Winter on our farm

We've realized that winter on a farm can be far from fun.  When you have animals, you don't get to stay cuddled on the couch under a blanket.  We don't have electricity to the coop, so the chickens' water freezes.  And eggs need collected.  Regardless of the force of the wind, the drop in temperature, or the amount of snow on the ground, we need to brave the elements and change the water several times a day.  If only that were the biggest challenge.  For the last few years, we've had another element of dread.  Wild birds.  When the weather stinks, wild birds claim the coop as their own.  Of course they do.  It's warmer, there's fresh food and water, and there's plently of room for everyone. 
The first time this happened, we had a foot of snow on the ground thanks to one major storm, and Husband was out of town.  I trudged out to the coop, opened the door, and about lost my head.  At least fifty birds went crazy.  They flew into the walls and windows, they dive-bombed my head, trying to get past me, and they sent the chickens into a tailspin.  I was living yet another horror flick. (Anyone seen The Birds, by Alfred Hitchcock?) 
Eventually they cleared out, so I could get back to work.  They do come back, though, all throughout the winter months.  Because of this, the kids are scared to death to go out and do their chores alone.  I can't blame them.
However, it won't happen this year.  We had a bad coyote problem at the farm this summer, and our entire flock of chickens is gone.  We very much miss our fresh eggs, but it has been a nice break.  I'm surely painting a target on our farm by saying this, but it should be an easy winter this year.  We still have to get the garden ready for winter, and we are taking advantage of the empty coop to get some maintenance done, but we won't be doing that with a foot of snow or minus 10 degree weather! 
I'm looking forward to some cuddling on the couch with the kids.

The dreaded bat

photo thanks to about-bats.com

We were simply putting the children to bed, reading books and brushing teeth.  I hear a child yell from the hallway that something just flew through, and call for Husband to see what the child is talking about.  With a pale face, Husband informs me that we have a bat in the house.  Huh.
Since I was reading to the kids, I told him to just go get something to catch it.  I'd help him if he needed it when I was done.  He braved his way through the house, and came back with a blanket and a tennis racquet.  I laughed, wondering what he was going to do with them, but by this time, the bat had gone into hiding.  We put the kids to bed (with doors closed so the bat couldn't get in) and prayed that it found its way out.  No such luck.
As I was getting my PJs out of the drawer, a shadow went over me.  I looked up to find the bat circling around the room.  I yell for Husband, telling him that I found the beast.  He crawled into the room with the blanket draped over him and handed the racquet to me.  After 11 years of marriage, preceded by 7 years of dating, you would think that I would know that he was scared to death of bats.  It really would have been helpful to know this before we moved to a house surrounded by bats.  Alas, I took one look at Husband and realized I was going to have to take care of this.
The bat was doing lazy laps of our room.  Down the hall, back to circle our room, down the hall, back to circle our room.  Luckily, one of the windows in our room doesn't have a screen in it.  I opened the window and waited for the right moment.  It was time for all of those tennis lessons back when I was 10 to pay off.  Down the hall, back to circle the room, down the hall, back to circle our SWISH BAM!  I served that bat
right out into the clear night sky.  No one is more surprised than me that this plan worked.
Over the past five years we've had four other bats and one bird get into the house.  Apparantly Husband is afraid of anything that flies.  He has tried, though, to conquer his fear.  He will still hide under the blanket, but he will also wield his own racquet and flail around blindly to maybe get lucky and at least stun the bat.  After almost being hit in the head by his flying racquet, we came up with a deal.  I will take care of the bats. His job is to take care of the influx of mice every harvest.  Oh, I hate mice.

One down, fourteen to go

Before we ever had kids, my husband and I debated which one of us was going to be allergic to dogs and cats when any future children started asking for one.  We had no interest in having pets.  I was scared to death of dogs.  I had been attacked twice in my life, and in the stream of dogs that went through my childhood home, I didn't get along with a single one of them.  And then we move to the country with four children.  Coyotes run free out here.  We had to get a dog to protect our kids.  We searched for a large dog that was good with kids and could live outside.  We found what we think to be a Burmese Mountain Dog named Roy at a Humane Society foster home, and he fit all of the criteria.  So, one month after moving into our new home, we brought home a dog.  In hindsight, we really should have had one more criteria, considering we had free-range chickens all over our yard. 
The moment we got home, I snapped a leash on Roy and took him for a tour of the property.  He enjoyed stretching his legs, exploring the barn, and urinating on every third tree.  Then he took an interest in the rooster.  I let him follow a few feet behind the chicken, and all seemed fine.  We came around to the front of the house, and right smack in the middle of the walkway to the front door the rooster spun around three times and landed in a heap.  All I could think was, "What in the world just happened?  Do chickens play possum?"  Thanks to the dog going crazy, I was able to shake myself out of the shock and scream for Husband to get his rear end up here.  I let him nudge the bird to see if it was still alive, but no such luck.  Apparantly, chickens don't play possum, but they do have heart attacks.  Who knew?  Nothing of the kind was mentioned in our chicken raising books, that's for sure.  So, I learned a hard lesson about chicken behavior (granted, not as hard a lesson as the chicken got), the children learned a lesson about life cycles, and Husband learned how to dispose of a dead chicken.  Valuable lessons all.  Too bad it was only the first in a long, long line of hard lessons.  For the next year, the most frequent phrases out of our mouths were, "Is that normal?" and "Now what are we supposed to do?"

How we became hobby farmers

When we bought our first home, we had one child.  Three years later, we had four.  As they got older, the two bedrooms we had for them to share became far too small, mostly because there were three boys for one room.  It was time to find a larger place.
We fell in love with the first and only house we looked at.  It was a 140 year old Victorian on 7 beautiful acres.  There were six outbuildings, one of which was an actual outhouse (with toilet paper still in it, no less).  We were ready to put a bid on it, except for one issue.  There were 15 free-range chickens wandering all over the yard.  My husband and I are cul de sac kids, having only laid eyes on a live chicken once our twice in our lives. 
We did try to negotiate the chickens out of the deal, but it wasn't going to happen.  If we wanted the house, we were going to instantly become hobby farmers.  We read a book about raising chickens, figured it couldn't be too hard, and went ahead with the purchase of our dream home.
Our great rural adventure began.