Weekending

This is a part of a post that I never wanted to write.  It was inevitable, but, of course, that doesn't make it any easier.  For those of you who don't follow us on Instagram (follow here to see more of our daily life), or facebook, you may not be aware that our sweet boy Emerson lost his battle with a brain tumor just over a week ago.  Emerson had a seizure at the end of September, out of the blue.  After many more seizures during his stay at the emergency clinic, it was determined he likely had a brain tumor.  It was confirmed a week later through an MRI.  Emmie underwent 4 weeks of radiation after which we hoped he would have another 12-18 months of good quality life.  Unfortunately, only one month after his radiation treatment ended, his tumor was back.  Come to find out, the one that our little guy had was an incredibly aggressive one.  So, two and a half months after Emmie completed his radiation, he lost his battle.

this photo was taken after Emmie's radiation.  You can see how much muscle he lost in his face and head.

He passed away peacefully at home, surrounded in absolute love.  His Auntie Kelly and Dr. Lori held him tight while J and I kissed him and told him how much we loved our time together.  Ollie, his brother from the same litter, sat by his side as he has their entire lives.  Even Jack seemed to understand what was happening.

As all of you know, there is a feeling of disbelief and numbness for a few days, which is where we've been.  Oliver is very sad but he's doing well.  We're supporting him through the grieving process and loving on him even more than before.

I wanted to share this with you knowing that many of you have followed us since their adoption 9 years ago and you remember reading the tales of all of their crazy antics (remember when I caught him digging in the backyard?  Oh he was so proud of the new talent he'd uncovered.....).  While some of you have joined us more recently and have shared in the weekend and on-the-farm updates which chronicle Emerson, Oliver, and all of the other critters here at Cobble Hill.  He was a super sweet boy who was incredibly laid back and loving.  We miss him terribly.

Ollie has always been by Emmie's side and was right up to the end.

Oliver is doing ok.  It was helpful that he was present when Emmie passed over.  Out of habit, however, whenever one of us comes back from an errand in the Jeep, Oliver races out to see if Emmie is inside.  That's the vehicle we used to transport him to his numerous doctor appointments from October through January.  Once Ollie sees that his brother is not in the vehicle he gets a little quiet for a bit but, for the most part, he's doing good.

We are knee-deep in winter.  About 26 inches of snow have dumped on us in the past month and temp's continue to dip back and forth between negative and positive digits, (it seems) on a weekly basis.  We are expected to get around a foot of more snow tomorrow.  Woo hoo!

Actually, I have an appreciation for snow.  It's beautiful!!  With only memories of such a beautiful fall and while we patiently wait for a glorious spring complete with tulips, daffodils, asparagus and miscellaneous greenery sprouting about, it's nice to have a beautiful sheet of snow on the otherwise dull landscape.

It's the ice and sleet that I don't look forward to.  We tried different booties on Em prior to his passing to help him get traction.  We found some great ones for traction in the snow and a little bit of sleet or ice, but once the property is a shiny glaze of ice, it seems there is no good option (if you know of one I would love to know - we are still trying to find something for Ollie).  The ice presented quite a challenge during Em's last couple of months because of his 3a.m. potty break.  But we figured it out.

And we've had our fair share of ice over the past couple of weeks.  The weather forecast is for more of this too toward the end of the week. Yuck!

This weather does, however, allow us ample opportunity to find gratitude for our pellet stove, which is our primary source of heat.  It's gentle hum reminds us that we'll be warm and toasty as the snow falls.  Probably the biggest downfall to pellet stoves is that they don't run during a power outage.  This means we do have to run our generator during these events.

The Coop Girls are laying a whole lot of eggs!  Those in the photo above are awaiting their wash.  Once upon a time we had pretty clean eggs from chickens who didn't find joy in playing in the mud.  This group of ladies, however, are quite different.  They LOVE to meander around the property and find any dirt or mud to dig in.  Then, when it's time to lay, they make their way into the nesting boxes and walk all over the clean eggs in the boxes with their filthy feet.  I've tried to explain this to them but they just don't care.....

There's about a dozen girls who much prefer to stay inside the coop during the day rather than patrol the property.  But all of the others adore exploring.  Since there's not much dirt exposed because of snow, they don't find too much on most of the property, but there's a couple of hot spots (under trees) where the snow isn't too high and they've been successful at digging themselves a nice area for foraging.  Of course tomorrow's impending snow will give them more work to do but I have a feeling they're up to the challenge.

Business has slowed now that the holidays are very much over.  The farmer's market crowd is cut in half or more, depending on the weather that particular Sunday.  We are so fortunate to have such a wonderful farmer's market that goes year-round and is very well supported by the community.  It's something we used to love to shop at and now love to sell and shop at.

Although slower sales means a lot less income for this time of year, we've looked forward to taking advantage of the extra time by trying to get things done around the house a couple of days each week for the next couple of months.  That and shovel snow.....

That's a bit about our weekend - hoping you had a lovely weekend in your neck of the woods!

Weekendingwas originally posted by My Favorite Chicken Blogs(benjamingardening)