Tuesday, December 6, 2016

Countdown to Christmas

Christmas is nearly here and I am, as usual, nowhere near ready. We have the tree set up and the house is - for the most part - decorated but that's about it. I am still frantically working on the fourth needlepoint Christmas stocking and am optimistic (if not realistic) that I will finish it in time for Christmas. 

Unfortunately I cannot devote all of my time to working on it because there are the usual Christmas tasks to take care of as well: make the candy, bake and decorate the cookies, shop for gifts and wrap them, deep clean the house, make the Christmas treats for the dogs, deliver food gifts to the neighbors, etc, etc. And then there is the daily life that goes on here on the Unfarm. The animals still need to be fed, watered and cared for, the dogs need to be walked, the chickens need to be let in and out of the coop each day, the eggs gathered from the nest boxes and the surprise nest at the back of the shed that we discovered the other day, the duck pools need to be cleaned and the duck diapers washed and dried, the rabbits let out daily and supervised so that they don't get into too much trouble, and the mouse cage cleaned out regularly to name a few. 

On top of all of that we have a winter storm warning for the area which could bring snow but will likely only bring freezing temperatures with my luck. Snow is one thing: it makes everything so fresh and white and quiet (and the dogs love to play in it) but ice or freezing temperatures is quite another - all that does is make life of the Unfarm more difficult. Walking the dogs becomes a hazard with the ice and the duck ponds freeze over which means Minna decides that she and Maggie will be staying in the house until the ponds thaw out, and the rabbit litter boxes start accumulating on the back deck because there is no way to clean them out with the hose frozen solid. In my humble opinion, if you are going to have the inconvenience of freezing temperatures you should at least have the fun of snow, but then the weather never asks for my opinion.

A few updates from the Unfarm, in case you are interested: Lucy is still insisting on sleeping in the little coop by herself. We are beginning to think that maybe she just gets stuck out in the yard after dark and heads to the nearest shelter instead of trying to fly over the fence to get to the regular coop. And Ginger shows no signs of being willing to bond with Sprout, and her weight loss is - much like my own - slow going. Sigh.