Let It Snow!

Wowsers! This week has been cold. And white. The snow started coming down around maybe 7-8:00 on Sunday night and didn’t really stop until Monday about that same time. It was beautiful, and still is, because a full day’s worth of snow doesn’t just melt and disappear right away. It also got me out of a half day’s work. At the vet clinic that is- makes for more work at home though. You don’t realize how much more effort it takes to walk through shin-deep snow until you have to do it. From the house to the chicken shed, back to the house for fresh water, back to the chicken shed to fill water bowls, to the house again and then over to check on the heifers’ water, back through your same tracks to the house before going to the feed the steers, to the house, to the heifers to shut off the water. It’s easier to follow the same tracks back over and over than it is just to walk directly from one spot to another!

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Side note…Something I didn’t realize until early Sunday morning is that heat pumps are not very efficient in super cold temperatures. Guess who has a heat pump– this family. We woke up to a very chilly 65 degrees on Sunday morning with what felt like cold air blowing from the vents. Throw some extra blankets on the beds I guess!

There are always more outside chores to do around the farm when it’s this cold out. Water pans freeze so chickens and dogs need fresh water throughout the day rather than just a fill up in the evenings. Somehow the big boys (our fat steers) have learned to leave the electric de-icer alone. It took ’em three months, but thank goodness we haven’t had to break ice three times a day for them lately! Extra straw and shavings for the chickens and the dog, snow shoveling around the doorways, blading the driveway…even getting dressed to go outside takes extra effort and laundry day planning.

We are fortunate though. While our heat pump may not be able to keep up with the 73 degrees I prefer, we at least have heat. It may be a pain to fill water bowls several times a day, but we still have electric to run our well pump. We have four-wheel drive in two vehicles which enables us to get out of our driveway so we can still get to work. We have a school system that puts the students’ safety first but still offers virtual learning days so we don’t have to make up days in the summer. It may be dreary and gray but the sun did come out long enough to melt the snow just enough to form some pretty cool icicles hanging from the bottom of the trampoline (even if the trampoline itself was still too frozen for a certain someone to jump on to knock them off).

So while we may complain about the cold and the snow, it’s one of those things that reminds us of many things we should be thankful for that we tend to overlook during our daily busy-ness. It forces us to stay inside and slow down, bake from fresh bread, and catch up on family time.

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P.S. Wanna try my current favorite French Bread recipe? This is the one I’ve made the last few times: Jill Winger’s French Bread Recipe | The Prairie Homestead.