I'm Way Over It!

Well, well, well......... now it's time to test everyone's patience. Christmas was almost two months ago and now what do we look forward to. It's nowhere near time to even think about getting excited for spring. The other day I told someone that I think spring is in the air and they looked at me like I was crazy, I'm not kidding. I really wanted to believe it.

Two days later we got dumped on. I think it was 400 inches that we got here in the snow belt. (Any people south of the Mason Dixon line will never understand.)

People say I shouldn't complain, you live in Ohio, get used to it.

They just don't understand.

I don't think they have to carry five gallon buckets of water to their chickens through 45 inches of drifted snowbanks. Trying to maneuver along a thin trail that the dogs have carved out is impossible. The bucket of water bumps along, usually dumping a half a gallon down my leg and into my boot. Although I actually did get some eggs yesterday! FOUR, yes, four from 12 chickens. That's all since the first of January.

This spring I'm investing in Australorps! I'm going to thin out the flock and get some chickens that actually lay eggs. I'll keep my favorites hens though, the ones that I love. (Which is actually all of them so it's going to be really hard!)

This guy has decided to start sitting up at the top of this tree. It barely looks strong enough to hold him. My brother in law, Tom said it looks like something out of a Dr. Suess book.

Look how funny. He's lucky he's so beautiful because yesterday we went round and round. Him trying to kill me and me trying to get away from him. I ended up wrestling him to the ground, laying on him, with one arm around his body the other hand around his neck (so he wouldn't peck my eyes out). Yelling at him, explaining that I can't clean his water bucket if he is trying to kill me. I think I almost strangled him, the look on his face was crazy. And by the way, he is huge and scary. I had to wrestle him down two times and then he almost left me alone... let's just say he was a little more respectful of the crazy woman.

The other day when I pulled into the driveway after getting home from work I saw that he had flown over the fence, probably from this perch. He ran to the car and commenced to try to surround me. His head reaches up above the car window and he was staring at me, chattering, daring me to come out. If you've never heard a mean turkey- that is the sound they make when they want to kill you, it's kinda like a really mean chattering sound but it ends with a really cute sigh. I'll have to try and record him sometime. I got the snow brush from the back seat of the car and used it as a defense weapon to get out. If I have any kind of long stick in my hand I can bonk him on the head with it and he will back away.

Here is the 400 inches, of course it's not 400 but it may as well be.



This freezer is on the back porch, (how hillbilly is that) anyway, look at the snow and how it drifted. Funny, huh? I couldn't wait for Kevin to get up and show him but it collapsed shortly after this. It was still dark out (maybe 5:30 a.m.) when I took this picture.



That's a lotta snow on that table. Looks like 400 inches to me!




The doggies making their way to go potty. That's similar to the path that I walk through to the chicken house, nice huh. Kevin plowed it once for me but it was just before we got the 400 new inches.

Even with all the snow and everything there is still one thing to look forward to in February!

A box of chocolates and a bottle of champagne.

If you've never had Austi Spumati champagne you need to try it. It's not expensive either. At least this bottle wasn't. I think Kevin said it was like $15.00, not too bad for a special occasion?

Happy Valentines Day Everybody!

ICE STORM AND SNOW STORM OF 2008

Anyone living in northeastern Ohio will understand how ready I am for spring. We just had a terrible ice storm that left 175,000 people without electricity for a couple days. The electric company said (in a recording) that as of 9:00pm on Wednesday night they had restored power to 150,000 people, guess who was in the 20,000 that did not have power yet? ME! That was totally unacceptable to a person who uses the Internet for almost all of everything!

(can anyone guess what it is that caused the ice to freeze like this?)

No banking, no blogging, no searching, no shopping, no checking on things, no working on my website, no checking the weather, no checking kids grades, no Halo or COD4, no looking up phone numbers, no emailing, no emails to read, nothing, nothing, not!



