I think this time of year is the hardest for me.

I’ll have to double check this at -40°, and sometime between January and February, when I’ve been out of the sun for my longest stretch.

I’m speaking of these weeks surrounding the solid freeze-up. At no other time of year is 35-40 degrees F so cold.  In February it’s outright balmy, I don’t want a coat, and can never understand why my teeth start chattering when I’ve been outside too long.

Water freezes over night, so I have to judge whether to give critters water in cold bowls, or wait til the water thaws in the afternoon.

Until the afternoon doesn’t get warm enough to thaw the water.

Thursday’s high is supposed to be 35, which means manually watering the outdoor animals twice a day, to make sure they get enough.

Jay’s been building a small barn inside the big shed that’s behind our home.  I’ve been *so* impressed at how fast it’s going up, and thankful that in (probably) less than a week we’ll be bringing all our rabbits and chickens in “out of the cold.”

But building in the cold has its own challenges, in addition to this is happening around the edges of his regular full-time job.  Which means most of what he’s doing is not only in the cold, but it’s only lit by his headlamp, because there’s no electricity in the shed.

The stress was palpable off of him tonight, as we passed after the kids’ bedtime on our respective projects.  “Is there anything I can do to make your life less stressful?” I asked, bracing myself in case he needed to say “eat all the animals,” just to get it off his chest.

“No,” he said. “There’s nothing you can do.”

And as I walked away I realized there was something I could do.  Basically I needed to switch into winter mode and just buckle down for the new season.  Because my attitude and the energy I approach my tasks with really make a difference in the energy-level of my house.

So I wore a hat tonight while feeding the rabbits. And my light leather gloves; enough for brief work requiring dexterity.

And I was quite comfortable, thanks for asking.  So now I think I’ve officially made my transition.

Winter’s mostly here, but we’re mostly ready, and we’ll do fine.

Over the long weekend Jay built the two frames for our two 5-hole rabbit cages.

He also put in the chimney for our wood stove in its new location.  And while in the attic space under the roof he saw the charred evidence of a house fire.  Which answers my perennial question about how/why this old house (a log cabin, though you can’t tell from the inside or out) got a new floor and sheet-rocked walls.

We set the first giant cage in place late Monday night, but it was just yesterday I finished cleaning them out and transferring the “mythic” (Odin, Freya, Athena, etc.) set from their temporary place to the raised frame.  Freya and Ropa (short for Europa) were bred a couple weeks before I bought them and are due to kindle early next week.

Ropa’s been a bit of a snit, and was heavier than Freya, so I’m pretty sure Ropa’s preggers.  Not as sure about the older one, so it will be a wait-and-see again, like it was with Serena.

Yeah.  I’ve named them all.  It’s the best way I’ve found for keeping things straight in my head.  I don’t know how many the pantheon of Greek/Norse gods would work for, but for me it keeps the generations straight without even trying.

We’re officially “real” farmers now, though, because Hera broke her back somehow and while Jay was starting the cage frames I was skinning and butchering my first rabbit.

I also separated the drakes from the hens among the ducks, assured myself we have at least six hens (including the two named ducklings, thank God), and picked a drake to try out duck meat.

I skinned it rather than trying the scald/pluck method, and have to say that seems most practical.  And I’m really not doing much with cooking fat anyway, so saving the skin just seems like more effort than it’s worth right now.

So we’ve had duck and rabbit this week, and Jay was thankful to “reset” some negitive memories of both meats.

Next animal jobs are to clean up the 5-hole that was on the ground and split up the B-set (Buck, Bunnita, Buttercup) we got in May.

Jay and I are ready to see the guinea pigs leave now. We’re looking for the simplicity of only two types of animals; and having animals that can all make it outdoors in wire-bottom cages.

It’s amazing how much more relaxed Jay is without animals in the house.

So we’ve told the kids, but aren’t moving quickly.

Oh, and we accepted four lonely tomato plants along with a collection of seed-starting stuff (for next year, maybe), so I planted them one-to-a-pot in the half-barrel planters on the edges of the yard.  It will be interesting to see if they produce anything.  They’re surviving so far.

So Serena (the angora–wool– rabbit) did not have any babies this week.

And as I’ve been praying all month that she’ll have “just the right number” of kits, I’m sort-of backwards relieved.  I’ve been feeling pulled this week back to writing, so not having more fiber animals to maintain is doubtless a good thing.

In other rabbity news, we picked up the crew of Californians (2 bucks, 3 does, purportedly all bred and due mid-July) and have spent this very. wet. week trying to keep them sheltered in their temporary set up and trying to keep their food dry enough that it all gets eaten, rather than soggy and thrown out.

Side note: I cannot remember a more soggy summer ever.  I mean, I remember a persistent drizzle last summer, and the summer I was married 10 years before that, but this year it’s just been coming down *buckets.”

Twice now the press-board ramp up to the porch has become so saturated that I slipped coming down and landed with a slick of mud up my pant leg. Two hours later it was dry again and had no issues.

The ducks are nearly feathered out, and I’m pretty sure they’re full-size.  They go through a five-gallon bucket of food in two days, and still freak out whenever anyone approaches.

Jay is offended by this, but I continue to argue that there are too many to make an effective effort to tame them. I keep figuring that once we cull them down to only two drakes (according to my sloppy tally that gives at least 5 to the freezer) we’ll have a better shot at winning them over with patience and food-treats.

I have named all the new rabbits.  And I use their names when bringing them their nightly food and water.

Their previous owner made her position very clear (They’re meat-producers.  Period), but I realized I’m no good at interacting with numbers (i.e., tattooed designations). I need names.  It ties into one of my favorite quotes and says something real about me:

Names are an important key to what a society values. Anthropologists  recognize naming as ‘one of the chief methods for imposing order on   perception.’  ~David S. Slawson

With all the change in my world over the last year and a half, I am quick to grab at anything that will “impose order on perception.”

And with that in mind, I realized something else interesting about all these animals I have purchased for a concrete purpose: They’re all black & white.

In a world where nothing else seems that simple, here is what I choose to surround myself with.  It’s comforting to see clarity somewhere.