The past little while has been pretty busy here on the farm as we have been getting ready to open Missus’s little shop out front of the house. The spring weather has continued to be pleasant, though yesterday and today it cooled down, especially in the mornings, and we put a fire in the stove this morning to cope with the unbearable chill. On the downside, we lost a few animals to a predator in the past few days.
I have had help from second son going down to get some firewood and a couple of sawlogs. The supply changed quite a bit from the first trip down to the second, indicating there are a lot of trees being trimmed at the moment.
We took a couple of days off this week and last in order to help Missus get her shop open, which she did for a short while on Monday. She is planning her weekends on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, so being closed yesterday and today were planned as a part of normal operations. We are waiting for the first customer to darken the door still, and hope that will happen fairly soon, or soon after we put up an ad on the local board online. A slow start ought to give us a chance to ramp up operations.
The weather has been fantastic for this time of year for the last few weeks. Earlier in the spring it was run outside in forty-degree temperature time with no jacket or anything extra to keep warm. Who could complain at the warmer weather after any Idaho winter, even a warm one? But it has been making it to the low seventies lately, and dropping into the fifties with little sun has left the house so cold that I had to start a fire in the woodstove today to take the chill off. It was mid-fifties in the house this morning, and there was no sun to take that chill away. So I went out to our persistent woodpile and gathered up an armload of poplar to bring in and burn. It warmed up pretty quick!
The large, open topped chicken run no longer holds out predators, or so we found out this week. I have seen raccoon prints in the yard quite a lot over the spring, but now it seems one has decided to try its luck at the ducks and goose. Raccoon or whatever, it got in and killed them all. It could have been an owl, to be fair. But I have stayed up late to watch for them and saw nothing. We ordered some solar powered motion activated lights to put up on a couple of the out buildings. They make enough of a difference to put sights on something like a raccoon.
So that’s the goings on here on the farm while we also do other things, such as get ready to have the kids out of school after their first year in public for some time. They are excited for the break! I am excited to have them around.