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Winter on the farm

Posted by lorivertin on

Winter usually tends to be boring but this year we had several interesting happenings.

December 9, 2025 – We lost a hen to a hawk. The flock scurried into the chicken run and many of them hid in the hen house. The chickens refused to leave the run for about two days after Gretchen (a Sapphire Green Egger) was killed.
December weekend work. In the winter we try to cut back on the trees growing into the hayfields and thin out the undergrowth. We are also looking in this area to create an entrance and some paths through the eastern deciduous woods.
December 29, 2025 – nothing ruins your morning than seeing a tree portion fall on top of the koi pond. This is the second time we have had a large portion of a red cedar sitting on top of the pergola roof. Thankfully the roof held and no damages.
January 3, 2026 – We got around to taking down the remaining portion of the red cedar. It’s a whole day to cut the tree down, cut it up and burn.
January 4. 2026 – garden check. All of the covered beds are doing well.
January 16, 2026 – Took a trip out to sunny Los Angeles and one place I visited was the Huntington Botanical Gardens. The Japanese garden has a very nice pond, lots of Japanese pines, maples, camellias and azaleas.
The koi are typical pond grade that you see in many ponds all over the world. In the Chinese Garden, some of the koi were in poor health (crooked spine, ulcers).
January 28, 2026 we woke up to some pretty snowfall, maybe two inches or so. It was very cold though so it lasted in the shady areas for a few days.
January 28, 2026 – the chickens will not leave the run if their feet have to touch the snow. They treat it as if it’s hot burning lava. Our hay farmer has some of our hens that we cull after a few laying periods. He commented that all of his chickens will walk through the snow, but the ones we gave him won’t even come out of their shelter.
January 28, 2026 – as the snow melted around the edges of the woods, the deer came out to snack on the grass.
January 29, 2026 – Since the weather was looking good and my maple dealer had availability, we finally got our fall 2025 maples to the farm.
I am very excited to get these trees planted. Most of them can be planted with our tractor/backhoe. However there is one tree, maybe two, that will require us to rent an excavator.
The watnong Japanese maple purchased in late October will require the excavator. It will replace the inaba shidare that is currently in front of the koi pond. The watnong is between 20 – 30 years old and I wanted something of this size now. Buying and planting Japanese maples on our farm has become a little hobby that I love very much. We have 102 Japanese maples on the farm now and 7 maples coming in from Oregon in about two months. My pond builder has morphed into Mr. Tree Planter. I’m sure the rate of Japanese maple acquisition will slow down eventually and then he’ll be back to being just the farmer.
January 31, 2026 – round 2 of snow on our farm in North Carolina! We ended up with 8-9 inches of snow which really never happens. On top of the snow, we had some very low temperatures for a few weeks.
January 31, 2026 – checked on the koi because the pond temperature had been dropping to the low 40’s. Pretty much hanging out in a state of torpor.
February 1, 2026 – It’s freezing outside and after checking on the chickens, we brought Hal the Rooster into the house for some TLC. Hal was outside in the run with his head hanging and bleeding a great deal. We suspect now that he may have incurred a little concussion/injury on the nesting boxes in the hen house. He spent two days in our laundry room and when he crowed in the morning it was time for him to go back out.
February 7, 2026 – a week after our snowfall, there is still a lot of frozen snow packs in the garden. My sheltered raised beds were not constructed to deal with significant snowfall. The temperatures remained cold for days, ice was frozen to the covering and underneath I had a number of crushed, frozen vegetable plants. Kind of discouraging but next year I will build a more substantial cover over the raised beds.
February 8, 2026 – As the snow gradually cleared we continued to tackle areas of tree fall. We created a fire pit to allow for easy disposal of tree cutting. This area has always had the most leaning trees and has been a pain in the neck to clean up. I am hopeful that we will make a huge dent in this area before spring.
February 12, 2026 – the pond temperature is starting to climb back up. The koi still hang out in one area but they do notice me and the camera.
February 12. 2026 – While it’s still too cold to feed the koi, they do exert some energy to follow me to the pond edge. I’m hoping to be able to give them a little food in a few days.
February 12, 2026 – Looking under the snow pack disaster zone, I found several plants that survived. I transplanted some broccoli to a different raised bed. I also planted some grocery store green onions. I use the green portion and if the white portion has roots, I let them grow a bit in water and then plant.
February 12, 2026 – More survivors planted, some green and purple cauliflower. Not sure how well they will do being transplanted. We’ll see in a few weeks.
The promise of spring is everywhere. All of the Japanese maples are showing new branches (meaning they all survived winter) and the Japanese apricots are showing some blossoms. I’m sure in a few weeks I will see that start of new flower buds and colorful young Japanese maple leaves everywhere.