Fortunately, nothing nearly as stressful as losing cows happened in December! It has been a busy month, some of which was getting work done around the farm, but mostly involved lots of family gatherings.
This month a cow shelter with feeding trough was halfway built, greenhouse endwalls were constructed, including building doors for the endwalls. Orrin and his dad are out there as I write this, finishing up the second endwall door. We cut lots of wood this month, after realizing that the wood that we had been burning in our Kachelofen is not as dry as it needs to be, so Orrin had gone in search of a dead, dry tree on the property. He found one pretty close by, and Elva (Orrin's mom) and I were entertained one afternoon as Orrin and Dave (Orrin's dad) used come-along's to fell the tree in the right direction. It had been leaning pretty heavily over the pond, but they managed to re-direct it so that it fell in a place they could more easily cut the wood (which would not have been the pond!). The big cracking sound that trees make when they come crashing down is pretty impressive, and this tree did not disappoint. Additionally, Zane has drawn up some plans for the second house for us, and we hope to start framing in windows soon, to get the ball rolling there.
Orrin's parents are in the area for a total of 4 months (one of which is now past already), so they've been helpful with coming over occasionally to help us work and take care of Oliver. We also had my parents visit for about 5 days. We celebrated an early Christmas with them, and enjoyed some really delicious dinners while they were here.
We hosted our first Solstice Celebration, having a bunch of family over for a nice meal, and plan to make this a new holiday for us, as we look forward to longer days and our first growing season on the farm.
I'm happy to have had a few minutes to jot down our last month of 2010 on the farm, and hope you all have a fabulous holiday season with your families and friends.
