Another Snow Storm

Okay, I know I should probably be getting tired of this by now, but I'm really not. Snow, I mean. Two weeks ago we were talking about mud season setting in early when we had a really short warm spell. The temperature got up to about 50 degrees and melted the snow into mud on the driveway, but it quickly froze again when the temps dropped back into the 30s. Then last week we noticed that the temps were getting above freezing during the day while still dropping below 32 at night. That's the signal that it's just about time to tap the trees to start making maple syrup. Just as we were contemplating pulling out the buckets and taps, we got two feet of new snow last night. While the temperatures are still getting up in the 30s during the day, the new snow does throw a bit of a wrench in the sap-collecting works. I think we're going to have to pull out the snowshoes to make the rounds. But that's another story for later.

This was the view out my back door looking into our dooryard at about 7am this morning. That's the wonderful spruce tree that is home to an amazing number of small birds. If you look carefully you can see that the snow goes right up to the roof of the house on the right. That's because it slides off the roof on that side, so the combination of snow falling and falling snow.... hm... well, that's where it all meets.

Whit's workshop is in the white barn. Fortunately we can access it from the house. His yellow Ford chariot is lurking under the snow behind the lilac bush there. (That's the bush on the left by the barn. :)

My grandson was amazed when we opened the door for him. We were considering tying one of those orange bike flags to his snowsuit so we didn't lose him when he went out. :)
Chores were an especially fun challenge this morning. Whit is wading through the snow with a bale of hay for the horses. It was still snowing pretty hard when he went out this morning.

I don't really know how we would have cleared the driveway if we didn't have the Ford backhoe. Two feet is a lot of snow in one storm. During the night, we were getting snow at the rate of two inches per hour for awhile. I woke up a few times to no power, but the electric company had it back on by the time I went to make coffee. (Thank you, guys!) Whit wound up spending most of his day helping out our neighbors by either pushing back piles, or late this afternoon he actually had to help pull a plow truck out of a ditch it had slid into.

Iris and her lambs were doing fine. We have a pair of chickens that apparently don't like living in the coop with their kin. They prefer the sheep pen. They look kind of silly wandering around with the lambs, which were very curious about them. :)

Our ram and his buddy were pretty well snowed into their shelter. They're wading through the snow on a path my son beat down for them to get to the gate so they can eat their grain. Tomorrow we'll have to shovel a better path...not so much for them as for us to get their hay out to them, although they'll certainly appreciate it too!

This was part of the reason why the boys didn't get shoveled out. It took us a few hours just to clear off the cars in the yard. And behind pile number one is...my car! :) Thanks for the help, TBear.

For another perspective on the amount of snow, TBear and Jagger stopped on the path to the back door for me to get their picture. (I've been meaning to get that swag off the door since Valentine's Day, but it's still green, and there's still so much snow that it doesn't look out of place enough yet for me to notice until I look at pictures! LOL!)
It's early to bed tonight. It's been a long day of shoveling and playing in the snow with a little school in between. Tomorrow we have to get crackin' at the books again!

A Typical Day in Lambing Season

What's actually typical is that like human births, no two lambings are ever the same. But here's a snapshot of one of those days.

TBear and I drove up to Orono on Friday evening for his first tournament hockey game. I had just sat down in the stands to watch him when my cell phone rang. "You picked a fine time to leave me, Lucille," I heard on the other end. Whit had to stay home Friday night because he had two games to referee and chores to do on Saturday morning. The plan was for him to get up really early, do the chores and hit the road to meet me at the rink in Orono by 8am for the first game on Saturday. I asked him what was the matter. "Sheep number 5 is in labor." Our sheep have ID tags in their ears. Number 5 has a name, honey. It's Iris. Okay, he says, Iris is in labor and I have to leave to go ref a game! Fine, I said, she's a big girl, she'll handle it fine. Just let Rissie know so she can check on her and the lambs. Right. He hangs up. I watch the game for awhile but haven't heard anything from home so I call Riss and ask if she's checked on the ewe. Yes, she said. Iris dropped a sac of fluid but isn't doing anything more. Hm... it had been an hour at least since Whit called. It sounded like there wasn't much progress being made, and perhaps Iris needed a hand after all. I told Riss she'd better check her out. She called me back in a few minutes. By now the hockey moms around me are listening to me as much as they're watching the game. Riss tells me she scrubbed up and felt around. All she can feel are legs...lots of legs, and no heads. After a bit she sorts them out and delivers a sweet little ewe lamb... backwards.

