Did you feel it?

Out the window at the O'Hara Corner Farm is not very exciting this morning:

Though it does help when you take a glance at the thermometer, and realize that it is above freezing for the first time in weeks:

Did you feel what though? The earthquake, a 3.8 which occurred at 7:55 AM this morning according to the U.S. Geological Survey with an epicenter in th central Indiana. I evidentally had dozed off while watching the news this morning . . . the next thing I know Checkers the dog is going crazy, and the it feels like there was a really loud crash of vibrating thunder or a big tree fell down nearby, or a car went off the road and hit then house. After a quick check out the window, I concluded that none of the above had occurred. Maybe I was imagining things, but that would mean that Checkers and I were imagining things together. Not highly likely . . .


So as I'm puttering around this morning, with the news still on, the guy on the news is talking about how they've gotten all these phone calls about an earthquake. Now I know that Checkers and I are not crazy. I'm surprised our cats weren't yowling too. Pumpkin, our large, elderly calico cat is known for her prediction of the weather, i.e. if a a big storm is coming she will sit halfways down the stairs and yowl. We think she can feel the change in barometric pressure. I would have thought an earthquake was enough to bring out her inner craziness,  but evidentally she was in the throes of her hours long morning nap.


So now after a bit of morning craziness, we are back into a wet, warmer winter day. Grocery shopping, putting a new zipper in my outdoor work coat, and general household chores. Or if you're the chickens, a good day to get outside, an scrounge around for grass, weeds, and undigested corn out of cow patties (I know ... EWWW!!!).

Frosty Pines

Another beautiful morning on the farm. Cool and frosty, with little crystals all over everything. All of our conifers really seemed to catch my eye, from the spruce in the side yard, to our big stand of pines in the back, and the little volunteer cedar beside the house. I never quit being amazed at the beauty and structure in this wonderful world.

And how lucky are we as humans that we are given the ability to appreciate it all. I can't say the same about the calves, who were a lot more interested in their breakfast this morning.

Waiting . . .

We're through the major holidays now. Thanksgiving and Christmas have come and gone; now just waiting on the new year. Everything outside is cold and still, as if all is waiting for the turn of the calendar:

I look out the window and see our maple trees, bare, stark against the gray winter sky. And suddenly I'm thinking that the end of Februrary, sugarin' season, is only a few short weeks away. Just a few short weeks until there will be white buckets in this view:

Until then, we'll wait and enjoy the quiet of early winter, when evening to-do lists are short, and there's a good chance that there's some soup or broth  simmering on the stove.

And maintain all of our critters, taking care that the cats don't fall in to the stock tank when they're getting their morning drink:

Drizzle, Drizzle

We woke today to a freezing drizzle and cold gray skies. The outdoor critters are none too interested in being outside. The calves peer out from the doorway of the shed when I come out to feed them breakfast, but can only be coaxed out for the 30 seconds it takes to greet me at the gate and hop, skip, jump to the feed trough. The chickens have spent no more than a few minutes in the last few days outside, but the turkeys are a bit more intrepid. Or else Thomas and Essie feel required to make sure that drama queen Ginny doesn't get lost outside in the snow by herself.

Sparkles, Critters, and other nonsense

This is actually yesterday's post. I was having trouble getting photos to upload, so here goes.


One of the few cool things about it being this cold out (1 degree at 8 AM), is that it makes for a really beautiful frost that covers everything in fine sparkly crystals that look like diamonds in the sunlight.

If you can't tell, I'm a little obsessed with up close nature photos. Especially stuff that holds still. And ice crystals are so cool!


I finally remembered to take my camera out when I fed the cats in the morning. Here's your opportunity to meet Henry and the new kitten, (who now has a name because she has stayed almost a week), Sally. As they seem to have an aversion to looking directly at me when I have a camera in hand . . . all I got was a picture of them eating:

Henry on the left and Sally on the right (this photo does not do justice to the size difference, Henry is at least twice as big as Sally).


And lastly, the nonsense . . . on Saturday, we thought our indoor cat Kiddo was just really enjoying posing so nicely with the nativity scene under the Christmas tree:

But then we noticed that Checkers was also completely obessed with the Christmas tree as well, i.e. constantly circling it, trying to climb up in it etc. It took us a while to draw the line between the mouse chasing that had obviously went on in the kitchen the night before and all this attention bestowed upon the Christmas tree. So evidentally a mouse had at one time been in the tree, though with the lights on and using a flashlight, Ryan couldn't locate the critter.


Later on, we were sitting on the couch eating a snack, and Ryan says look! There at the end of one of the Christmas tree branches, a few feet above the ground, a mouse, sniff, sniff, sniffing . . . trying to figure out how to get from this tree to a nice safe place under the couch, while avoiding the crazy meat hungry predators that inhabit this territory. It gets some help from Ryan, who runs over and knocks the critter and a couple of bulbs off the tree . . . but lucky for the mouse, none of the "fierce" critters were fast enough to catch it. So the mouse lives to see another piece of cheese. And all of our pets are obessed with the fact that there is still an edible rodent somewhere in our living space.

If you feed them . . . part 2

As you can see, outdoor conditions have not changed much. Still snowy. Still 10 degrees below normal December temperatures. It has been winter now for a lot longer than the calendar would indicate.


If you feed them . . . they will stay. So the new outdoor kitten is still here. She was curled up with Henry on the old blanket in the hay shed when I went out to do chores this morning. I think the kitten thinks Henry is her mom, and so will do anything he does.

I have never seen this with cats before, but if Henry wasn't around, she would have nothing to do with us. As soon as Henry was there with her, and she saw Henry being petted and purring, she started purring and wanting to be petted. Same thing this morning. She tried to run away when I first went into the shed, but as soon as she saw Henry being petted while he was eating, she came over and pushed Henry out of the way to eat and be petted. So cute and hilarious! So I picked her up and petted her, and she was purring. Hopefully it will be easy to tame her, with such a good kitty mentor hanging around!

If you feed them . . .

They will come! Kinda of like "If you build it, they will come." from that old baseball movie. Around the farm we somewhat intentionally provide feed for our local wild critters with our trees, bushes, and bird feeding station. Of course when I want to take a photo of the lively group of critters using the bird feeder, and surrounding plants they magically vanish as if they actually noticed that the curtain was pulled back from the window. So instead I got a photo of these two lovelys in our spruce tree (look hard at the middle of the photo, 2 dark spots at end of branches near fence):

But birds are not the only thing that has showed up, and really we should have known that given enough time this would happen. If you remember from past postings, a lovely tiger tom cat adopted us in September, and we have been feeding him, and letting him eat all of our rodents. Now that it is winter, it is his habit to meet me at the front door in the morning as I go to do chores, and remind me that he needs fed.


Well this morning, he met Ryan as he was leaving for work. So Ryan bent down to pet him, which quieted his meowing. The only thing is something was still meowing. So in comes Ryan for a flashlight, and follows the plaintive little voice. He ends up finding a little black and white runt of a half grown kitten on the kitchen porch. Which he brings around to show me, its cute little face looking all disgruntled and in need of love. Ryan loosens his grip, and the little one jumps down. I'm hoping he doesn't run and get up in the warm truck engine, eek!

Later I go out to do chores, and there isn't just one cat waiting for me to bring food out to it in the hay barn. So I bring an extra bowl, because I am the biggest softie there is. Trying not to think about how outdoor, feral cats are the bane of song birds everywhere, even those at my bird feeder.

Always the constant internal conflict between animal lover, conservationist, and farmer.