Winter had descended upon the holler with a vengeance. Howling winds, drifting snows and brutal subzero temperatures have made life on the farm somewhat miserable. We venture off the farm to battle the snow packed dirt roads only when necessary. Days are spent catering to the needs of the animals that depend on us for their care. Our days are measured by numerous journeys to the pens providing warm bedding, water that is not frozen and plenty of feed and hay. This is the reason that we try to overwinter as few animals as necessary trying to limit ourselves only to breeding stock of turkeys, chickens, and rabbits.
The snow piles from the driveway are starting to pile up and the mail has continued to run all be it sporadically. The local schools have had several snow days so far.
The big dogs don't seem to even notice the cold but we have been bringing them into the laundry room at night when the night time temperatures fall below zero. O Wise One has had to keep a small trail shoveled through the yard so the scotties can go potty as the drifts are over their head.
I have been offline quite a bit lately and for those of you that have emailed inquiring things are fine really here in the holler. We have had computer woes of late, Baby O's laptop had to go into the shop due to software issues (virus). So she used mine for awhile then my computer went down also for the same issue. My antivirus which is Norton just seemed to miss these bugs. As of right now my computer is up and running again and Baby's O's is back in the shop for the second time. Due to these virus infection issues I have done very little emailing etc and actually had limited online time.
As a result of the infections not only have I added additional virus protection but I have made some changes to this blog. For those of you that comment on the blog anonymously you will no longer be allowed to do so. I am so sorry for the inconvenience but last week alone there were almost 1200 anonymous posts made on this blog. All but 2 were spam. All of a sudden I have become the spam superhighway. They do not show up on the blog for most of you to see because they are caught as spam by Blogger mostly and hidden, then I go onto my comments on my control page and manually delete each one.
If they are not caught by Blogger then I have to go back on each post that has one of these spam comments and manually delete. That is not only time consuming but many times those spam comments go directly to malware, adware or infected sites. If you clicked on one of these links on my comments it would take you to an infected site. I work very hard to keep those spam comments off. You will find that if you attempt to comment on this page and attach to another site your comment will never be published.
I'm sorry for any inconvenience this causes any of you and please don't feel that I don't want to hear from you. You are always welcome to email me personally at cannedquilter@yahoo.com. I try to reply as much as humanly possible to those emails as time permits.
I am hoping things are back to normal now and I will resume posting regularly.
I have missed you all!
Blessings from The Holler
The Canned Quilter
Hey CQ,
ReplyDeleteSorry for your virus problems. My husband has had them on his work computer & they are definitely a pain! And, thank you for being so diligent in removing bad comments.
Hope it warms up a bit soon. Those big dogs are gorgeous.
So glad to see you back & to know that nothing is wrong. Hope to see more of you soon. Stay warm...
ReplyDeleteTotally understand about the spam. I have the same problem.
ReplyDeleteGlad to hear that all is well in the Holler! I was hoping it was just the long, cold winter that was keeping you quiet:) Grrrrr.... computer viruses. No fun!
ReplyDeleteGlad you're back. My goodness but it will wonderful when spring comes again!
ReplyDeleteGlad that everything is ok and that all is well. Your dogs have grown so big and beautiful! As for the computer viruses, it seems as if there are more of them lately. Knock on wood I haven't had one but people that I work with have had several and they are tired of taking them in to be fixed.
ReplyDeleteCQ! :) Oh how i've missed you. I'm so glad that you, family and animals are all ok! Computer viruses and spam are no fun. Sorry to hear about that. If only those that create them would put all that effort to good then the world would be so much better :/
ReplyDeleteMy my at all of that snow! We've only had cold and a few dustings of snow. I am hoping that this colder winter has killed off some bugs for this year.
I have to agree..the dogs have grown and look beautiful.
Stay warm! Glad to see you back!
Yep, things look like that around our part of northern Illinois. Its almost a tunnel for the dogs to get to their potty spot! lol
ReplyDeleteBummer on the amount virus's you are having. That has to be so annoying! Stay warm!
Liz
I have had computer problems as well. I know your pain. :) I am relieved you are doing well.
ReplyDeleteWelcome back - you've been missed!
ReplyDeleteKeep warm!! They're calling for 6-8 inches in western NC later this week...I am so ready for spring!
ReplyDeleteSo glad all is well! You've been missed!!!
ReplyDeleteIt has been a challenging year to care for livestock, hasn't it? I reduced my flock of sheep by half last fall and thought I'd have an easy time of it this winter - haha ;) Just glad I don't have the full number. Glad you're okay, enjoy your posts as always
ReplyDeleteGlad to see you back. Missed reading your blog; you are one of my favorite blogs to read..
ReplyDeleteAs to the spam; for the life of me I just can't see how people can be so mean. I don't know if this has happen to anyone else, about a month ago a man call me on my phone said he was from Microsoft. He said that there were error on my computer and he would talk me though steps to fix it. I told him no. About a week later he called again. I told him no and I would fix my own computer if it needed to be fixed. I have never heard of Microsoft calling someone to FIX THEIR COMPUTER.