Monday we had no school because of Veterans’ Day. The weather was perfect that day and Daniel, Josiah, and I worked outside most of the day. We put the windows up in the barn to keep the cold out. We put the goose into his winter quarters inside the barn. We cut down an old dead sumac tree by the turkey pen. We trimmed away all the branches overhanging the barn roof. We built a fire and burned all the things we’d cut. We dug up the carrots, pulled up the remains of the cabbage and broccoli plants, and pruned all the elderberry bushes. By three in the afternoon we were done, everything looked great, and we were tired and ready to take it easy the rest of the day.
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| Burning brush. |
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| Digging up carrots. |
Our weather changed drastically during the week. Monday and Tuesday were nice, sunny days with temperatures in the high 50's. By the end of the week we were in the teens at night and had snow on the ground. We’ve finished all that we needed to do outdoors to prepare for winter, so the snow can come now.
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| The beginning of the week. |
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| The end of the week. |
Our skunk saga continued throughout the week. The skunk killed in the road that I mentioned last week was not the only one. There was a second skunk living in the culvert under the road down by the barn. We could smell the stink of it every time we went to the barn or drove by the area. Daniel tried several times to track it down, but had no success – until the end of the week. When the cold front came through on Thursday with it came snow and with snow on the ground, the skunk’s tracks were easy to follow. On Friday night Daniel went out after dark and followed fresh tracks from the culvert up across the yard and then back down to the barn. When he got to the barn, one of the turkeys was out – not a normal behavior after dark when they are usually inside sleeping. Daniel went in the barn and into the turkey pen and saw something moving in the straw in one corner. It was not a skunk. It was a big possum. Possums like to eat the heads off of sleeping chickens. That’s the part that fits easiest in the possum’s narrow mouth and a sleeping chickens is almost comatose and doesn’t seem to realize that a possum is eating their head. So Daniel shot the possum. Then he heard something in the middle part of the barn where the rabbits, goose, and feed buckets are. It was the skunk. He shot it too. Unfortunately, the skunk sprayed before expiring. The barn will smell bad for quite a while. Since then we have seen no further signs of skunk (or possum) activity.
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| The beaver pond with ice on it. |
The snow also revealed other unwelcome tracks in the yard. I knew there were deer coming into the orchard – I’ve seen their droppings – but this deer ( there seems to be just one) likes to wander all over the yard. From what I could tell by its tracks, it always crosses the road down by Blake’s house, comes across their front yard into my meadow, crosses our front yard then goes across the Rapley road to the creek, comes back across the road into my yard on the other side of the driveway, wanders through my two vegetable gardens then out through the orchard into Shillig’s yard before it turns back across Blake’s yard and into the fields across the highway. Deer can do a lot damage to an orchard in winter – anytime of the year actually, but especially in winter when they eat all the lower branches off the fruit trees – so I will have to find deterrents to drive it away. We’ll have to start peeing in the orchard again (just the boys) and I will hang bars of soap in the trees. Living in the wilds can be such an adventure.
Last week on Friday and Saturday the high school performed this year’s musical, “Oz” – an adaptation of The Wizard of Oz. Josiah was the tin man. He did a great job. It was a cute play.
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| Josiah as the Tinman in "Oz." |
We’re home from church now. It’s a cold, gray day. We’ve got a fire burning in the wood stove. I have the electric heater by my desk turned on high. The children are making music in the living room – Daniel on guitar, Hannah on her violin, and all of them singing. It makes me happy. Rumor has it we’re having waffles and gravy for dinner and that makes me happy too. According to the forecast, there’s some bad weather headed our way tonight and tomorrow – a wintry mix of snow and freezing rain. We’ll stoke the fire, pull out the extra blankets, and stay as cozy as we can.
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| My Christmas cactuses (cacti?) in bloom. |
