My sun hat, back when there was sun....
I talked to someone over the weekend who wanted me to get off farm for a while. I think it's a great idea too but there's no way I can leave now. I told them that I'd have to wait until the weather normalizes. They didn't really understand what the big deal was.
Here are a couple things your city friends won't understand about the winter weather....
1. Your obsession with the weather. We follow the weather guys like other folks follow celebrities. Brittney? Miley? Who? Nope we are all Al Roker, Jim Cantore, and the local weather celebs. When I first moved back here someone was complaining that all the news talked about is the weather. Well, if you have to work in it then yeah - it makes a lot of difference if it will be just above freezing or if the barnyard will continue to look like the ice planet, Hoth. Most of your decisions pivot on the weather and the related working conditions. All of us instinctively can rattle off the forecast and give the current conditions without batting an eye.
Remember when it was early summer and everyone was happy?
2. Starting conversations with your farm friends with the question, "Anybody dead yet?" Farming sometimes means that success is measured in who didn't die that day. We are overjoyed that we haven't had any losses....yet. But who knows with the coming storm. Constantly worrying over your flocks can be exhausting so we all prop each other up with congratulations on keeping the barnyard alive and well even in the worst weather.
3. The countdown until spring. Decent folks may not stare at the countdown clock... but you know you have...sitting alone in a room in the fetal position and clutching your seed catalogs... you know who you are. We can't wait for spring - it can't get here soon enough. Even tho it's just a date on the calender it means a lot. However, according to my notes our last bad frost was April 21 last year so planting may not get started immediately.
And everything was beautiful and not grey and covered with dirty snow?
From where I sit here on the couch by the fire.. it seems like the countdown until spring is a long haul. But we can do this, right? RIGHT? We can do this if we all stick together..... please say that we can.... please?
Happy Monday everyone! Are you cursing the weather and wishing for spring?
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11 comments:
I love the remember when it was early summer comment...lol. we've only lost one bird (knock on wood)...which actually encouraged us to purchase more layers. I'll also admit that I've ordered my seeds...but still swoon over the catalogs, just to see the color green.
The good news is we are past the halfway point between the winter solstice and the spring equinox! So even if the weather may not cooperate, it's still getting noticeably lighter every day!
Great work. FEF! We can do this... we can. Really.
Half way? Yes! Thanks Callie, we can do this. Whew...
I can't wait for spring!! I agree that it is exhausting worrying about the goats, chickens, and rabbits. Plus I work outside the home so when it is sub-zero out I send my two high-school kids out to check on everyone at least twice before I get home. We lost one hen, but it was because she got out and we couldn't find her that night. We found her the next morning and it looked like a coon got her. I am counting the days till I can at least start some seeds inside. Then it will really feel like spring!
And water. Warm water. Two, forty pound buckets of water at a time, being hauled through drifts of snow and rinks of ice. Because the critters need to, you know, drink every day. City folk don't quite appreciate how much effort is expended just keeping livestock from expiring from lack of feed or water or bedding.
We aren't as cold as you are, but we are wet, and everything is muddy, and the possibility of the river flooding yet again is always with us. Keeping busy, that is what I have to do now, so that I don't go down into the hole which I always seem to go down into during February. Soon the spring will be upon us, and farm life will once again be its hectic self. Vx
Yes, 1" snow today, but getting colder tonite with a low of 9 (with no wind). I wish it would nsow more, and less gray cold.... and I wish I had a wood stove or fireplace :(
You said it Sarah.. it IS exhausting. And just being out in the cold is wearing me down. Sorry about your hen. :-(
Oh... Carolyn.. I dream of the days of using the hose instead of filling buckets.
You are just right Vera, we need to stay afloat of February. I think someone said it was "the longest month." Your flooding certainly is troublesome.
We are in the brink, LHinB, we either are going to get a huge storm... or nothing. *sigh*
SO battle weary. Need some tales from the Keep of snowbound heroes engaged in shenanigans. The snow pile at the end of the drive are taller than I am. SO what's another 3-5?
Yes. Amen. We're small scale but suffer the same psychosis. We lost a rabbit last week in the single digit temperatures. He was very old. Our chickens won't leave the roost! Spring is the welcome guest of stressful winter happenings.
Funny you should say that, Dave...
Oh now... sorry Jody. Always hard to have a loss. :-(
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