Snowfall and the Sugar Creek Winter Games

A massive snowfall blanketed the area over on Sunday night, January 9. Minor Hill reported 13 inches, the largest accumulation in the mid-state. Jim, Steve and Jennifer came to the farm on the following weekend and Beth, Cam and the girls came over from Huntsville on the Sunday.

After the snow the weather turned cold with temperatures barely reaching the low thirties. Early Friday morning Jim checked the thermometer at zero degrees. These pictures were taken on Friday.

Jennifer joined Steve and Jim on Saturday morning. She rode Gypsy while Steve and Jim tended to some burning brush piles and attempted some controlled burns of warm season grass without success.

Then came time for the Sugar Creek winter games, highlighted by the Puncheon Bobsled Team. Fashioning a sled from an old calf feeder trough, Steve, Jim , and Jennifer sledded down the hill while the cows looked on with mild interest.

These pictures were taken on Saturday the 14th, six days after the snowfall.

Organizational Challenges

As a general rule our family is not characterized as 'highly organized' and the farm has amplified these natural tendencies. With so much work to do and with different family members in and out at different times we have realized the need to take steps to help keep us organized for the tasks we need to accomplish and to make staying at the farm more enjoyable. Numerous hours have been spent looking for tools or needed materials. We recognized that storage was an issue from the very beginning but for the most part we've just been working with the hand we were dealt with when we took over the farm. Natural accumulation of clutter through increased use has compounded the problem to the point that we have begun a campaign to make the place more livable and functional for the benefit of the entire family.

Examples of the problem:

One of the first steps, begun over the past year, was to repair the smokehouse for storage of large tools and materials. Jim came up with the idea of an attached toolbox shed to repair the back wall and give better storage of small tools. Steve and Jim built the box during the summer and they plus Janine have been working on the smokehouse as time has allowed. The photo at right shows the small tools relocated to the new toolbox shed, which is nearly finished. It's a start!

The photo to the left shows clutter in the kitchen. Plans are to create shelves on the wall to the left and above the washer to add organized storage space inside the farm house.

Despite the equipment shed built by Steve, Jim, and Logan the main house and little house porches tend to be catch-all point for equipment pieces and parts, building materials, horse and cattle gear, and various other tools and implements. Part of this should be improved by organizing the inside of the smokehouse as repairs are completed. Perhaps improvements at the equipment shed and/or the barn could offer solutions as well.

Longer range plans call for adding a bathroom with storage space at the rear of the little house. The barn has us perplexed as to how to repair or replace the existing structure. However this is accomplished, storage can be addressed there as well.

At any rate, simply identifying the problems is a step toward addressing them and good progress has been made in 2010 with the expectation of even better things to come in 2011. We will update with photos showing the solutions and improvements.