It is winter

By Christine Tailer
HCP columnist

I wake up in the morning and hesitate to get out of bed. The fire has died down overnight and the cabin has chilled.

I climb down from the loft only to realize that it is even cooler downstairs. I tip-toe over to the stove in my stocking feet, figuring that there is no need to chill my whole foot.

I feel the coolness of the floor on the balls of my feet. I open the stove damper, lift the heavy iron lid, and lean it back against the pipe. I reach for the logs that I have stacked in the old crock pot beside the stove and pack the firebox with logs.

It is winter, I think to myself.

Outside a light snow falls. We head out to do the animal chores. Large flakes fall on my glasses, obscuring my view. I return to the cabin and get a cap down from the row of caps that hangs from the rafter by the door.

It is winter.

The rabbit water bottles are frozen quite solid. The rabbits look at me with thirsty eyes. I pile 13 water bottles into the large black bucket that I keep by their cages for just this purpose and return to the cabin.

I kick off my snow-covered rubber boots by the door. My socks pull free from my feet. I put the bucket down on the cabin floor and bend down to pull up my socks.

My glasses fog over from being inside the now warm cabin. I cannot see a thing. I sigh as I take off my glasses. I can barely make out the sink, as I head over to thaw out the bottles under the hot water.

It is winter.

I put my glasses and boots back on, pick up the bucket of now thawed water bottles, and head back outside. Thirteen rabbits gratefully lap up water from 13 bottles.

I hear the metal balls at the bottoms of the metal nozzles clicking as I walk over to the chicken coop. I know that the bottles will need another thaw before nightfall.

It is winter.

I let down the chicken's ramp. One or two peek outside, see the snow-covered ground, and return to do whatever it is that 15 chickens do inside a small coop on a cold winter's day. I fill their feed bucket, thaw their watering can under the frost-free spigot, and lay a fresh layer of hay on their deep bedding.

It is winter, after all.

I walk around to the back of the coop and let down the egg picking doors on the back side of their nest boxes. I reach inside to gather the eggs. Several have frozen quite solid and expanded too large for their shells.

I toss the frozen broken eggs to the dogs. They happily eat the frozen eggsicles, but back inside the cabin I come realize that too many eggs are hard on a dog's digestive system. I try to shoo the dogs outside, but they would rather just lie by the wood stove and fill up the cabin with their odorous essence.

It is winter.

Greg has been tending to the goats. They seem to be eating twice as much as usual, but we figure that a layer of goat fat will help to keep them warm. Greg advises me that we are out of their grain feed, so it is off to the feed store we must go.

The roads are completely snow-covered and we know that our little fuel-efficient car would not get far. So we take the gas guzzling four-wheel-drive truck. Even the truck slides most of the way down a back roads hill.

It is winter.

But now Greg and I sit in our chairs either side of the wood stove. One dog lies at my feet, the other by the door. I look out the window and see the still falling snow gently coming down.

The white-gray day is starting to grow dark. I feel ever so content. The rabbit water bottles have been thawed for the second time, the chickens are closed up for the night, and soup simmers warmly on the cook stove. I light a beeswax candle. It is winter.

Christine Tailer is an attorney and former city dweller who moved several years ago, with her husband, Greg, to an off-grid farm in south-central Ohio. Visit them on the web at straightcreekvalleyfarm.com.