Homesteading 101: The Depths of Winter
It's a Wonderful Life
As most of you know, Virginia got hit hard with snow on Sunday. This storm also brought in a cold front, with temperatures dipping into the low teens at night and barely going past freezing during the day.
It is a little surreal to be watching the state where I was born and raised, that is, California, engulfed again in horrific fires while we battle with the debilitating cold here in Virginia. As California natives with repeated wildfire experiences, our hearts (Jill and Robert) are with the people having to evacuate, people who have lost pets, people who have lost their homes, their possessions, and their livelihoods. As children and young adults, we lived through a few evacuations, including having our horse evacuated when we couldn’t get to him. The fear of not knowing for hours on end if he was rescued or dead was awful. At one point yesterday, watching a news story on horses being evacuated and the newscaster commenting that some most likely perished in a barn - Jill had tears streaming down her face. Horses are magical creatures that depend on us for everything. Seeing them suffer, even horses we don’t know, even virtually, is painful. The memories from our past can hit hard sometimes, and when we least expect them.
But here in Virginia, we prepared for the worst on Saturday and Sunday before the storm. We brought hoses for watering horses into the barns. We brought snow shovels up to the house, put the bucket on the tractor, hung water buckets, got hay and grain ready for the morning, moved buckets in, put shavings into the stalls, fixed a leaky water hydrant, refilled all the stock tanks, put a stock tank full of water into the barn - in case of a power outage, moved the chicken water bucket to the inside of their coop, the list of chores was extensive.
The barn filled with vehicles - in preparation for the snow.
For the house, I split wood, moved it up to the house, and then I stacked it into the greenhouse for easy access to the wood stoves. Jill filled a 20-gallon bucket in the greenhouse with water in case of a power outage. We have learned that if the power goes out, it is nice to have water to drink and to flush toilets with. Of course, we stocked up on food. Which meant a trip to Yoders for milk, eggs and butter as well as to the local grocery.
But here we are days later, and the worst is in the rearview mirror. The power didn’t go out, and all is well. We are still dealing with the lingering snow and cold that sucks the energy out of our bones. Throwing hay, feeding grain, watering, cleaning stalls, monitoring health and plowing snow with the tractor has been our lives for the past few days. Being responsible for eighteen horses is a lot - and of course, Olivia, our farm worker was snowed in - so it has just been Jill and I. Some chores get downright nasty, like bucket watering the horses in stalls while it is below freezing and even snowing outside.
Not to whine, but I spent all day plowing on Tuesday and my feet and hands got extremely cold. So, the gout in my right toe flawed up. Jill’s neuropathy in her foot is also acting up from the cold. But life goes on, and the farm work doesn’t stop due to such stuff. We just get on with it.
Kind of like Emu.
Having taken a walk-about, Gizmo the emu decided that he is not a fan of snow and has spent his snow time reclusing with the horses in the barn.
The Christmas colt is thriving.
Our mare Quieta, who is low ranking in the herd, did not like her one evening spent in the barn on Christmas Eve. So, as many of you remember, we let her outside with the herd again on Christmas day, and she soon delivered the cutest little colt ever on Christmas day. She then decided it was best if we didn’t catch her again. Jill and I tried several times to put a halter on her - but she was having none of it. As in, she would run away, with the foal at her side - as far as she could get from us. In a ten-acre pasture, that is far. Of course, as she would run - the whole herd would run.
For those that have never experienced the “pleasure” of chasing around a horse or a herd of horses in a large, muddy pasture in freezing temperatures - all I can say is lucky you.
So on Saturday, knowing that the storm was approaching, we had to do something to get her in the barn, as her baby was in danger of hypothermia with the snow and cold front coming in.
“You ask a mare, tell a gelding, and discuss it with a stallion ...”
