Not as in rock ‘n roll either. Just a’rockin’.
The frozen winds were so strong yesterday that the barn was heaving in and out, like a giant loudly asthmatic bellows. Often I anchor the camera by leaning it on the barn wall or a post but that was hopeless yesterday as the whole barn was shuddering from the howling wind. And when I got inside (and I hope this is not too personal a comment) the water in the toilet was sloshing gently about! Sloshing, in the wind.. inside!! Horrors. 
“I am going home, back to New Zealand.” I wailed, peering out the door and pulling on my gloves. “It is summer there. I am going back to the beach.” I sniffed. “There is ice on the inside of the doors, the cold is getting worse, the toilet is sloshing, even the snow drifts are frozen solid. They are talking Minus TWENTY on Monday. MINUS TWENTY! Do you know what that is in Celsius? Minus THIRTY! I looked it up! And that does not include windchill .. windchill is probably Minus Death. But no-one is allowed to die around here because the ground is frozen solid so you won’t even be able to dig my grave!”
Poor John looked momentarily though genuinely concerned then turned his attention back to the news on his tablet. “Well, you can’t take Daisy and Sheila on a plane.” he said. “Did you know that they have discovered the plans for Noah’s ark? It was round.”
“An ark?” I said, my hysteria rising. Slamming my feet into my boots and pulling my two hoods up over my head. “I’ll build a bloody ark then!” Door Slam. Slammed Door.
I was up in the loft, taking photos of the hay. When it is very cold I must feed my animals more. Especially the ruminants. They heat themselves from inside. But I also have to keep in mind that they are pregnant and I do not want fat babies. Certainly not fat calves. Helping a cow calve is a very different kettle of fish to helping a ewe lamb or a pig farrow(they just shoot out like bullets, running!) But pulling a calf is something I have not encountered yet.
And the cold is not letting up. So I feed them extra but not fattening grain. I give the cows some oats and barley once a day now as they are both in their last trimester. But their extra bulk feed is hay. So not only are my firewood stocks going down fast due to this unusually cold weather but my enormous hay pile is shrinking as well.
A pregnant cow on a normal day needs about 25 pounds of hay a day. That is just over half a bale of good hay each. Good hay. The sheep eat about half a bale altogether.
So that is just shy of two bales a day. More in the deep cold. I have three more piles like this (above) left. It must take me through to the end of March. And in the spring the longer I keep the cows eating hay and off the grass the better. It takes time for grass to grow too. It is like a jig saw puzzle and someone is Sawing at the Jig.
Unlike someone who sawed the ceiling out of the barn about 60 years ago to fit his ugly combine harvester in there.
But it is slowly being reclaimed, as long as it does not blow away in the wind.
But it is a tough old barn, and when I feed out, I select bales from all four corners in order – I have a deep fear, based on no scientific evidence what-so-ever, of the barn becoming too heavy on one side and just falling over in one of these winds.
Look what I found yesterday though. Eight beautiful fresh eggs. And they were not frozen solid. A kind hen sat on them all day to keep them from freezing.
I did not get to see Sheila yesterday, the weather was just too bad to take out the cooking oil car. Maybe today? Today is going to be windy too – though it is 34F as I write, just before dawn, our high for today but a nice surprise for the animals to wake up to. We are not even going to discuss Monday.
I hope you all have a lovely day.
your friend on the farm,
celi
ps. I seem to have lost a number of blogs off my follow list. Very few are coming into my email at all. I shall try and get around and refollow you all. So sorry. This happens in wordpress every now and then. But I will find you and be seeing you soon.
The Kitchen's Garden 
104 responses to “Rocking the Barn”
Great post, as usual, Cecilia. I really hope the weather improves for you all soon ~ Amelia 🙂
Thank you Amelia, I am resigned to the cold for another few months yet, but hopefully not this bad cold, or i will need an icebreaker to get out of here!.. c
Wow! Eight eggs despite minus 20! Good hens. Very good hens.
I would do the same, too. I like balance. One from this corner, one from that.
The last trimester! SO exciting! You’re wise not to want fat babies. In the wild, elephant calves are about 150lbs. In captivity, they sometimes run 300, based on maternal diet. The bigger calves have a more precarious beginning, theorizing a type of gestational diabetes due to captive diet. They can have trouble controlling their blood sugar at birth.
Wow – that’s specialised knowledge! Fascinating too.
Cooled down here too……nigh-time temperature down to 19 C tonight………brrr. Your weather is soooooooo cold I do hope you are managing to keep warm; I keep a look out for all the warming recipes that come to my inbox to pass on! E
Oh, Celie, I sense the hysteria, and have enormous sympathy for you and all the farmy inhabitants. Can you get more wood, more hay? Those eggs look scrumptious.
Love,
ViV
Deep breath, winter can indeed be brutal, the cold runs deep this time of the year.. its not the worst I have lived though but it darn right nasty, just remember that when the wind chill gets bad enough to put on googles, so your eyes are protected and don’t freeze. hugs!
o, and I lost the emails as well. went into reader on wordpress and it had autoset itself to no sending, I turned it back on, saved and you all came back 🙂
Love the back light on the edge of the face. Lovely.
Now I am worried about you all being hungry as well as cold. It makes me cross that I am powerless to do anything useful for you. I can’t improve the weather, and I can’t bring you firewood, or hay. All I can do is cross my fingers that the weather finally turns, and hope that you’re able to source supplies if you need them.
