It was REALLY winter-y looking yesterday with snow falling and pretty dark well before 4PM, MST here north of exit 170 on I-90. We have about 7" on the creek bottom, 8" a few miles east of us on a relative's place on higher country.
But, and wise older friend, now deceased, told us a few years ago that any day without wind can be a beautiful day. Even if it's -20% and a foot of snow, with sun and no wind, it is beautiful!
And, it is looking really great her right now, a son and grandson are clearing our walks and driveway. The other son and grandson are feeding calves at the lot, and the old folks are cooking and 'booking' (Dec. being the biggest month for the bookwork even in our 'old age'!
I think we are not yet feeding any hay. The pastures are pretty good. I can see lots of mostly Little Bluestem (living up to its nickname of 'Red Grass' right now) sticking up through the snow up on the ridges.
Driving home from a doc appt. yesterday afternoon, the hiefers looked extremely content as the snow was falling and they were grazing the deep draws in good shelter. Thankfully, there was no wind. The drifts on the road, and a few icy places was enough to worry about while on the hiways. Our puny amount of gravel looks pretty good when there is ice on the roads!
Cows recently went into some well sheltered winter pastures, so are getting just some supplement, no hay yet. We plan that to last the winter, but have hay if we have to use it.
This 'winter', starting so early with such a severe storm immediately after a period of above normal temps into the 80's, several inches of cold rain, then snow and temps dropping very low, with wind chill at -20 to 30 degrees. then we got some extremely cold weather with and without wind. What I'm trying to say is that the pretty extreme changes from above to well below average temperatures has been pretty hard on the cattle that survived the storm. They need a little extra care.
Hoping everyone comes through it all and this weather gives us a little easier winter than what we sometimes have. I think it was below zero this morning, but is up to 14.9% at ll:30AM, That bright sun on the snow will be hard on the guys' eyes.
mrj
Guess I wasn't well informed. The bale processor and the caker pickup both just went by the house! Not that unusual for me to learn what is happening after the fact on this ranch!
mrj
