Christmas Day

Well here it is Christmas Day.  Ryan and his family headed to Nebraska for Christmas and will back after Christmas.  So I guess Tammy and I are ones who stay home and take care of the livestock.  Marshall has been helping us while I am recuperating from hip replacement surgery.  He was going to his Grandmothers for dinner in Sturgis, but the snow storm that came in last night canceled those plans.

Early this morning we had light snow and maybe an inch accumulated.  No wind made it pretty pleasant outside.  The temperature was 29 degrees which is pleasant for this time of year.  But after sun-up the wind picked up and it snowed harder.

We have been feeding cake to the sheep every other day and hay every day to them.  They are just ending their breeding season so need the extra nutrition.  The cows are still out grazing and eating lick tubs.

As you can see with the snow from the storm from last week and what we got this morning we still don't have much snow.  The roads have some icy patches so it is winter time driving conditions.  The Black Hills ski slopes and snowmobile trails have good snow so they are happy.  They got a good foot last week and looking to get a foot today.

Marshall has been building sheep grain feeding troughs and sheep panels up in the barn. I have been working in the shop welding tabs on some new stackmover chain.  The chains need replacing so now is a good time to weld the tabs on.

So from all of us here we wish all a Merry Christmas and healthy New Year.

Feeding tubs to the cows

The weather has been super nice for December.  No wind and lots of sunshine.  The temperatures have been in the high 50's out here on the prairie.  We have been feeding the cows a protein supplement in the form of a grain cube we call "cake".  The supplementing of protein helps the cattle digest the coarse dried grass  that has grown through the summer.  The grass has now dried and cured and is ready to be grazed throughout the winter.  Until the snow comes and covers it too deep for the cattle to readily graze.   The weatherman says we are in El Nino, which for us means mild temperatures and dry moisture conditions.

We run out of cake and can't get more till early January.  So we go to plan B.  Which is feed lick tubs.

As you can see we have plenty of grass.  The lic tubs are scattered throughout the pasture so that the cows scatter all over the pasture to eat grass and have a convenient place to lic some protein.

I does make life easy to have a flowing creek that runs about a mile through the winter pasture.  It keeps flowing and it will have to be really cold before it would freeze over so the cattle could not drink.  The alternative for water is a steel tank by a hydrant for water.

The cow were pretty scattered out this morning.  But when the saw me they thought of their cake and came on the run.  Marshall and Tammy have been spoiling some of them by feeding them by hand so the cows eat out of your hand.  Some are very insistent.

This cow is trying to eat my glove off of the seat of the Kubota.  She thinks she has to have something.  They are very spoiled.