All White Now

Wow, what a start to the New Year! Auchenblae was carpeted with loads of the white stuff. Big fluffy flakes that dressed the countryside in it's best ermine. So pretty to look at, but the soft drifts soon shunned the fields either side of our drive and settled in for the long haul. We were snowed in for over a week until our lovely neighbour put his digger to work and painstakingly shovelled, inch by inch, his way down our 1/3 of a mile long drive. Now, snow is by far my favourite weather, but the bone chilling cold meant frozen pipes in our field. And that meant carrying buckets of water to my wee goat herd. "Great exercise!" I declared on day one. By day two the novelty was well and truly wearing off! Then came the realisation that being unable to go out to graze, meant my goats were munching through our hay supply like there was no tomorrow. So a trudge through the drifts to the village ensued. We borrowed a friend's 4x4 for a treacherous drive to the farm that supplies our hay. So far so good, we dropped the bales at the end of our drive. But then what? Well we managed to fashion a sledge from some old roofing tins and after loads more "exercise" the bales were safely in our shed.

I must admit thoug, the weather lately has seen blustery winds and the kind of relentless rain that makes you google "how to build an arc" Everywhere is muddy and the leaden skies weigh heavily on your mood. I'm now looking back fondly to the white winter wonderland, and almost (almost) willing it's return.

Roll on spring!

Cheryl