Winter artic has arrived

Overnight a very cold artic cold front arrived.  Yesterday I rode 26 miles on my bicycle.  Today it was hard to just walk outside.  And even harder to stay warm.

And today was a day to put out another large hay bale.  Yesterday I listened to the weather forecast so I let the cattle into the corral late yesterday afternoon.  That way they could stand in the loafing shed to get out of the wind when it arrived.  And I gave them a small hay bale this morning.

Also listening to the weather forecast I bought some anti-gel for diesel a few days ago.  Last year, due to the very cold temperatures, the diesel in my tractor gelled and stopped the tractor from running.  I don't want that to happen again.  I'll see how well the anti-gel works over the next few days.  Tonight's low temperature is predicted to be -22 F.  Tomorrow night's low temperature is predicted to be -35 F.   Very cold.

The wind blew fiercely all day.   In the 30s to 40 mph with gusts to 54 mph.  The wind is still blowing now.  Suppose to calm down some tomorrow.  Winds chills are now down to -39 F.

This afternoon the temperature was -5 F and the tractor started and ran fine.   The problem was that the hydraulics would stop.  This made it hard to steer and the loader wouldn't work.   First I wanted to pull the middle metal feeder away from the tree and fence and out to an open area in the middle pasture.  I had to use a chain to drag the feeder along.

Where Haynes had pushed the feeder.  He even stretched the tight barb wires.

Then on to bringing the north metal feeder back to be just outside the corral.  Since the loader still wouldn't work I had to drag the feeder back using the chain.

But I had to have the loader work so I could lift a large hay bale and bring it to the feeder.  I ended up turning the tractor off, counting to 5 to 10 and then restarting the tractor.  After a number of times the loader finally would work.   I got the bale to the feeder.  After unwrapping the netwrap from the bale I was able to drop the bale into the feeder.  Because by this time the loader quit working again.  Once the bale was dropped I stopped and restarted the tractor a couple times and the loader would work again.  Cold weather is a pain.

It is windier outside the corral than inside it.  I would have preferred to put the feeder and bale in the corral but with an off-and-on working loader, and the cattle in the corral, it was better to put the bale just outside the corral.

I, and the cattle, should be good for a couple days.  I hope so as this weather is to last until next week.  I want my global warming back.

This morning after I woke up.  And yes, the front also brought snow.   First I had to get my wood stove going as it was 45 degrees in the house.   By late afternoon I got the house temperature up to the mid-60s after burning lots of firewood.

The wind blew the snow all around.  Even inside the pole shed.

The cattle waiting for me to put out a hay bale.

When I went out to move the metal feeders I saw in the north pasture a tree was blown over.  Spruce trees don't have a tap root.  While the ground is frozen, the wind was so strong the tree came out of the ground.