January 17, 2014

Happy New Year from Ramsay!  Susan here, beginning today as part-time blogger for Ramsay Farm FYI.  I retired from UVa as of December 27, with 25 years of service, and am so enjoying being at home, and looking forward to being able to be more a part of the activities here at Ramsay.  Stephen is just now recovering from what was either a horrid cold or flu, and then dental surgery, plus we've had a lot of wet weather over the past two weeks, which confined our activities to office work and the minimum of outdoor work; e. g. feeding animals, troubleshooting some infrastructure problems (frozen pipes, leaking plumbing) at the main house and the studio, obtaining fuel for heating at the main house, and arranging for some part time help due to the departure of Kevin, our skilled carpenter from the summer, who has left for a full time job.

Today was bright and sunny and cold in the morning (25 degrees around 9 AM), but warmed up to the low 50s this afternoon and now blue-gray clouds are rolling in.  Sherry was here cleaning today, and the temporary part-time worker, Gio, was here, beginning to clear the pathway around the woods along the property line with Ridgely.

Even though there isn't much color in the landscape here now, there is a sere beauty in the bare trees, silvery skies, and soft brown of the fields.  Just today, the fields have dried enough to drive on with the Gator.  For the past week, they have been standing in water from all the rain and the sleet we had last weekend.  Here are a couple of pictures I took this afternoon when I walked with the dogs.

From the northwest pasture

Winter trees

I also stopped by to check on the cows and the horses, all of whom are in the front pasture at the moment.  One of the cows actually came to me at the fence, sniffed my hand, and licked it, I guess hoping I had something for her to eat--this was a big surprise, because the cows have always been quite stand-offish.  And of course, Toby (Mr. Bossypants, to borrow from Tina Fey), had to come over and beg as well.

Ramsay cows

Toby 

Even though we are still months away, the warmer weather today made us think spring thoughts and look forward to planting lavender, basil and cilantro in the herb garden again.