Eggs and the cold

Farmer Tip: When you have eggs in your pocket be careful bending over! 

The weather has been freezing. I've been holding my own in the house with the battle of keeping the boys and myself warm. The wind the other night certainly didn't help. I have the Klachofen burning hot and the oil heat up when we are home. I've plastic'd off the mudroom as the floor isn't insulated, moved a carpet into the kitchen and made great use of duct tape. The kids come downstairs in the morning wearing slippers and sweaters. They are well trained. Hot breakfasts are a must and Anthony is back enjoying tea with his Mommy. The kids love having oatmeal as they can switch it up everyday with some new topping and also that they get to make it mostly on their own. Bonus!

The boys are great little helpers. I bought them snow shovels which they adore. Today they were running around with them after school making snow mounds and having adventures.

The greenhouse is holding up well. The snow is sliding off on it's own and it stood up to the wind thank goodness. I kept checking. 

My evening always includes two trips up to the barn one at dusk and the other around the kids bedtime. The first one is to turn on the light for the chickens and put down some feed in the coops. They have been roosting wherever they've wanted but with the temperatures dropping I've wanted them to cuddle together more for warmth. So usually at sunset you can hear a woman doing her best not to lose an arguement with a chicken. After they are shut in I gather the eggs (I'm averaging 9 per day!) and then grab the water bucket to refill and head back down to the house.

I have yet to get a messy pocket. I know it will probably happen eventually. Perhaps its an initiation to being a farmer. I've had one crack before, just the shell not the membrane. Bending down to pick up the water bucket tonight was followed by a curse word and then slowly standing up and checking my pockets. 

My second trip to the barn is to unplug the light. I've tried timers but they don't seem to work. I enjoy saying goodnight "Chickens". Walking with the flashlight I'm always wondering how freaked my reaction will be when I see an animal. So far this winter no glowing eyes.

Another neat thing was I found an egg up in the loft that was frozen. Shucks. I threw it to the compost pile and it bounced! Cool!