Weather Forecast

Weather map from the Old Farmer's Almanac

 

Fifteen degrees this morning at 7:00 am.  The best place to be on the farm, other than the house of course, is the chicken house. Those little guys produce a lot of heat!

The Old Farmer's Almanac and several of my farming magazines say we are in for three months of below average cold temperatures and lots of snow.  I really don't mind the snow if its going to be that cold because a snow layer will insulate the trees and perennial plants in my garden. Cold, bare, windy ground is hard on everyone. 

The cattle are eating hay twice as fast as they were two weeks ago. They keep warm by eating high carbohydrate foods like hay.  Corn doesn't give them as much warmth.   We are scrambling looking for more hay because it looks like we have enough to get through January and February, but nothing for March. The shortage is due in part because we fed early this year because of the drought and because of the stormy, cold, windy weather in December.

I managed to find a cashe of small round bales for $25 each.  They are about half the size of the $50 bales so I'm feeling good about the price.  Also, I can justify putting one out at the round bale feeder in the front pasture and one in the barn paddock which makes me sleep easier.  I have a heifer that's limping (probably slipped on something or has ice packed in her hoof) and an old crippled cow and my Buttercup who is going to be 14 years old this spring. They are always low cows on the totem pole so to speak and have to wait until the head cow and her daughters and friends get to eat. Now they are happy cows with hay and water right outside the barn door.