Skiing last weekend to planting cabbages and lettuces this Sunday...
The Brassica harvest from 4 years ago, I'm trying the same varieties again. This Fall's crop failed in spite of my valiant efforts to keep them covered on cold nights.
With the temperatures hovering above freezing for the past few nights, the windows stay open at night and the doors remain open during the day. Deliver upon me my fresh air.
No chance of getting cold at night with my bed warmers.
The biggest cuddler of them all is back with us for another week. 100 plus pounds of Pyrenees mix keeps the toes warm or cuts the circulation off at the knees, depending on how he stretches out.
Not far from the truth!
Apart from my sanity, a few things were lost on the farm over the weekend.
Bella lost her feathers! She has a chronic skin condition that can only be kept under control by keeping the legs shorn, clean and salved with antibiotic cream. I had let her hair grow for a few months hoping the infection wouldn't return. Bad decision, a big flare-up was concealed under 5 inches of hair on her back leg.
Bella is a registered Clydesdale from the Budweiser breeding program. She came to me as a rescue, so I never knew why she had been culled. She is smallish for their standards and she has black on her front leg that would have disqualified her as a brood mare. All Budweiser horses have tall white socks.
From now on, I'll have to be satisfied with watching the Budweiser commercials to see those beautiful flowing feathers.
We're also short 4 chickens from the laying flock. Told you I'd get rid of them!
As suddenly as they'd begun eating their own eggs, they stopped. I surmised that the stress from the cold, boredom and crowding may have contributed to the bad behavior. Was it uncharacteristic leniency or the fact that the freezer is slap full, but they received amnesty. A trip to a friend's farm was granted rather than a trip to the freezer.
Safe and secure in a new home where all chickens become pets. They'd better behave, or I'll dig out my recipe for chicken dumpling soup.
