Winter

This is the snowiest winter we've had. We have lived here for 6 years and this is by far the most snow. It has snowed almost non-stop for the past 3 days. I love it. It is perfect weather for hiding inside and reading or watching a movie (or catching up on your blog).

The frost-free faucet was left on in the cow barn and it froze(bad children). My brilliant husband used a propane torch to thaw the pipe and we now have water in the barn again. Yay!

We are weaning our huge calf and I will have to milk twice a day until Tuesday. The auction is on Tuesdays and hopefully we can buy a day-old calf to put on her. My husband will be home most of the week so this is a good time to do it. My cow is pretty good about taking  foster babies. It takes 3 days of the calf drinking her milk to take on her scent.  For those first 3 days we pen her and bring the calf to nurse several times a day. After the third day, the calf has her scent and she will accept it without our help. From that point I can go back to milking once a day.

I had to laugh at our ordeal in trying to move the big calf. We wanted to put her in the pen with the other calf we are raising to butcher. Well, we have 2 feet of snow on the ground and the fence panels are frozen to the ground underneath that snow. We tugged and pulled, and pulled and tugged to no avail. The wind was blowing the hard little snow flakes into our face and we were frozen. My husband disappears and comes back  with his chain saw! He chain sawed through 1 of the wooden panels making an instant gate. I was not happy at the destruction of my panel but now I can only laugh. Does that make us rednecks, oakies or just plain strange? Oh well, at least the calves can get into the barn now.

We had planned to go into town and check out the Bull Sale today but the weather is just too nasty. We didn't even go to Bible study this week. (which could be pretty bad since my husband leads it  but they were showing a video so we were safe.)  I hope it mellows out some for church tomorrow. Going out to feed in my insulated cover-alls is one thing but going to church in a dress  through the snowy blowy semi-blizzard does NOT sound fun.

If we get a sunny day we are planning to rent cross-country skis and give that a whirl. I let you know how it goes.