LOOOOOONG yet Beautiful Winter

I don't remember such a long and cold winter as we have had this year.  I attribute it to the fact that this past December was also incredibly cold and snowy.  We don't usually get much snow until Christmas.  I don't know about you but I am ready for summer!

Traveler, our Alaskan Malamute, is one fella that doesn't mind the weather but even he wants to lay out in the warm summer sun as it sets in the late afternoon.

We left our patio furniture out (probably a bad idea) but they made for really cool smurf-like structures!

If our property weren't so beautiful to look at, with things unique to each season, winter would have been even more difficult!

Love the way the light plays on the snow creating stunning shadows...

The Genius of a Sleeping Barn

Every night before bed I take a walk out to the barn to check on the crew out there; making sure that everyone is tucked in, safe and healthy.  On particularly cold nights the horses get another snack of hay to keep them warm for the night.  I usually pull Morgan's (our potbellied pig) fleece blanket over her as she snores in her pile of straw bed.  Tonight isn't particularly cold but very snowy and blustery.  My footprints walking to the barn with me, but had I stayed out there any longer my trek out there would have been erased, looking as though I never had.  There is something cozy even about that. I blogged about this in much warmer months back in May 2010 here: http://czarofthewoodsfarm.blogspot.com/2010/05/genius-of-sleeping-houseand-barn.html
A barn is one of the coziest places on earth.  Tonight it was so quiet in the barn, quiet enough to hear, which is how I have described windless winter nights.  Since the wind was howling tonight the barn by contrast seemed to be suspended in time, noted by the lack of sound.  This is, the genious of a sleeping barn.

I love that the inside of our barn is not perfectly pristine, but rather more like the inside of a pirate ship.  it has a lot of character adding to the cozy factor.  Behind where I am standing while taking these photos is where we did a lot of work adding a bead board to the walls and a new work bench...plus lots of insulation throughout the barn.  We plan on doing the same for what you see in the photo but it will still retain that cozy pirate ship look.  The end of the barn that you see is closed off to the back pasture with heavy blue plastic insulating the doors.  In the winter it becomes a storage area for straw bedding and a full wheel barrow.  In the summer these doors are rarely shut.  Tell me that you wouldn't want to be here right now.  Can't you just smell the hay, the warmth of the horses and hear the sounds of them munching on hay.  Nights like this winter is okay with me.

The other night as I took Traveler out to pee before bed some kind of ghost bird flew down from a tree to make this angelic impression in the snow and then fly up into the tree.  Not sure what he was up to or what his purpose was, perhaps just having fun.  It was an odd time, night, for a bird to be having fun.  I am convinced he was put there and did what he did to simply make me stop and take notice.  Perhaps he knew he would get some blog time in doing so!  (had to run back in the house to get the camera for this one!)