It's In the Bag...

Winter is back with us. It won't take long now for the mud to freeze solid. There is some talk of a possible ice storm moving through the end of the week. I sure hope not.

The weekend has been wet and chilly, with the exception of a few hours Sunday when the sun actually came out!

I need to get a big bale of hay out to the girls, but that is on hold until the ground freezes a little more solidly. Don't want to get the tractor stuck!

There is an ongoing quest for dry firewood and kindling, due to the fact that most of my wood that was brought this year is green. Usually it's a mix of green and dry. However that usually doesn't even matter, as I have lots left of the dry wood from the previous year. Something happened this year though,--not as much dry wood left, most of that burnt before the new wood came, so that I'm in a bit of a pickle. Oh, the green stuff will burn, but you have to get a good hot base fire going first. Which means some dry kindling and wood are necessary. Of course the green also causes a quicker creosote build up on the pipes too.

Even though it was mucky and wet Sunday afternoon, I took the dogs out into the field in a quest for kindling. I managed to pick up quite a bit and even though it's wet, it should dry out quickly once under cover.

For Christmas my co-worker gave me a gift, 'wrapped' in this large cool bag. From what I understand this is from an Ikea store and you can buy these as shopping bags...or something. I don't think there are any of these stores around here, as she got it out of state, but from what I hear they are pretty interesting. Anyway, it's a great idea. The bag is essentially made of tarp materials with heavy duty straps stitched on. There is one set of long straps and one short so you can haul it in a hand grip or over the shoulder. So far I've hauled fire wood in it and now kindling. I expect I'll find a dozen uses for it in the Spring when yard work starts! It would probably work really well to haul a small load of hay too. I'm sure the possibilities are endless as it seems to be one tough little bag.

Of course my brain is spinning with ideas on how to modify and make one out of old tarps--perhaps to haul hay with. I saw a great idea at Desert Peach Farm on how to make a hay sling to carry several flakes of hay at a time to the sheep and keep it neatly contained. Between that idea and my Ikea bag and all these old pieces of tarps I have around...I could have a bag for everything!