News in Brief

Today the temperatures were up into the 50's F. The baby was asleep, the other two kids were occupied... I saw an opportunity and I went for it.

I started what will be a very long process of cleaning out the barn. This winter has been long already. Not extreme, but long. We haven't caught many breaks. And the barn has become a big frozen mess.

Is it weird that I was looking forward to cleaning out a barn stall? Is it weird that, though I got pretty filthy in the process, and it smelled pretty bad, that I was happy to do it? Is it weird that I'm exhausted, but I don't mind?

There's something satisfying about tangible results. You should see the size of the pile of future compost I made today. You should see the size of the ice cube I extracted from the watering trough. (It's about 4 feet long, 1.5 feet wide, and almost a foot thick. It weighs approximately one Volkwagen. I hope that cow appreciates the effort, though I wouldn't bet on it.

The chickens even gave us two eggs. They've only just started laying again, after shutting it down back in mid-November. Of course Amelia found them on the drying rack in the kitchen and dropped them on the floor. But if we're very lucky, tomorrow or the next day we can resume eating the Best Eggs Ever.

The barn is not clean. But it's cleaner than it was yesterday. Meadow has fresh, unfrozen water in significant quantities. And I don't have to haul buckets or come up with ever more creative ways of providing it.

I guess pushing bits around on a computer for 40 hours a week has some major advantages, but strangely, I find I'd rather be shoveling cow shit. Which is good, since there's plenty more where that came from.

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