Of course, sometimes, the best course of action is the one that comes with the most drama and work - particularly with horses. We decided to catch the other five mares and their older foals and put them one by one into the barn, which is quite a distance away. That is a total of ten horses to catch. We hoped for the best, that Quieta would soon give up, as her herd left the ten-acre pasture. We hoped that as soon as we haltered Quieta’s dam, Flor and her colt, Quieta would give up and allow us to halter her. She didn’t.
Now, don’t let anyone tell you that mares are drama-free. With each mare we removed, Quieta became more frantic and determined not to be caught. In the end, we haltered the last mare, Tantra, whose filly foal, Utopia would also NOT go through the gate. Sigh. So, we just let Quieta out, and she followed us down to the barn as we walked Tantra. Then, we quickly corralled Quieta and colt into a stall. Whew!
The colt, who we ended up naming Valor (after Tad and Kelly’s horse who passed this summer) has become quite the character. As he will be an “only” child for a while until he is big enough to handle the weanlings, he will most likely be an in-your-pocket kind of horse right from the start.
Anyway, with a couple of hours of stressful work behind us, we had four out of five foals in stalls with their dams. These foals had already started to separate from their mamas, and the window to wean was upon us. Once the foals get to a certain size, their demands for milk begin to take a significant toll on the mares. Plus, they get harder and harder to acclimate to humans if left in the pasture for too long. This was an opportunity not to be missed, so the decision was made to wean. The added benefit would be that all but one foal would be safe in the barn during the big storm. Utopia, the foal still in the pasture, is the daughter of Tantra, our high-ranking mare, so she can go into the run-in shed with her dam.
Of course, as soon as we got all the mares back into the pasture, Maeve - who is our “wild-child”, decided to literally run through the electric gate, and back down to the barn she went. So, we ended up catching her back up and putting her and another mare in a different pasture with a more secure gate. Mares and drama - hand-in-hand.
As Auntie Quieta, who the weanlings all adore, was in the barn, they soon settled down and within 24 hours, they stopped the occasional calling for their mamas.
Weaning the foals was a good decision, but has resulted in a lot more work this week. The horses in stalls have to be bucket watered, stalls cleaned, horses fed, and the foals hand-fed their grain, as the gentling process must start.
Of note - the stallions have all been gems during all of this. With the exception of our escape artist, Quartz - who knows how to both open gates and untie knots. Luckily, we know how to tie better knots - so he has not broken out. Although he never gives up trying.
Warring Birds…
On Sunday, before the snow started, the peacocks and the guinea fowl decided to go to war. The alpha male peacock attacked the two juvenile peas, so they flew up onto the roof of the barn and then into the cedar trees and wouldn’t come down. This also seemed to set the guinea fowl into fighting with each other, and they were also too scared to enter the barn. So Sunday night and Monday, during the snowstorm and beyond, all but one of these avian idiots were freezing outside -without food or water. Needless to say, Jill spent the last three days worrying about them.
One by one, they have made an appearance, but our beautiful juvenile pied peacock and our pied, dove-colored guinea were still missing. Today, both appeared and the peacock is again hanging out with the alpha male bird.
It seems that the peas and the guineas all live to see another day.
So, my friends, it has been a week on the farm.
And we wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.
The raised vegetable beds - asleep in a blanket of snow, but soon to be planted, early spring.
A final note
Today, Jill has decided that the homemade Pálinka (a Romanian hard liquor) -purported to be 55 proof, that MEP Cristian Terhes brought us as a gift is going to be repurposed to make limoncello. The truth is that we generally don’t drink such strong stuff, but we both enjoy an occasional glass of limoncello
This year’s lemon crop has been a true gift and our freezer is loaded with lemons and lemon juice. Already enough for a full year. These are the lemons still left on the trees in the greenhouse:
So, today they get harvested and processed. Made into a drink that will be wonderful this summer, when the as the hot evening sun sets over the farm.
We are blessed with abundance, we just have to use the gifts given to us wisely.
Have a great day folks!
Love your homestead stories. What a treat (aka hard work) to experience; one of God’s many gifts.
Thank you again for sharing your homesteading stories i love this ..