By George, it's been a bit nippy out. The thermometer was only reading -18C most of yesterday, and -20 this morning, but with wind chill the forecast reckoned -26C. Freezes the very bogies in your nose, so it does - an interesting sensation. I had icicles in my beard when I was out ploughing the drive and repairing the barn yesterday!
Another un-anticipated problem of the low temperatures became apparent when I trundled thankfully to the beer store the other night, and found the beer frozen in the kegs! Not good. I had cleverly found a suitably cool spot for storing beer kegs to clear and condition. Unsuitably cool, as it turns out. You know the 'slushy' soft drinks you can make, like flavoured snow - well it was like that - a beer slushy, yum, it might just catch on.
The animals are all taking it in their strides though. Jane has a chillblain on her toe, and the kids have fallen whilst cavorting on the ice sheets, but the horses and chickens seem happy enough! As Jane pointed out, last winter our biggest chore was wading through knee deep mud wrenching silage out of a bale for the cows, this winter it is gently chipping holes through the ice on chicken drinkers and buckets, with a hammer. Makes for an interesting life, though, eh.
Other than during the snow flurries, though, it has been clear, sunny and pretty stunning weather-wise. Suits us fine.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Friday, January 11, 2008
Who am I?
We're having a dreadfully struggly time here at barkerlane acres. The problem is one of identity. Namely, what should I call my new web development business.
I never really liked 'lanetech' - it was short and reasonably memorable blah blah, but apart from being incredibly unimaginative, it just sounds kinda cheesy, like Krazy Komputers, or Cybershack (actually, that's not too bad!).
Of course, finding a business name has become a lot harder since the internet came along. It's not good enough to come up with a good name, it now has to be available as a domain too. Trying to find a .com that hasn't been registered is frustrating to say the least. Nerves are becoming frayed, is all I will say.
You name it, I've looked it up... so, I'm throwing it open to ideas. Can anyone make a decent suggestion? If I get a few, I'll maybe post a poll on here and the best of three votes gets it...
I never really liked 'lanetech' - it was short and reasonably memorable blah blah, but apart from being incredibly unimaginative, it just sounds kinda cheesy, like Krazy Komputers, or Cybershack (actually, that's not too bad!).
Of course, finding a business name has become a lot harder since the internet came along. It's not good enough to come up with a good name, it now has to be available as a domain too. Trying to find a .com that hasn't been registered is frustrating to say the least. Nerves are becoming frayed, is all I will say.
You name it, I've looked it up... so, I'm throwing it open to ideas. Can anyone make a decent suggestion? If I get a few, I'll maybe post a poll on here and the best of three votes gets it...
Thursday, January 3, 2008
... and a happy new year 2
Well, my significant other has already reported all the juicy news for Hogmanay. The festive season is over. Enough with the over-indulgence and jolity. And on with the rest of the year, which as Richard says, gives us plenty to go at.
We have started the new year with some head scratching; still trying to decide on how to change the heating system for this place, which must happen. Oil is very expensive (not to mention all the environmental stuff), and it is very cold (currently minus 16). Wood costs us our time and a little chainsaw fuel, giving us an opportunity to vastly reduce heating bills, and gives us a valid excuse to spend time in our lovely woods. We have hopes that Mocha, the big horse may be able to haul timber from the woods one day ...
We really need to sit down and plan veg beds for next year and order seeds and fruit trees/bushes soon. We're probably going to try a little of a lot of different kinds of things and see what works and what doesn't this year. We don't really know what to expect,as there are so many new factors - new climate, new soil, new varieties of veg, new pests. Speaking of pests, as far as growing is concerned, I think our biggest challenges will involve keeping friends and foe out of the garden - the friends, our dear chickens, and the foe; the graceful and much admired by all passing drivers, white-tailed deer. I think they will look less beautiful if I see them munching my brassicas!
As the winter rolls by, dealing with snow and ice are high on the daily agenda. There is a lot to learn, the dangers of one kind of snow after another (and there are so many different kinds of snow - I'd forgotten!) on the roads, walking over different kinds of deep snow, how long it takes for the chicken drinkers to freeze, that sort of thing. But there are so many lovely things too, the different patterns made by ice on the windows, following tracks in snow in the silent woods, the (distant) shrieks of the kids having a blast as they sled down the hill, our hill, a dream hill for sledging.
