The last day of Feb was mild, so mild that we had our first “misty” fogged in monring on the farm.. it felt like spring and things were melting.. but with over 3 feet as a base plus higher snow drifts ont he farm, it is just showing first hints of sugar snow on the top.

It was perfect timing to have our first lamb be born in that mild weather and its nice to have momma and babe tucked into the big barn in a jug.. the rest of the sheep are coming up closer to the house and being feed out on clean snow.. I am cheating by moving them from place to place, I am lightly seeding out my pasture while also giving each seeding area a boost compost wise with the sheep poo..

Soon enough we will need to go back to the raised feeders but right now, I have a window to keep the feed clean for the sheep and do snow seeding.. I will take it.

With the first hoarfrost morning, it can only mean one thing! Maple tapping time is here, time to get your taps in, your buckets set, your lines ready and to get your boilers or fires ready.. We had two days off run time and then we turned the page into MARCH

It came in as hard and fast as Remmi was coming on the plowed walking paths when I called him! The temps dropped from a high of 2c (which felt so warm lol) to -17 with 60km winds which dropped the cold factor to -30.. We kept everyone in the barn and feed out buckets of warm water and loved having small bales that this winter makes our life much easier at times like this.

The snow storm came and dropped another 3 inches, then another line came and did another 2 inches, then another with another 3 inches and this morning ont he 3rd, we awoke to another inch and half.. so 9.5 inch of new snow on top of our already heavy snow pack in the past 72 hours. So much shoveling and snow blowing.

By next week, they say we will be back up to more normal temps and starting out first maple sap runs proper.. crossing fingers for a good couple weeks of those above 0 daytime temps and below 0 night time.. The maple sugar shacks were hard hit last year with Covid and many of them are struggling big time with year as well. No meals, no maple taffy on snow, no wagon rides.. Those spring weeks of crazyness is what brings in a huge amount of their “extra” money

Hubby’s work has done some big time push back that he has to much unused “paid” time off so he was given a choice of buy out or he must take some time off. March is not good time on the farm for time off but so be it.. Figure its a good time to do a indoor house project, weather will let us open windows enough that we could paint if we wanted. It would appear that many of the staff have not taken their “time off” this year working from home.. what a mismatch.. so much work, so many overtime hours, so many weekends worked.. but now someones said.. wait.. they are not taking their time off.. sigh!

We will not be heading off the farm much, I will pay to have the needed items (if we do not have it already) done as a driveway drop off.. In the last week of Feb, we have had our first local UK varient Covid outbreak at our local cheese factory, they closed the shop, tested and found X cases and tested all 180 staff and are watching it closely.. that work place is about 20ish min drive time from the farm..

Thankfully we have our seedlings to start, so many baby plants to look after, hundred plus daily feathered friends visit and light up our yard, the singing is a delight and they make me want to grab my camera and spend time trying to catch them at their best or funniest. The hounds keep us busy in so many ways.. ah teenagers.. never ending training, you can teach them by training or you can teach them by letting them get away with it..

The horse’s have come though the hard part of winter in good shape, they are not to fat but they are for sure out of shape, but we will be starting walks and getting ready for riding season coming. We are planning on bringing in a couple truck loads of sand to create better drainage in the one area and ideally I am hoping to get some outdoor drainage mats. I love my land so much but not when its a wet/horse combo..

I will be looking forward to getting a home cowboy horse course set up this year and getting up in the saddle in 2021. I am not at all sure how much off farm riding I will be doing, at least not on the forest horse trails but I will do private land riding for sure. Maybe this will be the year that I can finally get a bridle that works with Bojangles odd head lol.. part of his head is draft size, part if warmblood and then he has this tiny mouth/bit size.. he is very hard to fit tack to.. thank goodness for saddle blankets now that you can add shims into the pockets to get saddles to fit better.. Caleb’s tack is all good but I will give it all a good going over and make sure nothing needs to be replaced or repaired.

I need a new “farm” camera, one of those smaller waterproof, drop from this height, outdoor its a active hard knock life camera’s that fits in my hard case.. Man, in day to day life, I am hard on my camera’s.. I baby my BIG ones but burn though the active one’s in about a year, maybe two if I am very lucky.. but on the other hand (knock on wood) my phone is going strong after 5 years, which in todays world makes it old.. not that I care really.. it does the job and I see no reason to replace it till I need to do so.. but I will be honest, I also grab hubby’s phone for certain things as its newer and I can get better photos and video’s with it.

I was gifted a go pro as a thank you gift for a job well done and I will need to learn about it and see what I can do in that regards as well.. Well, other then that, what can I say. we followed up on what I had talked about, teeth cleaned, new glasses done, some prepping while the items are in stock, some topping of stock used and the day to day grind moves on..

How are you things with you? Did March come in like a lamb or lion in your neck of the woods? Things still nice and quiet in your area in regards to Covid? Have you been enjoying winter? What is your snow cover like? Have you been out Birding in the past weeks..