Turned the heat up in the house by 5 degrees to 69 F, eating pizza I made yesterday - onions, green pepper, mushrooms, marinated artichokes, calamata olives and anchovies, with the cheese, blue and parmesan, added after taking it out the oven.
So this is what I'm doing :)
Maddie has tucked herself up against the house behind one of the butterfly bushes. Invited her into the garage, so she came and ate some dog food, but then chose to return to her new spot outside. Her first encounter with snow. Wish I had my phone with me outside to snap her with snow on her head and back, looking rather dashing with her luminous orange bandana.
Yesterday, when Manda came to collect their milk, she and Miriam helped me deworm the sheep. Or rather, they handed me the syringe and meds once I'd caught the targeted sheep, and had a good laugh :). But I couldn't have done it without them. Thanks girls :). Hershey has had something going on around his ears, and although I chucked some pour-on on him over a week ago, and later added some of the sheep meds to a grain bucket which they all had some, it wasn't enough for his 200lbs odd weight. Had to catch him and administer it with the drenching bulb syringe 2 of the sheep didn't need meds, and I couldn't catch 2, Rose and Ruthie, although neither look as if their body condition is compromised. I'll keep an eye on them. Hershey has lost a bit of weight, so hopefully this gets rid of his excess parasite load. But I don't know if some of his head issues are being caused by Lisa. She goes into their enclosure whenever she's not supervised and torments the sheep, and he stands protection between her and his girls. The little ewe lamb has a tender back leg, think Hershey hurt her in trying to mount her. Bloody ram. She is too little, and his daughter, but being the only little one, I don't want to separate her out by herself, although I have considered it. Maybe put Maddie with her in the lower barn enclosure, but the deer can pass additional parasites to the sheep, so I'm hesitant. Gave her meds last week as I could catch her, and she's starting to put a little weight on the leg, that's a good sign.
Daisy May and Eleanor are being pretty good at coming up to the barn every evening, then I either milk them in the morning, or just take them back to their calves in the pasture if I don't need the milk. Dolly has accepted that she can't come up to the barn. I'm starting to look at dates to take her to butcher. Taxes, her 1/2 Scottish Highland boy calf is nearly 6-months old, so doesn't need to nurse anymore. I would like a little more meat on her. Maybe I should bring her up to the barn with the others and give her a beet with molasses ration, but no grain to up her milk production.
See we we are having a mole / vole issue again. There are earth mounds popping up on the back lawn, and Lisa is digging holes trying to get at them. I shout at her as we don't need anymore damage to the little grass we have left. She knows she's not supposed to dig, I've been stopping her doing it in the pasture for a few months already, and she drops down on top of the hole effectively covering all the evidence when I do catch her. Border Collies are such clever dogs.
The new chickens have seemingly integrated well with the rest of mine, although the little fluffy white silkie has partnered up with one of my Buff Brahma roosters who's 3 x her size. Suppose nature calls for her to find the largest, strongest male to be her chickie daddy.
Looking at all my weather forecasts, I'll be planting the garlic on Wednesday. I ran out of time yesterday, there was enough to actually plant the garlic, but not enough to mulch it, and with the coming snow, I didn't think I should do the one without the other. Did get a bit of deep house cleaning done, including the kitchen counter and the vacuuming. Had to schlepp the vacuum cleaner upstairs to get the grain on our bedroom floor. Have (had?) a rather determined mouse trying to store grain in the laundry baskets in the basement. First with the clean laundry, therefore the grain in our bedroom, and then in with the dirty laundry. Hopefully the poison trap I put out sorted that problem. Haven't seen recent signs of mouse activity in the kitchen, so maybe they moved to the basement where they found my veggie seed stash.
The wind howled last night, all night. Didn't want to leave my warm bed this morning. The sun sets just after 5pm these days, so I need to watch for when the cows come up so that I can move the milking girls to the barn enclosure.