Pears on the ground, pears on the ground, what you gonna do with the pears on the ground?

I thought I was done making jam this week......

Then it got windy yesterday.

I guess I am making more pear jam.

 There are still a lot left on the tree too. Yikes!

"Don't worry, we'll help you clean these up, won't we Emma?"

"Yeah, anything to help out!"

" Nom, Nom, Nom."

   "Boy, this is hard work!"

"Oh, Emma, why must you be so vulgar?"

" Waitress! Dahhhling, could you please wash a few of these pears and slice them for me? Not the ones from the ground, pick some off of the tree. I would also like a chilled glass of Moscato- and be quick about it!"

Lazy Sunday

It was a lazy Sunday for the residents of Crosswinds Farm.

Jordan did a little sunbathing.

White Chicken and her friends took a nice dust bath.

Rooster Cogburn and Mr. Swagger rested in the shade.

"Yaaaaawn."

"Yaaaawn."

"ZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZzzzzZZzzzzzzzzz".

Bailie rested as the fluffy clouds floated by.

" Ahhh, yes, I get a much better view of the clouds this way."

The ram lambs took an afternoon siesta as well.

Yup, a lazy summer Sunday............ for THEM maybe!

I woke Sunday morning to find a littering of pears all over the ground, shaken loose from the tree by some strong overnight winds. So, after I did my regular rounds of feeding animals, cleaning water tanks, and counting heads, I started my morning by filling bucket, after bucket, after bucket, with pears. I was still a little sleepy so it took me a moment, but as I was filling the buckets it occurred to me that pears don't easily get knocked off of the tree, which could only mean one thing....oh, no, the pears are ready to harvest already! I don't have time for this now! I checked the fruit that was still left on the tree, and, sure enough, they snapped off very easily.

Pears are kind of odd in the fact that they ripen from the inside out, so if you wait until they look ripe on the outside, they are actually over-ripe, and at that point, the fruit pulls right off the stem, like this...

Luckily, I only found a few that were to that point...I guess I will be making pear jam this week....A LOT of pear jam.  I am really glad that my other variety of pears ripens much, much later- usually not until late October, but then again, the Bartletts have never been ready this early before, so I may be in for early harvests all the way around, UGH.

Yeah, and it looks like I may have a few apples too...just a few..

After I dealt with the piles of pears, it was time to move on to other things.

I had another rack of hay that needed to be emptied, stacked, and the rack needed to be returned to my neighbor/hay guy.

Another 129, sixty-pound bales of hay unloaded, stacked and stored for winter. Yes, of course they are stacked a certain way....why do you even ask? You know that I am insane.

Hay was done, now eggs needed to be gathered.

Next it was time to cut grass....

..and cut grass...

 ....and cut grass.

Next, I checked the garden and found that something was eating my tomato plants.

Upon further inspection, I found these big fatties- Tomato Horn Worms.

They are both cool, and disgusting all at the same time. The chickens, however, did not find them to be disgusting at all, in fact, they found them to be quite tasty. 

With the garden de-bugged ( yes, Alanza, your Tomato-babies are safe now), I moved on to watering, watering, watering everything since, once again, we have had very little rain and the gardens are looking a little stressed....with the exception of my Amish Cockscomb, which seems to be doing very well in spite of the hot, dry weather.

After all of the outside morning chores were done, I still had the usual inside household tasks of cleaning, doing laundry, and washing dishes ( No we don't have a dishwasher, unless you count me), and before I knew it, it was time to start all over again with the evening farm chores.

Where was Gary while I was doing all of this, you might ask? Well, he wasn't exactly slacking either. He took a week of  'vacation' time from his regular job, to work 14-16 hour days at his part-time job all week. 

Yup, just another lazy Sunday.

" Blah, blah, blah, Sheep Lady. Work, laundry - whatever, can you keep it down? I am trying to rest over here!"

"Ahhh, yes, there is nothing like taking a leisurely dust-bath on a quiet Sunday afternoon."

  

"Wait, what?"

"What did you say Sheep Lady? What's a stew-pot? Was that supposed to be funny? I don't get it. You're joking, right?"

Don't worry chicken, I was Joking, of course ; ).

Well, of course I did! Because I 'felt' like it.

Happy Valentine's Day! I hope you spend it with someone...errr....if you are Emma, spend it with something you love.

"Mwaahhh!"

