short, short days.

December 21st is one of my dates to mark every year. It seems right around this time the light is gone and winter has its full grip tightening on this little spot in Ohio. I get really sad, there's not much to do and I'm usually pretty broke.


So I look for December 21st, the shortest day of the year. That means it's all up from here. The days will keep stretching. Soon the snow will melt and the grass will shrug off the cold and turn into beautiful April pastures with happy dandelions springing up everywhere. Yes, it's all looking up from here, well, except those two and a half more months of brutal cold.



But my first order is piling up from High Mowing Organics and soon I'll have dirt all over my house and little seedlings sprouting up to some far off tune of the promise of another growing season. (CSA future members, any High Mowing requests?)

And crap if this darn hawk didn't find my little flock of laying hens that are limping through the winter. The last batch of meat birds was a total and complete failure as they one by one were taken by either the cold or the hawk. So as soon as the weather breaks in March, I've got some chicken orders to fill. I don't like starting the year already behind, but it won't take me long to catch my tail and start moving forward again. I've got plans for a better chicken tractor system for some fresh egg layers and I think I have my system down for meat birds, when the weather isn't below freezing. Live and learn, I guess. Sorry for those short on chicken dinners this winter.

I've been sick all day, eating only bread with honey on it and drinking hot tea, but now I'm buzzing with thoughts of spring, dancing around to Metric with thoughts of spring strawberries.

All this darkness and winter has given me plenty of time to obsess over my new plan, to build a cord wood building that will eventually become a store front. Here's a pic from tinyhousedesign.com with a green roof, because of course after building a sustainable small wood and cob building, why wouldn't you plant grass on the roof?

Now the logistics part is where I am getting a bit muddled. I'll have to plow through zoning permits and whatnot... mostly the battle is getting my dad to turn the zoning from commercial to agricultural. He has big ideas of re building the old mill into this giant convention center and wants me to get investors and contractors and I'm pretty sure that's not what I want to do.
Maybe I'm not looking at the big picture, but I think I'd prefer to use this opportunity to start small and work my way up. Start small. Kinda like the CSA, every year we keep adding something and try not to bite off more than we can chew, well... I guess I had no idea how much interest I'd get from the meat share and hate being behind in that, but otherwise we did pretty well.
In keeping with the organic mindset and trying to be sustainable, I'd love to not have to borrow money from a bank, if at all possible. The supplies for a small cord wood building are somewhat cheap, except for time and labor, but I'd love the learning experience of once again working my ass off for no pay. Heh. But it's all in fun.

Anyway, if anyone wants in on this fun / hard labor project, just let me know. Of if anyone has any supplies around, old doors, bricks, liquor bottles, or anything else that might be useful, let me know.

Until then, I'll keep trudging through the cold, hopeful that the days are getting longer as I feed the pigs expired sweet rolls and keep a wary eye on the sky for that beautiful feathered cannibal. Oh, and pluck Christmas turkeys in the dark. At least today is the darkest day. It's only going to get lighter after this. Sweet!