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All the 2021 bales are now home

Eppich News: Some decent weather but then -40 C and a blizzard

Published: March 8, 2022

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James and Joseph where proud to wear hand-drawn horse tee-shirts made by great-grandmother Thomas in Idaho.

There were a few nice days in the middle of January. On Jan. 13, Gregory and I were able to get the last of the slough bales hauled home. We saved the closest for last as they were in the field that is southeast of the home quarter. I drove the tractor around while Gregory took the Mack and the trailer. There were a few snowdrifts that were a little deep but Gregory had enough momentum to get through them.

A couple of days later, Gregory and John were able to get the last of the hay bales and flax bales home. That completes the 2021 bale hauling! We were very happy to have the bales home and thrilled that we didn’t have to use the tractor and blade to get to every bale.

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On Jan. 16 we celebrated John’s 76th birthday. Barb’s oven wasn’t working so the boys helped me make a cake and cook the turkey, and then we took it over to Barb’s, where she had made the rest of the meal. It was a team effort and it turned out very well.

It got cold again shortly after John’s birthday. The wind chill made it between -35 C and -40 C. The extreme changes are hard on us, but even harder on the animals.

We received our Christmas present a little late from my Grandma and Grandpa Thomas in Salmon, Idaho but that didn’t make any difference. Joseph and James were so proud of their hand-drawn horse shirts that they wore them all day and night and were not happy about the idea of Mom wanting to wash them.

On Jan. 21, Gregory took the Mack and the trailer over to Mike Lewis’s place, Burn’ N’ Iron, to pick up the JD 4020 that Mike had done some cast welding on. It was a very frustrating job for Mike but he always does good work and we are very grateful for the work he does.

Winter to spring and back again

Later that week it warmed up and rained again. The yard was quite treacherous. Even the fields were slippery. The poor cows walked very cautiously from the feed trail up to their chop and the water bowl.

By the weekend the weather was nice again. On Jan. 30 one of our 2021 fillies that we had been boarding until her new owners could come and pick her up was finally able to go to her new home. Between the extreme cold and the freezing rain, it had taken a little longer than was first planned, but the conditions finally co-operated.

The same couldn’t be said for the next day. On Jan. 31 we had a blizzard. Gregory and I were supposed to go to North Battleford to a doctor’s appointment to check on the baby, but the snow and wind made it to where the visibility was just about zero in places. We made it about six miles down the road and then decided to go home. When we turned around, thanks to the ice the wind blew us over to the wrong side of the road. If it hadn’t been for the little bit of gravel along the edge of the road we would have been in the ditch.

We arrived home safely and as the storm raged on, we were very happy to not be somewhere along the road. Later the power went out for six and a half hours. Gregory and John were able to get the generator going to keep the water bowls from freezing up.

The next day we discovered that one of the water bowls had frozen. A bit of sand had gotten in the float and caused the water bowl to overflow, which made an electrical short in the heating element. We worked for a few hours to get the water bowl working properly again. Then we spent the rest of the day feeding the cows and horses and putting bedding out for the cows, the bulls, and the old mares and the fillies in the corral. The next day it was back to -40 C with the wind chill.

The horses and the cows are shedding so hopefully that means that the extreme cold and the terrible wind chills are behind us.

About the author

Heather Eppich

Heather Eppich

Contributor

Heather Eppich is a young former Idaho rancher building a new farm and family with her husband and young son, near Handel, Sask.

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