The Truths of Winter

I have come to realize over the years that there are several truths to winter in the North Country on a farm. One truth is that there is snow and cold. Another is that it will be dark 18 hours a day and snowing the other 6 hours. Here are some more truths of winter farming that I have discovered:

1. A complete thaw will come 2 days after you've cleaned the frozen poo off the chicken house floor with a pick-axe

2. The smelly buck goat will escape his winter enclosure just before you have to leave to go out to dinner but just after you have put on your nice clothes.

3. The "freeze-free" water hydrant will freeze solid only when you are gone from the farm and a neighbor is doing your chores.

4. You will decide it is time to rearrange the fencing only after there's 2 feet of snow on the ground.

5. The spot where you have been dumping the ice from the frozen water buckets is in the direct path of where you need to push a wheelbarrow after you have a 5' tall mountain of ice accumulated.

6. You will need more hay in the hayloft only after you decided you didn't need to plow the road to the barn anymore.

6a. You will need more hay in the hayloft only after you realized that your husband/plow truck driver has been piling the snow in front of the hayloft entrance for 2 months.

7. The one tool you will need will be the only tool you left in the pasture where you were working before there was 3 feet of snow on the ground.

8. You will feel bad for the goats and leave them in the barn only to find that they escaped their pens while you were at work and spent the entire day out in the snow anyway.

9. That new rabbit you have been eyeing will come up for sale just in time for 4 feet of snow to be deposited on the rabbit hutch that was clear of snow all winter.


That's all I can think of for now. I am sure as the winter continues on, I will find more.