Apparently, Riss was supposed to be making dinner for a friend that evening. I didn't know this when I was talking to her. Her dad is clueless of the situation and in the middle of a hockey game, I'm 110 miles away, and now I'm wracking my brain trying to think of who I can call to just go over and give her some moral support... and maybe take a towel and dry off a lamb or two. I knew Riss could handle this (it wasn't her first time by any stretch), but it's still a little worrisome when you're all alone dealing with multiple births. Deciding on my friend Tammy, who also has some sheep and lives in the same town, I call Riss back. Meanwhile, her dinner date had shown up just after she delivered the first lamb. I guess she handed him the lamb and a towel and turned to help with the next one. Ayup, nothing like showing up for dinner at Whit's End and winding up being a midwife's assistant at a lambing. It's always a good sign when the young man calls again the next day after an evening like that. He was a really good sport. I sure hope he was dressed for the barn... :)
Riss helped deliver and dry off three more ewe lambs before she was done. Quads! Unfortunately, one was stillborn and another was too weak to make it on its own, so Iris only has two now.

Piebald isn't exactly my favorite color scheme. : ) It kind of looks like someone threw paint on the poor thing, but they're all still very sweet. I love this age with the lambs. They're so snuggly. In case you didn't notice, we breed for natural colored wool...black sheep. We get a few white ones, but they're unusual. Surprised? Probably not. : )

TBear and I spent the night at Nutmeg's apartment in Orono. She made us homemade pizza, and her boyfriend had home-brewed beer to go with it. Those are cookbooks on the counter behind her. I don't remember being this creative in college. I don't even remember owning a cookbook until after I was married. I do remember boxed macaroni and cheese (4 for $1), and lots of rice and frozen spinach... : )
The next morning Nutmeg had pancakes and bacon ready for us when we got back from our first game. It was so wonderful to be that pampered! TBear and Dale chilled and played with a new DS game he bought on our way through Augusta. Then we were off to the last game.
Later we took the kids out to lunch at a very nice Japanese restaurant they had chosen, which was another wonderful treat for me. It's been a long time since I've had real Japanese cooking and I enjoyed it immensely. All in all it was a pretty good weekend.

A Walk in the Snow

February vacation for the public schools was this past week, though that doesn't usually affect us. However this particular week we had a snowstorm drop another 10 inches of snow or so, and a nasty virus went through our house with a slightly more debilitating effect. While I wouldn't exactly call it school vacation, TBear wound up spending a few days either in bed or on the couch. However, we had a hockey tournament to go to in Bangor on Friday evening, so on Friday morning, after determining that TBear no longer had a fever, I decided we needed to get out of the house, breathe some fresh air, and see whether or not TBear was going to feel up to playing hockey that evening.

We set off down the road with our dog, Jagger. Shortly one of our black-and-white cats joined us. Usually both of them walk with us, but the other one was in the house, I remembered after we left. He missed out this time, poor guy. The day after the snowstorm was bright and sunny and beautiful. The temperatures were in the 30's so the snow was heavy on the trees.

After we walked down the road and back, we wandered around the farm to see what was up with all our creatures. Our sheep and the horses all prefer to be outside, either eating the hay or lounging on it, and catching some rays.
I walked back behind the big barn to see how Loon and Dimi were faring in their field. They came running for chin scratches. Or maybe they thought I had grain...
Whit was working in the barn behind me as I took this picture. The goats didn't care about what I was doing; they were all curious as to the noise he was making. Notice where they are...inside. They prefer to lounge in the doorway of the barn rather than out in the sunshine.
I broke down and started feeding the birds after the last snowstorm. I always feel so sorry for them when it snows. This marvelous spruce tree in my dooryard is very, very tall. It houses all kinds of birds, and I like to leave the feeders protected under its branches. Those branches also afford an excellent place for the birds to quickly hop into if the cats lurk too closely under the feeder. We have black-capped chickadees, titmice, juncos, sparrows, blue jays and woodpeckers. I saw some finches on the feeder in the front yard under the maple trees. Shhh... don't tell the cats.
After our refreshing walk, TBear decided he was feeling better enough to play hockey, so we packed our overnight bags and prepared to head to Orono.

Tapestry Of Grace Year 1, Unit 2 is done

Last week, we finally wrapped up our second unit of Tapestry of Grace history. We didn't do as many projects for the second unit as we did for the first unit; however, TBear enjoyed the ones we did attempt. Because we tried our hands at weaving and making cylinder seals for the first unit, we didn't repeat those projects this time. However, after looking at beautiful pictures in The Story of Painting by Sister Wendy Beckett the week we studied the early Greeks, TBear wanted to try his hand at painting a fresco. The project turned out to be harder than it looked. First TBear drew a picture, copying a pair of dolphins from a picture of one of the frescoes in the Palace of Knossos, on the island of Crete. Then we mixed up a foil pan of plaster of paris.

While the plaster was still wet, TBear laid the picture gently on top of it and traced his dolphins. That was an interesting race. The paper started to sink into the plaster faster than he could lightly trace.

After carefully trying to remove the picture without lifting up his traced lines or the plaster with it, TBear painted the wet plaster. He had to work fast so the plaster didn't dry before he finished his painting.

