Winter on the Farm

Living in Northern Wisconsin is a lot of fun for a lot of people. I am not one of those people. I do not enjoy snow or the sports one would engage in when it snows. I like to fish, but there is no way I am going out on a frozen lake to do so. I'm from Florida, so the cold and I do not get along, and I absolutely do not like snow.

That being said, for farmers wintertime should be a time of semi-restfulness, right? Don't count on it. Crops have to be planned for spring planting and equipment needs to be maintained so it actually works come spring and summer. Animals have to have extra care, especially if they are kept inside a barn, after all, either way, they can't feed themselves and there isn't any grass to graze on. If a farmer has a dairy, forget about any rest. As much as snow gets in the way and adds more work, it is also a necessary evil. Economic impact on the community that depends on it aside, snow, and a lot of it, is needed for soil moisture when planting time comes around. A good layer of snow is needed to protect hay fields. It keeps some warmth in and the freeze out. Doesn't make sense, does it? Snow also helps weigh down the grasses so that the freezing cold and ice isn't able to heave the delicate plants and kill them off.

We got some snow, but not a lot and it got really cold. Then we got the January thaw, which is temperatures in the forties that got rid of what little snow we did have. Then it got cold again, as in way below zero. I'm going with the notion that all that nice alfalfa and clover we planted is not going to come up this year. Also the unseasonal warmth we had last year during January and February sent our fruit trees for a loop. They bloomed out and then the blooms of course froze when winter returned and we got no apples. It affected the entire state's crop of apples and cherries and other berries and fruits that grow up here. There is a good possibility of more of the same this year.

Now comes the 'fun' part. It got so cold last week that our entire water system froze. We've been having to take a torch to the cow watering system, as in pipes, bowls, and mechanisms so they could drink for several weeks now. We have a barn full of cows so that is a lot of water bowls and pipes. When I say the entire system went down, I mean no water to anywhere, including the house. We had to use an old drag-type spray rig to water the animals by hand (think buckets) and buy water for the house. Thank goodness we have relatives nearby so we could get water for the animals. After finally giving up getting things going on our own, we had to call a well company to get the ice out of the lines. I give up using the automatic watering cups for the cattle though. Until it warms it a bit, I'll just have to keep on using buckets. Even though there are a lot of cows, it takes longer to thaw the lines than to just give them a bucket and babysit them to make sure they don't dump it over accidentally. The barn cleaner chain also froze down so we couldn't run the chain to clean the beds out. I thought we were doomed to the old Armstrong method (two strong arms, a shovel, and a wheelbarrow). The tractor can be used, but it still has to get to the tractor, which cannot fit into the bottom of the barn where the animals are. My poor husband spent hours with a sledge hammer breaking the ice loose so we could get that cleaner going again. He's not too keen on the Armstrong method either for cleaning.

Next week, it's due to get way below freezing again and we might have to do this all over again. Thankfully we got some snow and so we pushed a nice pile around the building where the well is to keep some of that heat we keep going in there where it belongs. So, wish us luck.

Think this is unusual? Probably not. Farming is like that. On good days, the work is not too bad, the equipment works the way it's supposed to and things go smoothly. I do enjoy my cows in spite of all the work, and bucking hay and scraping stalls is some great exercise. But the bad days tend to be really bad, and most farmers know what I'm talking about. Like to gamble? Skip the casino- go into farming.