Where's The Truck?

This winter has been a nasty one. A snowstorm every darn week plus flurries each night with occasional rain or temperatures above freezing. This just makes a mess. 

I'm a summer girl but I enjoy winter. I absolutely love sledding with the boys or shh! by myself, skating and of course snowshoeing. Also I'm so excited to cross-country ski again. The one thing I hate about winter is ICE. Just get rid of it! It's the worst thing ever. Which bring me to last night...

Our driveway is quite long and steep. We'd done our best to keep it manageable. The photo above shows it before the latest coating of ice, but you get the idea of how bad it could get. This summer I really need to work on the run off and finish building a pullout at the bottom. Unfortunately time was against me this Fall.

Which brings me to last night, Paul arrived after dark and made two attempts to get up to the house. His second one was SO close, just another 10 feet and he would have been golden. Shucks. So I got my snow pants on and bundled up to go help. Paul had already gone around to start breaking up the crusher dust to put under the wheels when I came out. I looked over and... 

"Um, Paul? Where's the truck?" Obviously he must have moved it back down the driveway. Maybe? Hopefully? 

"What?" He calls back. Coming around the corner he says "What do you mean it's right there..." 

"No. No, it isn't." I stated.

He grabbed the flashlight and said "What? It must have slid down a bit." and started carefully working his way down the hill. 

As he shone the light on it I said "Not just a bit. It hasn't stopped yet. She's still going." 

Looking back I can't believe how calm I was. I think I just realized there was absolutely nothing we could do. No way could we reach the truck in time to jump in and... do what? Slide along inside it? Then came the worst part, when I heard the approaching car and saw the headlights illuminate the road below. That's when my chest clenched and I couldn't pull my eyes away. I felt absolutely helpless. I watched waiting for the crash to happen any second. Then the car went by behind the truck. Thank god! I realized the truck had slid to a stop just before reaching the road. I nearly fell over with relief.

Paul got down to the truck, got in and I'm sure operating on pure adrenaline, he drove the truck up to the house. 

"Wow. Now that's determination" I said to him.

Paul told me when he was going down he realized if he put his wheels off to the side a bit he'd get better traction. 

Well, that was an experience. Let's not repeat that one.

Feeding Time and Fixing Fence

Tonight I went up to feed the animals as usual. Goodness, it's all I can do to contain myself from offing that darn chicken. She is driving me crazy! Anyway, after giving the chickens fresh water and topping up their feed I decided to coop them in after feeding the pigs. Also one is laying later at night in the back nest of the hay bale, so I've been waiting until after dinner to close them in.

I scooped up a pitcher full of hog grower and filled an equal amount into our "pig bucket" which we put food scraps into from the house. Balanced each of those in one arm/hand and gripped the bucket of warm water in the other and off I went. After the ice storm the other day and the snow last night I probably should have worn my skates or at least found some crampons. The pigs were waiting grunting their displeasure at me for making them wait. Now feeding these girls is not for the lighthearted. Each now weighs roughly 170 pounds of pure muscle. I made an excellent decision to give them each their own feed bowls a couple weeks ago. This cut down on a lot of shoving and nipping but each are still looking at me waiting to pounce as soon as I step into the paddock. Also they move their feed bowls all over so finding them can sometimes be a scavenger hunt. As I said feeding them is a handful. I learned my lesson the hard way after one of them knocked me down to the ground and every time I go in to feed them I have to be careful not to let them nip me too much. So my technique? Scope out a bowl, hopefully close to the fence. Scoot it into the paddock fake the girls out and dump the pitcher of grain. Then as they launch themselves at it I immediately go for the next feed bowl and dump the pig bucket. Now this must be quick as they both know the goodies come from the little green bucket, so move it! Finally as always breathe a sigh of relief and go knock out the ice in their water bowl and fill it up. Give each of the girls some loving rubs and pat down to keep them comfortable with me which now that they are happily eating is nice and easy. They get lots of compliments from me about how big they are getting and that they are such good girls.

Frankly they are absolutely awesome especially today as that's when I realised I was a complete lucky idiot. I had forgotten to check their electric fence this morning and a drift had covered the back upper line with solid ice. They could have easily walked right out. I dug out the line as best I could but no way was I going to break through that without a pick and chose to instead raise the line. I hurried back down to the house to get the drill, yelled back at the chicken to watch her bloodly mouth and went to work on the fence. Unfortunately the wooden post was completely frozen and just getting the screws out without stripping them was difficult. Once I finally got them out and tried to reinstall them in further up I realised how inconceivable this task was going to be. I have no idea how I got the screws in half an inch, slipping all over the place as I desperately tried to brace myself to force the suckers in there but they appeared to hold, at least enough. Crossing my fingers I reassessed my situation. I found myself covered in snow with a sore butt after repeatedly landing when my legs slipped out on me while attempting to brace myself. I thanked the stars that the pigs hadn't relieved themselves over here at least not recently. My fingers were completely red numb as I'd had to take my mittens off to get a grip on the insulator and the drill. OK I'm done. I gave the girls a pat and went down to the barn, threw the nesting chicken into the coop, grabbed the eggs and went in to the house. Thank goodness for the wood stove.

I'll be up there first thing in the morning to secure it, but for now it'll do.

Sunset Overlooking the Garden

Sunset overlooking the garden