Chronicles of the Long Shot Farm

According to the “Farmer’s Almanac“, the January Thaw is more than just another piece of fanciful weather lore, because annual averages really do show a slight temperature increase, and subsequent dip in  January.  During the January Thaw, which usually lasts for about a week, temperatures rise an average of 10° F higher than the previous week, then drop back down.   Usually this happens around the third week of the month, but I am certain that the “2013 January Thaw” is happening this weekend. Temperatures were near 60° F on Saturday.

We worked outside much of the day, taking down most of the holiday decorations (I left some of the lights on the fences yet, as they brighten the winter nights, no matter which month it is).  We cleaned up our woodpile and got more firewood, and we finally picked up all the branches that came down during the couple of days of high wind warnings around New Year.  It made our brush pile even larger.

We enjoy visiting the PA Farm Show every year, and today was the day for 2013.  The food court remains Lars’s favorite spot, and we stopped there for lunch and dinner.  New this year (at least we had not seen it before) were pumpkin funnel cakes with cream cheese icing – they were delicious. Of course we visited all the animal exhibits, watched some of the goat judging, saw funny looking chickens and watched ladies spinning alpaca yarn.  Spent time in the large arena watching tractor square dance and walked down every isle of the PA Preferred food vendors.  We saw the winning quilts, jams, apples and more – and the largest gingerbread house we’d ever seen.

Buttermilk Rye, Cottage Cheese, Plain White & Dinner Rolls

It’s too early to tell how bad this storm will actually be, but we did make some preparations, just in case the worst case scenario plays out.

It is important to remember that we live in southcentral PA, where even a hint of a snowflake triggers a massive run on the bread and milk aisles in the grocery store.  So with “Sandy” slowly moving up the east coast, there was no bread to be had by Saturday, which was not such a bad deal, because I got to bake all day Sunday and call it “storm preparations”.

Bottled Water in the Barn

In addition to baking bread and different apple cakes, we did fill up a number of our unused 5 gallon carboys with drinking water and stored those in our barn.  We have rain barrels under our downspouts to catch water (great for flushing toilets) and we do have a well stocked canned food cellar and freezers. 

We also re-organized our canned fruit, (which really had to be done anyhow)  in case our cellar floods.  All the full jars are moved to the top shelves, so the bottom shelves only hold empty jars, which can easily be washed and cleaned.

We moved all our outside furniture into the barn, got firewood closer to the house, emptied the rain gauge,  hooked up a large propane tank to the gas grill and got gas for our cars.  And we finally moved Oliver, the tortoise, inside.

Now, the phones are charging, flashlights are ready, the laundry and dishes are done…and I have time to post on our blog.  Outside, the wind has definitely picked up, its starting to rain harder and the temperature has dropped quite a bit.  Just be safe everyone!!