Oh, I almost forgot, no heat in the house, no TV to watch, no flushing toilets, no lights (even though I would still flick the switches every time I walked into a room), no microwave, no coffee for him, no tea for me, no computer, no clocks (well we do have 2 battery ones but I had to walk clear over to them all the way across the house at 3:00 am and hold up my battery powered light to see them when I thought I was late for work and I don't even have to get up until 4:30 am .... nice!), nothing for the kids to do although we still made the 9 yr. old read her books by candlelight even though it supposedly hurt Abe Lincolns eyes.



(Our frozen back yard.)

I'm kinda lying about the no tea and coffee thing. What I really meant was we had no Bunn Coffee Maker and no Hotshot for my tea. Luckily we have propane that we use to heat our water and cook with so we could cook but that meant actually boiling water for tea and making instant coffee. How archaic, actually boiling water for tea! The Hotshot is the best thing ever made. It heats water in like 90 seconds (I'll go look and see how long it really is, hold on....here it is right off the ad.

"Sunbeam 6170 Hot Shot Hot Water Dispenser" Heats up to 16 oz water from room temperature to steam point in 90 seconds - faster than a microwave "

It's awesome. I will try to find it on Amazon so I can put a picture of it in my ads so you can see it. I love it!(UPDATE: found item and put it in my Amazon ads.) It is so much better than microwaved water, something happens to it when it is microwaved, yuck!

Below is a picture of our Turkey flying to his roost. They just keep on roosting up there, snow, ice rain or shine.)

Our power finally came on at about 4:00am, just in time to have to go to work with no bath the night before. A sponge bath just doesn't cut it. The last time our power went off Kevin and I and the kids were sitting around a candlelit table trying to see good enough to play a board game. He and I thought we were having a really cozy snowy winter day bonding moment with the kids when all of sudden the lights came back on and up the kids jumped and off to their rooms they went to do their thing with stuff that takes electricity. (Kevin even wanted to keep the lights off and continue our game but they weren't interested.)



And then, to add insult to injury we had a major SNOWSTORM the next week which was Friday, two days ago. (Thank goodness we didn't lose power or Internet access.) They even shut down our plant and made us all go home at 2:30 pm on Friday. In the history of our plant, this has never happened. We now have new corporate owners which must be softy's cause the old owners would NEVER do that. You came to work no matter what. They would say "You have lived in Northeast Ohio all your life, you are used to snow, just leave early and GET HERE!"

Here is Puppy trying to hop around in the snow. This shows how deep it is. I had to call and call her to come over to where the snow was deep, plus I had the camera which she hates. The dogs don't like going potty in deep snow. They just go to the foot of the steps of the deck and do their business right there in the walkway that Kevin shoveled. Really nice!

Luckily, the chickens and turkeys have their little lean-to to hide under. It's pretty cozy. We have one Buff Orpington that is broody and won't stop sitting. Her favorite spot is on the hay bale under the roof. Unfortunately, it did not keep all the snow off of her.

You can see her all covered in snow.

Poor thing....Kevin brushed her off so she wouldn't get too cold.

This is Cleo, our Chow/Lab mix. The snow does not even melt when it is on her. She will lay on the porch and be almost covered and she doesn't feel a bit of cold cause of her Chow coat insulation. Puppy wants so bad for her to run and play in the snow but she is about 9 years old and doesn't feel like cavorting in deep snow. She will play all day when she doesn't have lug her chubby behind (actually it is her tummy that is fat) through 15 inches of snow.




Soon, this is how it will look here. I see where people in other places are already starting their gardens and I feel incredibly.... umm, not jealous but sad, kinda. I love living here near my family but what in the world can the people that live here be thinking! If you had a choice when you came to America in the 1700's or whenever it was, why would you pick Ohio? It must have been summer and they had no idea what winter would bring! Or else their dream was to be a trapper.

OK, I had to add this picture just because, people with cats will understand.

Spring is coming everyone! And be glad your ancestors picked somewhere else to settle!

(except the Farm Chick cause she just lives across the county from me)

Here's to warm thoughts,

Beth