Winter Wonder Farm

Yesterday we got eight inches of snow. My driveway is not scraped; my back porch remains icy. Here on the farm, all the shoveling and snow removal is focused on the livestock. Snowed-in farm wives, minivans and sidewalks are not a priority.

A self-proclaimed fair weather farmer, I ventured out today with Morgan, sacrificing my cozy sweatpanted existance to bring you a winter weather farm report. I even caught the farmer out hamming it up (get it!).

By the time I got out there, the shoveling was done and feeding time had begun. These hungry sows (mama pigs) were glad to have a cleaned off spot in their pen to eat dinner.

Right now we are in baby pig season at the farm. I know it seems like a better idea to have babies in the spring, but since we will be selling the majority of the pigs to 4-H'ers for the county fair and to other farmers as breeding stock, we want them mature (250-280 pounds) by August/September for fair season.

Can you believe this sweet little guy will be a big hog in six months?

Or these? I love the little Herefords. Thanks to Husband's hard work, they can come out of the little house they share with their mother and not get buried in snow.

Fortunately, this little one and her brothers love to shovel snow. If I can just get them strong enough to put the snow blade on the John Deere, we'll be all set.

Venturing Out

We enjoyed today what one sleep-deprived meteorologist called an "ice sandwich." A layer of snow covered in ice and then coated with another four inches of the white stuff.

I ventured to the end of the lane to get the mail and newspaper. I guess all that rain, sleet, snow, dark of night stuff is for real--both were delivered on time.

What do tough country kids do when it snows? They put on their Carhartt jackets and head out.

I may have spawned a fair weather farmer after my own heart.

We live on a busy county road, with cars usually whizzing by at 55+ mph. Today, there was little evidence we even had a road at the end of our lane.

Here's the view facing west. I only include this to impress my husband who often laughs at my inability to know which direction I am facing. The little blacktop showing is courtesy of my brother-in-law who scraped the lane and then kept going.

THIS is snow removal country style. Oh, yeah. Of course, Husband spent all day shoveling out the pigs, so my car and little cement pad behind the house remain covered in ice sandwich.

You know you're married to a farmer when ensuring that every animal has a place to poop takes precedent over de-icing the minivan.

Thanks for Reading in 2008

Happy New Year! Thanks for reading this blog.

Thanks to those of you who openly read the blog and bring it up in conversation with my husband who then says I didn't know that. And thanks to those who are closet readers and try to pretend they don't even know I have this blog--I know who you are (can you say Google Analytics) and I am very tempted to out you by posting embarrassing photos of your spouse [just kidding, I think].

And a special thanks to my friend M who started last year at this time urging me to start a blog, so she alone didn't have to hear about how I thought my son felt like an octopus when he was being born.

What a year it has been. We had a a presidential election, a hurricane, an earthquake, and a blizzard and this blog was there to cover it all.

I tried to offer content you couldn't get on other blogs, so I enrolled all of you in remedial agricultural education, including pigs 101 and field trips to the World Pork Expo and the county fair. In covering agriculture I tried to give you special access to exclusive information like the secret code of pig farmers. I worked to broaden your horizons and teach important terminology. I toggled between grossing you out and sharing cute photos of pigs.

I put a lot of myself out there for you, including sharing my compassionate side and my best motherhood wisdom in addition to my thoughts on married life. And sometimes I very gently joked about my husband. Like the time he fought crime.

Oh, and just to keep this blog really from finding a niche, I made "interesting commentary" on PR and marketing issues.

The best compliment I ever had on the blog was from my friend MP who said after reading on her lunch hour I almost shot Diet Coke out my nose. Here's to more ruined nasal passages in 2009!

The Joys of Coastal Living

It's inconceivable that I have just put my kids to bed by candlelight for the third night in a row (OK, their Dad uses a flashlight) because our Ohio home is in its 59th hour without electricity--DUE TO A HURRICANE.

Update: We ended up going a FULL WEEK without power, about 175 hours!

Apparently, we now have all the problems of coastal living: wind gusts, power outages, downed trees, without actually getting to live near the ocean. There was even a surge today when 3,000 food stamp users stormed downtown Dayton for applications to help make up for their fridges of spoiled food.

I never thought I would say this, but THANK GOD our family milks cows 50 feet from my back door. We have been able to tap into the tractor-powered generator that the farm owns to ensure that the milking equipment will run. And there's nothing so soothing as falling asleep to the gentle flicker of candlelight and the sound of a tractor-powered generator outside the bedroom window.

Anyone who has ever lived in an old house can tell you, though, that there is never an easy way to "tap" into anything when you are dealing with electrical and plumbing systems developed shortly after such things were invented. So we have ONE ROOM with full electric and cords stretched through our house that were previously used to power heat lamps in the sow pen.

We had an epiphany today when we realized that by moving the microwave to the other end of the counter, we could have HOT FOOD. Other breakthroughs include moving the toaster to the living room and buying paper plates so we don't have to wash dishes by hand with cold water (no, the water heater and dishwasher didn't make the electrical cut).

While camping out in our own home is a pain, things could have been a lot worse. We were lucky that the tree that fell at the end of our lane didn't hurt anything, especially after our kids' favorite neighbor "Horn" hauled it out of the way.



The tree was so rotten that two halves fell away, leaving a gaping hole in the middle.

My husband's saintly Grandmother also lost part of a big tree and had her little shed upended. Fortunately, her stash of ancient pushmowers was undisturbed.

So far this year, we have survived a blizzard and now a hurricane. This may be the very best time to take up real estate. Apparently, we can offer both skiing and coastal living right here in Ohio.

A Few Moments of Silence for the Frigidaire

My husband thinks that the sole purpose of this blog is to make fun of him. I assured him that I also intend to spend a great deal of time mocking our parents.

Today was supposed to mark the passing of the in-law's 50-year-old Frigidaire. After years of just refusing to die (I helpfully offered to initiate a mercy killing of the Frigidaire while they were out of town), they finally broke down and did the unthinkable--they replaced a "perfectly good" appliance.

They went to see our buddy Jack at Schenck Furniture (Save your jokes. My great-grandmother was a Schenck.) and ordered a beautiful new fridge with the freezer on the bottom and double doors.

But, alas, the blizzard has kept the old Frigidaire in service. And my mother-in-law gets one more week to mourn the passing of an old friend. They have been together a long time. The Frigidaire was a hand-me-down when they were first married 40+ years ago.

The Frigidaire has chilled the fixings for many a Thanksgiving dinner. It has served as the repository for long-forgotten brands of beer. It has absorbed the odors of a plethora of bad leftovers. It's mottled metal surface continues to serve as an ad hoc photo album, children's art gallery, and archive of church softball schedules past.

Frigidaire, I can only hope to have an appliance that serves as faithfully as you did. An appliance so loved that my sons' wives will be bribing the delivery man to ensure I don't stash it in the garage. Thanks for the memories.

Snowed In

Forget the Blizzard of '78. This is the Blizzard of 2008. I can just see my kids someday talking to their kids...

"Back in oh-eight we had a storm so bad they didn't deliver the newspaper for two days."
"Daddy, what's a newspaper?"

Anyway, they finally got enough cabin fever to venture outside. The tiny little thing on the left is our Morgan.