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Hello Friends!
It’s hard to believe March is coming to an end. Our Wyoming weather has been very spring-like for most of March. It has been so nice Joe and I are talking about starting the garden. It really is still way too early but so tempting. Last year we had two little garden boxes at our place, for salad fixings, and a larger shared garden at our neighbors. This year we’ll have our little boxes (because they work so well for the salad garden) and our own full-sized garden. Having our water well put in makes watering so much easier. We can do it with our water barrels but it is a lot of manual labor which equals time.
Winter Fun
Even though it feels like spring and we are without snow here, the mountains surrounding us are still snow-covered. We’ve been enjoying snow skiing and snowshoeing this winter. Joe and our son are getting really good at skiing. I’m… well, not nearly as good but I do enjoy it. I took a 90 minute lesson which was a great refresher and has helped keep me *mostly* upright.
We’re only 45 minutes from the ski mountain we’ve been going to (there is another mountain about an hour and a half away we plan to try out next year). Our nearby mountain is supposed to be open until mid-April. My men went on Sunday and there had been quite a bit of melt since our last trip. They’d even needed to use the snow making machines. I’m not sure if we’ll be able to squeeze another trip in before it closes. We are already planning for next year. One thing we hope to do is find a good buy on used equipment at least for Joe. We can rent from a sports store (and that is possibly what C and I will do) but buying something at a decent price would be wonderful. We’ll see how that works out.
New Pantry
Our big project this winter has been insulating the ceiling in our cabin. While Joe continues to work on this, we’ve enlisted the help of a couple of neighbor for a few other projects. One of these projects is adding the pantry section of our mud/arctic room. All of the walls and shelving is in and the next step will be adding the door to fully enclose the new pantry section. I need to spend some serious time out there organizing everything but it’s pretty exciting. Because this is a non-heated section it will be used for dry goods, our chest freezer and non-food supplies. The cans and jars we use are kept in the house so they aren’t subjected to our freezing temps over the winter. We did insulate the area quite well and think it won’t get terribly hot over the summer.
The pantry space is about 5 feet wide by 8 feet long. The freezer is on one side with wide shelves to store my canning and dehydrating supplies above. The 5 foot wall on the opposite end is pretty much floor to ceiling shelves with space to put 3.5-gallon buckets below. We use these buckets for bulk storage so this is super handy. The back wall has the same feature for buckets but a 5 gallon with a 3.5 gallon on top. We had the two bottom shelves made 12 inches wide. Everything else is 8 inches. I like the narrower shelves so I can find things. Our temporary pantry arrangement had free-standing shelves. They were quite deep and I kept losing things on them. Above the entry door is a shelf for seldom used items like the meat grinder and food processor.
Livestock
Our chickens and goats have been enjoying the spring-like weather. The chickens are starting to lay again after taking the winter off (we don’t supplement with artificial light) and we’ll soon have goat babies on the ground. The two little goat cuties above are kids born last year (in July). The one on the right was a triplet and her mama stopped feeding her. We were able to enlist the assistance of another goat as a wet nurse. It all turned out quite well but took some extra time and nurturing. One thing is the little goat ended up very friendly and absolutely loves people. The white one, on the left, not so much. We’re working with her to get her a little less squirrelly. We raise our goats to milk. Less squirrelly is important for when she is on the milking stand.
What has been happening at your place? Are you planning a garden?
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Millie Copper (Homespun Oasis) is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking amazon.com.
