Think Im going to need a snow fence next year....

Think Im going to need to put up a snow fence on the lawn next year. Im beginning to "dislike" the weather.

Predominate wind here is NW, and my farm yard is set up great for that, big grove, a hill, we learned 40 years ago to put a snow fence of 4 rows of corn along the driveway. Works nice.

So yesterday we had 7-9 inches of snow, and today all day still even we had 15-30mph winds straight out of te south.

Oy, the drifts in the yard, I was walking waist deep to get to any of the buildings.... Miserable.

Paul

Gee, you put in a snow fence and think about all that seat time you will be missing!

Rick

Raise the driveway!

Go ahead and put a snow fence up. It only snows on the years you dont bother to put the fence up.

I"d buy a Snow Blower first. Snow fence ain"t a gonna stop it all!

Yhats why we moved to Texas

Why don't you put up snow fence now? Trap it in where it is so you can enjoy it all summer. Might feel good about July. lol

It doesn't look like you need a fence, the snow seems to be staying in without one . That's more snow than we've even thought of having this year, its been dry. The little we got last week did the same as Paul's, it all landed then a south wind put it every where that it shouldn't be.

I suspect it'll snow on both sides of the fence(LOL)

Snow fence will work if you can guess which way the wind is going to be blowing. Like Paul posted below, many of the snow storms we have had this year have came out of the south,south-east, or south-west. Not the usually north to north-west. I have had drifts where I usually never have them.

Maybe you need to jack your pickup up and put those BIG mud tires on it????? Then you could BIGFOOT your way out of the snow.

I put in a forsythia row, stops the drifts and looks good come spring

We had 5 days of a late "Jan" thaw, Feb. 19-23. Got rid of most of our snow, because, unfortunately after two nice days, on the 21st, just as the snow was really starting to melt down, we got over an inch of rain. Because of so much south wind, ditches were level full of hard packed snow. I've never seen so much flooding. The only outside work I've got done on this farm this winter is digging snow/ice out of ditches. One ditch about three times. And it might need it again. With the deep cold since the thaw, ditches are getting really iced up again.
The only good part is the ground is frozen so hard, I don't see a lot of damage.
One major stream north of here, on the way to town, was totally out of its banks, running across fields, and eventually a four corners, and the edge of someone's yard. County and towns were very busy putting out orange barrels. I'm sure they ran out, and are busy buying more.

I use lileac and "red twig dogwood" (See link at bottom -- wife likes the way they look with the red against the snow when the leaves are gone. I trim them to 4 foot tall on years I get around to it)

Two to three years to establish (if the voles don't get them), then you don't need snow fence.

Our weather normally comes from the NW, but the wind blows hard from the south at most other times. If I fence for south winds it's pretty good (so, along the south side of the driveway and south of the yard). I have one big gate just south of the yard, so end up w/ drifts there since I can't snow fence or plant shrubberies across the gate. I also do a stretch north of the yard where the drainfield is since the trees are pretty far from the yard at that point.

I've got 8 foot drifts about 10 feet south of the house and barn. Not up against them, 10 feet of 6-8 inches of snow, then an 8 foot drift, stretching almost out to the the driveway. All of that happened the last couple of days (maybe a 4 foot drift before, double in height last couple of days, and 4 or 5 times as wide to where it's still 4 feet deep at the driveway).

It's been a weird year. I'm seeing places to add fence/shrubs. Contrast my neighbor, no snow fence, he needs to blow out his driveway everytime it blows (which is almost every day here). His driveway was basically a four foot deep ditch last week that he had to keep emptying. I haven't gone up to see what he's got after the last two days.
red twid dogwoods

WOW! That's a bummer.

As others have said... a lot of southerly or westerly winds this year are putting large drifts in places we"ve never had them before.

May 1 will mark 29 years on our farm... never had a winter like this one all the years we lived here.

My husband is just pushing snow piles any place he can. Just out of room -- is now piling it on the yard around our shop and the house. No where else to go with it.

A snow fence does do a lot of good. I chuckled at the comment about putting one up only on years when it does not snow. Sounds like my situation. Jim

Raising the driveway would probably work as I have noticed local roads that run across open fields and are well above the ground around them will sometimes be blown bare and the drifting will occur on the lee side of the road. Raising an existing driveway might be impractical for many reasons including cost.
However, new home builders should consider the location when putting in a driveway as they might very well be able to avoid or minimize drifting snow by selecting the right site.
There is an old farmhouse near me that has a driveway that had drifted closed in the winters as long as I can remember. It was not uncommon to see the old farmer plow cross lots where the drifting was less apt to occur when the ground was frozen and solid. About 15 years ago the place was bought by some people from "the city" and to their credit, they constructed a new "raised" driveway at the location the old farmer used in bad weather.
Of course, that cuts right through a tillable field but doesn't really matter as the place is no longer farmed anyway.

We put snow fence up along parts of the driveway and road, and it really helps early in the year when the snow isn't too deep. Now that the snow is over top of the fence the drifts are bigger and deeper than ever.

Does that mean if he puts one up, he won't get much snow next winter?


PUT THAT FENCE UP!!!!

I put up 50 ft. this year for the first time. The farm landowner around my acreage had taken down an old wood corncrib about 200 ft. north of my property, never realized how much snow that stopped until it was gone!

That said, my father used to put up snow fence back in the seventies, I remember it well. I purchased a roll of the wood slat type fence like my father used, only it"s not the same, narrower slats and bigger gaps, does not stop as much snow, cheaper to make I"m sure. Anyone else recall the old stuff and notice the difference?

Years ago the county used to put one up in our west field...when they re-did the road they wanted to take out all of the 20 to 30 foot evergreens and move the road ditch back 10.....I said No...but if you want to pay for replacement 15 footers....they said they will just let it go for now but if they start to die of Im not supposed to replant them. I told the county engineer that they used to put up a snow fence in the field years ago...all the response was We have a few places we do that.... In other words it cost too much to have someone put one up.