Christmas is upon us

Paul and I and all the kids made our annual visit to our local Christmas tree farm where we drank hot chocolate and argued over who had found the best tree. Against our better judgement, because he is a poor winner, we picked Nathan's tree! This morning, Paul brought down boxes of decorations out of the attic. Jessie is the only one that really gets into decorating anymore, the other three are kind of tepid about it. Hopefully we will attend the first Sunday of Advent service tomorrow morning. We all have head colds too....that is another holiday tradition! Next week, Jessie and I plan to make Christmas sugar cookies.

Good day for a fire. Hard freeze tonight. 10-12 hours at 20 degrees....brrrrr

Lots of rain

Not a great pic, but about 1 3/4 of inch....and a hard, blustery wind out of the north. The man building our pond called a couple of days ago to say that he was close to coming to our place, but we have mucho standing water again and the rain has probably set that project back quite a while.

Cold calves

That is the goat barn in the background. We are waiting on the trim to come in to finish the exterior, but the walls are finished out with sheathed insulation and plywood to about four feet high. That makes it nice and cozy on the inside for the goats and the dogs. Unfortunately the cows don't have any cover. They were wet and hunched over in the snow this morning and the two poor little jersey heifers where shivering to pieces. They had gotten soaked from the heavy rainfall we had last night. I moved them in with the goats so that they would have protected shelter, and I also moved out a round bale for them and another one for the cows, gave everyone cubes, and cleared tools and scraps from the back section of the barn to make more room. My tractor had also sat out overnight and the snowy seat was very chilling to my seat! I barely made it in time for a 9am appointment with Pam (fitness trainer) at the gym, but I told her that I had already done a warm up!

Winter is here!

Jessie and I got the firewood stacked yesterday, so we were ready. Lots of rain all night long. Snow this morning after 6am. Muddy, wet and miserably cold.....that's winter in Texas! The goats are loving the newly enclosed barn, and it makes me much happier to know that they have nice shelter. That solves some of our farm problems, but not all. Lately, I have consistently seen two coyotes every morning when I go out to feed. Most certainly our chicken slayers who are looking for easy pickings. Yesterday when I spotted them near the barn, I went out to confront them and they were very bold and not easily frightened. I have been shopping around for a new 22 rifle, but the 22 250 is not cheap. We do have an older Remington 22 550-1 which I am going to take to the gunsmith and have him check it out.