Walking Therein

A Blanket of Snow

Dec. 16th 2007

It is officially winter here. The winter weather dropped an 8-1/2 inch blanket of beautiful, soft, pure white snow last night. This is not our first snowfall, just the first of any consequence. It blew quietly all night.

I looked down at the barn in the wee hours of the morning to see if I could still see the light on. On a clear night, I can see it shining through a large crack where the huge wooden frame has separated from the stone foundation. There's also a window in the stone wall that is covered by a piece of wood that has enough cracks in the old wood to see the light through when it is on. I tried to see the light from several different windows, but I couldn't. It worried me. It worried me enough that I laid Lucy in her crib and put on my winter coat and hood and trampled through 6 inches of already-fallen snow to go and check on our animals.

The warmth from the lights being the only heat for our goats and chickens, I had to make sure they were still on. As I got closer, I could see a faint glimmer through the cracks in the barn door, but continued anyway. I might as well check on them, since I went all the way out there. I guess the snow was blowing harder than I thought since I couldn't see the lights from the house. The snow I traipsed through was probably a foot deep in some places, and it was still coming down. This was at four am. I had not been in the coop at night since Matt and Eric made it smaller. I did not realize just how crowded it was. We have been working and working to spiff it up for our expected 30 hens and a handful of roosters... except that it seems that we have more hens than we expected and will either butcher hens and a few roosters or butcher a few roosters and have too many hens. As I closed the barn door and scooted the rock back in front of it, I considered shoveling the walk. I returned to the house instead knowing LucyLillie was in her crib and would not likely be heard if she woke.

I awoke this morning to four of our children's voices coming from outside an upstairs window. I could hear Eric and Hannah talking about how deep the snow was. I looked out to see that they were shoveling it, trying to get to the barn and the garage. They needed to get to the feed in the garage, and then to the animals in the barn. Both paths were 'snowed-in'. The snow in front of the garage was about a foot and a half deep. The barn path wasn't so deep, just a longer path. I was surprised to see that all traces of my trip to the barn only a few hours earlier were gone. The wind had blown the snow clean over my tracks to and from the barn.

I jumped back into bed and snuggled up with Lucy for a few more minutes, when I heard footsteps coming upstairs. "It must be Eric, coming to show me the handful of different colored eggs," I thought, as has become his sweet morning tradition. Seeing Jocelyn instead, I could only ask one question, "Is everything ok?". Her "No" was a little expected, though with no tears, I knew the goats were not in trouble. Then she told me the bad news: Hannie's beloved "Crooked Beak" had died in the chicken pen overnight.

Poor little Crooked Beak. We had just been laughing the previous evening at the funny little hen. She had a crooked beak, crooked toes on one foot and a wing that sometimes hung down a little lower than the other. She was incredibly tiny, and I don't know if she weighed more than a couple of pounds. She would jump into the feed bucket and ride down with you down to the barn. She did this the last time I went down there, and I didn't notice her until I was under the tree where we feed the chickens. She also jumped right up into Jocelyn's hand just yesterday when she tried to shoo her off the driveway. We were laughing because I said that we had a "lap chicken". Hannie did not understand, and promptly told me to please stop making fun of Crooked Beak, almost with tears in her eyes. I explained what I meant and we all had a laugh.

We noticed this funny little chicken and her little crooked beak last summer as the chicks were just getting their feathers. I remember trying to clip her beak just a little so that she could peck better, but there was no way I could keep it up. It didn't make much of a difference in her beak, and Hannie actually teared-up when I did it. Seems Crooked Beak had already found her way into Hannie's heart. Hannie spent the next couple of months making sure Crooked had extra food and milk and water since she couldn't eat very well by herself. We talked sbout the fact that one day, we might go to the barn, and Crooked Beak would be dead. We talked about the fact that we would do what we could, but she just might not make it. I told her about Crooked Beak, and I don't think she was sure how to react. She didn't cry, but wanted to put her in the trash bag by herself. We would talk about it later.

When I came downstairs a little while later, the barn chores were done and the paths shoveled to the size of a foot path - not very wide. Not to fear though, Matt and Eric spent the next four hours outside sharing in the cameraderie of manly hard work shoveling all of the of snow that once graced our little fifty foot sidewalk and part of our two hundred foot driveway. I can only imagine the stories Eric will have to tell my grandchildren about "the times he and Daddy spent shoveling 'this many feet of snow for hours and hours."' Eric even got to accompany Daddy into town after the road was cleared, and then up to watch the last quarter of the football game. More testosterone, I guess.

The girls and I, on the other hand, stayed in today. It was perfect winter weather to sit in the cozy house, looking outside at the not-yet-trampled snow through our picture window. We sat and talked; Rachel made a lovely breakfast of scrambled eggs and bacon. She was so excited to come and tell me that one of our chicken eggs had a double-yoke in it! Ahh... life on the farm! Jocelyn and I made a braided belt; Isaac and Caleb made lego castles and towers; Hannie played Momma for most of the day, singing to and caring for LucyLillie. Lucy is learning to sit in her Playcrib and enjoying it very much. All of her siblings marvel as she pulls herself up on the sides and steps up onto her little tippy-toes to peer over the side and smile her cheeky little grin.

Now, with (most of) the Littles in bed and Lucy in the rocking chair with Rachel, Amanda is finishing up singing How Great Thou Art from the old church hymnal we have had for years, Jocelyn is diligently typing away her Memo Monday post and Matt, well, he is probably dozing away upstairs on the couch in the attic room.

It Is Well With My Soul.......

blessings!

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7:59 AM, Tuesday, December 25, 2007 .. Posted by ElCloud

Merry Christmas Dixon family! Or as my 3 yo says, "Mewwy Mitmut!"

April

What a lovely day.

12:46 PM, Tuesday, December 25, 2007 .. Posted by ThreeLittleLadies

I'm sorry about Hannie's chicken. We once had a chicken with a bad foot that we called "gimpy". Somehow he survived that summer. I hope that you all are having a good day today also.

Carol

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10:25 PM, Tuesday, December 25, 2007 .. Posted by sharla88

How comforting even sitting here in our small apartment Im all cozy! LOL I hope you all had a woderful holiday and Im very very sorry about crooked beak. GB! Dixons!!!
sharla~

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5:29 PM, Wednesday, December 26, 2007 .. Posted by BlogBoy

Oh, that is pretty snow! Most of ours melted now, so we are waiting for another big storm.

RYC: As I told Jocelyn, when I come I'll be sure to make some.

Lol, drat! I was going to say that he must take after me ;) What is frog in the hole?

Get an electric grinder, it is worth it. I just used the hand grinder because I didn't have time to clean out the electric one.

Happy New Year!
Eric

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6:33 PM, Wednesday, December 26, 2007 .. Posted by Vicki

New post please, I've read this one 100 times...*LOL*

Miss you!!

*HUGS* & Blessings!!

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11:19 PM, Wednesday, December 26, 2007 .. Posted by MamaArcher

OH how I miss snow!!!!!! Enjoy it for us please!! Hope your Christmas was wonderful!

Kristine

Hello

6:39 PM, Thursday, December 27, 2007 .. Posted by cherryblossom

oh I wish it would snow here in this part of AZ! It snows only in Flagstaff area.. Sighs.. Our pastor's youngest daughter, Emily who is 4 yrs old, is praying desperately for it to snow here!

Julia