The freeze ends

We have had a week of fairly solid rain now. Snow has melted a few thousand feet up, and the rivers are running strongly. Mudslides and inundations have closed roads, but owing to an intelligent geographical choice the farm is largely unaffected.

We have not had any predation losses since the last reported, although a cougar is reputedly in the area. The biggest problem, aside from keeping hay dry, has been keeping the geese out of the workshop. The simplest approach is to keep the door only slightly ajar. The cats can come and go, but the geese don't want to push their way in.

A duck is nesting near where we keep the hay, on quite a clutch of eggs, so if we can keep her happy we should be able to build up our flock once more.

We were to have brought Hercules back from his stud duties in Oregon, but there was a delay owing to the need for a blood test to be completed, so this waits on the coming week.

We are doing paperwork for taxes. The details will still have to be sorted out for the exact regulations, but the heavy lifting has all already been done. With any luck the government will repay us a fair percentage of our costs. Some of the purchases will undergo depreciation, such as orchard trees.