Well that was a wallop of a storm! The coldest it got was -24 windchill and Jeremiah and I were out in it. It's odd to think that it's colder at first light than dead of night...kinda like the darkest before the dawn thing. But I've been out enough mornings to be sure that as I am out there it does get colder. I am not sure why they is. At first I thought I was getting overheated and it felt colder but no, it's just always colder around 8-9 AM. Tuesday was no exception! It was COLD.
The goats are fine. Cold but fine. It was cold no doubt but they had good shelter. Goes to show that they are hearty and need no other special precautions other than a lot of clean dry bedding and more food to weather through (and some sort of shelter to block the wind too). We've seen horses without shelter who go about their day pretty much and cows, shoot! Cows in this neck of the woods would be considered spoiled if they had shelter other than tree groves. I was just reading an article about what people do do for the their cows when the windchill gets that bad. A lot will move them to pastures with trees. Others will put round bales out so the cows can get behind them and if nothing else, parked vehicles will create a wind break too. The biggets concern is that it's calving season and wet newborns cannot stay out. I'm sure a lot of farmers were on 2 hours watches night and day to move newborn calves in or they would have frozen to death.
Our bucks have a 3 sided shelter with an east open face. The girls barn is south opening. Live and learn though, we are looking into getting some large tarps to place on the front of their barn just to keep the snow out. The winds were so bad it drove snow into the front half of the south facing of the barn (the barn is about 24 feet deep) and left a drift outside up to my knees. The wind just whipped around which it normally doesn't do that badly. Getting some accumulation has happened but not like this. Storms like that are few and far between. Yes they happen and it wouldn't be uncommon to get several in a year but as for the wind whipping around leaving snow, it's not an everyday all winter long occurrence to where doors would be more beneficial. Quite frankly, doors would be impossible to get open no matter what kind they were with a huge drift sitting outside and they cannot slide with snow even a few inches deep on either side. So, there's a good reason as to why there there are no doors. I like that it's open anyway, allows more air flow, etc. and closed barn doors create condensation and condensation would be worse than snow blowing in (think ice ON EVERY surface) Anyway, a good heavy tarp that could be rolled up would be ideal.
There's a place in Minnesota that sells used billboard signs. They are white (or black) on one side and are double the gauge thickness of a canvas tarp, waterproof (canvas tarps are just water resistant) and have UV protectant built right in, are tear resistant, come with sleeves on all four sides and are cheap! Not only that, but I'd be recycling and they'd last longer than a canvas tarp. So, I think we're going to forgo getting a canvas tarp that would, color-wise, match the barn nicely, for something that is a lot better over something aesthetically pleasing though plain white wouldn't be horrible by any means. Plastic tarps would be ripped to shreds no time which is why that option is OUT.
I've been watching the weather like a hawk. Not that it does a lot of good as it can change in a minute but my first doe is due next week and so far, it seems to be holding with good looking temps. We have plans in place as to what to do if kids came in a storm like that. We would have moved the doe to the garage though that's stressful in and of itself and who could say that it wouldn't cause more problems. You just do what you have to do and hope for the best on the rest.
I've been trucking water out to the goats again from the house. Yesterday I made the mistake of not letting the water run on the water spigot long enough out at the barn to cool down some of the water I took out. I've mentioned before they are special spigots, common as cows here because of the weather. They self siphon water back down into the pipe below the freeze level in the ground but I didn't run it long enough to warm the pipe up (which isn't much more than a few gallons or so worth) and it was so cold it froze in the pipe before it could siphon back down which doesn't take a long time so that should tell you something. Live and learn! It'll probably be another day before it thaws since the temps today are supposed to be in the 20's but even that's an improvement of what it has been.
All in all we've got it pretty good. Our furnace was acting up and not coming on and staying on. Jeremiah would reset it and it would run until it came up to temp., shut off and not come back on again. Perfect timing right? Our wood stove just could not keep up with the windchill bashing the north of the house so we fired up the furnace only to learn it wouldn't stay on. We had a repair guy out yesterday. A sensor was dirty so it's working again just fine and only on the coldest night and day (Monday night and Tuesday) could we really have used it! But, again, we've got it good. The house never did fall below 55 and I know that may sound horribly cold. The LR was always warm and I guess we're somewhat used to it. The house being near 70 degrees makes us, well, the kids and I anyway, feel like we're dying. Sixty five degrees is about perfect for the day and 62 at night, as long as we have PJ's and socks on, is comfortable. I like to get it cooking in here at night so that we can wake up comfortably in the morning without having to stock the stove all night long. Jeremiah does sometimes throw wood in around midnight and I am up early, sometimes around 4:30 or 5 to get it going again so that's its warm when everyone wakes up but anyway...
We even went to town on Tuesday. The snow drifts were bad in places but we needed a furnace filter from Lowes. We thought a dirty filter was the problem. People were out and about going about life. There aren't as many people out and they drive slower and watching cars slip sliding around is kinda fun. Coming from a place where life isn't like this is somewhat entertaining though will become common place soon enough. In a way, it already is. It's cold. It's windy. It's hard work on occasion and there isn't anything to do about it but do it. Being snarky helps at times when complaining about the weather but all in all, it's really not as bad as it could be.
Back to the old grind again today. The kids and Jeremiah are back to school and work and there's lots of laundry to catch up on. I'll be looking forward to the 40 degrees they are predicting on Saturday. Sad isn't it?
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