Dairy Daze...and Now Beyond

Last night we got about 4 inches of snow. This means that, although it hasn't been cold enough for the ponds to freeze over and need chopping, it means that we have to shovel the snow out of the feed bunks before putting the feed in. This can be hazardous because you have any number of anxious bovines behind you crowding and shoving and pushing around to get to the bunks; whether you have put feed in there or not. They figure that since you are messing around in there you MUST have put something in there for them. If you are so lucky as to have charged into the corral and closed the gate before they came up you are doing well. Fortunately this morning the open heifers weren't up at their corral yet when I was shoveling the snow from the bunks, I was able to close the gate on the bull heifer corral before they showed up and the dry cows (there are only 8 of them instead of 27 or 28 and 17 respectively of the others) aren't that big of a problem. The neat thing about when...

Let's see...where was I last? Oh, yes, on cutting ice. Well, let's go on and talk about hubby's chores in winter. At 4 AM he has to put on his 100 layers of clothes and then head out to do his chores. There is nothing like going out to do chores in the dark in a wind chill factor of 2 degrees that makes you cringe. The first thing he does is split wood to start a fire in the barn. Cows give off heat, but when it is 5 degrees out they just don't give off enough heat. Then he goes and rounds up the herd. One nice thing when it is frozen out is that you don't have to do as much clean up work on the udders because they don't have any mud to lay in. After milking he has to bundle back up and put out hay. This is a chore of 1-3 hours, depending on who all needs hay. The milking herd gets their alfalfa plus 2-3 bales of grass hay, then the herds up the road get a bale every 2-3 days, depending on how much they eat. For one chore hubby has to wait until later...

(this pic is from the ice storm last January...there really hasn't been many good winter photo ops for this year...and I am just as glad, too.) Anyone who lives out in the sticks and has livestock can relate I am sure. Doing chores in winter is such a drag. Hubby bears the brunt of it, especially now since I have the baby to look after. But I try to do my part. For starters you have to dress up like the Michelin man (he's this tire company's cartoon dude-all puffy and bulky looking) in about 100 layers of clothing, some of it insulated. I start off with just a t-shirt, then a pair of insulated coveralls, then a flocked hooded zippy sweater, then an old quilted chore coat. Then you finally add a pair of insulated boots, which weigh about a ton and give your legs a good workout. This process takes most of the morning and by the time you have the next-to-the-last layer on you realize that you have to go to the bathroom, so you go and then start the process all over again. When...