Category: Animals

It’s soft and light on my shovel, easy to push and toss aside.  There’s about five inches of snow on the ground now.  Jon and I just came in from shoveling paths and cleaning off the cars.

The snow is falling straight and even, without wind to create drifts, so I’ll go out again in a couple of hours to try to keep up with it.  Between the front and backyards and barnyard we have plenty of paths to keep clear and it’s easier to shovel five inches of snow at a time than ten inches at once.

There’s a quiet that comes with this kind of snow.  The air is so busy, congested with snowflakes soundlessly bumping into and landing on top of each other.  They should be making a racket.

And all that movement somehow seems to bring a stillness too. Again, it doesn’t make sense, but the donkeys and sheep stand contentedly in the polebarn, the chickens go dormant in the roost, and inside the house, the dogs are calm.

Zinnia is so quiet in Jon’s office I can hear the clicking of Jon’s fingers on his keyboard.  Along with the comforting ticking of the woodstoves, there’s the satisfying sound of Fate chewing a bone at my feet and Bud snoring on the couch.

I hear the plow truck on Route 22 before I see the flashing lights in the window, but otherwise, the road is silent.

It’s only 6pm but it feels like 3am.   Like most of the people for miles around are asleep. I feel that way too, quiet and gentle inside, as soft as the falling snow.

The snow is quickly covering everything it touches. Fate is undeterred and the sheep don’t seem to know that they’re caked with snow.

But Fanny and Lulu are more reluctant.

Because Lulu was already at the feeder I figured that Fanny would join her. As you can see in the video, she eventually does.  But by the time I spread out the hay in the sheep’s feeder both donkeys were back in the barn.

I gave in, as they knew I would, and brought their hay into the barn.

It’s been three weeks since out last Katz and Wulf On Bedlam Farm  Podcast.   First getting Zinnia threw us off then Jon had computer problems and it’s on his computer that we record our podcasts.

But we got back to it today, talking about what’s been going on at Bedlam Farm.  We called it Thanksgiving Weekend, Zinnia, Storms, Learning to Relax and you can listen to it here.

As we made the podcast in Jon’s office, Zinnia slept in her bed behind Jon’s chair just like Red used to do.  I said in the podcast that Jon is in love with Zinnia.  And as much as Zinnia likes chewing on Bud, she seems to already know why she’s here.

The story goes that the more black on a Woolly Bear caterpillar the harsher the winter will be.  The Woolly Bears are on the move at the farm.  I find them under the cat’s bed, in the wood box, the hay bales, and the woodpile.

They’re, no doubt looking for a safe place to hole up for the winter.

I was taking a video of this Woolly Bear when Flo came into the picture.  I was glad to see that Woolly Bear just kept moving on.  I’ll probably come across her again, curled into a little ball, the next time I gather some kindling from the woodbox she’s walking on.