Winter wonderland

It's been snowing like mad all morning, transforming our neck of the woods into a winter wonderland.

Took this photo Saturday while dropping a friend of Younger Daughter's back at her home.

On the way back, we passed a deer carcass out in a field, with ravens and a bald eagle eating.

Unfortunately they flew off before I could get a clear shot, but here's a closer version.

And even closer (cropped) -- very blurry.

And just taking off.

Anyway, this is what the landscape looked like this morning when daylight dawned.

In this kind of weather, Major really stands out!

Cattle panels, covered in the white stuff.

Corral gate from the outside...

...and from the inside.

I don't think the cattle think much of the weather...

...though at least it's not cold (about 30F).

Every branch was laden down.

As was our old tractor.

But it sure is pretty!

The snow keeps sliding off the roof. Right now we have huge mounds we have to climb over, directly under the eaves.

Don shoveled a path to the shop.

This is the hood of our car, with a yardstick standing upright.

About seven inches at the time I took this photo.

Looks like we won't be going anywhere for awhile!

Bwahahahahaha -- here we go again

Sheesh. You'd think, after studies have proven them wrong again and again and again, that critics would drop the tiresome "socialization" charge when it comes to homeschooling.

I happened to catch an article entitled Interest in Homeschooling Surges which reported an increase in the number of people interested in homeschooling their children in the aftermath of the tragic Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings. This doesn't surprise me -- I'm certain there are many parents who feel concern every time they send their children off to gun-free zones each morning.

But true to form, someone couldn't stop herself from snarking on the same weary and incorrect theme about socialization. "Public private schools offer the socialization without trying so hard," said Nory Behana. Behana is a Lecturer in child and family development at San Diego State University. She said parents should think twice about homeschooling. Behana said a classroom environment provides key skills for life. "Your socialization with peers is one of the best ways you figure out how you relate to the world," said Behana. She said homeschooling can be effective as long as there is a social component.

Um, hello, how many homeschoolers are taped into a cardboard box in the basement after their school hours are over in order to keep them away from socializing in the (cough) real world? I wonder if Ms. Behana ever noticed how little publicly-schooled kids have time for real-life experiences when they're locked in a classroom with the other lab rats for seven or eight hours a day?

"Professional educators, who don't fully understand the many styles of homeschooling, often raise this issue," noted Isabel Shaw in Social Skills and Homeschooling: Myths and Facts. "They believe school is the only place children learn socialization skills... The socialization myth was born out of a misconception of what it's like to homeschool. Many educators and critics of homeschooling still believe homeschoolers hit the books at 9 a.m., work all day at their kitchen table till 3:00 p.m. or later, and spend their day isolated and alone."

Since homeschooling has a proven track record of academic superiority, this begs the question: is the sole and exclusive purpose of school "socialization"? If so, why is no one examine the quality of socialization in which children are immersed?

Apparently a staggering 92% of school superintendents "believe that home learners are emotionally unstable, deprived of proper social development and too judgmental of the world around them," according to a California study by researcher Dr. Brian Ray with the National Home Education Research Institute.

Emotionally unstable? Deprived of proper social development? Too judgmental? Oh please.

Sigh. Still an uphill battle. I'm just grateful our girls aren't involved in the "social development" experiments taking place in America's public schools.

Roosters and hens

Ever since mid-December when we battened down the hatches for some high winds and snow, we've had six young roosters tucked into an inside cage in the chicken coop.

Since we used the incubator to hatch two batches of chicks last summer, the young roosters have been gradually coming "online." For the last few weeks these boys had been wreaking havoc on the ladies, so life was much happier for the hens with these randy fellows out of reach. Nonetheless it was past time to put these boys in the freezer.

So early Wednesday morning when it was barely light, Don and I bundled them into boxes padded with a bit of straw, and I drove them to the butchers. On the way I collected two extra roosters from a neighbor who had a surplus.

The butchers are located at the top -- and I mean the TOP -- of this range.

It's four-wheel-drive conditions this time of year.

But once I crested the hill and got to the flat on top...

...I'm greeted by one of prettiest little farms in the region. Sure wouldn't mind owning this place!

