another week blows by,

in every sense of the word. Thanks to all the beautiful wind we have not had to run the generator for 48 hours. Considering the fact that our batteries are almost shot, that is quite an accomplishment. This week also went by very quickly, just as the weeks before it. I definitely enjoy a fast work week but winter is quickly approaching and it pains me to think of all the things we still need to do to winterize the farm and house.

We still need to trench and bury water lines for the cattle and we need to dig up all the water outlets that were already here as they are just plastic pipe coming out of the ground and far from freeze proof. The owner told me that the pipe he had put in around the farm is only two feet deep! So let's all keep our fingers crossed that we don't have problems there. We need to come up with watering solutions for all the animals so the water doesn't freeze. Luckily, their water intake tends to drop quite a bit during the winter.

Then there's the issue of adequate shelter. We believe in raising animals that are tough and can survive with little or no assistance from us. Yet we also don't want to subject them to any unnecessary stress or pain. I think they could all survive without me building them shelters but I would need to allow them to find their own. I'd like to move the hogs to a new area, where they can graze on alfalfa but I have to put up fence and build sheds for them before I can do that. So we'll see if I can get that done before winter.

The owner has offered to put a new propane furnace in the house. So between the propane heat and small wood stove, we should have plenty of heat. The problem will be keeping the heat in and the cold out. I'm going to put plastic over the windows, which should help quite a bit. Then we'll just have to see how much insulation is in the walls. I'm sure it will still be drafty but hopefully not too bad.


I've also started working on installing the solar equipment. I have the racks up, you can barely see the four racks in the picture below on the granary roof. I'm not a big fan of heights and that is a fairly steep and slick roof so I had to run some ropes down to get up and down the roof. The company I ordered from neglected to send me all the necessary components so I'm at a stand still for now but hope to get the panels up by the end of next weekend. But that may quickly take a backseat to the winterizing projects.