The Days that Followed

The days that followed the huge snow storm were just plain busy! We first had to get all dug out. I said the other day that we got 15 inches but after being out and about the following days Caleb and I both agreed that it was probably closer to 12 inches rather than 15...

but either way it was a lot of snow!

Luckily one of the guys that was working for the gas well workers came by with a backhoe and made the first pass through our drive...

He also helped get the tractor out of the barn. It has a bad battery and decided it didn't want to start this morning. So we got it pulled out and then....

Strung every extension cord we had from the house out to the barn and connected the tractor to a battery charger.

It was so nice to get this path busted through cause it was a huge workout walkin' through all this snow.

Once we got the tractor going Caleb used it to clear pathes through the pastures so I could get out there with the truck and the bale.

The ladies look alot better the day after the storm than they did while the snow was falling.

We had to take a tractor with us to all the pastures so it could break through the snow drifts and this place had the biggest one of all the farms....

It was a good 7 feet tall.

It took a lot of clearing to get it all busted loose and pushed out of the way.

As you can see my once good helpers are now lazy and just want to stay on the truck instead of help.

The fun thing about feeding catlle every day in the winter is that they become very accustome to you and don't really shy away when you bring them their food.

Now along with feeding hay we were once again back to chopping ice...

and this time it was thicker than before. It was close to 4 inches thick in most places...

That's why we love it when we have pastures like this one that have running water on them and it stays open...

But we only have this one two of the five farms so...

That means we spen a lot of time throwin' an ax.

Some days the ladies are there waiting patiently un-patiently..

Just waiting for Caleb to get out of the way so the can come a get a ice cold drink of water.

For a couple of days after the storm chores took a lot longer, but then it got closer back to normal and some of the snow melted...

but today we are suppose to get some more snow again, we are just praying that it's not as much and that it doesn't drift either.

Hope ya all are staying warm and that you don't get the any of this craziness that we are getting.

Laters,

JP

Why We Don't Get Snow Days

I sure by now that most of you have heard about the little snow fall we got here in the parts of the Midwest, but if you haven't well let me be the first to tell you that it snowed....

And by snowed I mean we got a good old fashion blizzard!

Here on our farm we ended up with at least 15 inches. Which really is all that terrible, it was the 30-40 mph hour winds that were the kicker. I felt like I was living in Northwest Kansas and well I'm not a fan of the wind!

We knew all this nastiness was suppose to be heading our way so Caleb and I did a lot of praying, that God would not only spare us from getting any ice in this storm, but also that he would watch out for our cattle and that we wouldn't have any little ones born in this nasty mess.

And he sure did answer our prayers because we were spared from the ice and sleet that fell south of us as well as our cattle might have been covered in snow, but the only newborns we had were born the day before all this mess came our way.

I can't talk long, cause I have to get out and help Caleb get our cattle fed today, but here are some pictures from our outing yesterday.

Our cattle went from black to white over night.

We unroll hay in each one of our pastures so everybody can get a bite to eat as well as a nice place to lay

We also count each group to make sure everyone is there and in this group there was one missing and that makes us sick to our stomach thinking that she's out somewhere having a baby.

But in this case it was the momma who had a baby the day before and both were fine, they were just hanging out away from the group.

So we loaded the baby on the back of the truck and drove over to where we put the hay out, gave the little guy a tag...

unloaded him....

Then took him over to the un-rolled hay and gave him a nice place to lay down.

Momma and baby were both a lot happier.

These little guys are the main reason we go out and do what we do on days like this. It's to make sure they are taken care of and have a nice place to lay down, and boy do they appreciate it.

Chores didn't take much longer than usually, by the time we got the last pasture fed the drifts were getting pretty deep and we were ready to get in the house and stay!!!

This was the look out our front door later in the day when the snow was coming down at a rate of 3-5 inches an hour.

I hope all of you are safe and warm at home and if you got any of this nastiness stay home if you can cause not only are the roads still a mess but it's bitterly cold out there too. With that being said I need to get out and help Caleb with the feeding today.

Lots of Love,

Janet