Yes, it took longer than I was hoping for this posting of photos. It wasn't just the connection, which, as I live in a valley in the country and our house is ICF so mostly concrete and steel on the outside, is not always great. It was also the memory available on my computer to run iPhoto and a host of other things. So this post is mostly pictures, taken today.

This is the inside of the poultry stall; most of the girls are under or in the nesting boxes, and you can see a few eggs as well. The heat lamp is what’s casting that orange-ish glow on the left, and just to the right is the door to outside - the pylon is there to stop it from swinging in very far when it’s windy. 



Here is our pony, Carmen, in her blanket as it’s around -28℃ with the wind chill. She is quite happily getting hay from her haynet; and no, she is not free range, but the white electric fencing doesn’t show up very well against the snow!



This is what the garden looks like right now (what nearly everything looks like right now!), which we can call “snow-covered” or “dormant”. The short white post you may be able to see is marking where I planted fall garlic, which *should* be ready in late spring according to the planting instructions. You can see a bit of the currant bush and some of the sunflower stalks that we left standing in fall for the birds. 



Here are the chickens and ducks (ducks may have just gone inside) just outside the door into their stall. They come out to eat, drink, wander a bit and stretch their legs, and then as it’s cold out and their stall is relatively warm and not windy, they spend more time than not inside - by choice.



And finally, this is me, all bundled up even though it was by this point a practically balmy -18℃ or so, not including wind chill. I first head out to the barn a bit before 7 a.m. but it’s not really bright enough then for photos, so this is after I had gone back out later in the morning to clean out the stalls. I tried, but you can’t really see it - there’s condensation on my eyelashes and eyebrows, which in the early morning is generally frozen. The kids think it’s funny when Mommy comes in with sparkly eyelashes.



I hope you enjoy the glimpses into our farm life! 

I've received some of my seed orders, so once I have most of them in, I can give you some of the highlights of my planting plans for this year. And hopefully soon after that, I'll be writing about how I start my seeds!