Winter Setting in

Well, Christmas is over, the lights are down and boxed away. Now comes the deepening of winter; the colder days and nights of January, February and March. Now is the time that people complain about cabin fever; the long days and nights of chores and the same faces and people around us, the desperate desire for sunshine and mobility and fun.

The deer that has been hanging in the garage for three weeks now is still frozen solid. No mice or anything have ventured near it; it is frozen too hard - even when the temps climbed to 40 degrees for two days straight! - and is untouched. So today DH and I went out and, using his electric hand saw, cut it into managable pieces, loaded it into the wheelbarrow, and took it down into the basement. There it sits, loaded into the big laundry sink we installed this summer, waiting to be cleaned and thawed. I think I'll set a table up next to it and just cut it down there; it will be easier to clean and cut without worrying about my smaller kitchen sink and countertops.

Looking around the basement; since we didn't get the greenhouse set up, I will have to start the seeds in the warm basement. The catalogs are in, and this and next month I'll be ordering the flats and lights and seeds. We have already determined a spot for them to go, to be close to the water outlet and in the warmest room. The cooling room right off of the basement outside egress is too cool; it will have to be reserved for my potato storage and, in the future, the milk cooling room for the cows. Oh, all the things I want to grow here! Carrots and radishes and onions and peas and spinach., and all of the other 'normal' things. Going to see how well collards do here, too.
I need to get a couple of bags of forage seed for the hills in back; not only to help retain the sandy soil, but to start it on its way to providing for the planned cows, and hopefully choking out some invasive weeds as well. Mangel beets, too, for additional winter feed; those will go into the east garden along with the corn. I'd like to add to the windbreak in back; probably not right away, but I'm thinking that the Black Hills pines ought to do well here too. The Black Hills are only 150 miles away, after all. And they grow fast and are very big, conical, and pretty.

I love the winter doldrums, planning for spring and laying out what will go where. We'll have to start the chickens in the basement too, but in their own little area until they can grow big enough to go outside; but I won't order them til March. Probably going with the Barred Rock variety, that lays even in winter, the big brown eggs I love, and still has good meat. Debating how many to order - 10 cockerels and 25 hens; butcher all but two cockerels at 12 weeks and have a freezer full of chicken? Or butcher all but one cockerel? I really don't want to put all my future eggs in one basket - with my luck the one rooster I don't kill will be gay, suicidal, or get himself killed, and then - no babies. Sigh. Do I really want to start them in the ceramics room right near the heater, will the smell waft upstairs thru all the vents? Argh. Thinking and planning and debating.

DH came up with an idea. We were planning on tearing down the garage - it is so decrepit that the insurance fella said he couldn't insure it - and that was going to be remanufactured into our chicken coop. However we need a place to store the mower, etc. We were going to have a new garage built with the $$ we were supposed to get from one of his settlements (that was promised in Sept., but as usual, no such has been forthcoming yet). DH said why not close in one end of the pole barn, and move everything into it, then we can tear down the garage and start building the coop. Hmmmmm... good thought. I don't like my chickens running outside of a pen and yard; they are too much trouble to catch and deal with, and I don't want the neighbors complaining.

Meanwhile I am soaking some pinto beans to make bean and bacon soup for this next week, and have a corned beef brisket simmering for Sunday supper. All I have to do now is finish the laundry and put the potatoes and cabbage in the brisket. Later I'll cook the beans and fry some bacon and get that pot stirring as well. I've got a big can of blueberries on the counter that I have to drain and repackage and freeze - maybe blueberry muffins for dessert?

Who has time to be bored?