Where's my winter?

Where is my winter? It snowed about 2” then melted off again. It keeps raining. I'm really tired of rain. I've got work to do on the farm that requires either dry ground or frozen ground and both have been in short supply since last spring.
This sort of weather is devastating to the bees. When it's this warm, they're too active and burn through their stored honey far too fast. We've ordered 3 new nucs but they're expensive. Just to be clear, nucs are started hives with the queen already laying eggs on frames and young being raised. They give better results for us than package bees. With package bees, you get a queen in a cage and a couple of pounds of random bees. It takes them a while to straighten themselves out that way.
We have a farmers market in Oak Harbor now and it's pretty good. I made it to the last one of the season, sold a bunch of honey and only had 2 complaints about price. $5 for 8 ounces and they flew off the table. If I can remember how to cast candles in my tin molds, I can take another product next spring. I've got some wax that's extra sticky that I can cast sewing buttons from. Those are small bits of wax to run your thread through to keep it from tangling and to reduce friction in the cloth.
I've been traveling a lot for work. Not the cool kind of travel flying business class but driving 3 to 5 hours to do a 15 minute service call alongside a busy freeway. The worst are in Detroit. It's not the bombed out Mad Max landscapes that I end up in but the road design and drivers. In some places, one can barely get off the road with this little Chevy Uplander the company has me using and Detroit drivers only care about orange cones to the extent that they might mess up their car. I've escaped becoming road trash so far.
On long trips like this, I try to make the best of my breaks . In Columbus is the Franklin Conservatory. I spent an hour or so there on one of the trips. That's far too short a time to really appreciate it but it's all I had. In Detroit, it's usually possible to reach a fine Mexican bakery where they sell tamales by the dozen and darn good tamales too. Just north of Cincinnati is Jungle Jim's, which can be considered a supermarket if a supermarket were built by a demented hoarder with superb taste. I finally found my Budda's Hand citron there. I've been looking for ten years for it just to see what it's like. they were a whole dollar a fruit. I hope to candy some later today. I bought some other delicacies but was very tired and moving in a fog. It turns out the fog was viral in origin and that's why I'm home on a workday writing this. I should be ok tomorrow if it's not a repeater.
The sheep are still mostly on pasture. I have to admit I'm pleased with this permanent pasturage idea. It's a lot less work for me . I hope they burn through the pasture by the end of February so I can lock them up in March. Then I can shear them, have them lamb inside where I can keep an eye on them and let the pastures recover. This won't work if I increase the flock much but it's working now.
The steer continues to grow. He looks tasty.
We hope to raise a bunch of chickens this year. Stacey wants Turkens as she feels they're easier to clean. They're a good chicken so ok. I'm fond of Buff Orphingtons myself. We might end up with some ducks at some point but they're a bit of a pain to raise without a pond. We've decided against turkeys, they're just too expensive and we don't eat that much.
I'm trying to buy a 5 foot bush hog. That's a mower designed to mow anything including small trees. I missed the first one when I couldn't get free from work before someone else bought it. This time, I was sick over the weekend. I might be able to look at one tonight if I feel ok and the guy is available. I really need to flatten the pastures and the back of the farm before plowing. Did I mention it has to freeze up or dry up first?
Do to some pain -in-the-backside changes in tax laws, I'm going to try planting more of the back of the farm to recognizable crops.. The auditor sent some keyboard artist around to look at fields and said I didn't have any crops. They have no concept of pasture or hayfields. If it's not corn or beans, they don't recognize it. It's not like I didn't try this year but the tractor kept sinking whenever I tried to plow. I finally got about 4 acres of winter wheat in. Did I mention it rained?
Stacey and I are fine within normal parameters, there's a cardinal teasing Bootsy the cat from the lilac bush and I'm listening to old 1960's tunes on Youtube. I'll write again when I have something to say.