So much for this not being a daily posting but with us being snowed-in there is great opportunity for sitting at the computer being constructive.
As today is the 12th day of Christmas we have taken down our Christmas tree and carefully packed away the fragile decorations. Many of our treee decorations are old glasss ones, some of which belonged to the Farmers' grandmother when she was a child and so are about a hundred years old. Each year as our boys were growing up Father Christmas would bring them a new piece to hang on the tree and so we have all sorts of pretty things. Father Christmas has very good taste, we found!
On the farm, the Eldest Son is kept busy feeding all the stock which takes much longer in this weather. There is also the added problem of ensuring that pipes, taps and anything with water is kept from freezing. Taps are left with a small trickle running for once the pipework in the milking parlour freezes then things are serious and involve a lot of work and probably expense. Keeping the water supply to the animals in the sheds is taking a lot of time also and every night there is a worry of dropping temperatures getting the better of us and affecting the water troughs.
I think I ought to mention our Younger Son who has not figured much so far for the simple reason that he is in New Zealand.
He went out in October for his third stint as a tractor-driver on the harvest for a large agricultural contractor on South Island.
He is working in temperatures of 30 degrees (air-conditioned tractor cabs make it bearable!) and is pleased not to be at home in our sub-zero temperatures! We will send him photos of his gun dog, Poppy gambolling in the snow like a puppy...she is 8 years old! The dogs love the snow and go digging & leaping around madly.
I have just come in from a long walk with the dogs & the Farmer, down to see neighbours at the bottom of the farm. We walked through our staggeringly beautiful snow-burdened wood and could only think of Narnia & Moles' adventure in the Wild Wood.
On our return we were able to look back across the valley where the stark, blanched fields were touched with a faint flamingo blush as the sun goes down.
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