Here is the finished fresco. TBear gained a new appreciation for the artists who painted the beautiful frescoes in ancient Greece. And isn't that what the projects are all about sometimes? :)

Another project that interested TBear was creating a map of ancient Israel and her neighbors. Over the course of a few weeks, he continued to add to it. It was fascinating to note the route Joshua took when he went into the Promised Land, and to look at pictures of the geography of Israel and the surrounding countries. The first thing TB did was to denote and color the territories of the twelve tribes of Israel. As we continued to study her ancient neighbors - the Edomites, Moabites, Ammonites, Amorites, Hittites, Philistines, and Phoenicians - TBear added a picture and some pertinent information about each country to his map. I was surprised at how much he really enjoyed this project. It certainly cemented the knowledge he acquired.

Finally, as we wrapped up our second unit with a study of the Phoenicians in conjunction with our study of King Saul and King David, making models of a Phoenician warship and an amphora was too much fun to pass up. Here are the finished products.

From what TBear has indicated, I suspect we'll be doing another interesting map of trade routes and goods in the Mediterranean and mideast as we investigate King Solomon's relationship with the Phoenician traders.

M is for Monday

It doesn't seem so very long ago that TBear was the Sunshine's age when I was trying to do school with Nutmeg and Rissie. My grandson, Sunshine, is visiting us this week, so I had to refresh my memory this morning... What did we used to let TBear do while I was trying to teach new things to his big sisters? Besides his obvious love for his cars, we discovered Sunny likes to color.
So we set him up with his cars and some colored pencils and paper, while TBear worked on his math assignment.
After awhile, Sunny decided he liked TBear's lap better. TBear didn't mind the help with his spelling words at all. He's really enjoying having his nephew around for awhile.

In fact, TBear even informed me that he really likes sharing his bottom bunkbed with Sunny at night. Isn't life grand? : )

A Very Busy Weekend

It seems like it's feast or famine around here. For the past few weeks, life has been ho-hum status quo. However, on Wednesday we had some more snow, which is still actually status quo, except that Whit wasn't around for it this time. That's actually not uncommon either. But anyway, it suddenly got kind of busy around here on Thursday. We had such a nice day watching it snow, drinking hot chocolate (or tea) and working on history projects, that I didn't bother plowing on Wednesday evening. After all, it was supposed to keep snowing all night too. Thursday morning dawned bright and beautiful, as it does around here after our snowstorms, and we needed to leave for a day of co-op and music lessons shortly after 9am. I have to admit, I slightly misjudged how much snow I was going to have to try to push back with our Bolens tractor. (Well, it looked light and fluffy when it was coming down!) Whit made it look easy the week before, when we had about 8" of snow.

I, on the other hand, got the Bolens stuck on a patch of ice coming out of the barn. (No, I don't have a picture of that, thank you.) My neighbor across the street took one look at me behind that pile of snow and very kindly made a quick pass with his plow so I could at least get out of my driveway. However, I was in charge of snow removal this week, by golly, so I backed that traitorous Bolens back into the barn and fired up the Ford backhoe. Forget this messing around business. I was going for the big gun. After about half an hour, I had the driveway and our parking area clear, and we were off and running. You can see the additional snow we got. My cat Schmitty is lurking on the path. Just to the right, out of the picture, is my birdfeeder. I know, I know. I said I wasn't going to feed the birds this winter, but I felt really sorry for the blue jays which were picking at leftover pumpkin seeds in my front yard, and which also had flown into our woodshed to take shelter from the snowstorm. (You want to know how they're finding pumpkin seeds under two feet of snow, don't you? I don't know the answer to that, except that I hear them pecking next to the front door in the morning when it's quiet and I'm drinking my coffee.) So, I filled the feeder for them, but I've also noticed, they're on to Schmitty lurking there. I think blue jays are pretty smart.

On Friday, TBear spent the day at Barnes & Noble, playing music for, and also performing in, two shadow puppet shows. Later in the afternoon and evening, the kids fiddled in the store. It was a fundraiser for the Pineland Fiddlers' trip to Ireland this spring. Our Barnes & Noble donated a percentage of their sales that day to the Fiddlers. (Thank you Barnes & Noble!) In between the 10am puppet show, and the 3pm puppet show and fiddling, TBear sat with me in the book store coffee shop and did his schoolwork. It was actually a really nice day. Look at that boy. Doesn't he look like he's having a good time? No smiling allowed. Well, okay, smiling is encouraged, but they forget sometimes. : )

After lots of hockey on Saturday, I took TBear to a nursing home this afternoon where he and some other Pineland Suzuki students performed some more beautiful music for the patients. This performance has been postponed twice since December due to snowstorms, so it was especially nice that this last snowstorm missed the rescheduled date this time. They did, however, skip playing Christmas music, with the exception of the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah. It was wonderful to see the residents enjoying these kids' music as much as I do.
It'll be nice to go back to school tomorrow. We need the rest. : )