Four Seasons in Wisconsin

Some people claim that we only have two seasons here in Wisconsin - winter and road construction. I disagree. We do have four seasons - we begin with one or two months of mud season - you know, that time that comes after the snow melts - mud all over everything - that's usually when we lamb (see my post of April 12, 2009 for a mud story). Don't get me wrong, just because there is mud everywhere, that doesn't mean some days aren't nice, tulips blooming and all that springy stuff. I actually enjoy most of mud season - the lambs, the promise of new growth, fresh pasture, thawed hoses. Then comes the three to four months of mosquito season - can't go outside without bathing in some sort of insect repellent that probably will make me die young of some sort of cancer. Then we have a couple of weeks of real fall weather - cooler temperatures, changing leaves, the last of the garden harvest before the first hard frost, sheep eating the last of the pasture, rams behaving like gentlemen, not like the fools they become during breeding season. And then, finally, we have six months of winter. Endless cold, frozen water buckets, gates that are frozen shut, thigh high drifts (OK, I'm short, but thigh high is still too high in my opinion!).

Wednesday we had a foot of snow and blizzard conditions, now we have temperatures that drop below zero over night and we're lucky to get into double digits during the day. To top it all off, yesterday when I woke up about 7:00 am (I slept in because there was a two hour delay for school due to bone numbing wind chills), the power was out. So, no heat, no water (we have a 125 gallon fish tank that comes in very handy at times like these so we can actually use the toilet), no first cup of coffee - and, OMG, Nicholas couldn't play his Playstation! Fortunately, WE Energies (if you look at that really fast, it looks like weenergies - play along with me - think hot dogs, frankfurters) was very efficient and fixed the problem in about an hour and a half.

But, with all the complaining I do during our six months of winter, we do see lovely scenes like this:

And, because it is almost impossible to blog without including some sheep pictures, these are the two Dorset ewe lambs that we got from Don and Carol Battenburg this year:

And one of our lambs, a Polypay/Coopworth cross - I can't wait to see her fleece on the skirting table - she appears to have the finer wool of the Polypay, with the brown coloring of her Coopworth dam:

Hope your weather is warmer than ours - at least at the moment - it is supposed to get up near freezing this weekend. Hooray!

Winter Wonderland

This is the scene that greeted us this morning down our driveway.

And off of our deck, looking to the west -


To the north -

And to the east -

Very pretty, but I wanted to get some pictures before the sun started shining later today, as the temperatures are supposed to get above freezing and I am hoping it will all melt later today. We haven't gotten our winter water hauling system set up yet and right now, if the hoses are frozen, I fill buckets and cart them out to the sheep in the garden cart. Water for just over 100 sheep, in six distinct pasture/pen areas. So let's just say it is not my favorite chore. And if the snow gets deep, the garden cart will not move easily through the snow.

So, to take a break from the water hauling, yesterday Mom and I did this:

We drove into Milwaukee to see the Florentine Opera's production of Madama Butterfly. They don't let you take pictures in the theatre, so you will have to settle for a picture of the program. While I am not an opera buff, I do like some of the music (Puccini being one of my favorites) and yesterday I even recognized some of the songs! It was a very enjoyable way to spend an afternoon (we went to the Sunday matinee) and it didn't snow, so I managed to navigate the new Marquette Interchange without any major mishaps.

In Sheepy News, we put Eddie (who can be seen on the November 5 blog entry) in with his girls this past week. He immediately began courting them, but was delayed as Florence, our Jacob ewe (who can be seen on the October 17 blog entry), tried to kill him. Really. She got in a few head-on attacks, got him down and then went in for the kill. Fortunately, we were right there, so could rescue him. Florence has been moved in with group two of the "big, whites" where she is not the biggest (although maybe the meanest). She complains every time I am within earshot (and maybe when I am not), but she has to play nice with the other sheep, or her time here on the farm will be limited.

And my parting shot today, the kittens on the front porch are almost adult cat size now and two of them actually sat still long enough this morning for me to get a shot of them. They are very friendly (when this picture was taken, kitten number three, a tiger, was rubbing my ankles) and if I didn't already have three house cats, I would scoop them all up and bring them in with me. But I don't want to become one of those crazy cat ladies whose house has been taken over by the felines!

Happy Thanksgiving to all!