If you have a farm in most of the country, especially upstate New York, winter is never far from your mind. We prepare for winter all year, and most especially in the summer, when hay and firewood have to be ordered, stacked, readied. Last year winter passed us by, the year before it never quit. You never know.

We are planning to move into the New Bedlam Farm by late October. We expect the farm will have sold by then, and if not we will find a responsible caretaker to live in the farm after we move. We had to decide which place to prepare for winter. If we don’t get ready by October, it will be too late.  We are going ahead with fencing for the new farm, and moving our hay and firewood there. Maria loves to stack firewood and so do I, although my legs give out long before hers. Red freaked out when the firewood came – he had never seen anything like the big truck dumping a huge load of wood – and he went into the crouch and tried to herd the wood back into the truck. First time I yelled at him, “get out of there!” and he did.