Well Mr Obama is in the white house, when is he going to fix this weather? I am sure he will want to do some changes in this awful weather pattern we are having. Hey Obama, we need change here!
The winter weather got me to thinking about moving somewhere warmer and that got me to thinking about how my ancestors decided to settle in Michigan anyway. My mothers folks are from Missouri and southern Illinois, where they have winter, but not as harsh as ours. My dad’s folks are from the Windsor, Ontario area and they had roughly the same weather. So winter weather didn’t scare my ancestors when they moved to Michigan to be close to the factories.
I wonder what would have happened if they moved west or south to Texas or Arizona. Of course the factories where a poor man could make a decent living were all in the Midwest. They were country people, both sets of grandparents, but then where they settled in Pontiac wasn’t too citified when they first built next to each other. Now it’s horrible, smelly, dirty, congested and dangerous, but my dad will never move. He owns his dads house and his, although they sold off my mom’s mothers house. My son lives in Grandpa’s old house. My only regret about moving out of that mess is that I am far from my parents and grandchildren, although an hour and a half is closer than many people are to their family. I wish my grandchildren were growing up next door to me, instead of my mom.
It’s real funny, people who stay in the city talk about the country is where the hicks live, with jacked up cars in the yard and chickens everywhere, where you smell manure and deal with dirt roads. Yet I go into the city and see far more ugly surroundings with junk and boarded up buildings everywhere. Their roads are so full of potholes our dirt road is better. And the smell- well lets say I’ll take manure over rotting garbage, car exhaust, stale cooking smells and polluted air. I can smell Pontiac or rather city- from the time we are a couple miles outside Oxford- which is a smaller but just as crowed and polluted city 15 miles to the north and it gets worse until we are there.
One of my sisters has moved to Missouri, her husband was stationed on an Air Force base there just before he retired. They intend to move back to Michigan some day when they retire for the second time. My brother surprised all of us and moved to Australia where his winters are quite mild and opposite our winters. He doesn’t seem to miss Michigan weather. One sister stayed in Pontiac, not far from the folks, and the other two moved out to more pleasant areas of Michigan like me.
Now as much as I talk about moving somewhere warm, I don’t like hot summers, which usually come with mild winters. So unless I can find a place where winters don’t freeze and summers don’t go above 80, I am stuck. I am sure those places actually exist but I probably wouldn’t move anyway. I don’t like too much change. I like to put down roots.
When we bought this house I said we would never move again and I kind of think we never will. If I could build a new house on the property I might, but I like the area. Except for winter. Well actually the last few winters spoiled us. This winter is more like winters in Michigan 30 years ago.
This fall I said, “I’m going to just leave that zone 6 hardy grass right there in the garden instead of carting it in. It will probably make it. And I am going to plant the rosemary and give it a shot too”. So I guess I jinked the weather because I didn’t carry those plants inside. And I didn’t mound soil over the base of the roses either. First time in many, many years. My fault, this weather is my fault. I told my husband we should buy a snow thrower, that should get the weather back into the 60’s fast.
The nights have been so cold that the plastic door on the dog entrance cracked in two and now the east side is open to the wind. There is a box on the outside of the house that the doggie door opened into, then an opening in the laundry room wall covered by a flap that lets the dogs into the house. We are attempting some repairs today, that’s all we need, more cold air in the house.
Horses, chickens, turkeys, cats and outside dogs all seem to be doing fine in this weather. I guess they have adjusted. The turkey hens are finally starting to let up on the egg sitting. I hope they lay another clutch a bit later when conditions will be better for hatching. As soon as spring gets here I want to separate them from the hens. They will probably be out all the time anyway since they fly so well.
We are down to 4 bales of hay so I am starting to look for more. It truly amazes me that those small horses eat so much. We bought 30 bales and we only had 50 bales last winter and that fed a dozen sheep all winter. These horses aren’t that much bigger than those sheep. And they eat the hay up with less waste than the sheep. Charlie, the young one is really getting to be a handful. I am glad he’s not bigger. He needs to be gelded soon. And that should be interesting, lets see if that really calms him down. He snuck up on me when I was raking out their stall and bit me in the behind. He wants to bite and kick all the time now and still won’t lead worth a darn.
Such is life on the farm in the winter. Hurry Spring.
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