground. I was hoping we'd be able to get out and get our Christmas tree but it's way too wet right now, so we'll hold off a little longer. Instead we are working inside by the fire and I'm going to try and finish my Christmas cards and do a little baking.

So far December has been pretty wet and pretty muddy... I've even brought all my hoses in the barn yard back out, no worries about them freezing lately. As far as we can tell the warm weather will continue next week - a little below freezing at night, but way above normal for this time of year. At least it's pretty outside with the little snow we have, and there has been no plowing or shoveling yet!