A night away

Christmas day was filled with family, fun, and delicious food. We celebrated with Dave's parents, his sisters and their families. Dave's Mom and Dad called at 12:45 to say they were just leaving and would be arriving a couple of hours late. Their late arrival created a long downtime since it was too early to cook. My Christmas present from Dave was a popcorn popper, so we made a bunch of popcorn, ate some of Dave's amazing Christmas fudge, and enjoyed one another. It ended up being my favorite part of the day.

Christmas dinner was wonderful! Dave deep fried two small heritage turkeys, a Naragansett and a Red Bourbon; they tasted fabulous. Amy and I used quite a few of the vegetables from my Stella Gardens winter CSA box. We had gingered beets, caraway cabbage with apple and onions, carrots with mustard and butter (Nathaniel's favorite), creamed spinach, mashed potatoes, salad, and freshly baked bread. For dessert we had more fudge and Betty's Christmas cookies.

On Christmas Eve our neighbors came over to meet the dogs and learn my chore routine, since their daughter was doing chores for me one morning and evening on the 26th and 27th. Their help meant we could spend the night in Northbrook for Zachary's final performance and Ken's (Dave's Dad) surprise birthday party.

Jackson was pushy enough with our visitors that we decided to keep the dogs in their outdoor kennel. Although the kennel has an insulated dog house (rated to -40 Dave likes to remind me), I still don't like to leave them out in the winter. We discussed with K. that we would hook up the dog's heated water bucket, and that I would leave extra water with all the other animals so that they would not have to carry water.

I thought I would be able to leave extra water by the animal housing because for some reason I misread the weather report and thought the 30 to 40 degree weather would last through Sunday. Sunday morning I awoke to 16 degree temperatures. Extra water would turn into huge ice cubes.

We planned to leave at 7:00am so I started my animal chores at 6:00am. The heat lamp and water heater were not working in the chicken house so their waterer was frozen shut. I spent twenty minutes trying to fix the electrical problem on my own and then decided to ask Dave for help after I finished with the goats.

Dave was able to quickly fix the electrical problem in the chicken coop since the solution involved plugging the system back into the main outlet. I tried not to feel too foolish. I had been carefully checking each of the cords to be certain they were well seated in the outlet, I merely failed to notice that they were no longer plugged into the power source. Clearly electricity is not my strong point.

While I was doing my chores, Dave had been trying to find the heated dog bowl. We both remembered seeing it on the back porch near the grill earlier in the week. Unfortunately, six inches of snow had fallen and then frozen hard. We both took turns shoveling sections of snow off the porch until feeling overwhelmed with the apparent futility of our quest, we gave up. I placed a bucket of water on a cat bed heating pad inside a dog crate against the inner wall of the dog kennel. When I returned home I discovered that my ingenious solution had not worked. K. had added one of her heated water buckets to the kennel and my bucket of water was resting on the heating pad frozen solid. K. had lowered a heated bucket from her farm into the kennel with the dogs. My heartsank when I saw the extra work my missing dog bowl had caused.

We had a wonderful time in Chicago and were so grateful to our neighbors for how well they cared for our animals despite my errors in judgement. Apologies, apologies, apologies.

As for the dog bowl, it is still buried in snow, hopefully it will reappear in the Spring!

Oh my goodness, Momma pride is so big! Watching Zachary shine on the stage in the ballet this week feels like a big wallop of emotion every time. I am proud and teary and thrilled all at once. I feel so blessed by this little boy who is dancing his heart out with joy and excitement. Zachary is the one in the center of the photo.

I am back home for the day and am cleaning the house this morning, which apparently includes checking email, making unnecessary phone calls, and writing my blog.

This morning's work involved more coop care than I planned. The chicken waterer was suspiciously dry this morning. I glared at the ducks but they did not seem bothered by my attitude. I think it was warm enough yesterday that the ducks splashed and bathed in the water soaking their necks, I am sure, but also unfortunately saturating the shavings in the coop. I filled a rubber tote with the wet shavings, added a new layer of fresh ones, rebalanced the watering table and moved the heat lamp a little higher in the pen. The shavings are getting deeper, plus earlier this week a hen was basking under the lamp long enough that the coop smelled mildly of burnt feathers. Not a pleasant scent.

Both dogs accompanied me on my chores this morning and were thrilled to have me home again. They are both curled up inside even happier to have the run of the house while I am home.

When we lived in Houston, I took my boys camping, went to the zoo, grew herbs and planted flowers in the garden all with an eye toward exposing them to nature. Now, we are immersed in it.





The boys continue to love camping but we tend to do much less of it, since we can sit outside around the fire every summer night here at home. Zachary looks forward to spring and some time midwinter asks when we get to play in dirt again. Zachary helps me fill wheel barrows with compost every fall and spring.

