New and clever things...
Living and technological adaptation to harsh weather
Over the past several weeks we’ve had a series of snow, hard freeze, sunny-but-very-cold, rain, mud, ice storm, another hard freeze, cold-but-sunny, more ice storm and freezing rain, more mud, hard cold, sunny-not-quite-as-cold, rain/ice, mud again…and it looks like we are in for a few days up into the 60’s F coming soon as February turns into March? I’ll take it but my hunch is that winter’s not done with us yet…
The Ol’ Winter Weather Whipsaw. This year with a heaping helping of mud - an endemic seasonal phenomenon in southern Appalachia well described by our Roane County, TN co-conspirator, farmer, and author Brian Miller:
Clever things
The First Place Cleverness Award for this month goes to these mama rabbits:
They each gave birth to litters during the recent period of oscillatory horrendous weather. These warm season pasture girls overwinter in a split-level hutch reminiscent of the 70’s suburban housing model. The litters came about 10 days apart. The first mama nested her babies in the lower level of the hutch. The second mama made a tidy nest on the upper level.
When the most recent viciously bone chilling wet-cold ice storm hit the girls pooled their resources and made one uber-cozy nest in the lower level, with the second mama bringing her babies one-by-one from the upper nest and tucking them beneath the larger and furrier baby nest from the first litter in the lower level straw bed. That plus the body heat from both the mamas working together surely saved the lives of the younger babies as they were too small and vulnerable to withstand the harsh cold and freezy-wet conditions.
Honorable Mention for Cleverness goes to Ms. Dakota, who despite being a total spazz managed to bring two healthy kids into the world. Here are the lil buckling and doeling with the mama at three days old, let out of the barn once the weather had finally warmed up a bit:
I give Dakota a hard time, but really she’s my baby. Literally. I bottle raised her. She was born by C-section and orphaned because sadly Dr. Rachael could not save her mama, Ms. Alabama. And Alabama was OG Magpie Hollow, a member of our first group of sheep and goats on the farm.
Dakota has shown herself to be a great mama so far. She and these two kids are Alabama’s legacy on our farm. So far we haven’t named the kids yet. (The buck is the black and white one, and the doe is the tan little one.) Name suggestions? Put them in the comments.
Last Place for Cleverness this Month goes to me!
I have a new invention that has clever potential. It’s a solar powered thermal mass heater used for off-grid thawing of livestock water tanks.
Great idea - in principle! Needs more work though.
It does seem to help melt ice (slightly) faster
More to come…