Busy and Cold On the Farm

It has been a super busy two weeks here on the farm!  After Dad's combine broke down right after we got in the field good, we had to search to find a combine that we could use just until we could get everything harvested for the season.  Luckily, we have a neighbor down the road who had finished with his harvesting so that we could borrow his for the rest of the season.  He has a much smaller, and slightly older, combine that we had been using, but at least it works!  It makes quite a difference going from a combine that harvests 4 rows at a time to a combine that only does 3! 
I have spent some time in the combine, but Dad has been doing the majority of the combining this year.  He and Mom went to Williamsburg for Dad to go to a Virginia Pork Industry Board meeting, so I was in charge of getting the combine up and going and shelling corn all by myself that day.  It took me about 20 minutes from the time that I could unload one load until I was back unloading another load.  I spent more time going back and forth from the truck to unload than I did in the field harvesting- that's a good and bad thing, because it meant we were getting a lot of corn, but it would have been nice to have spent more time in the field getting more corn off!
It has also been REALLY cold on the farm.  All of the animals are doing pretty well with it.  We have all the curtains up which really helps keep in the heat.  We also take bales of straw and put them in the pens in our finishing house for the pigs to break apart and snuggle down in at night time.  They love them!  Pigs will play with (and destroy) anything.  They love old tires, and pretty much anything else they can break apart.  We can put in whole bales of straw, and then the pigs will root at them and break them down, and then sleep in them.  We have to put new bales of straw in every couple of days to give them new bedding to sleep in since it is so cold.
We also got our first real snow this Thursday!  Luckily it wasn't much- especially when compared to all the snow we got the first time last winter!  We can put trucks in 4 wheel drive and still get around pretty easily.  Matt had to put out hay for all the cows since there was snow on the ground, that way they don't have to dig around to try to find grass.  Yesterday was the first "warm" day we have had in a couple of weeks!  It's amazing that after there are weeks of 20 degree temperatures and wind, suddenly 35 and no wind is fantastic! 
Today Dad and I were at the Route 3/Gordon Road Farmers Market for the last Farmers Market of the season.  Thanks to everyone who braved the cold and came out to see us!  Dad made an awesome breakfast casserole that he was sharing to some of the first customers, using cinnamon/raisin bread, sausage, and apples.  It was super tasty and would be great to use for Christmas Morning! 
I will put the recipe on Papa Weaver's Facebook page- www.facebook.com/papaweaver.