Winter weather

Since Winter started early this year I haven't been doing much other than riding a little on my bicycle when the weather is fine, or shoveling snow off the driveway or hay bales.  So not much to blog about.

Winter took it up a notch last night.  While November and December have been colder than normal, it is going to get worse.  Massive cold and Winter weather is on the other side of the Continental Divide.  So much so that it is spilling over the mountain passes and is coming into Flathead Valley.  It is windy today and we now have a winter chill reading in the weather report.  The wind chill readings today have been in the minus teens. And it is going to get worse for the rest of the week - until Saturday.  Minus 20 something is predicted Wednesday night. And that is the temperature and not the wind chill.

Yesterday I have put a large hay bale out in the middle pasture for the cattle.  This morning the cattle were standing near the middle/north pasture gate. That is also where I had stacked some of the chain sawed tree trunk logs.  The hay bale is in the western half of the pasture.  The winder part even with all the trees.  The gate was in the "less" windy part of the pasture and the logs provided a wind break.  So the cattle went there.

I have a smaller round hay bale from when I had baler problems this past August. That bale was small enough I could put it in the wooden feeder in the corral.  Since the feeder has two boards across the two long sides to keep the cattle from breaking the long side boards, I had to break the hay bale apart so as not to break the two cross boards.  Not hard.  Just took time.

Even though I had my tractor repaired, and I had mentioned the hydraulics at times quit working, apparently they didn't figure it out and fix it.  Colder weather can cause the hydraulics to stop. And that slowed me down today.  I had to warm the tractor up longer.  Even then I would have to shut off the tractor and count to ten.  When I restarted the tractor the hydraulics would usually work again.  I had to do that three or four times as lifting a hay bale could cause the hydraulics to quit again.  What a pain.

I got the hay bale into the wooden feeder.  I also moved the metal feeder in the north pasture from the western part of the pasture to be just outside the corral.  With this weather forecast I plan on feeding the next large hay bale just outside the corral.  That way the cattle can rest in the loafing shed out of the wind and cold, and also drink from the water trough and not the river - which is starting to freeze over again.

So.. we just got to get through this week.  And keep the wood stove going to heat the house.

In the loafing shed.