Any Day Now
November 2025
Our October newsletter came out right after the first frost and this one comes to you the day after the first (very light) snow of the year. Winter is on its way and we’re hunkering down in more ways than one.
What’s been happening?
As part of our baby/winter prep, we’ve been trying to stash some meals in the freezer. We picked a mess of apples from our trees and made three gallons of apple sauce, and our friend Joe came to help me make twenty pounds of venison and lamb sausage. Also on the apple front, Herbert and I made a pie together for the first time. It was also my first time making an apple pie withe Wolf River apples, a heritage Wisconsin variety that’s whispered about in pie making circles up here.
Helping fill the pie! We got the biggest farm task out of the way when a group of friends came out to assist with the first ever burning of the peonies! Shout out to Emma, Rick, Arthur, Maeve, Ingrid, Kai, and Susie for helping cut, collect and burn all 900 or so peonies. For those of you who are wondering, we burn them to try and minimize the survival of diseases over the winter.
The crew out cutting peonies Smaller prep has included swapping furniture around upstairs (thanks Starrs!), fixing squeaky floors, and smaller things like weather-stripping exterior doors. Turns out that gaps around the doors really do make it drafty when it’s below freezing!
In the midst of it all, I’ve also been trying to get outside as often as possible with Willmar. We’ve had a successful bird season so far, with Willmar getting his first ever retrieves on mourning doves and pheasants. He also flushed a mess of woodcock and a couple of grouse, but my poor shooting prevented his retrieves on those birds. Also, on the nature front, we were quite surprised when our cat brought us a flying squirrel. It’s had us reconsidering what some of the noises inside of the walls might be…
Willmar and his first pheasant
What’s ahead?
Right now, we’re trying to balance prepping and resting; there’s a few more things that need to happen, and some that could happen, but we’ll see how much gets crossed of our to-do list.
The generator hook-up should be installed this week. After that, we’ll still need to buy a generator, but that will be good piece of mind to have as the winter approaches.
The chicken coop needs refreshing (new pine shavings and straw in the nestboxes) before we close the chickens in for the winter. As for the sheep and the goat’s, they need their winter house repaired, their winter fence put up and we have to get hay ordered/stored away.
A few more doors need weather-stripping, and if there’s time, I’m hoping to install storm windows in our three-season porch, with the hopes that I can use it as an office and Herbert can play out there this winter.
Finally, all the summer machinery needs to be put away and the winter machinery (mostly just the snowblower) needs to be brought out and tuned up.
What’s on our minds?
I feel like I can just copy and paste from last month’s newsletter here:
we’re working hard to balance the needs of the farm, the need to prep the house, the need to work two full time jobs and the need to maintain our health and peace of mind. It’s a delicate balance, but so far, we’re hanging in there.
Thanks again for reading! The next time you hear from us, the number of contrary farmers in the world will have increased by one!
Your contrary farmers,
Julie, Kristofer and Herbert (and Willmar the Labrador, too)