By the middle of December, the temperature had dropped quite a bit. Gregory and John were able to haul most of the slough bales home. It was slow going but it’s good to have more bales home. Some of the bales are good for bedding and some were good enough this year for feed.
Right before Christmas, we bundled the boys up and took them out to get a small tree. They had so much fun going tree hunting and Joseph proudly carried it home. As soon as the snow had melted from the tree, Joseph and James were ready to put it up and decorate it.
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By Christmas, the temperature was very cold. It was around -40 C with the windchill for nearly two weeks and even got down to -48 C a few times. We put out a lot of feed and bedding for the animals in that time. Gregory and John did a lot of work in the shop doing tractor maintenance and building a few more tire feeders. Gregory’s new expression was that it was “cuttin’ rubber cold” — it was so cold that the saw cut the stiff rubber easily and the blade did not bind. Joseph, James, and I tried to entertain each other by reading stories, doing puzzles and even putting together a gingerbread train that their Auntie Theresa had bought them for Christmas.
We had a short reprieve from the cold temperatures on Jan. 2. The boys were able to go out with us to do chores and play in the snow. They had been locked in the house pretty well full time due to the cold temperatures and the wind, so they had quite a bit of energy to burn off.
Hauling bales home
The next day, Gregory loaded the tractor on the flat deck trailer and went over to Landis to haul our grass bales and greenfeed bales home. It snowed on him most of the day, but he was able to get all the bales and the tractor home from Landis before dark. By the next morning, there were about six inches of new snow on the ground. Last year we had to plow out every bale with the tractor and the blade, so it was nice to get the job done before it took that much more work and time. We still have a few slough bales and some flax bales that we will use for bedding out in the fields. We will probably have to use the blade tractor to get to most of them.
The weather suddenly changed Jan. 10. It was just below 0 C and throughout the week it got to be above freezing. The horses and cows were very happy for the change. Even our dog Dude liked the warm temperatures so much he wouldn’t come in the house and spent all day soaking up the sunshine. He had to be bribed to come in for the night. As we head into later January, we will try to get quite a few projects finished before the nice weather changes again. Hopefully, we have seen the last of the really cold weather.
