December at Big Rock
December. The month of snow! Trying to figure out adult stuff like health insurance. Cold Tempies. Beautiful Moon. Deadlines. Tidying up loose ends.
Winter came early this year and kept us from getting out for our traditional Christmas Tree hunt in the Cascade Mountain Range beyond Sisters, Oregon. I was so disappointed to miss a year when we have been doing it since 2018! We always go with my mom and stepdad and then have other friends or family join in if they can. It is so fun to get out there and stomp around in the snow, searching for the perfect tree! Clancy got into it last year and this year when we went out of Bend to get his Aunt her tree in November.
After we find the perfect tree, sled if possible, and get any other branches for crafts, we go to Sisters and have a warm lunch!
This year we decided going out in a snowstorm on bad road conditions with a newborn wasn’t a good idea. But we didn’t lose out on tradition entirely! The hunt for a tree was different this year. It involved driving around town on a whiteout Saturday morning looking for one open tree lot! My parents searched from the south while we searched from the north, and we found only one open!
So together, we still managed to hunt down a tree!
Our animals all have their own places based on species. Until this winter.
If you have followed along for a summer, you probably know we rotate our cows through pastures during the growing/grazing months here—about April to October. During the winter, we let our pastures rest by bringing our cows onto a piece of sacrificed land known as the dry lot. This tract of about two acres can’t be watered by flood irrigation, so it stays barren, besides weeds that pop up in the spring that we try to graze at opportune times. By feeding there and adding manure all winter, organic matter is added, making this land more fertile for someday.
The horses live in a portion of the dry lot that is off the barn year round. An electric fence separates the horse and cow dry lots. Despite the fencing, the horses kept getting in with the cows. This has never really happened before, so I was surprised when we kept finding the horses in with the cows. Finally one morning after it happened yet again, I rolled up the fencing that separated them and decided to just let them run with the cows.
Why not?
Well, time will probably answer that question for me, but as for now, everyone is happier and our winter chores have been reduced even more. Having a newborn and a toddler, I will gladly take that!
Happy horses loving living and eating with the cows!
It sure has been a snowy November and December. It feels like we have had all of winter before winter has even started!
Snow is not universally enjoyed by all in our household. Clancy and I are delighted by it. Nathaniel… not so much! But he is the one with the weight of plowing on his shoulders. His bah-hum-bug-ness towards the snow doesn’t dampen our love for it. The ranch is extra magical to behold through snowflakes and highlighted in white crystals!
My garden greens are slow to grow and not supporting us right now. I planted them too late and I don’t think they have enough water. I know better for next year to sow earlier. My frost cloths are working perfectly! It has not dipped below 25 degrees under them, even when outside it is single digits! Hooray! All my greens(spinach, arugula, leaf lettuces, bok choy), carrots(overwintering Merida variety), and even peas are surviving! Just not thriving. Something is eating my kale off as it comes up, so no kale this winter which is sad. It is our favorite.
Nathaniel finished, delivered, and installed another round of bookcases just before Christmas. Livia and I drove to Sisters to pickup a winter CSA box we sighned up for with Mahonia Gardens. We stopped by the bookstore to see them loaded with product and looking so beautiful!
Christmas was a two-week extravaganza. The weekend before Christmas, my brother and sister-in-law came, and we celebrated with them at our mom’s and then dad’s. By the time Christmas morning came, Clancy was a seasoned pro for our Christmas together and brunch with Nathnaiel’s family.
I’ve always been used to multiple Christmas celebrations, having divorced parents, so having a Christmas with each set of grandparents and our own feels very natural to me. It worked out great to spread the Christmas cheer around. It made the entire month of December exciting and festive!
Our lot-bought tree was a dehydrated fire hazard by Winter Solstice, but it managed not to spontaneously combust before the big day!
I’ve enjoyed time back in the saddle on Porter. I rode until 37 weeks and was back on after about a month after having Livi, which gave Porter a couple months off, but he never skips a bit. I feel so thankful to have him there, ready at any chance I get. I’ve gone back and forth about selling the horses during this time when small human needs are high and have to be the priority. I feel a lot of guilt about them not being cared for or used as they should be. But I also know that not every horse can be caught up and ridden after weeks or months as though only a day has gone by. The decade plus that I put into Boe and Porter prepared them to be the horses I need in this phase of my life and theirs.
Clancy LOVES hiking up “the big mountain” on our ranch. It is a good time to do it, while the snakes are tucked deep away! I’ve been strapping Livi on and away we go. It is a challenge keeping up with that boy! I can’t believe how big he has gotten. Having Livi has really distorted my perception of him, which has changed our relationship. It’s been really difficult to feel that difference; he is more his own human and less mine.
After hiking all over the side of our butte, he perched up on this rock that overlooks the south third of the ranch and he said with thoughtful certainty, “This is our place to live.”
Yes. Yes, it is.
And those are the times I swell and gush over the boy we get to watch grow up and even away from us.
