Nestling in for a Long Winter

Fall is definitely over!

Wow, am I tired.

Today was a whirl of activity here at the Farmhouse in the Field. According the Buffalo weather report, we may be getting up to two feet of snow on Tuesday! We simply weren't ready and so we had to get ready fast! Then we woke up Monday morning to this!







Unfortunately, my suspicion is that it's going to be a rough winter. We've had a few winters where it was up to sixty degrees in December but this year the furnace started to be put into service by end of October. That's early. Too early....

What it looked like when I got to work.

So yesterday we drove posts and put up the snow fence. The purpose of the snow fence is to help to create a barrier to help break up the wind that is driving the snow so that there isn't as much snow coming in to block up the protected area. In our case that is our driveway.
There have been many mornings where the driveway was no where to be seen.

Those are NOT fun mornings!

The snow fences are up!

We space the posts about every ten feet and drive them down with a post driver. It's simply a pill shaped cylinder with handles that you put on the end of a post and drop. (It's also a great workout for aggression so if you've had a bad day, go out and drive some posts!) Then the snow fence is stretched out and zip stripped to the posts.

Next we had to get the blade attached to the lawn mower. I hate, hate, hate this job. It typically involves my husband and I laying on the cold cement trying to locate where the cotter pins go in. The only worse thing than that is putting the mower deck on the mower in the spring time.

Then I wrapped the cherry trees in burlap. This is their first winter and I just got a replacement tree last week. I understand that they send the trees in the fall because the trees are dormant but in November? Really? I mean, I once received a butterfly bush I ordered in December. December? What part of b-u-t-t-e-r-f-l-y bush sounds like it is should have anything with the month of December? I don't get it.

All tucked in for a long winter's nap!

The main reason that you have to burlap young trees has nothing really to do with the snow. Trees don't die because of the coldness, they die because they dehydrate due to the low humidity and whipping winds. Putting them in a burlap blanket helps to protect them.










Finally the garage was swept out and all the odds in ends put away so finally we can park our cars in the garage. I don't know why but it's so depressing in the winter when, after fighting the elements, you open the garage door only to see a mess. I'm definitely not a clean freak by any one's standards, but that is just plainly demoralizing. So the garage is now cleaned up, the workbench area is more organized and now all that's left is to move around the living room and start our woodstove.

Ah... it's good to be all tucked in for our winter's hibernation...

Baby Dixon