Knots

We are enjoying the warm weather, but any longtime reader knows that I hate mud. This time of year on a livestock farm can be a muddy mess, which our farmyard is quickly becoming. The hog lots are soupy and it is hard to keep any thing clean. It is also a very ugly time of year. The landscaping is trashy, the lawn is filled with clumps of leaves, fallen branches, and debris left by the receding glaciers. Everything is drab and grungy. I think that I would like the winter/spring transition to take about 24 hours.

I spent the evening knotting comforters at church as part of my wife's World Relief comforter marathon. We finished 27 by the end of the evening. They will be headed to Zambia.

I attended a 2 day MS Excel seminar this week trying to refresh my memory and sharpen my skills. I like using Excel, but I don't use it often enough to remember all the tricks and features. It's an amazing program, I just don't take time to utilize it like I could.

Tuesday, I attended the Illinois Pork Expo at the Civic Center. It was cancelled and then rescheduled because of the blizzard 2 weeks ago. It continues to shrink as the industry consolidates. At one booth a vendor asked what type of operation we had, and I told him we had a small farrow to finish operation. In a world of 2400 sow farrowing units, he asked, "what's small, 500 sows?" "No I said, 150 sows." To which he replied, "you must either be doing something right or you are crazy!" To which I responded, "I think it is a little of both."

Actually, maybe a little more to the crazy side of the equation.

But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.
2 Peter 2:22

Ominous

And in the morning, It will be foul weather to day: for the sky is red and lowering. O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?
Matthew 16:3

For once the weathermen were right! They all predicted a major winter storm with large amounts of snow. When the sun came up Tuesday morning I took this picture and knew we were in for something big. We finished our chores and made all the preparations we could. The snow and wind started after lunch and the rest is history. A good old fashioned blizzard. The wind seemed to start in the northeast then shift around to the northwest. This made for a lot of snow drifts in atypical places. Fortunately we never lost power. About 11:30 Tuesday evening (before I went to bed), I put on my down parka and went out for a stroll. The wind had blown open some hog feeder lids, so I had to find some concrete blocks to put on them to keep them closed. I almost worked up a sweat. It was kind of fun walking around out in the midst of the storm - knowing I could go into the warmth quickly.

It took me three hours to do chores Wednesday morning. It was hard to find a hog house door to enter, because most had huge drifts in front of them. I carried a shovel around with me all morning to get into doors, cross drifts, and check pigs. The snow had sifted into all the open sheds, hoops, and machine sheds. The sleeping pigs had a layer of snow covering them. In some of the lots the drifts were high enough that the hogs could walk over the fences if they wanted to. They mostly were just cold and hungry. We fed everything and in the afternoon bedded them all down good with extra straw. We also started the long process of clearing snow. It will take several days to get everything cleared, but we opened everything up that needed immediate attention. By evening the Township had our road open again.

After supper Wednesday evening, I put on my snowshoes and went out snowshoeing in the peace and calm of a crisp, cold winter night. There are not many years that I get to use them, but I enjoy the winter exercise and the ability to walk anywhere I want. The sunshine and calm today allowed us to accomplish much work despite the cold. It is a satisfying feeling to come into the warm house after a long day of winter work.
Despite the inconveniences, winter really is a beautiful time of year.