Winter Is Coming

When Autumn comes around it seems like all hell breaks loose on the farm. Currently the farmer and I are awaiting the arrival of about 50 or so lambs, the farmer is also busy in the fields and working late nights, further more, to top it all off the farmer has wood to cut and a water line to finish for the barn. All of this must be done before winter or else there will be some troubles.

The Lambs...
Waiting for lambs to be born is a constant stress on ones nerves. Everyday when I go out to the barn I expect to see a few lambs or even a ewe giving birth, this has yet to happen. We have only 2 lambs so far, twins, that were born early while the farmer and I were out of town. The rest should have followed about a week later, but yet here we are nearly 6 weeks later and still the twins are the only 2 out there. The farmer of course has become impatient and has therefore thrown a ram in with the ewes to see if that will help the situation, or at least insure that everyone is pregnant for the January lambing.

The Water Line...
The farmer and the senior farmer, aka his dad, decided that they needed to dig in a water line to the barn before winter comes. Now, I was most excited about this because all summer I have had to drag 4 hoses out to the barn from the house in order to water the animals everyday. This new water line would mean that they could have fresh water all winter without it freezing, as the farmers were going to bury the pipe very deep into the ground. As they were digging I reminded them that the recently buried internet cable was right in the path that they were going. Just as I had said, 'Don't cut the internet cable' and went inside, 10 minutes later they came in to inform me that they had indeed cut the internet cable. Fortunately, my stepfather works for Bell and therefore was able to come out and fix the cable right away, but I still had to chuckle at the timing of it all.

The Fire Wood...
The farmer has most of the wood cut for the winter to keep us warm, but there is a foreboding pile still left in the barn yard. These logs had been cut down by the farmer in the summer, and he had brought them home in order to cut them into smaller pieces and split them for the winter. As he was cutting the trees down however he neglected to be cautious of the vines that were climbing all over the trees. As you can imagine he was in quite the discomfort when he realized it was poison ivy and the itchy red rash began sprouting up all over his body. This is honestly the worst case of poison ivy I have seen. The farmer was covered head to toe in the stuff and it seemed to keep coming for weeks. It seemed like no amount of benadryl, calamine lotion, or oatmeal treatments could soothe his itchy skin. Finally after about a month and a half the rash cleared up but the farmer has still not touched the logs sitting in the barn yard since they are covered in, now dead, poison ivy vines.

It has been quite an eventful few months living with the farmer but it seems that we are almost prepared for winter at this point. Time will tell how the winter months will transpire, but living with the farmer I know that there is likely to be something to write about!