Polar Express

Well here it is not even  " officially " winter and yowza we have had some frigid temperatures the past few weeks. Other than this past Saturday ( we made it almost to 40 F ) it has been hovering in the teens and twenty's during the day and single digits at night. The wind has not let up . Not much in the way of snow though, just a dusting overnight the past few nights.

We took advantage of the warm day Saturday and I made sure I trimmed my pony Nuggets feet. She has a condition called Insulin Resistance , and one of the complications to this is laminitis. She has had a few bouts of it and I have FINALLY gotten her feet to look normal again with careful trims. This time around I dropped her heal a bit more dramatically than I have in the past but I figured I may not trim her again until March unless we get a break in the freeze.  With the frozen ground and the aggressive trim she is a bit tender in foot but in comparison to last year at this time she looks great.
I also stripped out the chicken coop while the temp's were mild. I hate that job, chicken crap is just so (excuse the pun ) foul.
Still it has to be done and I know my birds were happy to have a clean coop with fresh bedding.

We had moved the little hair ram in with the big boys a few weeks ago. What I ended up doing was taking a 10 foot pipe gate and locking him in half the shed for a week. This way he was protected from them if they wanted to harm him and it gave the boys a chance to meet the new kid. We let him out after the meet and greet week and all went quite well other than a few shoves here or there. I know him being a youngster helped.
I will put my woolies in with my Cheviot ram next week for mid May lambs. I am going to use my little Brecknock Hill Cheviot "Prince" this year.
I have hair lambs due in February and am hoping we get this freeze over and done with by then.
It maybe was not the brightest idea I had to expose the ewes so early, but I needed to get the little guy out of the flock and so I figured I would just turn him loose with some lady's of his own kind.
I'll let know know if I am sorry for it.

I am now feeding hay at a blazing pace. The sheep did not even bother to go out into the pasture yesterday, spending most of the day in the barn or hovering around the opening to it. While there is still grass to eat I know there can't be much nutrition left in dormant grasses to keep any condition or finish on them.

I strung a tarp up over the barn door to the sheep side of the barn a few days ago since it faces west .
I hoped to keep it a bit warmer inside and it seems to be working well enough. There is just a gap about two and a half feet up from the bottom for the sheep to get in and out and it has felt warmer inside because it it not getting the wind blowing in as it had .

Have not done much with the dogs other than whistle work with young ones. It's coming along well enough.

I managed to get my Christmas cards done and mailed out. I have cut back drastically on my sending. One because the postage is getting a bit much and two seems no one really does the card thing anymore other than electronic e cards.
Got the tree up and decorated as well as a few lit Christmas things for in front of the house.
I never bothered to figure out WHY the lights that I painstakingly strung on the eave of the roof do not light but for a few.
My plan is to take them off the house first chance I get and stomp them into oblivion.
The lighted Santa and six candy canes is going to have to be enough this year.