Spring is (hopefully) on its way!

I was sick of winter by mid-December. It’s now the beginning of February, and I’m starting to feel desperate. Thankfully I will be escaping to Florida for a long weekend in just over a week, where I will get to hang out with Baby Sky and hopefully see some sun.

Winters in this area aren’t usually too horrible, though I’d choose a Hawaiian winter any day of the week. Usually, though, we have cold days and then warmish days, so it’s not too oppressive. We had hope early on that it would be a mild winter when we had a day in the 70’s for the Thanksgiving For the Turkeys.

Unfortunately mild is not a word that can be applied to the winter this year. We had a December that was at least 5 degrees colder than normal (I think we saw 40 only twice), and a January that continued the trend. At least we haven’t gotten gigantic snows like we got last year, and like the rest of the country seems to be getting this year!

We did get some snow last week, enough to coat the sanctuary in a white blanket. The sheep and goats had been spending a lot of time hanging around the barn, and we tried to bribe them to go up to the hay feeder on top of the hill, but they’d follow us up there, and then follow us back down! Jeremy did not help things by standing in the middle, intimidating the other goats and sheep. And to think he was such a sweetheart as a baby!

While we were up there we saw one of the Bald Eagles flying to their nest holding onto some nest-making material. They re-use the same nest year after year, and it seems like the nest should be a three story condo by now. In the early summer when the sheep are sheared, the eagles will take a lot of the wool from the compost pile and use it for their nest!

We can see the nest from the top of the hill in the goat and sheep yard, but we don’t approach it, especially at this time of year. I believe February is when they lay their eggs in this area, and if they were disturbed they could abandon the nest, which would be a very sad thing.

There are a few huge round bales of hay hanging out near the pig barn, and Malcolm was having a great time climbing up and jumping from bale to bale.

This picture makes me laugh, because it doesn’t even look real. It looks like he is levitating instead of jumping!

The tractor had some serious bling to deal with the snow.

I’m really glad I don’t have to drive the tractor. When the ground isn’t slippery they have a donated SUV that they use to tow the spreader, which means they are not only warmer while spreading all the goodies we collect, they are protected from flying turds. But using the tractor to tow the spreader is better than not using the spreader at all, which we learned last year when the area had gotten several feet of snow several times, and the buckets had to be dumped in these giant piles instead of being spread out in the far pasture. Add some bling to the tractor, and it heads right up the snowy hill!

Still trying to get that certain expression on Darcy’s face. Not even close this week, but I like the consolation prize!