Even in January there are things to do

By the middle of last week, we had finished prepping the one bed in the greenhouse that didn't have any existing greens in it. We planted Smooth Leaf Spinach, Osaka Purple Mustard, Stir Fry Blend, Pac Choi Da Cheong Chae, Oriental Greens, Purple Mizuna, Arugula Adagio, Winter Mesclun Blend and Mache Vit (corn salad), all from seed. Then we put a layer of row cover over half of the greenhouse soil (including that row), and will hope for the best. Our planting guru is Eliot Coleman, who lives in Maine, so our growing conditions will be similar to his – and he plants year-round in his greenhouse. I'll let you know!

Orrin also put a roof on Gigi's shelter, and she seems to be a happier cow. He's trying to acquire some old boards off of a neighbor's old barn, which he will use to build the sides of her shelter. Hopefully later this week he'll be able to get those.

It has been very cold here lately (currently about -15C), and it's been hard to motivate to do projects outside. Orrin started to frame windows inside the other house a couple days ago, and has almost finished the first one. It took a few hours, but now that Orrin's starting to get the hang of it, hopefully the remaining windows will go a little faster.

In our own house, we spent yesterday organizing, and Orrin created some temporary shelves in the office area to make spaces a little more efficient. There is very little storage in this house, so we will be building storage as we have time, but our main priority is to finish the other house. I was able to finish unpacking the last two boxes of books onto the new shelves, and feel so good about having less clutter around here.

Another Adventure Brought to us by Gigi the Wonder Cow

Lots of excitement around here in the last week! We got about 6” of snow in the first week of January, and then in the middle of this past week we got another 1' at least. I guess I'm giving myself away by giving measurements in English instead of metric, but you probably already knew I was American! Anyway, major blizzard conditions Wednesday afternoon and night resulted in lots of snow and strong, cold winds. We were also without power until Thursday early evening. For whatever reason (we will never know), Galloping Gertie (Gigi)and Beef the calf, actually broke through the electric fence Thursday afternoon and high-tailed it off the property once again. Orrin found them that afternoon, after tracking them for a couple of hours, and managed to bribe them back to the top of our driveway. Gigi balked and wouldn't be steered home, so he left her there and headed home before it got dark.

Friday morning he went back out to the end of the driveway and they had disappeared again. He tracked them for several hours without finding them, and eventually called Zane for some assistance. The snow helped them follow her trail, but it was a lot of work to walk through because it was so deep. They found the cows at a neighbor's, a couple miles away at least, and started to head them back home again. Unfortunately, Gigi got spooked at one point on the trail, possibly because it was a bit of an uphill, and it was a little more enclosed section of the woods than she seemed to like. She ended up getting away from them, and heading back in the opposite direction again. Orrin was pretty beat from trying to track her and bring her home most of the day Friday, so he and Zane headed back to our place. We got a call a while later from the neighbor that the cow was partial to, and they let us know that they gave Gigi and the calf some hay to try to keep them in a known spot for the night (their second night out).

Saturday morning Elva and Zane came over. We called the neighbor to confirm that the cow was still there – she was – then Orrin, Zane and I hiked back over there, while Elva stayed with Oliver. Fortunately, the neighbor's had driven through the trail with their ATV, which made our walk easier on the newly-packed snow. We met up with the neighbor's halfway there, and they gave us a ride on their ATV's as far as they could the rest of the way, escorted as well by their 3 border collie's.

With hay in hand, Orrin, Zane and I started leading Gigi and Beef back home, one of us in front of the cows and the other two behind. For most of the trip she was fine with it, jogging up to grab hay when she wanted. At one point, though, we got to the same place where she'd turned around the day before, and again she turned around and started heading back in the opposite direction. I couldn't entice her back with hay, so Orrin and Zane tackled the calf, to keep him from going with her. Once he started crying, Gigi came running like she was possessed. That got her passed the hardest section of the trail, and we managed to get her home without much more trouble. Phew! Much of the walk back with her had been at a pretty quick pace, either walking fast or jogging. By the time we got her back into her area, I was totally wiped out. Orrin and Zane set up some fencing in a small area around her shelter to keep her contained, as we weren't going to give her the chance to bust out of the electric fencing again. We've been waiting for materials to finish building her shelter (the roofing and siding), and should have that tomorrow. Hopefully completing that will help her feel more protected from any future storms, such that she won't try to get away again.

We thought our last couple of days were going to be spent planting seeds and finishing prepping to lay out row covers in the greenhouse, but our priorities were quite significantly diverted for a bit! We hope to get back to that in a couple of days, once we're done completing Gigi's shelter. We are glad to have her back!

Once again, Gigi has taken it upon herself to help us get to know more of our neighbor's. Thanks, Gigi!