What is really different these last two years are all the hours we are spending driving Zachary into Chicago. Zachary loves to dance and has been taking dance lessons since he was five. Last fall, Tina Lendman (his dance instructor and the owner of our local dance school, The Dance Factory) suggested that Zachary attend the audition for the Joffrey Ballet's Nutcracker in Chicago. We almost didn't go but she reminded me of the audition and since I had a flight to catch out of Chicago that day, we decided to make it a family trip. We thought we were practicing auditioning, but the Joffrey invited Zachary to be in the ballet. Another little girl from Wisconsin was invited and we decided to accept the offer and carpool together. Both Zachary and Paige were dolls last year and they loved the experience so much, that we returned to audition again this fall.

Zachary is a party guest in The Nutcracker this year and performed for the first time last Friday. It is so thrilling to watch our sweet boy on stage. In order to be part of this experience we do end up spending quite a few days away from the farm.

Dave and I take turns driving to Chicago. Since I am usually home during the week, I drove for the second consecutive weekend last week, just before the big snowfall. Saturday, Zachary rode with Paige and her family. I had a full day on the farm and was able to finish covering the beds in the second garden with goat bedding compost topped with a mix of mulched leaves and grass.

Saturday night, Dave asked me for a list of things I would do, if I had the chance to be home on the farm. When I came home late Sunday, Christmas lights were strung across the front of the house, our mini-hoop house full of kale and chard was covered, the chickens had a heat lamp, excess feeders left over from last months turkey exodus were collected, and the now empty chicken tractors were moved to their winter locations. All the chores on my list were done! A particularly amazing task when you consider that I almost always plan to do more than I can accomplish in one day. Perhaps, if I always make my list on days I don't expect to have anytime on the farm, the list will be more reasonable. Or perhaps the fact that I was making the list for someone else led me to make a more appropriate list. Plus, Dave is a very hard worker.

The Christmas lights were a surprise and are the first ones Dave has hung since we moved here four years ago. No one sees our home from the road, so it was a present just for us.

Tuesday, we had a winter storm warning. I finished covering the door on the chicken house, brought in the last two electric fences, and stocked up the grain and hay in the goat house and chicken coop. I then loaded Zachary, my knitting and warm winter clothing into my van and headed for Chicago. We were leaving a day early to beat the storm. Zachary had rehearsals and then performances Wed-Sat of last week and we were moving in with my sister-in-law Amy and her family for the duration.

Thursday, my parents flew in from Chicago to see the ballet. My van although a Honda Odyssey is really more of a farm vehicle than a family car. I did clean trash, toys, and extra jackets out of the car before we left but with the loss of one day, never vacuumed. My parents kindly did not comment on the layer of grain, hay particles or the light eau de barnyard that permeates the van. Fortunately, due to the snow, the exterior part of the van was no longer blatantly dirtier than the average car on the road.



The storm dumped about 12 inches of wet snow on our farm and Dave said his morning chores on Wednesday took much longer than he had planned because of the time involved in trudging. I think this is my grateful to Dave post, as once again those chores, I so blithely referred to as Dave's a sentence or so ago, are actually the chores he does for me anytime I am off farm. I feel very fortunate that whether my trip is for one of the children or just for me, Dave gracefully steps in to do the work of caring for the animals on the farm. It is particularly kind of him because he doesn't really enjoy the goats. When I am home and caring for the animals, no matter how much I may not feel like heading out the door to do my chores, the animals are inevitably a bright spot in my morning. Goats like routine so they are less likely to be as cooperative for him, refusing to come in, butting him for not being me etc.

I drove home Thursday night to see Nathaniel perform in his school band. Actually, since Nathaniel is a percussionist and stands at the back of the stage, I mostly imagined seeing Nathaniel as I listened for his contribution to the beat. Hearing him play the snare drum was really quite exciting.

Nathaniel and I loaded his backpack into the car and headed back to Chicago after the performance. I am learning a bit about commuting and can say that I am happy that I don't do it on a regular basis.

We attended Opening night on Friday with my parents and Aunt Debbie. This trip was her gift to my parents this Christmas, and was truly a gift to our whole family. We said good bye to our extended family and drove home late that night so we would be home for the animals on Saturday. We will return to Chicago several more times for the ballet and I am looking forward to the times I will be in the audience.

However, I am happy to have several quiet days at home this week. I have work to do for Farm Beginnings, knitting to do for Christmas, some batches of soap to make tomorrow, but this pace feels slow and easy compared to the pace of the past three seasons. I wish I had trimmed the raspberry canes, and composted the flower beds by the apple trees, but spring will come or a winter thaw and I will tackle those projects with renewed energy and enthusiasm. I have promised myself that my winter projects such as organizing the soap room, and cleaning the pole barn, will not appear on my to do list until January.