Sunday 8th Jan 2017 07:53

Sunrise – 07:41   Sunset – 17:23   Moon – Day 11
Extras
11:10   14:16
16:54   17:16
Lambs find hen in snow
Snow finds fence

A lot of snow fell overnight, in some places it's above my knees.
The lambs are six weeks old now, nibbling at grasses and shrubs, even trying out a little barley and bran as well as alfalfa. At six weeks apparently we can start trying to wean them by reducing their bottles from four to three per day. But looking at how much available grazing there is today, we have elected to postpone the weaning process until such time as they can find handy snacks. Their mum is quite happy that the snow is weighing down the olive branches, bringing their leaves back within nibbling reach, until she begins to nibble of course, at which point the snow falls off and up the branch bounces out of reach again.

Meanwhile our water supply pipe is frozen so we are fetching in buckets from the underground storage tank. Whilst snow is no rarity, sub-zero air temperatures are. Snow may fall and even settle but usually neither the air nor the ground are freezing and so water is not a problem. We have spent much of the day trying to prevent hens, sheep, cats and dog water in a liquid state.

We are down to only one electrical phase but Spousie has frigged it so that everything is now running off the same phase. If we lose that we have to hope the generator will fire up, it's not been used nor checked in several years. Forecasts suggest the worst is yet to come and that perhaps the thaw won't start until Thursday. George won't be out to re-instate the power until the road is open and the JCB won't come to open the road until the snow has stopped. So we may well be stuck here on a single phase or less until Thursday. We might have run out of powdered lamb milk by then.