I’m beginning to hate February with vigor…for even with the reduced days from the usual 30 or 31…the present 28 are too many. Why they ever invented a month like this is beyond me!

Perhaps it was invented to house the worst of winter… a place where people could despise and hate the cold without retaining that hatred into the coming month that should contain awaited warmth and sunshine. These coming months should also contain warming, refreshed earth…under the leaf cover which we will rake away, to reveal the fresh, little green sprouts of spring.

March can still be cold, but the very next day can also be warm and sunny. That makes it very easy to stand those lessening days left over from the long cold winter. We know that in March and April, if we get more snow, it will melt within a few days and return to the spring like weather we are awaiting with anxiety. Seven more days and we will be into March and the very worst of this winter will then be firmly behind us and we can begin planning our springtime activities. My first plans will be to sip my Trader Joe’s coffee on the side deck glider in the warmth of the morning sun, as I enjoy the smells and sounds of spring. It is nice to leave the animals out early in the morning so you can enjoy them as they go about their daily activities before your gazing eye. When the alpacas and Llama can be out in the fields, there is little worry about predators, for they seem to police the area and are quick to defend their territory against intruders…especially dangerous ones like foxes or coyotes. Max is very vigilant and misses nothing that happens on his turf, but I don’t know how he would do with a hawk. I would guess he might run to the area of a hawk attack, but it would be too late then, for the hawk would already have killed a chicken and could simply fly off with it. I guess we cannot safeguard against everything and it will not be very safe until the ice on the lake is melted. The lake is the only place that isn’t solidly fenced, so predators can cross the ice to gain access into the fields. I am toying with the idea of a removable fencing that could be pulled across the ice in the winter, which would create a positive barrier that would be removed in the spring when the ice began really melting. I could use a rope to drag it across the frozen surface, from the rigid post on one side to posts on the other…just for winter. I see tracks across the ice indicated that deer and other predators use it as a super highway to the farm fields in the dark, so why would they not cross in the daytime if they were hungry enough?     Yesterday I picked up a wireless USB adapter to allow the computer in the gift shop to be connected to our wireless router in the house, which will let me go on-line in the gift shop to research pricing of items and update the anti-virus program which is telling me to run a live update. Without doing so, it is tying the computer up trying to do so. It says it is unsafe to use the computer because it doesn’t know I don’t use the on-line capability out there now, so since I need to update things like that, we might as well use the internet too. I’m going to test it today and if the unit is not strong enough to connect solidly, we will return it for the bigger unit which is of commercial quality. We bought the largest residential one which the guy guaranteed would be sufficient for our use. There is a 14 day return period, so we’ll see today whether we are taking it back or not.

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053562 Cluckin' "A" Critter Farm, LLC