Bah, Humbug! Baa, Hum.

Earlier today I was all set to write a grumpy post  about how  my day was going.
Since the blizzard last week, our snowblower has not worked, except for (thankfully!) creating one very narrow car path down our driveway so Rog can get to work. The snow is pretty densely packed and back-breaking to shovel, so Rog has been focusing his efforts on getting the snowblower to work, to no avail. I have been pretty much stuck on the farm for a week and cabin fever is setting in.  I decided to shovel out the truck and risk driving it; the roads are still very bad and this truck does not have the greatest traction. But I had a good incentive--the snowplow had plowed over our mailbox and buried it in unshovelable snow. Our mailman will not  deliver mail unless the mailbox is at the precise, convenient height to insert mail from his car, so we have not gotten mail since last Wednesday, thanks to the blizzerd and the plow. I decided to drive to the post office and pick up our mail -there might be something important in it (like chick or seed catalogs!)

I shoveled most of the snow that was on top of the truck into the back of the truck, to add weight for better traction, north woods style (I already have three 75-lb tubes of sand in there). The doors were frozen shut, but I finally got the passenger side unstuck so I could clamber in to warm it up.The windshield washer spray nozzles were also  frozen and wouldn’t spray to clean off the thick ice coating the windshield,  but I was  smug because I had recently purchased some fancy windshield fluid that  is supposed to melt ice fast.

But darn! The new jug of windshield washer fluid was on the table, buried under this casualty of the blizzard. Last night I heard a tremendous crashing sound--I opened the door and discovered that our lovely, new patio gazebo had collapsed from the snow. (Another thing making me cranky. Yes, we should have taken it apart last fall but we didn’t get to it in time.)  I was so busy worrying about the weight of the snow on the tree branches, I didn’t even think of the gazebo. Grrrr.

So, finally I got  the truck shoveled out, the doors unfrozen, truck started and unstuck from its parking spot, and had it warming up while I went inside to call the post office. But the post office informed me  I could NOT pick up the mail AND they would not deliver it until the mailbox was fixed.  I asked how are we going to fix it when the post is broken off and the snow is packed hard, four feet deep, and the ground is frozen? She said I should call the  township and they must repair it if the plow knocked it over. I managed to get them to agree to have the mailman drive into the driveway and honk and I will run out and get the mail from his car.  (I am going to give him a dozen fresh eggs as a thank you; maybe he will consider doing it again.) Then I called the township and requested a mailbox repair. I have no idea how they will manage it - could be interesting.

Since I had the truck ready to go, I drove (slowly and carefully) over to the Heller farm to see their newborn lamb, the first  2014 addition to the flock.

I love the  animal characters of their   farm. One of their horses had discovered a broken window in the barn where he can pull out hay for a between- meal snack. The sheep and donkey gather around to eat the hay he spills. I was tickled to see a row of birds perched on the horse’s neck.

One of these sheep is not like the others...it is either Ranger or Bear, one of the two sweet Great Pyrenees dogs that protect the sheep.

Like us, Don and Betsy also have a few intractable chickens that hang out in the hay.

Don created a big birthing room  inside the barn to encourage the pregnant ewes to have their lambs inside. It’s forecast to be darn cold all week- you can see the sheep’s breath.

Here’s the new baby!  She was born last night.  Don had to assist with the birth - her feet were folded back underneath her with just her head emerging and she was stuck. When that happens fluid builds up in the lamb’s head, so it is still a bit swollen. The new lambs and their moms get to stay in cozy little pens with heat lamps.

Don took a photo of me holding the first lamb of spring. Baby lambs are a good remedy for crabbiness. The world has looked brighter all afternoon. (And, happily,  the mailman just now drove up and he did deliver both a chick catalog and a seed catalog... as well as a stack o’bills.)