Mais, It's Cold, Cher!

Hey, do you have a minute?  I'd like for you to take a walk with me this morning.  Look, grab a cup of coffee to take with you.  I made it extra strong today.  Better put on a cap and your heavy coat, it's cold outside!  It snowed last night.  We aren't used to that, and our animals aren't either.  We have to go take care of them.  I'll show you the morning routine.  First, we'll bring some food out to the pullets in the chicken tractor.  They are just starting to lay.  The eggs are small.  The tractor is in the back yard and they are demolishing the St. Augustine grass - just scratching it up to bits.  Let's put some feed in the gutter we use as a feed trough.  I thought we'd have to break the ice off the water in the water bowl, but the heat lamps we turned on last night kept the occupants of the tractor warm and toasty and the water didn't freeze.

The twin bridges that lead into the pasture and the garden were frozen over.  It looked very pastoral and wintry, wouldn't you say?  Don't slip when you pass over now.

Yesterday we frantically put blue tarps over the entire garden except for the radishes that are almost done and the turnips.  The snow blankets the blue tarps, but you can still see the blue of the tarp underneath.  Beneath the snowpack and tarp are beets, carrots, kale, chard, spinach lettuce, onions, kohlrabi, broccoli and cauliflower.  By Friday when things thaw out, we'll fold up the tarps and see if we have live plants underneath.  If not, we'll quickly harvest all the carrots and beets and anything salvageable.

Follow me out to the barn.  We've got to feed and hay the cows and goats.  Look at Belle waiting inside the barn.  The cows are coming round the corner.  The fake owl is doing its job on the roof chasing off hawks that like to steal our hens.  A few chickens are out scratching looking for something.  Let's get a bucket of hen scratch and scatter it around for them.

The rest of the hens are in the hen house.  It is nice and warm in there.  Would you mind opening the lids to the nesting boxes?  We close those up at night or the hens would roost on them and poop in the hay.  Then the eggs would be all full of poop the next day.

And here's Belle.  Look at that girl, would you?  She spent the night in the barn.  She is indigenous to the Pyrenees mountains between Spain and France.  She has a heavy coat and would have been fine outside, but we wanted to make sure she was warm and dry.  She repaid the favor by digging a big hole in the barn.  I'll have to cover it all up.

There was no stick nearby to break the ice in the trough, so I used my boot.  It was an untimely day to discover that my boots have a hole in them.  My sock is wet and my feet are cold now.  We have to break the ice, though, so the cows and goats can drink fresh water.  We never have to fill this trough.  It sits under the drip line of the barn and catches rainwater.  

We'll throw a few gallon scoops of sweet feed and alfalfa to the cows and let them eat.  Then, I'll put a square bale of some good bermuda hay for them to munch on.

I read one time that in northern states, farmers supplemented their livestock's diets with root crops in the winter.  I've been doing that for several years.  If you look below, I have a thick bed of turnips that are growing.  I began pulling turnips, cutting up the turnip roots and feeding the greens and roots to the cows.

Some of the roots are the size of a baseball.  Others are small.  It doesn't matter.  The cows can't distinguish.  They eat them all quickly and beg for more.

The cows can eat in peace for the time being as the goats haven't picked up on the fact that I'm tossing turnips to the cows.  Otherwise, they'd be between the cows causing trouble.  The cows will inevitably toss them to the side with their big heads and necks and the goats go flying.  Seems like they'd learn, but no.

I appreciate you joining me today.  Maybe tomorrow if you're not doing anything, I could show you some other sights in this strange, alien winter wonderland?