Winter is Coming

As the temperatures begin to drop and the days are becoming windier, I realize that winter is right around the proverbial corner. Which made me realize for the first time, how will the yaks have their water in the winter time? Just use the hose to fill the buckets like I'm doing—wait a minute, the water will freeze, how do you keep the water from freezing outdoors? Wait a minute...how do you use the hose in the winter time in the first place? Do you have to drain the hose out every time you use it so that it doesn't freeze? So many questions...I have googled to death and I just wish I had a friend that new all these things already and could tell me the condensed clif-note version. It also doesn't help that I'm trying to research this on 1/3rd of a brain from sleep deprivation.

After much research...I have found that people who actually have ranch set-ups just have a water faucet right where they fill the water, so no hoses required. But that requires a water line running at least 3 feet underground to prevent freezing, all the way from your faucet to the well house. Which in our case is about the length of a football field...so no thank you. Other people have really fancy troughs that are heated and hooked up to their own water source and automatically refill when they get low. But those are pricey and also need underground water line mentioned above. What if you need something now and don't have a million dollars and don't want to break your back? Picky, I know. Enter the world of livestock watering.

This is another great example of just something I never thought about in my entire life. Essentially, you get a heater. But the myriad amounts of them on the internet is baffling. There's 250 watts, 500, 750, 1000, and 1500 watts. Ones that get too hot for plastic buckets and ones that don't. There's floating ones, sinking ones, heated matts the bucket sits on, and even heated blankets that wrap around the sides of the buckets. Some have adjustable thermostats and some don't. Then there's ones called heaters and ones called de-icers. Then so many of them look fine but then have terrible reviews like, "My horses refused to drink the water when this thing is in there because it gives them a slight shock when their lips touch the water." That's just great. Other's say the old classic, they died within a few days. Yet others say the paint chipped off of them and left flakes in the water. What in tarnation is going on? Why is this so complicated? I guess the ones that float use less energy, but the animals might mess with the machine, the ones that sink need more power. 

I can't tell you how many hours I had to research this. I finally settled on a 1500 watt, sinking, plastic bucket/tank, de-icer, with an automatic thermostat. It just keeps the water warm enough not to freeze, but doesn't actually "heat" the water like a jacuzzi. This is the one I finally decided upon, fascinating, I know. People who know these things recommend that I run the cord through a PVC pipe so that the animals don't chew on it. 

But remember, this is only half my problem...I guess I'll be taking buckets from the house out there. Sounds lovely. Which means I'll also want to move the water buckets closer to the house so that the extension cord can reach the bucket and less distance for me to walk with the buckets. Who thought it was a good idea to have yaks anyway?!

Apples! and Other Crops

We have a golden delicious, a fuji/gala type apple, and a dark red apple. They are all at the peak of perfection and delicious. I want to make something called Apple Butter that I've heard is amazing. But who has the time? We also have potatoes, tomatoes, carrots, green beans, bell peppers, and onions. The onions are so strong that they burn my eyes when I'm pulling them out of the ground. The corn in the garden was looking very promising, it looked amazing! I picked one of the ears and microwaved it and took a bite and it was disgusting. It tasted like I was eating a candle. Thick hard waxy, no flavor...what gives? Our neighbor says we must have waited too long, it gets too "starchy" if it's overripe. Sigh...what else don't we know? Don't answer that. But we threw some over the fence and the yaks really liked them, so there is that. 

Chickens

The baby chickens are nearly all grown up and they have names, Starry and Night. Ahh, I remember the good ol' days when I had to wipe their little chicken butts. The name is convenient because we can just say "Starry night is in the garden" and it makes sense. Winston's job is to run out there and scare the chickens away from the garden, a job he treats very seriously, he screams and jumps and swings the broom. We give them scraps from dinner and we have a special call for them and they come running. It's kind of cute. 

Puppies

No we didn't get a puppy. But we visited the neighbor's puppies who so graciously invited us and they are wild little creatures. Chased Winston around everywhere. We played with them for over an hour. I discovered that puppies are very wiggly and nearly impossible to photograph. 

Honey

Our neighbor knows someone who comes around once a year from Wyoming and sells honey by the gallon! We bought two! It's unheated and unfiltered. Which means it's going to have all the good stuff like bee pollen, tons of nutrients, and maybe even a larva or two. 

Yaks

Slowly, ever so slowly, the yaks are getting more predictable and friendlier. Everyday I go out in the evening to give them their hay dinner, Rocky comes running at top speed, waits patiently, and then walks right next to me all the way to the coral. Dusty hangs behind a bit, which is the way I like it. Rocky's fur is getting amazingly thick in preparation for winter. It's like a bear, you pet his back and it's a squishy thick mat of fur several inches thick. So soft. He has a voracious appetite for cookies and licks his lips and chomps his teeth when he sees them coming. Dusty likes the little groove between her horns and ears to be scratched. She doesn't like to be petted much and moves away if I pet her back. Someday I'll start experimenting and see if they walk with me on the leader ropes. 

Dreams

I had a dream that the previous owners of the house left two horses on the property (which they didn't in reality). I was taking car of them, watering, feeding, etc. Then a truck with a horse trailer came up and started taking them away, the horses were in the trailer and they were starting to drive off. I went outside and said, "Hey, where do you think you are taking those horses? They're on my land." They said oh okay, we thought you didn't want them, and they unpacked the horses from the trailer and put them back and left. Later, Ganesh came outside to check on the horses and one of them attacked him, and bit him on the arm. That was the end. Hmm, This seems to mean that something is "coming back to bite us," but what? lol. 

Another dream is that I looked out the back window and saw a huge forrest fire moving down from the mountain and making its way across the grassy valley toward the house. I started screaming for everyone and we all started trying to hook up hoses and we had no idea what to do. The fire was moving too fast for us to prepare in time. I was in the house watching the fire coming closer and closer. Finally it got close and then it split it half like the red sea and went around either side of the house and didn't touch us at all. So mysterious!