Snow Day!

I got the call around 6:30 this morning that school had been canceled. I thought it was funny at the time because it looked normal as can be, but as I look at the conditions outside now, I'm glad they called it off.

Here is some of what a snow day consists of for me.

#1: Get the fireplace going. We aren't ever quite sure when we will lose electricity out here in the country, so it's a good idea to already have the fireplace going. It can keep my house warm and I can cook with it if I need to (my house has no gas appliances, so if the electricity goes out I have no way to cook).

Notice the black 5 gallon bucket to the right of the fireplace.

Any good farm kid should have one of those to store the kindling for the fireplace ;-)

#2: Help with chores. We have to make sure the cattle are safe and as warm as can be. This is especially true now that it is calving season. Thankfully we already have all of our cattle in the pastures close to the houses.

This is where we keep the ground up corn we mix into the feed for the cattle. It is loaded into buckets and then dumped into the scoop of the tractor. Next it is dumped into the feed truck. The feed truck has an auger inside that tumbles the corn, silage and roughage around to mix them together.

 

The darker pile in front off the tractor is silage. It is ground up corn that was cut while it was still wet. It has to be cut at a certain time to make sure there is enough moisture and also to make sure the nitrate levels are safe for consumption by the cattle. It is packed tightly together which causes it is start the process of fermentation. This creates heat and when it is scooped up, you can usually see steam coming off of it. Dad has always referred to this as the "hot cereal." Sometimes we load the truck the day before, but we have to remember to not put silage in it if the temperatures will be below freezing during the night. It isn't much fun or much good on the truck to try to mix a big mass of frozen silage.

The lighter pile behind the tractor is what we call roughage. It is simply ground up bales. It is ground up beforehand so it can be mixed in the truck. 

While my dad and uncle were doing all of that, I was given the task of using the pick-up and bale bed to pick up two bales to feed the cattle.

The are the controls for the bale bed. Seems easy enough. But dad has done it hundreds, if not thousands of times. I have done it enough to know what I am doing, but I still have to stop and read the instructions for each movement I want the arms to perform...and I still usually do the wrong one.

You are supposed to grab the bale in the middle...I missed.

My second try was a little better.

After you have the first bale loaded, you can no longer cheat and just look behind you to back up. I'm really bad about cheating.

I've never been a huge fan of trying to use the mirrors. Dad always gives me grief about that. It has something to do with the fact that everything is backwards and I never know which way I need to go...it confuses me greatly.

After we had all of the feed loaded up, we headed out to feed the cattle. Dad had to catch a couple of new calves to give them their new jewelry while we were out there as well. Have to get them ear tagged so we know which mom they are supposed to go with.

By this point it was really starting to snow.

The little calf is trying to figure this food thing out. But since it is so young, it didn't really know what to do with the bale other than stand in the middle of it.

Since chores are done, we are gonna take some tips from the cattle. We are going to hunker down for a while and try to stay warm. I'm sure there will be multiple checks throughout the day to make sure there are no new arrivals. And if there are, I'm sure we'll have to make some decisions about where they should be housed for the remainder of the day. A new, wet calf is no match for winter weather.

Have a great snow day, rejoice in the moisture and stay warm!