At 3:45 am, we woke to the sound of crashing tree branches...our neighbor has a lot of old trees on his property, and though they've been trimmed, the weight of the ice accumulating on the branches must have been the last straw. Over the course of thirty minutes or so, we heard crash after crash, as the ice did it's work.
Thankfully, the electric lines weren't on his side of the road! Losing power was our greatest concern. We do have a generator, but it's a real hassle to hook it up...and when we use it, everything takes longer. It generates enough power to run the vacuum pump (to milk), the compressor (to cool the milk), the silo unloader and the barn cleaner, but not all at one time!
So...we decided that we might as well get up and do the milking a little early, in case the ice got worse, tearing power lines...or someone slid into a pole! We weren't so early that we affected the cows' schedule too much...too much change in routine isn't good for milk production!
By breakfast time, we had mostly light rain...however the ice accumulation on the trees remained, and was beautiful...
When I was feeding the chickens, I had to laugh...this chicken wanted to come out, but wasn't sure about the snow. I call her "Fraidy Chicken"...
A few others were a little braver...
...and when I left the chicken house and headed out of the pen...I had to laugh some more. That's Murphy, the sentry at the gate. She knows she's not allowed inside the chicken pen, but she will push every limit she's given! The chickens were very aware of her presence, but didn't seem too worried!
All in all, we didn't fare too badly this time around. Yes, school was closed again, and the kids are going a little stir crazy (or maybe it's me!) but it could have been oh, so much worse. The rain is making a sloppy mess, but somehow that seems better than another foot of snow and temperatures in the single digits. We're counting our blessings!
Glad you didn't have much damage. You know, I think I'll take the snow and blizzard over ice. That stuff does so much damage to the trees.
ReplyDeleteLooks like you got a little more ice than we did. I'd say we got about an 1/8 of an inch...it was just a little coating and we had only a 2 hour school delay. We have Rhode Island Reds as well and one Americauna. Some days they don't go out into the snow at all. They are so funny!
ReplyDeleteTeresa - it's amazing how heavy the ice is! It didn't look like much, but it sure took those limbs down!
ReplyDeleteBonnie - Are the Americauana's the chickens that lay blue or green eggs? I think we had some when I was a girl.