Around Here in January

My neighbors cows are in the pasture nearest us this week and I just love it. There are three new calves which I’ll try to take pictures of this week.

With the cows lowing to each other and rustling in the dry grass, the roadrunner hanging about in the garden, the wind chimes singing and the chickens’ nonstop conversation with each other while they are shredding leaves for me*, it sounds pretty lively around here. But the light is dim, the winds are cold. (Other than the freak 70 degree day we had last week…) It feels like January. I feel like the big calf above, looking at that frozen pond, wondering if swimming season will ever arrive. For some reason, this feels like a long winter already. We’ve had more cloudy skies than usual. I miss the wonderful Ozark winter sun.

I seem to have re-entered my sleepy winter hibernation…too drowsy to even get my garden seeds ordered yet. I’m going back to my cave…

*Need someone to shred those tough oak leaves still hanging around your yard? Hire your chickens! Just toss dry leaves up to a couple of feet deep in their pen, toss on the scratch corn, and the shredding will begin. The girls have a great time scratching and rearranging the piles of leaves while looking for corn that slipped through. After several weeks, the leaves will be down to a few inches of beautifully shredded leaves, ready to use as a no-blow-away mulch, or as the beginnings of a great compost heap. Photos to come.