The creek (that is really a ditch) has been covered in ice thick enough to walk on for months now. In the last few days it has begun to break up, clink and clank its way into life, yesterday great shards of windowpane ice could be seen floating past. Ice floes break up in between, snow drifts drifting, picking up speed and wagging their tails through, making that singing crackle-crick, jingle, tick-tock of melting ice, like cooling metal, the hiss of cooling iron. A tinging and crickling. A crackle with a song in it. Then the jostle and click of ice shouldering ice shoving and pushing in a crowd trying to get head way.
Of course Sheila lifted her head at the sound of it, headed off and had to be persuaded not to shoot straight over the cliff and down the bank to the ice water.
I made a wee pen for Marcel the Happy in the corner of the sheep’s field, he has a mini culvert for shelter and some company. Only for the day though, at night it is back into the barn for him.
We had not bargained on Daisy who was allowed out for a wander yesterday as the ice has melted. I am terrified of this big gangly cow slipping on ice she is the clumsiest cow I have ever seen so she has not been allowed into the fields for a while. She was out having a mooch when I brought Marcel over to his new pen. She trotted across as fast as she could, her stomach heaving low and loose from side to side and immediately the cow tried to lick the lamb through the fence, she wanted to inhale him, again. With her tiny mewling noises and coy looks.
Marcel obliged with some loving. But I am not a zoo, he said. You can all go about your business!
Bad news on the bee front though. It reached 56F here yesterday, warm enough for bees to come out on toilet breaks, but when I went down to check them it was grimly silent. With a sinking heart I took the hive apart. The bees were all dead. Scattered across three plentiful trays of honey. They had piles of food. They had broken formation to eat and must have been caught by a sharp drop in temperatures, unable to huddle back together for warmth, they had frozen. And only recently. So, so sad. Evidently the Italian bees often come out when it is not warm enough and often hives are lost because of this. Though it was a brutal winter. None of this is much consolation. But this year I cannot think of one thing I did not do. The extreme cold beat us. I am going to give it one last try with my Russian Queen and her hive who arrive in May. Hopefully the progeny will be tougher in these Illinois winters. I need to have bees that are bred for this tough environment. Russians surely must know about the cold.
But the sun was shining yesterday and it was warm enough to work without a jacket or gloves. Everyone took a minute just to stand in the sun, even Sheila. We all stood a little straighter and even though it was all slosh and deep water sitting on frozen ground in the fields, there was warm sun.
I hope you all have a lovely day.
Your friend on the farmy
celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
98 responses to “Ice Cold Water”
It is so nice to see a bit of Spring coming your way up there in Illinois….such a long winter may be leaving us…finally. Your farmy folks are so sweet and just looking at them makes me very, very happy and content.
The ice breaking up sounds fierce but I glad it’s getting warmer for you; we’re expecting 8C today but it won’t put a dent in the piles of snow we have.
So sad about the bees, have you tried warming them up slowly? Maybe they can be resurrected? Marcel is adorable.
Eva darling, dead is dead, no coming back from that.. c
Insects can often be kept very cold like in a fridge and still live if they don’t freeze totally. So it is a legitimate question I think. Have you considered trying to capture a local wild swarm? And maybe some insulating foam so that the temperature in the hive drops slower when the cold snaps?
Some bugs hibernate, for example the cicada bug burrows and hibernates for 17 years.
We have flies at the cottage that are ‘dead’ throughout the winter and as soon as we open in the early spring and put the heat on, they spring to life! Weird but true.
. I love cicadas too.. what a glorious summer sound.. are you warming up?
After our 20+ cm dumping of snow, we are now at -15°C with a wind chill that makes it feel like -27°C so I guess the answer is no. But tomorrow should be somewhere in the plusses, hopefully!
I love the way your header is different each day. So sad about the bees. Little Marcel certainly was the centre of attention. Joy
That sun was wonderful yesterday wasn’t it? Marcel looks like he is smiling in that 4th picture! So glad he is sharing some love with Daisy. How are the other sheep with him? So sorry to hear about the bees. It has been a tough winter. I know I helped my dad wrap the hives for winter — will have to think on how we did it. Will there be a baby pool on Daisy’s calf — date and gender perhaps?
