Christmas 2018

I don't decorate a lot for Christmas. We keep it fairly simple. We don't have decorations in every room. Homes that are completely decorated are beautiful! Like most families, we have a lot of responsibilities which means that we don't have a week to spend 'putting up Christmas.'

This is our simple tree. Last year it was teal and silver. This year silver with some red flowers.
The lights are colored so it looks as pretty at night as it does during the day.
You can see Tim's large nutcracker by the tree. It's the only one that doesn't fit on top of the piano.

Tim has been collecting Nutcrackers for a long time! We give him one or two every year.
It's my job to clear off the top of the piano.
It's Tim's job to set them all up!
There are a few that need a little repair, but no one really notices
and we all enjoy them standing tall and looking festive at this end of the front room.
In the back, on the left, you can see a beautiful candle holder that Tim turned for me many years ago. It stays out all year because I love it so!

I should probably take the red and white quilt off the back of the couch.
It's there all year and some years I just leave it.
I made the quilt on the wall a few years ago. It was a lot of work on the embroidery machine
and I loved the challenge!

My friend and I painted so many of these nativity puzzles many years ago!
She wanted one for each child in her family, I wanted one for my family.
It was quite a project getting them all cut out, sanded, and painted!

I bought this Nativity puzzle from Bless This Mess when she had an Etsy store.
One of my dearest friends painted it (Melissa's mom) and I wanted something to remind me of her
and the love we share.

This lovely nativity reminded Bryon of Lladro. He spent 2 years in Spain and he fell in love with Lladro while he was there. He found this nativity many years ago in a shop in the mall and got it for me for Christmas. I don't know how he managed to save enough money, it was out of our budget. It's very dear to all of us.

Of course Santa needs a magic key to get into the house! We always lock the doors at night, and I'm sure Santa doesn't want to come down the wood stove chimney!
I made this a few years ago, too.
The grandkids and many other families have one
because it's so important to make sure Santa can get into the house to leave his gifts!

I hope you enjoyed the little tour of Christmas at my house!

I love this post about Christmas. Brad does a lovely job explaining the meaning and importance of this wonderful season. This year our family has seen so many dear people pass away. It's at this time of the year that I remember and miss them. I also remember all the other family members that have gone before me. At this point in my life everyone who knew me as a baby is gone. It is an odd feeling.

However, I love that during this time of year I feel especially close to all those wonderful people. I'm a little sad when the 'holidays' end because it seems that I miss them even more.

The traditions that we enjoy link us to those who have gone before us. They remind us of family and friends, and help us remember to spend time together with those we love now, to think about the Savior, and to make memories with the people we love.

With so much to do and so much fun to have during this season remember that we can still do something nice for someone else every day! The nice things I do, I do in memory of the family and friends that have gone before me. They would love me to reach out to lift and strengthen others that are also feeling loss at this time of year.

Water Barrels in the Winter

It's cold outside!

Echo has a big heater inside her called a 'rumen.' Cows have 4 stomachs and one of them (the rumen) produces a lot of heat. We make sure Echo has plenty of food and water so she stays warm even when she's covered with snow.

JJ has a warm fur coat on.
Her coat helps keep her warm in the winter.
She doesn't mind the snow!

Scout has a warm fur coat, too.
His coat keeps him warm, too.
You can tell that his fur keeps him warm because the snow is on his back.
When you wear a coat the snow stays on the outside of your coat, too.

Midnight usually stays inside the barn when it's snowing and cold.
She has a warm fur coat, too. She doesn't like the snow even though she has a nice coat.
She likes to find a dry place in the sun to warm herself.
She's about 10 years old, that's very old for a barn cat.

Water is really important for animals. They need to have water to keep healthy. It's been very cold outside so their water freezes.

We use electric water heaters and electric buckets for the water.

Do you see the round piece of metal at the bottom of the bucket?
That is a heater that keeps the water warm enough that it doesn't freeze.
The animals are a little sloppy and they've dropped hay into their water.

This bucket has an electrical chord that plugs in.
The bucket has a heater inside the bottom, you can't see it
because it's enclosed inside the plastic.

