Pictures from the October Snowstorm

The storm marches on and the wind howls on High Mountain Farm. The animals are all hunkered down in their houses and very little is moving outside. It is 10:40AM and the temperature is about 30F now. I will post a video to youtube and hopefully it will show up soon in the blog. In the meantime, here are a few pictures.

Storm Preparation

Mr. B and I have spent the day preparing for the snow from the large system which is still off the coast. We have a cold front which has dropped in and the temperature has already fallen to 40 degrees and it's only 3:30 on Sunday afternoon. We take winter weather seriously  and do our preparations early if possible. So far, we have cleaned out the stove pipe on the wood stove. We had previously burned a creosote sweeping log. We burn about one a month but still clean out the stove pipe on a regular basis. The cook stove pipe doesn't clog up like the wood stove does. It burns hotter and gets a lot more air so we hardly ever have to clean it. After that, I collected twigs to use for starting fires with the pine cones. I try to keep a stack ready for use. Next, Mr. B got in the wood to see us through the storm and I lit the fire in the wood stove. He also had to go around the electric fence and make sure the water was running in the field for the goats and dogs. I hope everyone weathers the storm safely and we will put up pics as they become available if we don't lose power and/or signal.

Falling Leaves

When I was down feeding the hogs, I noticed that most of the leaves are now down and the trees look bare once again. Winter is coming we know and I resist it as always even though I did build a fire in the wood stove this afternoon to know the chill out of the house.

How to Feed Pigs

I have added a youtube video on How to Feed Pigs. Remember, I am not a professional movie maker and this is my first attempt so we will see how it goes from here. Let me know how you like this idea. If this goes well, I will attempt other videos. I have tried to add the link in the blog but it didn't work, so just go to the Links at the bottom of the page. Also, if you know how I can insert the address code directly in the blog, let me know.

Fall on High Mountain

As the leaves begin to fall from the trees here on High Mountain, the winds of change continue to blow presenting us with a need to hurry with our winter preparations. The hogs are grown now and will bring good meat to the table next year. My husband cures our meat in our meathouse. He built this building and has it enclosed with wire mesh to keep the mice (most of them) off the meat while it cures. He sugar cures the meat using brown sugar with red and black pepper.

We plan to kill the hogs around Thanksgiving this year if the weather stays cold enough. The meat has to cure for several months in the meathouse before we put it up.