Winter

As it usually does, winter has broken fast. Despite the 88 days of continuous snow cover and the great expense of feeding 6 little sheep alfalfa all winter, the end of winter is glum and mildly disappointing. I always work myself up making lists and getting ready for spring - and invariably it rains on my parade. The 18 inches of snow that was on the ground a week ago has saturated the ground and our forecast is for five days of rain. We're sequestered in the house for another week. I guess that will give me more time to work on my chore list.

Paying for college

I'm a worrier. I am especially good at worrying about money. I have graphs and charts, paper and digital. I have savings projections, lists of necessary and potential future expenditures, secret stashes and secret-stashes. But how to pay for college for three kids had me utterly baffled. They seem to be smart enough - but that is certainly no guarantee that they will get scholarships. Clearly I needed a different plan, but based on projected college costs it was almost impossible. College savings plans offer little tax relief and putting money in the stock market that will have to be extracted at a particular time is risky.
I found a great little calculator one day at
http://mortgage-x.com/calculators/extra_payment_calculator.asp
and I found out that instead of putting money in a risky investment plan, I could put that money in my house. I can pay off my house and then I'll have money to pay for college as we go! And my house will be paid off. (Some say that you shouldn't pay off your house but I'm all for being completely out of debt. But that's another story entirely.) If you buy a house before you have kids or shortly thereafter, you can pay off your house by just putting a little extra into the house every month. Run some scenarios on the calculator and see what you come up with.

A long winter

We have had snow on the ground since Christmas Eve. The sheep are digging through a half foot of left over slushy snow, but it's been above freezing the past few days and the end of this long winter is in sight. I'm reading Love and Hate in Jamestown by David Price. This is a jewel for anyone with even a passing interest in history. It reads like a novel and is very well researched.

The Problem with Chickens

When we moved to our little bit of land a few miles out of the city we also had to move my daughter to a new school. D was in first grade and had a very close friend and I felt very guilty for pulling them apart. I knew that life out of the suburban gray would be better for all of us, but it's still difficult to watch your baby lose their friend. To highlight the positives, we promised her chickens. Okay, so most 6 year old girls probably wouldn't dare touch a chicken. But she loves chickens like most little girls love kittens. The problem with chickens is that we can't seem to manage to keep them alive very long. I want very much to free range the chickens, but one by one they didn't return to the roost. Every one that went missing brought tears from my little girl. So now, they are locked up. I hate that they can't free range. So, my winter project is to build a better mouse trap... er, chicken palace.

Halloween musing

Our society shies away from making any qualitative judgment and hides behind the ideas of acceptance and tolerance.

Will you stand up for what you believe in?

Simple Cattle Panel Shelter

Ah... it's Fall and love is in the air. Or will be soon, so we need to get seperate quarters for the boys and girls or else we'll have a kitchen full of lambs mid-winter. Last weekend I hauled two dog kennels (the 6 foot tall chain link ones) out to the chosen spot and set them up. That was quite a work out! Today I had planned to put up one of those quick shelters with cattle panels and a tarp. I carted the panels home from TSC, connected them together with plastic zip ties and neatly bowed the panels into a shelter. Except for that last part. Because they are much heavier than they seem at first. I did manage to get myself under the center of the panels, which was pointless because I'm short and even with my arms fully extended I couldn't create a bow in the panels. This is definately a two person job. Putting the tarp on wasn't really easier either. I need to go buy some grommets for the tarp so I can finish up the job. Now I'm wondering if it is all that great of an idea. I was hoping that the ewes could stay in there through the fall and then move back to the wooden shelters with the boys for breeding. We also have a lot of fence to put up and my little cart for the ATV is broken. I drove an hour today to buy a new, bigger one. But when I got home hubby noticed that one of the wheels is wonky, so it needs to go back. And I forgot to turn in my homework yesterday. It's been a long day.

Obama is right

This is a "teachable moment". You see, it's not really relevant to our national situation whether the cop participated in racial profiling or if the black professor was looking for some first hand ammo for his academic argument. The important thing here, which most of the media is ignoring or (worse?) just unable to comprehend, is that our President displayed an honest, heartfelt reaction to a question put to him by a reporter. And that reaction was to condemn the white police officer and accuse him of being a racist, without knowing the situation.
The word racism is hurtled viciously in this country, and it has many people frozen in fear. A conversation or argument is brought to a swift end when this weapon is drawn. The intellectual argument stops and an emotional plea begins. Racism is so powerfully despicable that many won't even dare enter or pursue a discussion that might bring the charge. And in doing so, we stop conversation and feed resentment. We don't come closer to acceptance and understanding. We become prisoners of our skin, regardless of it's color.