This is a special hose.
The hose has a heater in it!
It keeps the water from freezing inside the hose.
That's important because if there is ice in the hose we can't use it.
If we can't use the hose then we have to carry buckets of water to fill all the barrels.
That's a lot of work! We would have to carry 14 or more buckets of water every day
to fill up all the barrels. 

Water is important for healthy animals. If they have enough clean food and water they can stay warm and healthy during the winter, even when they live in a barn with no heaters.

There is also a heater in the water that the chickens drink, but the chickens don't mind eating snow if they aren't in the pen. The cows, sheep, and goats don't like to eat snow or peck at ice to get their water so we make sure they always have water, not ice, in their barrels and buckets.

Heating water takes a lot of electricity so this year we put solar panels on
the roof of the barn. They help pay for the extra electricity we
need to keep the water from freezing.
We have a great place for the solar panels.
Not everyone has as nice a place for the solar panels as we do!

The little tree by the barn has solar lights, too!
I love turning the Christmas lights on when I do the barn chores at night.

Especially during this holiday season remember that....

Animal Feeders

Do you remember the types of dishes and bowls and cups you used during Thanksgiving dinner? Some dishes were probably flat, some were more like bowls. Each bowl or dish is used on purpose to hold each type of food.

The animals on the farm have certain types of feeders, too. We use the word "feeder" for something that holds animal food.

This is the feeder on the milk stand.
It's called a 'hang over bucket' because it hangs on a bar or a piece of wood.

This is what it looks like with feed in it.

We don't wash the feeders very often. People need clean dishes, bowls, and cups to eat out of. Animals don't need to have their feeders cleaned that often.

This is Echo's 'hang over bucket'.
It's much bigger than the goats' bucket because Echo's head is much bigger!
This is the same size bucket that horses eat out of, too.

The chickens eat from a hanging feeder.
I pour the feed into the top and it fills a dish at the bottom.
The chickens are so messy that I put a rubber feeder underneath to catch all the food that falls out.
The chickens can still eat the food in the rubber feeder and it doesn't get wasted by falling all over the ground.

This is how we feed hay inside the stall.
The fence holds the hay and the goats can pull out what they want to eat.
We take the hay that's on the floor and bring it out to the chicken pen.
We put it inside their nesting boxes, and sometimes spread it on the ground.
The chickens love to eat the leftover hay.

This is the feeder we use for Echo and the little goats.
It's really a horse feeder, but Echo doesn't mind it.
We like to feed her outside because she always poops while she's eating!
We don't have to clean the stall as often if she poops outside.
The feeders are all under some sort of roof in the winter so the food doesn't
get spoiled by snow and rain.

What about water?

You drink from a cup or a bottle, but that doesn't work well for most animals.

The white part of the container is filled with water.
There is a float at the bottom so all the water doesn't spill out on the ground.
Look closely and you will see a black cord coming out of the top of the waterer.
That cord is attached to a heater that sits at the bottom of the bucket.

I'm sure you've noticed that there is a lot of ice on the playground, and maybe around your house. The animals can eat snow, but they like liquid water better. If they have enough water and food, and if they have a place to get out of the rain and snow, they stay warm without a furnace like we have in our homes.

The blue barrel, and the green barrel, both have electric heaters at the bottom.
You can see the chords plugged into the grey box on the post.
Echo, River, and Serenity use the green water barrel.
Misty, Clover, and Annie use the blue water barrel.

The hose also plugs in! It's hard to get water into the barrels if the hose is frozen. Someone was really smart and figured out a way to put a heating wire inside a hose so that farmers can use a hose in the winter instead of having to fill buckets of water, then dumping them into the barrel where the animals drink.

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Every morning Scout, JJ, and Midnight like to have a treat in the barn.

JJ gets her sip of milk from an old plastic feeder on the floor.

Scout gets his sip of milk in an old metal pan near the milk stand.

Midnight gets her sip of milk in an old metal lid.


Bubbers used to love drinking out of a running faucet.