Cold Weather Perseverence

"Because of the Lord's faithful love we do not perish, for His mercies never end. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness!"  Lam.3:22-23

 This verse came to my mind frequently as the extreme cold and the problems that came with it started to really 'wear' on me.  The snow was beautiful and very much needed but the extreme cold and ice that stuck around became a daily test of patience and perseverance.  It didn't take long for all of the critters to show that the cold was getting to them too.  The chickens lived in their coup for an entire month which brought lots of extra cleaning of the coup, the goats don't like the snow very well so they would 'cry' from their shelters for food to be brought to them and the arthritis that a few of them now have became very evident as they would limp and shiver their way to the feed; one goat in particular was actually to cold to eat a few times.  The cats had cozy holes in the hay stack and gladly appreciated the path that I made them through the snow to their food.  The bunnies hutches had been filled with lots of straw so that they could burrow in except to eat and drink.  Even the horses after a while seemed to get a bit 'depressed' but always readily accepted the extra hay with never-ending appetites.  The dogs spent more time in the house enjoying the heat from the wood stove then being outside; a couple of them got really good at holding the urge to have to go outside and relieve themselves-this was almost comical as I would open the door to let them out, they'd take one look and turn around-can't say that I blame them.  The hardest thing to deal with in this cold and the most important was the water-hydration for an living living is key to survival and as waterlines started freezing up it got even more challenging.  Thankfully, Bryan was able to get the power finished this year so that we were able to run tank heaters on a few troughs so that helped a lot for the horses, goats and cats.  The chickens had a heat lamp in the coup to keep their water thawed and the dogs have heated water bowls so this left the bunnies and the horses out back to twice daily break ice and water. 

"There is an occasion for everything, and a time for every activity under heaven....."  Ecc.3:1

   Our wind chimes after the snow came in.....sideways.

   We heat our house with firewood so the rack was filled almost daily since the fire was never allowed to go out.

   Despite the cold, some chores had to be kept up on......like cleaning up after the dogs-Marisa's favorite thing to do.

   Jessie sporting the 'winter chore' look and enjoying a little sunshine.

  School work quite often started in front of the wood stove in the morning-notice the puppy curled behind her-she likes it there too!!

 .....and after a while, school moved to the recliner and out she went.  Cold weather seems to have a draining effect even when your in the house most of the time.