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We are here amidst yet another storm today, so far the snow stick is at 20″ from 15″ yesterday and it is snowing to beat the band!
Webster is grooving around the fire and has come to love chasing a piece of dental floss (clean, yes!) with a small knot at the end. Simple and very exciting! Shelley and Sidney are in heaven with the snow also.
We cleaned out the snow in the sheep area today to give them more loafing area…it had piled up the past 4 weeks, In fact We NH has now broken the all time snowfall record last met in 1876 with the total snowfall for December at 48″. How about that! Off for another snomobile ride and onto the mail trails today…bye!
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The snow stick measures 15″ today, we had another storm yesterday and we are in heaven! Took the snowmobiles out this afternoon; breaking trails so we can walk the dogs, cross country ski and snomobile around the land here. We rode up to the top of the long ridge (about a mile uphill) where we celebrated out anniversary in May and had another toast to the upcoming New Year. The wind was high and waves of wind and snow squalls would come through. Deer sign everywhere as they travel to find browse. It is harder for them to get feed in this weather when the snow is getting deeper. They were eating the bark of some young hemlock saplings. The snowmobile trails pack down making nice trails for them to travel on.
Another storm due in on New Years Day….yippee!
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Just a couple of updates to old posts with dangling endings!
This is Webster. We finally found a name suitable to his personality. For Christmas I got a CD that I had on my wish list which had been hard to find. It is called “Soulville” by Ben Webster. It was recorded in 1957 and Ben Webster, internationally recognized as one of jazz’s elder statesmen, was a great tenor saxophonist and played with the Duke Ellington Orchestra for two decades prior to this album. He is joined on piano by Oscar Peterson, Herb Ellis on guitar, Ray Brown on bass and Stan Levey on drums; collectively known as the Ben Webster Quintet. Why all this background information? Because if you like jazz you need to own this CD. It is smooth, cool jazz.
Jack and I had been visiting friends on Christmas evening and coming home we listened to the CD for the first time. The full moon was on the rise, the air dry, the snow covered ground basking in moonlight as we took the country road home from the next town over. It was soooo beautiful and the music so fitting.
When we got home we put it on to finish listening to it and the cat joined us as we listened. He lay in front of the speakers under the dining room table and just grooved. Then he got up and did some zipping around. He liked it and so he was named at that very moment ~ Webster. The web man. The jazz man. Webster is going to be a good name and he already turns his head to it. The picture above is Webster today. He likes Shelley, the sheltie, a lot although they haven’t declared it so quite yet. He wants her to play hide and seek but she doesn’t get it so for now he talks to her and flirts. She was just outside the picture. He’s a cool cat.
The other update is regarding Daphne’s fleece that was lost at Rhinebeck this fall. I was waiting until the checks were mailed from the fleece sale committee before I would jump to conclusions on it’s disappearance. Well, my check came and it didn’t include the money for that fleece. The chairman of the committee called me a week later to say they never found the paperwork or the fleece so I should consider it stolen.
Nice, huh? Imagine, walking boldly and without conscience, out of the fleece sale barn with 7#s of fleece in a big see through plastic bag! My tags had to be torn off and hidden. I wonder if the person premeditated the caper. Or was it just on a whim? I work all year on those fleeces, changing , repairing and washing coats, keeping the sheep coats fitted properly, hiring a great shearer, then post shearing, cleaning, skirting and sorting, bagging and labeling the fleeces and Daphne’s was my prize fleece for the year. I saved it just for Rhinebeck. Well, as I said in the prior post I won’t be selling fleeces there ever again and I hope the grease never washes out of it for that shameless robber!
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Silent night, holy night,
all is calm, all is bright.
Round yon virgin, mother and child.
Holy infant so tender and mild,
Sleep in heavenly peace.
Sleep in heavenly peace.
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We are in for 1/2 to 1″ of rain tonight on top of 18′ of snow which poses multiple issues to prepare for. The roofs need to be raked, ditches around the barn need to be opened to let the rain flow away from the foundation and any snow that needs moving better get moved today before the cold air returns and turns everything to a snowy cement.
The drizzle started at 9AM and we spent the last 3 hours doing all that above. The sheep barn was most important to address to avoid collapse, so Jack cleared off the roof and it was HEAVY snow already. I locked them out of the barn area so they didn’t panic with Jack on the roof, and they DO panic at any little unknown issue. I did my best to get the snow and mud cleared in the outside loafing area so the ground will dry off quicker, eventually. I got a ditch cleared so the inner barn doesn’t flood. A few years ago , we learned the hard way that if there isn’t a ditch the water all just seeps in and then the bedding and everything is soaked. We had a sump pump in there for days during that storm.
Jack did the roof raking for the summer sheep sheds, the house and cottage and one side of another barn. Thankfully he is fit! That is hard work.
Looks like we are ready for whatever happens and tomorrow it will be colder and windy with snow showers. As the saying goes, if you don’t like the weather in New England, wait a minute.
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What a fabulous start to winter! Yes, we love the snow…so for us today’s storm was an event! We had about 8″ on the ground and as we awoke our snow stick attached to the flagpole read 11″ and coming down hard by 8AM. Steve and Liza, our farm helpers, are also snow birds so all of us are just happpppy! Jack took a walk with the dogs and captured some of the views this morning (Sidney found a point of interest way down under)…I made batches of Christmas cookies, a turkey stew for dinner and basic Christmas fun things while Jack spent the afternoon doing chores like getting the week’s hay to the sheep barn from the big barn, raking the roof edges and plowing and clearing snow as the temps are supposed to plummet this week. They have been unseasonable low this year for December, the overnights in the single numbers and highs in the 20’s. And to think Winter officially starts this week! We hope this season lasts well into March!
Happy New Year to all of you! We wish for your good health, love in your lives and comfort through your daily life. 