I drove a mile or so more until I came to the butchers. They had everything set up.

The orange items are killing cones, the barrel beneath it catches the blood.

We offloaded the boxes. Bye bye boys!

While the butchers were doing their dirty deeds, I drove back into town to do some errands and wait for their call. I passed a bunch of bald eagles perched in trees by the river.

Way cool birds.

This probably isn't an eagle's nest, it looks more like an osprey's nest.

Anyway, the boys came home in a lot smaller of a box than the one they went in.

Now they live in our freezer.

After some discussion, we decided to keep our older rooster Snap. He's a good rooster, tame with us and not hard on the hens (some roosters are vicious to the ladies).

We also decided to keep this young fellow, one of Smoky's bandits (in the middle).

This is what he looked like as a chick.

We haven't named him yet, but he seems very good-tempered (unlike the randy bunch we just sent to the freezer). Although we hatched him ourselves, his egg came from a friend who raises purebred Delaware chickens, which are considered a rare breed. They're beautiful birds and lay large brown eggs. This boy is also totally unrelated to any of the ladies, so he's a good one to keep.

With the surplus roosters gone, it was time to muck out the chicken coop again.

Smoky settled down to watch me. This bird is truly endearing. No wonder she made such a good mama.

After a couple hours of hard work, the coop was clean and lined with fresh hay...

...just in time for the birds to start settling in for the night.

Yep, back to normal in the chicken coop.

Sunny but COLD

We awoke this morning to clear skies and bitter cold.

Every surface was covered with hoarfrost.

We watched the sun creep up and touch the tops of the trees.

Everything was frozen.

And beautiful.

The sun shone through the hoarfrost like a zillion diamonds.

Meanwhile Lydia sat in the yard and ate snow, the silly dog.

In weather like this we keep the woodstove going all night. It's nice to come down to a warm house in the morning.

The cold temps aren't supposed to last. The temps are rising later in the week, and we may even lose most of our snow cover.

New Year's activities

Yesterday -- January 1 -- I decided to start the New Year by organizing some of our preparedness supplies.

We tended to stash our items in buckets organized roughly by category, and each bucket has two labels. The first label is general:

The second label is specific.

But what I didn't have was an overall inventory. Just how many mousetraps, or rolls of dental floss, or bars of soap did we have? It was time to find out.

In the book Patriots by James Wesley, Rawles, he mentions a trade fair that was established several years into a societal collapse. Among the many small-but-essential items people needed were things like matches, mouse traps, canning lids, fish hooks, bleach, non-hybrid garden seeds, candle wicking, lamp wicks, salt, band-aids, razor blades, dental floss, toothbrushes, and cloth diapers.

The point of this scene was to highlight the importance of all the little things we take for granted, and which we don't appreciate until they're no longer available. This scene made sense to us, and we've tried to stock up on such things (except fish hooks and cloth diapers) since we use them on a regular basis anyway.

So I opened all the buckets and started inventorying. Matches. (Plenty.) Bar soap. (Plenty.) Lamp wicks. (Plenty.) Kitchen timers. (Oops, just one. Better get a couple more.)

As I went, I made notes of what items I was short on. Thankfully most of these household items are inexpensive, and I can just pick up a few things here and there in order to round out our stock.

But the biggest thing I wanted to get a grasp on was our medical supplies. Neither Don nor I have any significant professional medical education, so in the event of a serious medical emergency we would be dependent on others. Thankfully we're all in good health to begin with, but nonetheless accidents can (and doubtless will) happen in a "bleep" scenario.

We've squirreled away a pretty decent array of medical supplies, but we'd lost track of how much and of what variety. Time to spread things out, take inventory, and reorganize.

We divvied things up roughly according to function, then re-bucketed the supplies.

I made sure to label exactly what was inside.

(Forgive the misspellings.)

I also made notes of what additional medical supplies we might need. A transfusion kit? Maybe. More burn dressings? Absolutely. (In a non-electric world, burns will be a lot more common.) We also plan to add such unmentionable over-the-counter medicines as constipation relief, hemorrhoid suppositories, etc. Hey, you never know.

All in all, a very useful way to start the New Year.