roller coaster

 Winter here is typical so far.  The seven day outlook I check every morning pretty generally shows either one or two "down to below zero trends" each time.  We have not had any severe sub zero nights(twenty-five below or colder) but it does become a challenge to keep bedding up to standard and water free of freezeup.  

I have found that we need to go back to strings on the hay bales, or enough of them to get us through Dec-Feb.  This is so that the bales, which sit outside here no matter what, can be placed out on the pastures in rows of five or six in late October setting up for the cattle to graze through the winter.  They can be set on their round sides so that the strings may be cut and pulled off in two or three handsful and yet the hay would have some protection from late rains.  Taking strings off can be done ahead in about a half day's time.  This will not work with netwrap unless I  go with a tractor and loader to tip them over after removing the nets, which I would rather not do.

What I also would rather not do is to start a tractor three to six days out of each week to carry snow and ice covered bales out there and then pull the nets off complete with a load of ice and hay.  This has to be simpler.  There simply is not enough return even to grassfed beef to pay for that kind of tractor wear and senseless labor.  

I have already found that I need to be careful of getting into March with this because of the chance of mud.  But through the hardest of winter, the easiest thing to do is to walk out there every week or five days to reel up a length of fence and put up another and move the bale rings.  And I hear some do not even use bale rings for this setup.  Once again, time for change.

repaired drinker

 Our newly repaired drinker was frozen over this morning at -7 degrees. When I fed the cattle at about ten, I broke through the ice with my heel.  Suspect the valve may be frozen as well.  But when I checked at two, the cattle had reopened the trough and were drinking. I could hear the water running so the valve must have been open.  A step, but -7 is not as cold as it is apt to get.  We aren't to February yet.

capped

 We managed to get the offending drinker pulled off, the line from underground sufficiently dried up to cap it and got the system covered with a heat lamp on it, which we hope will hold until the warmer weather next week eases the replacement of the unit.  Thirty degrees at the start just after noon yesterday and 17 degrees with an increasing northwest wind when we finished at four.  Timing was critical.  Now we can run the system twenty four hours a day instead of off and on to minimize the leaking.  The two cattle groups share one substitute drinker for a few days.  Sometimes a thing goes right!

below zero

 It got to -18 last night, a good deal short of the predicted -26.  But the damage has been done.  We are running the water on the main system on two hours, then off, then on another two hours.  This is to water the two cattle groups in turn at a single side of a small hog drinker.  Beside that small drinker two other hog drinkers are served by that line.  This is not good for the drinkers, which are liable to freeze with no water in them.  It is also not good for the cattle as a hog drinker is slow, inducing them to suck in too much air as they drink.  The reason for this is that one of our cattle drinkers failed about a week ago, freezing solid and bursting the valve beneath the drinker so that the tunnel underground filled with water and froze over.  We are trying to thaw the top with a heat lamp so that we can replace the valve, or at least stopper the line until spring.  We need something warmer than -18 to do this.  We shut the other cattle drinker down because of bad design.  It freezes at zero and takes about two hours of wet hands and clothes to bring it back to life.  Not worth it.  There will be replacements going on when the weather moderates.

But first we have to get that far.  Warmer weather is predicted for Saturday, but then two very cold nights before we get to what looks like a warmer time next week.  We hope everything holds together that long.  We are fighting exhaustion here. 

snow

 The wind driven snow today is beginning to show a shade of light brown.  It puts me in mind of those inch and one half high soil drifts I found last spring on the packer wheels, blown in from the neighbor's "clean" tillage.  And it shows the truth of the insight that the more valuable(pricier) the land becomes, the harder it is abused.   

winter

It begins to look like a tough winter.  We haven't yet made it to twenty below.  Later this week, perhaps.  But as I look at the diminished visibility today I am reminded that we had a significant wind and cold event late last week, are having one now and another is starting to show in the day seven of my seven day NOAA forecast.  Regular enough to be tough. This winter is one to try to live through

attention

 Covid forces/encourages more attention to immediate surroundings.  This is in reality an important blessing hidden inside the curse.  Because I am not moving around so much as I did, my life has slowed to the extent that I notice what I did not formerly.  I have become more aware of the honking of geese overhead in the fall, added to the rasping cackle of the pheasant protesting being driven out of his shrinking cornfield.  As I turned the holiday lights in the house on this morning, I found myself listening for the call of the mourning dove, so much the sound of spring and oncoming summer here. Peterson's guide locates us at the northern extent of that bird's range, so I suppose we may be able to count on that sound for a few years as climate changes everything around us.

The sun is two weeks stronger now than it was at solstice.  I cheer for it, as the holiday lights are but a poor substitute.

below zero

 Eighteen below this morning, down from sixteen below yesterday at this time.  The winds are calm, though, which makes a considerable difference.  Hay consumption is way up.  The cattle seem healthy though.  We have the cowherd on the waste product from the pretzel factory in town and free choice cornstalk bales.  We haven't yet tried the market herd on the waste.  

This stuff is supposed to be high in protein.  We need to get a feed analysis on it so we can make informed choices about feeding it.  The sow herd, which has been on it some time, shows evidence of fairly high salt content judging by the amount of excess urine.  That would be pretty much expectable from a snack food I guess.

One drinker out of the seven is giving us freezeup problems this cold snap.  Not fun.  Could be worse. High of 24 expected for tomorrow.