It has been an unusual year, we can turn on the gas if the firewood runs out and (need to check) but the hay man still owes me hay or at least payment for the hay.. so i should be able to get more. But I have a feeling i should have enough hay. I certainly won’t go hungry. My provisions for the humans on the farm are doing exceedingly well.. c
Oh I feel for you, I really do! We’re sick and tired of wind and rain but at least we don’t have your sub-zero temperatures – I think I’d have to come and stick my head in your laundry basket! By the way, we get sloshing toilet water too in high winds!
Christine
I was quite shocked by the sloshing water! But if you get it too up there then maybe it is not so weird.. c
Sending warm thoughts your way Celi! We have a break in the cold today and tomorrow, so must get electric fences moved, and do stuff we haven’t been able to do outside before next week’s cold rushes in. Count me in on being on the Ark going back to New Zealand with you!!! xo
As soon as they release the plans!,this morning though blowing a gale is in the twenties now, still nice too.. c
What do you do when the wood supply gets low, can you reorder or do you have to wait?
I am so sorry that you are cold, that your wood and hay supplies are getting low, that the water sloshes in your loo and that it is so windy and cold. Never mind , when all else fails look forward to spring and summer( hope you have your long woollen drawerson)
we never buy wood, John refuses, there are places he can go to take out dead trees but in the winter it is hard to get to these places, we are waiting for a break in the weather, or we fail and turn on the gas heating.. c
I wonder, is your gas propane? We have an oil furnace in the house and a propane one in the garage/apartment and there’s apparently a shortage of propane. They will only fill the tank to 60% and I heard of one person paying $6,00 a gallon for it!
oops, six dollars, not six thousand
I knew what you meant.. thinking of the caribbean now!.. c
We just had ours filled up not as cheap as usual ..but not too bad. we use it for cooking and hot water .. we can always get more firewood though.. thankfully! c
We have had another horrible week of temps over 35C(95F) everyday and no rain! wish I could send some heat to the farmy. Trieing to rain this afternoon but only every 10th drop making it to the ground – the rest evaporating in transit 😦 You are braver than me I would have absconded from that freezing cold a long time ago! Has ChicagoJohn absconded – haven’t seen him in awhile? Laura
Chg J is on a blog break, but still up there in the cold. He is very well, i shall tell him you asked after him. Poor you, no rain, that is just awful.. c
i hate winter too
i will glady pay for extra ticket for a cow if you can get us group rates to fly somewhere where there is no snow, ever
i call dibs on seat beside cow
the tiolet sloshing may be caused by wind blowing across sewer vent, usually located on roof
i convinced coworkers it was caused by earthuake
panic ensued
I can sense the anxiety in your writing voice. Cold miserable weather makes everyone stir crazy. And when you add the worries about the animals, it multiplies ten fold. You are right. Birthing calves is an experience all by itself. I worry about them on days like this. Too cold for mommy and baby. Poor little things don’t have much a chance. Unless they have guardians like you. Even then, it’s hard on all parties involved. *sigh* the only way I know to combat the anxiety is to work hard and fast, get inside to a pot of something hot, and burrow into a book to take your mind away. Otherwise I think myself into a lather. Sending you love from KY!
The shot from the lofty bit looking down into the barn gives me a great idea as to how the barn actually looks from inside and how it works – sometimes a picture paints a thousand or two and Claire eventually sees and understands 🙂
A mere minus 8 this morning in the Alps with snow on the way….. stay wrapped up warm for me my friend!
Do you have the bug boots yet? They would be perfect for up in the mountains. Mine arrived about a week ago and i am even more stable PLUS warm, they are wonderful.. c
Bug boots? ! New to me
I have super dooper Sorrel boots, keep your tootsies warm in minus 30 which thankfully isn’t happening this year. I was wondering how you got on with your snow shoes?
The bugs have grippy soles, like our hockey boots, Icebug boots from sweden. They are a great investment. I can wear there everywhere and keep the cleats on my gumboots for dirty barn work.. snow shoes are hilarious.. need work.. c
Bug boots are sounding fab, I could even pretend I am 5 and get some of those googly stick on eyes! !!
I’m delighted that you invested in them. Aren’t they the best? I swear by my Icebugs and they remain glued to my feet from November to April.
They really are an investment, i am thoroughly pleased and thank you for the extra push to go ahead and buy them!.. c
I am also thoroughly thankful for the heads up on bug boots. I’ve had mine for a few weeks now and love them! I’d love them even more if I could spend more time outside IN them. We have had steadily falling temps all day and a second day of howling winds. Yesterday it drifted all the snow from one direction, today from the other and tomorrow we should get another 2 – 4 inches. Between Monday morning and Wednesday evening we should have windchills between -25 and -45. I do recall in 1982 mid January, we had -60 to -70 windchills, absolutely brutal and not easily forgotten. Enough already. I can sympathize with the trepidation of birthing a calf. When I had a pregnant mare for the very first time the vet came and confirmed her pregnancy, then told me to look for a nose and two feet. If I didn’t see them I should reach in and try to right the position. He left me a shoulder length glove. (REALLY?) Then he cautioned me not to move my arm while it was in there while she was having a contraction, she could well break my arm. Oh my. Fortunately she did it all by herself.
Oh yes, the water in our loo moves in a slowly revolving circle in the wind and the hinges on the doors have frost on them.
Oh MY indeed! mercy. well I hope my two behave.. they have adjusted our monday night temp to -19, how generous.. c