Wood Stove Season

It snowed!  It was just a dusting, and didn't stick around long, but I think it finally settled in my mind  that the summer is over. 

Brandon spent hours last weekend chopping firewood from a fallen tree.  The tree fell from our wood line into the neighbors hay field.  It lay there for several weeks before someone used their tractor to push it from the field into the trees.  Brandon fought through the brush to claim it for firewood.  He thinks we already have enough wood stored from his efforts last fall to squeak through the winter, but he gets antsy without a surplus.  This new wood isn't seasoned, so it will be best if we don't burn it this winter unless we need to.  

That old saying about firewood warming you twice is true, he was overly warm from his efforts to saw and chop the tree, and and we haven't even burned it yet.  He was sore from all that chopping too, but the strength that comes from all the effort is just a bonus.  

Just look at the moat around the mobile chicken coop.  If I miss my dry path to the door, I slosh through the mud that softened up by the moles who excavate here.  Brandon curses and threatens the moles when he stumbles in their excavations, but I find moles so interesting I don't mind sharing our soil with them.  I like to envision a whole different world inhabited by strange predatory creatures under our feet.  

After the snow melted and the puddles dried up, I blocked the big chickens from using the mobile coop, and set it up as a shelter for my baby birds that have been living in the greenhouse brooder.  I stapled tarps over the open sides, filled the bottom with a thick layer of dry hay, stretched extension cords all they way from from the outlet in the barn, and hung a heat lamp, feeder, and water bucket.  I was so proud of my work I was convinced Brandon would mention the tidy job I did with the tarps.  As we took our evening walk he looked at it and said "You managed to make that ugly coop even uglier." What!?! 

Well, the chicks appreciate my efforts anyway.  The big Red Ranger chicks weren't too hard to catch to transfer to the mobile coop, but those little white leghorns are like canaries.  They fly!  And they run really fast.  They scrambled so hard to escape me that they kicked up dust in the brooder and I had tie a bandanna around my face to keep from choking on the chicken dust.  At night the little white birds are centered under the heat lamp with a ring of big red birds on the outside of the cluster.  I think they like their new digs, and are learning to jump onto the perches.  

At night the coop glows red from the heat lamp.  When I approach to look in the window all the chicks scatter and squawk like I'm the big bad wolf.  It makes me miss Helen and Mrs. Hall, my first chicks who were raised in a box in the house, and were so tame I could pick them up and feed them by hand.  

I hope the chicks enjoy the heat from their lamp as much as the house cats and I enjoy the heat from our wood stove.  I love wood stove season so much I can welcome the winter.  Do you love your wood stove too?    

New Bus Door

This morning the world was coated in a thin layer of ice, and under the crispy ice shell the ground was saturated, making each step slurpy with mud.  Despite the cold I felt warm inside my down jacket as I trudged through the mud to deliver hay to the goats and donkeys.  I had to break the ice on the latch to the greenhouse door so I could tend the baby chicks in the brooder.  The bed of lettuce survived the freeze, and the chicks were content under their heat lamp.  Wendigo waited patiently in the cold rain, knowing her breakfast was coming soon. 

It's nice to look at the colorful leaves on the trees in the photos I took several weeks ago when we visited the blue bus.  The leaves are off the trees now, and the ice crust on every branch is making it harder for me to deny that winter has arrived.  We were lucky to get two nice weekends in a row free to visit the bus, enjoy the views, host a picnic, and do some much needed maintenance. 

Our closest neighbor to the bus let us know that people had been visiting the bus.  We already knew we had hosted uninvited guests, because we had to clean up the trash they left behind.  Having a door that wouldn't latch must be the same as an open invitation!  We replaced the broken door with a new door, made from a piece of painted plywood, with sheets of metal screwed on to protect it from the weather. 

Our old door had more of a cute cottage look, and the new door has more of a Mad Max aesthetic!

We have decided to revamp the bus interior too.  In years past I've had fun decking it out like a little cottage as our frequent weekend get-away.  These days, we don't even want to get away!  We haven't camped at the bus since we moved to the farm, and the furniture inside is dingy with neglect and moisture.  Not to mention whatever cooties the guest might have left behind.  So, we took out the iron cook stove that was never used, the futon, the chairs, and sink.  We are rethinking how we want to use the bus now that our lives have changed.  It's likely that our bus visits will continue to be short day time trips that focus on being outside among the trees. 

We swept the leaves from the deck and from the top of the bus.  Brandon says the view of the river is best from up top.  I wonder how hard it would be to build a deck on the roof?