Our first blizzard

We got about 15 inches of snow on December 20th at the farm. I was stoked! It was an opportunity for me to  bunker down in the house and work on craft projects. Neal braved the weather and drove to work. Catherine got a bunch of projects done both indoors and outdoors.

View from the cupola

The lodge

Another view from the cupola

The coop looks tiny here

Corn crib and garage

Love the way this tree looks

We toured the property

Neal loves our new snow shoes

The snow was so deep in the drifts

Pretty

Back by the walnut trees

View of the fields by Catherine

We created a few paths the places we use often

The ol' corn crib

Also pretty

Neal's pigpen snow angel

I made a scrap rug with all our old jean scraps. It should help warm up the place a touch. I found a similar pattern on the internet a while ago... check it out if you need more detailed directions.

Start by removing all the seams and holes and dirty spots

Cut strips about 1/2 inch thick

You could roll this into a ball,
but I just did one section at a time to save a step

Use a large crochet hook and follow the pattern of your choice

Final product... needs to have a heavy object
placed on it to flatten it out

Let's Get Jacked Up

As some of you may know, the floor in the lodge had some major dips in it. Catherine's friend, Jim, gave us some advice on how to jack up the house and sister new joists on to the old ones. David lent Neal a hand in December while he visited us during Christmas break. They report that it wasn't as gross under the lodge as you would think, but they kept running into snags (like new 2X8's being too long for the building, etc). Neal finished the next weekend. We're grateful for the help we received, the knowledge we gained, and that the project is finally over since it's getting a bit cold out!

We will probably add some insulation under the floors at a later date. Just have to work up the motivation again.

Here are some pictures that chronicle the progress.

The original sag in the floor at its worst

Not level... but that might be a bit more permanent

"X" marks the spot

Getting supplies from the barn

The entrance to the cave

The plans

More plans

Good thing Neal enjoys caving

David worked on a side project

I was "helping" by offering encouragment

We found some extra jacks

David getting involved too

Inner Workings

I promised some of you a peek inside the buildings. 

Popcorn on the cob is delicious, but if you reuse the brown paper bag in the microwave,
it starts the whole thing on fire... oops

Catherine has a great potting shed that we can use to get our seeds started this year

Another view of the potting shed and various tools

We may have to replace the plastic on the shed since it's a bit ripped

Lodge after Neal sanded and applied polyurethane to the floors

Kitchen view with all of our stuff out of the way

Had to put our stuff on the shelves and out of the way

View of the loft from the front door

The wood stove really heats up the place

Lower barn where I believe Jersey cows were originally kept

Catherine's family kept pigs in here at one point

Now it's being used for storage

Freezer Chickens

Well, it wasn't pretty, but we finally harvested eleven of our laying hens. This brings our total number of laying hens down to 25 (yeah... if you do the math you realize that we always had one more chicken than we thought... oops).

Catherine's friend, Rose, helped us pick out the ones she thought were least likely to be laying (she did pretty well, too... only 2 out of the 11 had formed eggs in them). Then she came back the next day and taught our "Motley Crew" (her words, not mine) how to properly harvest chickens. The whole process took about four hours from start to finish.

Many thanks to our friends for all the help! Enjoy the pictures below... don't worry, I won't post the more gruesome photos :)

Pat and Catherine learning the ropes

Waiting...

I think this is the heart

Lots of friends helping out