This iron fence demonstrated how sticky this snow has been. The horizontal bar on this fence is about 1 cm in width. We received about 3 more inches of snow this morning, but it was lighter flakes so didn’t stick to things but does add weight and depth (now 13″) to everything. Here’s our cat Chloe weathering the storm.
This cold weather (20 degrees this morning) is hard on the skinny old animals. One of our older ringneck pheasant hens died. Cody (our old skinny buck) on the first day of this nonsense became so weak he couldn’t walk. I had to load him into our hay cart and move him to the barn. Fortunately in a way since there is no way to use a cart now. Plus I moved the other bucks and their guard llamas closer to barn so feeding and watering them is a lot easier now. Here’s all three guard llamas together for the first time, waiting for Tom to feed them.
And here’s Cody. He initially perked up with some feed and supplements in the relative warmth of the barn but this morning was shivering and not interested in eating. So now he has a cashmere sweater (that no longer fits me). I figured he would prefer cashmere to sheep’s wool. Now he is not longer shivering and eating hay again.
This is Tom sweeping off the lower portions of the barn roof. Notice the peacock on the top of the pole over the pheasant pen. Not sure why he is choosing to hang out up there as opposed to in the barn.
So now we are done slogging through our animal and snow chores. It is hard work carrying feed and buckets of water through through this nasty white stuff. We are now tired and sore. Fortunately the snow has stopped for now, and the predicted windstorm has not affected us yet. So we will take it easy until the next storm hits. I will make mulled wine from our homemade wine supply. Tom brought home this used dutch oven the other day. I have already made a great batch of Provencal Beef Stew with it. Maybe another batch of stew is in order.
Chloe definitely has the right idea!
She sure does!
Cody looks pretty happy in his sweater. Nice color on him 🙂
He started eating as soon as I put the sweater on him even though I do not think he could have warmed that quickly. So maybe he does like it. I thought it bleached him out a little being so bright. 😉
Wow – you are having way more snow than we are here in the Okanagan in BC. We just got a real cold snap too, though. It was -26 C the other day. I’m keeping everyone warm in the barn with little heaters, but then I kept blowing the electrical breakers so had to keep checking and re-checking. I was most worried about my silkies – they are so dumb and they love to be outside foraging, even in winter – so I let them out for a while but then made them all go back into the barn.
I love the picture of Cody in the blue sweater. What a cutie! My goats are all doing ok as they spend most of the time in the barn.
Thanks Monique! We got dumped on but not quite as cold. At least our chickens aren’t as dumb ( no offense!). It is going to start melting now so the flooding will begin….
Oh yes, I remember the flooding you had last year, and it was still pretty mucky that May when we picked up Daisy from you. That is something I haven’t had to deal with here in the dry Okanagan (plus, we’re up on a shale mountain, so we have what is called “good drainage”, which translates to “crappy soil” LOL) Every farm has its challenges, doesn’t it? We got a good dump of snow last night at least – here we WANT lots of snow, especially in the mountains, because it helps keep the forest more moist in the summer – our big worry is forest fires. We burn and you flood…but we all persevere! May the sun come out and dry up the water quickly where you are, but not where we are! (:
We’ve been very dry this winter. I hate trying to feed animals when you can’t get in and out of the barn. I’ve seen times I’ve had to literally climb over the bottom of the dutch doors to get in the barns. Hope your weather settles down and the old critters can recover.
Thanks Teresa! It had been dry this winter until this mess. We are now flooding. I had to move the rams out of their field- it was so bad out there they were actually in their shelter. And the forecast looks very, very wet. Wish us luck that we do not all float away.