Antsy

Still four feet of snow pack everywhere (it's an official 3 wire winter), and a couple of warm days have got me stirred up. Can't stop thinking bout diggin' in the dirt. Looking at the satellite it looks like pacific moisture will continue to get pumped our way by dominant northwest low pressure. That means lottsa more snow yet. 500" here we come. Pouring over all the seed catalogs, I want everything. From amaranth to zinnia.

Fresh

What is sustainable?

Can you afford to continue to support the industrial food system?

111"

This November closes out as our snowiest on record! 111" of snow and it's still coming! Gotta love La Nina. The ski hill opened on Nov. 24th with top to bottom skiing and not just one white ribbon of death. Pretty much the whole mountain was accessible with some hiking. There was so much snow before opening day that we just had to hike up and get some. After a long slog up we were rewarded with a mountain of possibilities, the whole place to our selves and knee deep powder everywhere.
We made a few of laps and then came back for more a couple of days later. The first real powder day came on Monday morning with a 15" dump. What a day! Tuesday brought another 10". Now I remember why I live in steamboat!

Are you ready?

"Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather. "-John Ruskin. Well winter has quickly encompassed the Yampa Valley. The snow is waist deep at the summit of the ski hill and there's about a foot to kick around in town. Been snowing for six days now. Nothing gets your butt in gear like a good dose of winter. Snowmaking season starts today. Wow time is really flying. Loveland and A-basin ski areas opened last weekend. We'll be spendin' the weekend cutting, splitting, and stacking our winters supply of fire wood. Hopefully around 10 cords. Just trying to get a few odds and ends done before the ground completely disappears. Winter's here! Are you ready?

Fall's Here

"Autumn wins you best by this, its mute Appeal to sympathy for its decay."-Robert Browning Hamilton. Things are winding down in the garden. Just trying to get the beds cleared and tilled where needed. The flocks are headed south. Cardinals, blue jays, and eagles are touring the fall colors. It snowed on the ski hill yesterday and this morning! Even groppled at the house for a moment. Hauling wood here and there. Love the smell of a fire in the stove. Leaves have peaked and are falling fast. Plan to carve pumpkins this week. Chickens are laying a dozen a day. Time to find the winter clothes. Flannel and fleece where are you? Chicken and dumplings for dinner. I love fall.

Farm Drama

"Don't grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form." - Rumi. Been a tough couple o' weeks here at the barn. On Labor Day the overnight temp dipped to 23 degrees Fahrenheit. Cold 'nough to freeze everything pretty hard. There wasn't really enough stuff left to take to Farmer's Market so we skipped out on the final weekend. The next morn' (Sept 7) a bear broke into the chicken run after we'd left for work. She managed to get four before the neighbors chased her off. She came back again the next night and got into the coop. The neighbors woke us up at three-thirty in the morning. " There's a bear in the chicken coop! There's a bear in the chicken coop!" We jumped out of bed, grabbed flashlights, the rifle, the hatchet, a couple pots and pans, and roman candles and ran outside into the pitch darkness. We got to the chicken coop and peered in the window. Lots of feathers but no bear. We searched around but couldn't see anything so returned to the coop to survey the damage. Looked in the window again and there she was. A huge sow in the entry way munching on chicken. Should have shot her right then and there! She looked up at us and turned towards us. "Here she comes, RRRun!" We r-u-n-n o-f-t, and Kaya dog chased her into the bushes. Lit a roman candle off and shot it that a way. We could hear her cub cross the field screaming. Spent the rest of the morning standing guard. She hung around in the bushes till about seven then wandered off. Lost 7 chickens total. I'll spare you the graphic pictures. It could a been a lot worse if it weren't for the neighbors. We owe them big time. The next couple of days were spent shoring up the fence and coop, and installing an electric fence around it. Haven't seen hide nor hair of the bears since. And if that weren't enough, on Tuesday (Sept 14 ) Sweet Pea Produce, the only source for locally grown whole foods in the valley, got shut down by the county. I got there after work to pick up a couple of cases of canning tomatoes and there were people and produce everywhere! Talked to the owners a bit and they were like get it while you can, everything's got to go, we'll give it to you for cost. So I came home with 6 cases of maters, a case of apples, case of pears, case of peaches, two cases of corn, and a bunch of groceries. It's all got to be canned or frozen ASAP. On a positive note, found the camera. The aspen leaves are just starting to turn. Fall is in the air. What a beautiful time of year!

Fall's a coming

Sorry that we haven't posted in a bit. We lost our camera and we're good at writing captions and letting the picture tell the story but not so great at telling that story with words. Just business as usual here. Been to the farmer's market each weekend and doing well with it. It' a good feeling to sell out of stuff and then think of all the people out there enjoying the food we worked so hard to make. The chickens are fully grown and getting ready to start laying. How do you tell a rooster to shut up? 'Bout ready to put an add in the paper that says: "Free rooster to ANY home. Cute." Whats your favorite part of summer? Our is the fresh fruit! Melons, pears, berries, and peaches are in right now and what a year for them! We had our first frost this past week on August 24th. That puts our frost free period at 61 days this year. Not much was affected by it. Lost the pumpkins and some squash. Well gotta run but we'll try to get some pictures up just as soon as we can get a new camera. Peace in the Middle East!