I shared in yesterday’s editorial board meeting that my great grandfather was a young man when his family left Belfast. I mentioned my family came from the Protestant side of the mounting religious conflict between Catholics and Protestants, so we wear orange on St Patrick’s Day. My mom followed up with the following:
“The Irish Civil War of the 1920s was "resolved " By a partition of the country Into 26 counties green and six northeast counties orange, under English rule.
This was unacceptable to many, which ultimately led to the Irish Republican Army and the terrorism of the 1970s against the English government, known as the Troubles. 30 years of urban guerrilla terrorism which was brought to an end in 1998 with the Good Friday accords.
John Black and family emigrated at the beginning of the Irish civil disturbances back in 1906 when he was 16 years old. Anne Murray Black and her husband, John Black , (Your great, great grandfather) left Belfast with six of their nine children (the ...
This video shows Sassy in winter 2026 and winter 2023. That was the winter I surrendered to nature and we decided to flee back to Florida. We got blizzard after blizzard and Sassy was up to her belly in snow. But she loved it! Did you know that blanketing horses to keep them warm is actually a “hot” topic? (No pun intended.) Those who choose not to blanket often point to the horse’s natural ability to self regulate, and they say blankets interfere with that process (such as hair growth). I put a blanket on Sassy in Western Washington when I lived in Seattle because it was just so wet there all the time, and the blanket helped her stay a little more dry in the cold. On the east side of Washington, I did not blanket her, even though the temperature was much colder, because she was rarely wet, as the precipitation came down as snow and not rain. So I kind of chuckled when I blanketed her here in Florida a couple nights ago.
Operation “Arctic Florida” went well until the second day when the chickens started eating their own coop insulation. Since we are trying to keep our animal feed as natural as possible, polystyrene is not on the menu. So we had to rip down in the insulation. Thankfully, it’s getting back into the 70s right now, though it will be cold later in the week again. Chickens are just gonna have to freeze this time. You picked your poison, birds.
The morning after our coldest night in Florida was filled with bashing ice out of water buckets. When we lived in Washington state, we had bucket warmers, but we have never needed them here in Florida. Moving the chicken coop with all the insulation was a challenge. Milking the goats with frozen fingers was no fun but at least I wasn’t the goat having my teats grabbed by frozen fingers. Otherwise, it was just another crazy day on the farm!