Preparing for the storm

The weather forecasters still insist we are going to get lots of snow and wind.  It hasn't happened yet.  Today must be the lull between the snow events.  The temperature warmed up above freezing today and by the end of the day it was raining lightly.  While rain in the Winter is not so good, the longer it rains the less it will snow.  Daisy insisted on going outside several times tonight.  Each time when she came back inside the house she expected me to rub the water off her wet fur.

Today it was time to put out two more large hay bales for the cattle.  I still have the - now - 16.6 inches of snow to clear so I put the bucket on my tractor and pushed snow.  First I had to distract the cattle with some small hay bales so I could enter the corral and get the bucket from there.

First I cleared the yard and the driveway then I cleared a path to the large bales and out to the pasture.  I had been just driving through the snow in the pasture, and probably still could even do so with this additional snow, but I wanted to use the tractor to clear a large area for the two hay bales out in the pasture.  I prefer to have an area free of snow for the hay rather than plopping the bales down in the snowbank.  And using the tractor I made an area large enough that the cattle don't have to stand in the snow to eat and have room nearby where they can lay down to rest.

I pushed most of the snow for the hay bales east of the bales.  If the wind blows as predicted it may be a little bit of a wind block for the cattle when they are eating from the bales.  The downside is the snow hill mostly blocks the view of the cattle from the backyard and corral.

The wild turkeys like it when I clear the yard.

The snow is piling up in the backyard.