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Frosty Mornin

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the_jersey_lilly_2000

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Since we've had the few rains this last couple weeks, we've also had a few mornins that have been real frosty. I grabbed my camera on my way out, but only got one shot that really showed the frost. Almost looked like we'd had snow here in the piney woods.
f3df2c1c.jpg
 
Nice picture. It was 20 here this morning and after the last couple of weeks felt like -20 . Wind was blowing about 15mph and felt like a gusty 35 mph wind. It is odd when your mind tells you your freezing and you know you can't be. I sure fed in a hurry.
 
Nice picture, Jersey. A classic, really.

This morning we woke up to a winter morning again after a week of wet, rainy weather. Yes, wet rainy weather in Ontario in January/ February! Musta had 3" in the past two weeks.

But today we have almost a foot of HEAVY wet snow that is tearing the trees apart and it felt like lead when I shovelled off of the porch and driveway. Since the gravel and ground are not frozen, it is tough not to gouge into the lane with the snow blower or loader bucket when trying to clear the snow.

This has been the weirdest winter I can remember with temperatures above freezing for most of the time since Christmas.
 
Lilly:

That is an absolutely beautiful picture. The wind 'bout blew us off the earth last night, and this morning it's snowing....

Maple Leaf said it best....what an odd winter weather wise here in North Central South Dakota too. Since Christmas we've had over an inch of rain, close to 20 inches of wet, heavy snow, temps. in the sixties...all quite unusual for this country. It's normally cold (10 f and below,) and we get dry, powdery snow.

But, Cattle Fax's meterologist says the bottom is 'bout to fall out and it'll be really cold here for the second half of Feb. He's normally pretty dang accurate.

Cheers to a wonderful day,

TTB :wink:
 
It's -12 below here this morning been up all night calveing heifers.I think there will be a few short ears but the little farts are getting right with it.There not due till the 13th but they don't care.
 
Denny - you got much snow for them to drop in? I found that when we calved in Jan./Feb. (one year only!) it seemed to be easier on the calves if we had lots of soft snow for the cows to calve in. Seemed to give the little guys some protection or insulation when they hit the ground, rather than hard packed snow or bare ground..
 
It wasn't all that cold yesterday mornin, seems we have frost like that when the over night temp is around 35 or a lil lower. All depends on what the dew point is if we get frost or not. Also have had a few foggy mornins as well.
 
Maple Leaf Angus said:
Denny - you got much snow for them to drop in? I found that when we calved in Jan./Feb. (one year only!) it seemed to be easier on the calves if we had lots of soft snow for the cows to calve in. Seemed to give the little guys some protection or insulation when they hit the ground, rather than hard packed snow or bare ground..

Its about 12" but I can walk on top there's a pretty hard crust.I did'nt think we had that much snow till I drove the tractor thru it.
 
Very nice pic.Lilly,looks like here this morn just had a sciff of snow in night.Start calving around 20 March,guess now this weather might as well stay!!
 
We had some wind yesterday and a skiff of snow last night. Not much

Maple Leaf, interesting your remarks about calving in snow. Here we hate for the calves to drop in snow. They get chilled so easy. We don't calve til the end of March so this hasn't been a problem of late. April snows tend to melt quickly.

Maybe your snow is hard, where ours was soft and the calves would sink right down into it. I hate ice for calving. And have you noticed, a cow will head for a high divide to calve. Someone told us that they get hot when in labor and go to the top of hills to cool off. Sure doesn't help the calf if it is chilly and the wind is blowing. This lady also said that cows don't have any more sense than chickens when it comes to taking care of their young.

I say "some do, some don't." Again, the more you have them confined, the more problems there seems to be.
 
Well , Faster Horses, I sure don't have much experience with winter calving so that would have something to do with my thinking! I guess the thing that I noticed was that the ones that came out in the snow didn't get scours so they probably weren't getting exposed to the bugs like the ones that came in the barn or barnyard.

And if we don't have snow when they are calving, that means we probably have either mud or otherwise wet conditions. AND I HATE THAT!

So I moved them back to late April/ early May. Even if there's no grass yet, at least they are out on the fields away from the winter housing area.
 
That sounds like a very good plan. I wasn't criticizing you, I hope you know that. Your remarks on how you viewed calving on snow was just interesting to me, when we feel so differently about it.

You are still ahead, because you are calving in a safer time frame than we are. Good for you!!!
 
Oh I didn't think you were criticizing me, I recognized the difference in locales probaly made a difference.

Well, you gotta do what works in this business and I sometimes think that if I still have cows when I'm a hundred, I'll still be learning a better way to do it!
 
Denny said:
Maple Leaf Angus said:
Denny - you got much snow for them to drop in? I found that when we calved in Jan./Feb. (one year only!) it seemed to be easier on the calves if we had lots of soft snow for the cows to calve in. Seemed to give the little guys some protection or insulation when they hit the ground, rather than hard packed snow or bare ground..

Its about 12" but I can walk on top there's a pretty hard crust.I did'nt think we had that much snow till I drove the tractor thru it.

It's snowing here right now :shock: :shock: :shock: Haven't seen the white stuff (or any wet stuff) since first of Dec! :shock: :shock: :shock:
 
We had freezing rain during the night which added another slicker layer of ice to the old ice--Temp is up to 34 now so its wet on top of the ice-really slick...Definitely made more slip and slide doing chores this morning...

They say we could have more rain tonite....

Denny- You keep that 12 below stuff-- so used to this warm winter, I don't know if I could handle cold again...Have to find where I stuffed the Carharts in Dec......
 
Looks like them ole piney woods can get cold too,that frost is a pretty regular event in the Hill Country,like soapweed said,that hoss looks like he is doing the Texas two step :D ..............good luck Lilly.
 
The local Chamber of Commerce has had to postpone the annual Ice fishing contest because of lack of ice on Fort Peck Lake...Darn the luck :wink: :lol: :lol:
 
I heard on the radio today that some northern communities can't get supplies in by the ice roads so are having to get them flown in at much higher cost.
 

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