We've come a long way this year, in more ways than one, but there's still so much to learn. Better go pick up a book ...
We have started the new year with some head scratching; still trying to decide on how to change the heating system for this place, which must happen. Oil is very expensive (not to mention all the environmental stuff), and it is very cold (currently minus 16). Wood costs us our time and a little chainsaw fuel, giving us an opportunity to vastly reduce heating bills, and gives us a valid excuse to spend time in our lovely woods. We have hopes that Mocha, the big horse may be able to haul timber from the woods one day ...
We really need to sit down and plan veg beds for next year and order seeds and fruit trees/bushes soon. We're probably going to try a little of a lot of different kinds of things and see what works and what doesn't this year. We don't really know what to expect,as there are so many new factors - new climate, new soil, new varieties of veg, new pests. Speaking of pests, as far as growing is concerned, I think our biggest challenges will involve keeping friends and foe out of the garden - the friends, our dear chickens, and the foe; the graceful and much admired by all passing drivers, white-tailed deer. I think they will look less beautiful if I see them munching my brassicas!
As the winter rolls by, dealing with snow and ice are high on the daily agenda. There is a lot to learn, the dangers of one kind of snow after another (and there are so many different kinds of snow - I'd forgotten!) on the roads, walking over different kinds of deep snow, how long it takes for the chicken drinkers to freeze, that sort of thing. But there are so many lovely things too, the different patterns made by ice on the windows, following tracks in snow in the silent woods, the (distant) shrieks of the kids having a blast as they sled down the hill, our hill, a dream hill for sledging.
We've come a long way this year, in more ways than one, but there's still so much to learn. Better go pick up a book ...
... and a happy new year!
Ah, another Hogmany, another spirited rendition of Auld Lang Syne by the Family von Krapp. This year saw an increase in both instrumentation and general musicality, despite Janey practising so hard in the 5 minutes before UK midnight that she busted right out of her d-string and had to relegate to playing rhythm fiddle, standing in a slightly ginger manner.
This year, we had Breagh 'fingers' Lane on electric piano and Cameron 'thumper' Lane on a mesh-headed snare drum, in addition to regulars; Janey 'not a full set of strings' Barker on aforementioned fiddle and Richard 'too many fingers not enough space' on geetar. It was a corking session, we flew through our list of phone victims in record time. Methinks it was partly down to it only being 8pm in Canada, so 'not a full set' Barker and 'too many fingers' Lane weren't overtly stotious. Actually, we missed a few folk who I daresay are currently breathing sighs of relief, and we didn't carry out our threat to phone back when it got to midnight in Nova Scotia - a rude 4am awakening for UK listeners.
We started ripping the hardboard off the walls in one upstairs bedroom, so for the bells we had a roaring fire going in the firepit out the back and brought the New Year in under a starry, frosty sky toasting our cockles, or at least preventing them from freezing and dropping off.
Lots to do in 2008, some would say 'too much', and I would probably agree, but in the usual barkerlane stylee we will resolve to continue to make rods for our own backs, sticks to whack ourselves over the head with and generally overextend ourselves. I shall be continuing in my chosen profession of hair-shirt knitter.
Have a good one y'all!
This year, we had Breagh 'fingers' Lane on electric piano and Cameron 'thumper' Lane on a mesh-headed snare drum, in addition to regulars; Janey 'not a full set of strings' Barker on aforementioned fiddle and Richard 'too many fingers not enough space' on geetar. It was a corking session, we flew through our list of phone victims in record time. Methinks it was partly down to it only being 8pm in Canada, so 'not a full set' Barker and 'too many fingers' Lane weren't overtly stotious. Actually, we missed a few folk who I daresay are currently breathing sighs of relief, and we didn't carry out our threat to phone back when it got to midnight in Nova Scotia - a rude 4am awakening for UK listeners.
We started ripping the hardboard off the walls in one upstairs bedroom, so for the bells we had a roaring fire going in the firepit out the back and brought the New Year in under a starry, frosty sky toasting our cockles, or at least preventing them from freezing and dropping off.
Lots to do in 2008, some would say 'too much', and I would probably agree, but in the usual barkerlane stylee we will resolve to continue to make rods for our own backs, sticks to whack ourselves over the head with and generally overextend ourselves. I shall be continuing in my chosen profession of hair-shirt knitter.
Have a good one y'all!
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