It’s kind weird not to have fresh milk, in our case fresh goat milk, to put in my morning cup of coffee, to give to the barn cat, and to make cheese out of.Sneakers2090  ,We probably had at least two years straight of at least some of the goats being in milk.Now that they’re all dry, we don’t have the daily routine of goats jumping up on the stand for a little me-time for the goats with us humans.They all seem happy enough already, drinking fresh water, eating hay, a little grain and some mineral as they travel through the cold months.Now, for me it’s time to visit them. I go into their paddock for just that purpose.For the past several weeks it has not been that pleasant, because it has been so constantly wet.I had already forgotten about the boots, mud, muck and cold that inevitably become one of the mainstays of winterWe have just come out of several months of slip-on barn shoes, garden tools, and a lot of pleasant times, filling our pantry with cheese and produce.Last night while visiting the construction site that blocks the back road as the old bridge is being replaced, I actually started getting pretty cold. My teeth started chattering, and I had to get back into my running truck to get warm.

Oh boy! Here it comes.The head engineer on the job told me it looks as if they would be done in the first part of November.That’s much later than they wanted, but they were Nike Shoes for Men   delayed by issues involving lifting the concrete sections that the new bridge will be made of. State rules, and who knows what else.At one point they had to bring in a crane, because one section was too heavy for the giant backhoes they already have on site. They even had some troubles with that because of a breakdown.That means I have to wait a little longer to start spreading the compost I want to feed next year’s gardens with.I could go around about 2 extra miles on a somewhat winding, definitely hilly dirt road. That’s not advisable hauling an old manure spreader with an old, or new tractor. If I stalled going up one of those hills, I would not enjoy myself.The bridge repair means that instead of weekly trips around the block throughout the warm season, I’ll have to hurry up and plow in as much compost as I can before the ground and the compost piles freeze solid.My friend Randy told me that where he lives in Tennessee, the ground doesn’t freeze.That seems astounding. He can work on fences and stuff all through the winter.

Here, once everything freezes and there is no more milking, what do we do in winter?We go out on frozen lakes, drill holes at great expenditures of energy, and then stand there with ridiculous tiny fishing rods looking down holes for hours, waiting to see if something happens.When you come upon a group of nearly motionless people doing this, you might think you’re Nike Air Force 1 Shadow  witnessing a giant prank, or some kind of performance art by people risking frostbite and hoping a 20-mile-an-hour freezing wind doesn’t come up and blow their buckets all the way across the lake to Andy Rooney’s old house, or to Hog Town.The stuff can blow so far across the lake that all you can do is say goodbye and hope someone who comes upon it under some overhanging branches on the far shore can use it.Meanwhile, it is during these epic days that the goats start kidding. Meaning, soon milking will start again, and you can wear your barn shoes.