Bernard painted her (fake) fingernails last night, and I thought it was very creative and crafty and festive:
In other seasonal news, Ray said this morning’s temperature (22 chilly degrees here) was the coldest we’ll see for the month of December, and that there’s no chance for a white Christmas this year. I’m rejoicing, because to me that means we get a whole month off of winter this year! And after the last two, that sounds just great! So Happy Holidays everybody!
I found a pair of these 5 gallon stainless steel milk cans on eBay, and got what I thought was a really good deal on them. Now we can carry milk back and forth in the car, which makes it so much easier to move Pearl around to different pastures.
Yesterday I posted a couple of calendars in my CafePress shop. One is a nice oversized calendar with a different MMF character featured each month—you’ll see Marlene, Pearl, Maeby, Split, Joon, and others.
There is also a smaller one-page calendar, featuring a photo of our farmhouse kitchen:
This is a great way to do a little Christmas shopping and help support Moonmeadow Farm!
There was just enough snow to (mostly) cover the ground when we got up this morning. Most of it was gone by lunchtime, except on the north-sloping hillsides, where it hung around all day and made it seem colder than it really was. It did look awfully pretty under that big rising moon tonight, though.
It rained hard all day, but then suddenly the temperature dropped a billion degrees, and it’s now snowing like hell. The sheep don’t care, but we locked them in the barn anyway, along with everybody else.
The duckies sleep in the greenhouse at night, and lately, on rainy days they stay in there, too. This is not because they wouldn’t love to be outside in the rain—they would—but because they make a disgusting mucky mess of the front yard when it’s wet. And this makes me very grouchy. So, until we have some way to keep them out of the yard, these funky, cool days are indoor days for duckies.
I’ve been planting tons of pansies—I got a lot on sale for very cheap. It’s so cheery in the winter during a mild spell to see a few bright flowers, but they really start to come into their own in late February and March. By April, they’re big colorful mounds, which can be a lifesaver in early spring!
DH and I worked outside for most of today, mainly cleaning up flower beds, doing a little rock work, and planting pansies (me), and firewood (him). It was reasonably warm and reasonably sunny, especially for early December, and it was so nice to be outside all day.
I bought some new solar lights for the ducks, and I also moved the chickens closer to the ducks and now they have a light, too. It remains to be seen if this will cause more eggs to be laid. These are much brighter lights, so here’s hoping!