Just a normal winter time.

We are starting to get a lot of snow out in the pastures.  A week ago we brought the sheep closer to the house so they were close if a blizzard came up quick.  The grazing was snowed under for them anyway, so we had started to feed them hay every day.  Every day we feed them thirteen buckets of cubes and two bales of hay.

The grazing for the cows is getting tough for them to get to.  The snow is getting a hard crust on the top part of the snow.  We feed them nine buckets of cubes on these cold mornings and I have been taking two bales of hay down to them every day.

The other day it had snow a couple more inches of snow.  The snow layed on the backs of the cows. The snow on the backs of cows shows that the cows have a covering of fat under the hide and it holds the body heat in the cow.  If she were thin and lacking fat cover the body heat would be lost out the hide and would melt the snow  off of their backs.

I led the cows with the load of hay down the hill to a more sheltered area to feed the hay.  The cattle strung out in a line all the way down the hill.

The weather stays cold and icy.  The temperatures hover below 0 every day and may get up to 10 degrees above  in the heat of the day.  The one morning it was 13 degrees when we got up and it had rained during the night. Unusual !  It left a coating of ice on everything.  Here is ice on the gate stick and loop.

Then one chilly afternoon Grandpa got roped into decorating cookies with the grand kids. Lots of fun was had by all.