February

Old Man Moon is the night watchman these days, shining his brilliant light into my room at about 4 a.m. each day. He creeps around corners from the Northwest to the East in the morning, but is obviously in the Eastern sky in early evening. He gets around.

His light was obscured this morning, by snow-laden clouds just waiting to let loose.

At mid-morning, it is gray and sharply cold. There’s no snow yet, although the radio tells me that in various other ridges and valleys the “winter event” is already ongoing. Sleet and another ice storm is reported to be on the agenda for later today.

The weather geeks mostly exaggerate in their predictions, although there have been a few memorable times when they grossly UNDERestimated and we were caught out driving in a serious ice storm that snapped power lines and allowed for numerous vehicle accidents. In some ridge or valley, somewhere in the region, it is safe to say, the weather predictions will be spot on for any given day.

The goats are still baby-less, although some udders are now about as big as they can get. That tells me I better be ready. This morning, I prepared another stall with waste hay and a filled hay feeder, closing and latching the gate behind me to keep it clean until needed. The goat nursery is close to done in the green barn. Gates are up and sides, but the fronts need to be finished before we can clean up and get them in use.

I got the safe heat lamp housing ready and have a plastic bin to use as an emergency warm-up crib. I’ve even figured out where to hang the lamp. An old jacket with a fake lamb’s wool lining is inside the bin for comfort.

The one problem is that I can’t find the long list of great “W” names that my grandson sent last kidding season. It’s got to be around here somewhere…