The other sheep want to head-butt the lamb, as he has no mother to protect him, this is why he is in his little corral but in with the other sheep so he can learn how to eat like a sheep and behave like a sheep and when he is bigger he will join the sheep. My hive was wrapped, they had extra food, they had shelter, they had everything I could possibly do except a kind winter. Just miserable. A baby pool, what an interesting idea.. let me think how to do that.
That’s a shame about the bees – I doubt you could have done more for them. The new Russian bees will want a drop of vodka in their water next winter 😉
Must be getting old, having trouble reading the other comments as they are a kind pale grey/silver on blue. Probably my eyes LOL.
So sorry to hear about the bees 😦 I am sure a lot of things did not survive this brutal winter. Supposed to get to above 70 today, which will very nice. Cold comes back for a while though on Thursday. Winter hasn’t finished with us yet!
Oh wonderful the colours have changed an I can read everything now – probably my computer!
Can it possibly be that a thaw is coming? Is spring sneaking in by the back door?
Morning Celi :o) Love the new look here, you did a nice job. I just had to ask this…with Daisy being so maternal to Marcel will she get to have some time with her baby when it comes? My grandpa always had his milk cows raise their babies till they could go on the suckle buckle. They always wore a can’t suck on their noses. :o)
Sorry about your bees, your heart must’ve dropped. have a good day!
Daisy and I will share milk. Daisy is prone to mastitis so I will be getting the calf to help out. A cow is less likely to get mastitis with a cow suckling. But this no sck buckle, i have not heard of that.. what did it look like, can I find one for later on? c
No suck buckles are cruel and certainly not for a cow prone to mastitis. Please Google it.
Temps are better here, too…but more snow on Thursday. 😦
Marcel is cheerful enough to drag me out of the winter slump, though!
You too? I am afraid we are getting 1 – 3 inches of snow tomorrow also.. SIGH!!
The light in your images today reflects spring. So lovely to see. Twas a gorgeous Monday in Minnesota, too. Today we have rain, predicted to mix with, shhhhh, SNOW.
looks like we are all getting it, our one last day of penance.. c
So sorry to hear about your bees. Hopefully the Russian queen and her subjects will be hardy and that this next winter will be warmer. We have only one hive, as our second didn’t make it through the last winter. We bought a queen and brood last spring, but the queen must have died, so we combined the hives and it looks like that hive has made it. There are bees flying about and I can hear a low hum inside, thank goodness. We will wait until it is warm for a couple of days in a row before we go have a look. We also need to order another nuc, the queen and her subjects, to give our second hive another chance. There is nothing like harvesting and eating your own honey! xo
and this will be my second summer without honey, I am thrilled that yours made it. mine were alive a month ago, so i can only imagine that last bad bad cold after the bit of thaw must have frozen them. At least they died with full bellies..I an giving it one more chance, if this next hive fails you can have all my supers becase i will have quit..But oh I miss the honey c
We know a person here who wraps his hives in Insulation (the pink board you get from Home Depot). Although, we didn’t experience that horrid long cold winter you have his bees came through fine. I am wondering —although I know you wrapped yours —if the insulation would have helped.
I am NOT a bee person, although I am fascinated with the raising and using of the honey. I am sorry, Celi. Losing animals is always hard.
Linda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com
http://handcraftedbyus.wordpress.com
♬♬♬ Happy Saint Patrick’s Day ♬♬♬
yes that is what i used, insulation board.. ah well.. c
Please change this section back to black letters on a white background. Right now, I can read people’s names, but absolutely cannot see the actual comments.
actually that must have been REALLY spooky, considering your pleaful message! have a wonderful day today helen!
Wow, that was strange. When I posted, the comment section display instantly changed from grey and beige letters on a dark blue background to perfectly nice black letters on pale yellow,
that was me, I cannot get this part of the new format to behave, came in from the barn to find you were all in the dark! So i turned the lights on.. must have been strange to see! c
Sorry about the bees. That is a shame! Here it’s been freezing overnight and thawing during the day – good for the maple syrup producers! My aging eyes can barely make out the comments today, too.
Same happened when I posted. Also, your responses only appeared after I hit the button. Gremlins? 🙂
it will have refreshed .. nice gremlins..