It’s Cold Outside!

Monday, February 8, 2021
Hello friends,
We thought that January was the coldest month, but not this year! Every time I check my hippy dippy weather app on my phone, it gets worse and worse, then better, then worse again. And it’s still snowing! It has accumulated to about 2 inches so far and probably not done. I wear my layers upon layers of outdoor gear for chores. It takes about 5 minutes to layer up, but then I’m not cold, except maybe toes and fingers if I stand still too long. No, this is the coldest month of the year.
The cows are enjoying the fresh straw and loafing shed. We are not letting them drink from the pond right now for safety reasons, so they get the easy water from the stock tank beside the creamery. It collects the water from the sump pump at the bottom of the cheese cave. Since we recently had a good amount of rain, it has been full to overflowing which keeps the water moving and not frozen. The other calves have a heater in their water. A necessary but unfortunate energy sucker. Someday we’ll get a more efficient system. The chickens are staying close to their egg mobile but have been coming out and scratching around under their house. I suppose they may want to stay in when the temps get below zero, if it actually happens. I have been making extra trips out to collect eggs, but I still had three of them frozen and cracked today…..