New here trying to stay warm in northern illinois today!

mothergoose here, I have been on BYC for years and the easy garden. Myself, husband and our 6 children live on our 10.4 acre farm in Illinois (about an hour south of Chicago). We have chickens, ducks, rabbits, goats, cows, pigs, a pony, and a dog. We garden on a large scale, raise hay and we are planting Christmas trees and fruit trees this spring. Lots of irons in the fire and lovin' country life!

Welcome, from Texas! sounds like you'll fit right in. Stay warm tonight!

welcome from Arklahoma

Welcome! Wrap up in a quilt and join right in

Welcome from Arizona, stay warm its been a cold winter!

Welcome to SS, @mothergoose! It's good to see you here. How far north? I'm living in south-est, central-est Wisconsin.

Oh, yes, an hour south of Chicago -- is that still in northern Illinois? Sure sounds like you're one busy farm-type. Good for you!

Cold, colder, coldest here! So far, so good 'cuz our dying furnace is still pumping out the heat. Hoping for that January thaw any day now.

We've met on BYC!! **hugs**
I live in Longview, 22 miles SSE of Urbana. I moved in 1999 to a 5 acre property (for my horses, acquired chickens, and started big time gardening).
After last winter, we in Central IL are rethinking our zone is closer to 4b, than to 6a! I have fruit trees on the property and wanted to address this. My trees have some protection from outbuildings are established 30 ft. tall evergreens. A friend's local relative lost his entire fruit orchard last winter! 'O'
Be careful where you plant fruit trees!! If you offer them no protection from the W and NW winter storms you will stress them. I couldn't protect my fruit trees from the temperatures, but they all survived, even though I only got 8 apples (establish red IDK?? apple tree), and no peaches, but 12 pears, from a youngish Bartlett tree. Some people got no fruit at all.
Just some FYI

Hi mothergoose! Welcome! I'm in northern WI. This will be my first year trying a large garden, so I'll be watching your posts!