January, are you there?

 

Since Saturday, the weather has been really, really, nice. Warm, sunny... pretty much everything you'd not expect for this time of the year.  On Saturday we actually had a sun shower... yes, that's right, a sun shower. I kind of stood outside the barn confused as to whether it was indeed January or rather mid-late March. The animals, like us, have been enjoying the sunshine and the nice days.

 Over the weekend, the drama in the barnyard continued between the feuding lovers, Snick and Maggie.

Snick spent sometime looking for love in all the wrong places.... with Beatrice. He tried to woo her by showing off his feathers and his snood... but she fell asleep in the sun.

 Meanwhile, I think I found out who Maggie had her one good eye set on... 

 Hmmm... I caught her checking out this younger fella...

Snick caught her checking out this younger fella too and came over to stand his ground. 

He tried to discuss the situation with Maggie... 

But she just turned her back to him and walked away. 

Poor Max tries to stay out of all the drama in the barnyard, but he always seems to get dragged in to it. 

 

Can you please help, I don't want to be involved in this love triangle! 

 Lambie says, "did you say treats?"

 Max says "come on, you know you want to rub my tummy!"

Brie passing by her brave guardian wondering why he's lying on his back... 

Even the chickens actually came outside for a bit, after a lot of contemplation... 

 Douglas really hasn't been too worried about taking advantage of this nice weather, he figures there will be other chances. So mostly he's just continued playing with toys, and napping when needed to replenish his energy.

Today it was warm but the wind was cold and it was for the most part over cast with brief periods of sunshine. When I went outside to do my morning chores I found this guy - he's alive, just curled up because he didn't really appreciate me picking him up. He's not supposed to be up and about right now but the warm weather is confusing a lot of the wildlife. Our farm helper said he actually saw a Robin in his yard today! 

Yesterday we ran to town to load up on animal feed and also to buy some more lumber for our sugar shack project. Today we took advantage of the weather and went to work finishing the floor. 

Kevin cut the blocking that goes in between the joists at the house, up on the deck and then we headed over to the wood yard, which is the new home of the sugar shack - which will be handy during sugar time... we won't have to carry wood very far and if we find extra time and energy to start piling wood up, we have somewhere to put it.

We got all the blocking done and then put the flooring down... 

Kevin got the floor screwed down and then we just covered it with tarps for now... The grey spot is where the cement blocks are that the maple syrup evaporator will sit on, so it's not sitting on the wood floor. Next we'll start building the walls.

Everything is frozen, but just barely, so it makes for fairly easy working, not mushy, but not too frozen that you can't work with things or move them around when you need to. The cement blocks were frozen but Kevin was able to break them loose... they need to be leveled still - but we'll just do what we can, when we can. We are hoping to start the walls tomorrow.

one view from the sugar shack

The deer have been using the pond to walk on now - I've only seen does out there, but they are walking on it, so that's a good sign. I think I'll wait for it to get a little colder before I start trying it myself.

Last week when I was finishing putting away our Christmas village, I realized something about the temporary table we set up to put it on... That it would make a great spot for me to set up my crafts! It's actually worked great, I've got a good work area and a great view, and it's left my other table free for me to set up my sewing machine.... I am hoping to find more time to spend working on crafts and creative things, like writing, drawing, beading... and also learning how to use my sewing machine. I've made pillows and a few small things with it, but not having a place to keep things set up has always made me just not think about it... so now it's out, my materials are where I can get them and it's time I learned how to properly use it. My patience levels are too low since it's all new to me, and I'm easily at a loss with how to keep the machine running smoothly... For example, the bobbins are the bane of my existence right now. 

My mother used to enjoying sewing by hand and was great at it but as far as I know, that gene wasn't passed down to me, but maybe it's there and I just need to flex it, like an unused muscle. 

After working on the sugar shack all afternoon, I meant to take a run out to check my trail cameras, but I had too much work in the barn and I wasn't done until after dark. Sammy, my sweet, angel, goat... likes to smash his gate up in the morning while he's waiting for me to let Izzie the cow out. So I had work to do on that and pens to clean. I'll have to try and check them tomorrow to see if there is anything new.

Early Saturday morning the big dogs woke us up at 4 AM by their barking - that rarely happens, but they were barking right at the house gate... then not 20 minutes later we heard the coyotes calling right outside our bedroom windows... they were right at the house. They came back Sunday and were running the deer - a few of our deer were missing for over a day.... one of them was Buttons and his friends and we feared the worst - but they have all returned safely since. No one is missing.

I've been wanting to go to bed since about 8PM, I haven't been this tired this early in a long time. I started reading a new book which has pulled me in and I'm not finished the first chapter yet. Historical Fiction usually does that to me, along with travel/adventure novels....this story has caught my interest, along with it's characters. I'm looking forward to reading a page or two before I fall asleep... I'd like to read more, but I know that's not going to happen, I'm almost asleep now and I'm not even in bed yet!

The best thing I ever started doing was reading a couple of pages of a book I'm really involved in before I get up in the morning to make coffee... The urge is there some days to stay in bed with the book all day, I won't lie, but I love how reading a couple of pages keeps me thinking all day throughout work of getting to read more before bed, to find out what happens next. There are few things in life that compare to a good story... a life without books wouldn't be much of a life at all. And with that, good night and happy reading!