Prepping For the Cold...

Cold weather doesn't have to be terrible.

Wind doesn't have to be terrible.

But put them together, and they're a mess!

We think we're prepared for the cold and wind combination that is to arrive later today.  It's only to last for a few days, thankfully, but water pipes freeze quickly, and animals need water!

A couple of years ago, we had a longer stretch of cold weather like this.  Jim came up with a clever way to help insulate the west side of the barn.  You can read about it here.  He saved all of those pre-cut pieces of insulation, and we put them up again this morning...

In anticipation of the cold weather, along with the cows leaving this week, Jim has been thinking ahead about more ways to keep the water pipes in the soon-to-be-almost-empty barn from freezing.  If it gets too cold we can turn the water off to the barn completely, from the house.  We would like to keep running water in the milk house though, so we wrapped the water pipe where it comes into the barn with heating tape and insulation.  There's a valve at the end of this section that we can turn off to the rest of the barn, but we'll still have water in the heated milk house...

The heifers that we are keeping can then be watered with a hose run from the milk house into a large water tub.

Life is changing quickly here, and we are filled with mixed emotions.  It was our choice to make changes, but it's still hard.  I'm heading off to a new job next week, and I'm looking forward to it! I'll be staying connected to the ag industry, and I hope I can learn quickly!  I will have to do more planning ahead for meals and laundry, but lots of people do it!  Jim will be busy for a while with hauling manure and some projects around the farm, but will also be pursuing other ventures.

In the mean time, here are a few pictures of the snow we had last night.  It didn't amount to more than an inch or so, but it's pretty!

Stay warm, wherever you are!

The Polar Vortex Has Arrived...

The dreaded polar vortex arrived this week.  Oh how I dislike that term! Early yesterday morning the winds picked up and the temperature dropped. Brrrrr...  Cold weather has it's benefits, but I'm such a fair weather fan that I have a hard time seeing them.  Instead, I think of the headaches that come in the barn.

The box pens in the barn are full of young heifers, so we have a couple of them still at the hutches.  They have shelter, but no running water over winter.  Thus, we have to carry water for them several times a day.  Our trusty green wagon gets a lot of use these days...

Drink fast girls, before it freezes again...

My negligence in gathering eggs last evening resulted in this...

Jim had ordered a truckload of sawdust, but postponed the delivery yesterday because of the strong winds.  The barn doors are quite heavy, and if the winds catch them, there could be some pretty serious damage...both to the doors and to whoever might be in the vicinity.  The barn hill catches the brunt of the brutal north and west winds...

The winds died down over night, so the sawdust was delivered this morning...

All the animals keep the inside of the barn much warmer...although we often drain the water lines on the west side of the barn when it's really cold and windy.  Yesterday (and again this morning) we used a hose to fill a big water tub for the outside pen heifers.

In the calf pens, this young heifer and Jolyn enjoyed some playful moments this morning while I was feeding a newborn...

...and when I turned my back, Phoebe crawled into the pen and curled up in a feed tub.  It's not a good place for a dog to be, but I must say that once again, she was being resourceful!  She found a warm place and made the best of it...near her people...

And of course there's always the dilemma of the glasses steaming up, going from warm to cold and back again.  I wish I could just take them off, but...

Hopefully you're keeping warm where you are!

Baby It's Cold Outside...

Brrr...

We've been spoiled this winter with mild weather.  It's the second week of January, and this is the first bitter cold that we've experienced...and it brings back memories of last winter.  Thankfully, it's not to continue for too many days!

Our barn sits on a rise, and has absolutely no protection from the west winds. When the wind blows, it gets really cold on the side of the barn where the heifer pens are.  There's no good way to insulate the water lines over there, so we have to be proactive to keep them open.

Yesterday afternoon the temperatures began dropping and the wind picked up.  We drained water lines on the west side of the barn after evening milking, and headed into the warm house.  We could hear the wind blowing when we went to bed, and we hoped that we wouldn't find trouble this morning when we got up...

This was the temperature at 7:00 this morning...

My main job right now in the barn consists of keeping those water lines open and/or making water available to the heifers.  I run a hose from the main water line in the cow stable to a tub in the outside pen several times a day. There's a tub at the end of the entry way, on the other side of that gate, and the heifers learned quickly where it is...

Jolyn hangs out with me, and often sits on my shoulder while the hose is running...

If water bowls have frozen, I fill calf bottles with steaming hot water...

...and pour the hot water over the water bowl valves to open them up...

The cows' body heat keeps the actual cow stable pretty warm.  It was 60 degrees out there last night at bedtime!  The outside pen water line will probably remain drained for a while yet.  The box pen water lines will stay drained over night, and be opened each morning for a while.  Even the youngest heifers learn quickly that they need to drink when the bowls are open and running!

Meanwhile at the calf hutches...

The youngest calves are kept warm and dry with fresh bedding and they each wear their insulated coats.  I had to bribe this little one to stand still by letting her suck on my fingers.  That was a cold choice...and it's also why she looks a bit goofy.  (The hutch is also a lot bigger than it looks here...)

This was what remained in their water buckets from over night...

We're just thankful that even though it reached the single digits overnight with a windchill in the minus teens, the wind has remained calm today, and that makes all the difference!

Stay warm, wherever you are!  There are only 72 days 'til spring...but who's counting?!

Waterline Woes...

Out of all the things I could "worry" about, one of my biggest hangups is finding a broken water line in the barn.

The water lines in our barn have been around for a while, and like anything, they occasionally need a bit of attention.  This week was one of those times. One of the cows had a sore front foot, and needed to have her leg pulled up in order for us to see what was wrong.  While her foot was pulled up, she leaned a little too hard and bumped into the water line that ran above her stall and down to her water bowl.

The connection at the top where the elbow and down pipe come together had rusted, and that extra pressure did it in.  Drip...drip...drip...and it soon became a steady trickle.

So...out came the pipe wrenches...

Jim put a second pipe wrench in place for me to hold, and he turned his until he was able to loosen the union the rest of the way by hand...
 

The down pipe has been removed, and a few drips of water drain out of the open pipe from above...

We are fortunate to live neighbors to a welding shop, where Jim quickly had a new pipe cut to the proper length.  He ended up replacing the elbow as well, and we were back in business before long.

I'm not sure why I "worry" about this type of thing so much!  I know that everyone has to fix a water line now and then...but water is so very necessary, and if we're without, things pretty much stand still until the problem is fixed.  

I'm thankful that the problem was relatively minor, and that Jim was able to repair it quickly!