Well, it's finally getting warmer out, and the mountains of snow have turned into rivers of sludge. I fought a losing battle yesterday trying to clean out the barns, and decided to wait until more of the snow has melted, or until it gets cold enough for the ground to refreeze so that I am not slip-slidin' away on the slimy mud. Frustrated that I couldn't get things done outside as I had planned, I decided to spend the afternoon doing something completely different. I have seen needle-felted figurines on many of the fibery websites and at crafty shows and often thought that I would like to try making one. I make stuff out of clay all the time, so clay to fiber didn't seem like a huge leap... sculpting is sculpting....sort of.

I should have taken pictures all the way along, but since I kind of threw myself into this project I didn't have that forethought.

If you are not familiar with the process, you basically take a ball of roving or fiber, roll it up tight, stab it, a lot, with incredibly sharp needles, and keep stabbing it until you make it into something. Someone more adept at the process would probably argue that there is much more to it, and I am sure that there is, but I didn't have any patterns or anything so I just kind of winged it. Oh, also, it helps to avoid stabbing yourself with said incredibly sharp needles...it happens...a lot...OK, maybe it just happens to me.

So, I decided that I wanted to make a sheep...I KNOW...I am so imaginative! I started with a gob of britch wool from last year's shearing (always wondered what I was going to do with that stuff), made it into a ball, and went to town stabbing the bejeezers out of it; which I found to be an excellent form of stress relief, until I stabbed through the fiber, and into my finger....repeatedly. I would like to note that it really slows down the process when you have to stop every few minutes to wait for your fingers to stop bleeding. 

After a few hours, I ended up with this-

As I mentioned, she isn't finished,  I know it's kind of wonky at this point, but that's what is nice about needle-felting; you can add more fiber and reshape it as you go. When I brought the little sheepie out to show my husband, I promptly told him that it wasn't finished and I started to go through a laundry list of conformation flaws as if I were looking at a sheep in the show ring: "It's head is too big, the topline isn't level, the back is too short, the tail is too low-set..." When I finally stopped with my dissertation he stared blankly at me for a moment and put it all in perspective, "You do know that this isn't a real sheep....aaaand it's made out of a ball of fiber, right?"

Why does he always have to be so practical?

SnOw way!

You may have heard that we had a little snow storm here in Iowa. It's true. We did.
I woke up this morning and tried to look out the window to get an idea of what we were up against....tried to look out the window...

Well, that wasn't very productive, so I put on my eighteen layers of clothes and headed for the great unknown. The only door that I could get out of was the cellar door, which, for some unknown reason, was fortuitously, snow-free.

Once outside, I discovered the reason that I couldn't get out the other doors.

Front door....

 Aaaaand the back door..

Well, yeah, of course I brought my camera out with me, what kind of a silly question is that?

Although they were uncooperative for a photo, I checked on the horses first and everything was fine there, except that the strong, swirling winds had blown snow all over inside the barn, creating indoor snowdrifts-never had that happen before.

At least the water de-icer in the stock tank seems to be holding up; there is enough open water for the horses to drink from.

I knew that the rams might be bearing the brunt of the storm since their pasture is a bit more out in the open and is exposed to the harsh wind, so I wanted to check on them next.

Something told me that they might be in trouble, and I was right, there was definitely a problem...

OK, so they didn't really write this...I have cabin fever....I can not be held responsible for my actions.

"Where are you, boys???"

"Here we are mom!"

At least Mother Nature was kind enough to leave a little "mote" of a clearing around the ram-hut, but the drifts all around them were about 4 feet deep.

Since the boys were surrounded by drifts, I had to shovel a path for them so that they could get to their water. I just hope they don't realise that the snow is at fence-level most of the way around their pasture and they can now easily step over the fences and go on walkabout.

"It's about time you got out here!"

"Thanks, Mom!"

The ewes seemed to be faring a lot better than the boys; there are enough clearings around their barn that they are able to get in and out without any trouble, and they have access to water inside the barn.

The rest of the menagerie seems to be holding their own, but because mother nature decided to add insult to injury with frigid temperatures over the next few days, I am going to have to add more bedding for the chickens. And since the wind will continue to sculpt the landscape, I will have to monitor everyone throughout the day...and probably re-shovel several times.

Of course, some members of this household are completely unaffected by the weather.

 "Don't worry, I'll find a way to get us to the front door!"

"Yeah, never mind, this is never going to work."

I know that most of the country is in the same boat that we are, so I hope that you are all safe and warm. Enjoy the day off : ).