Great Day that was busy too!!!

Well we spent a large part of today getting things all lined up for the serious cold weather that is to hit us starting tonight. We are going well below zero with blowing winds. I tried counting the bedding bales we used today. I think we used around 60 bales. Everything has a good thick layer of shredded corn stalks to lay on. Some smaller 5 weight calves looked kind of like ground hogs peeping out of their holes. LOL Each one of them had a "nest" made. The one yard of fats bedded themselves, by the time I got a bale unwrapped they would start butting and pushing it around. They played around most of the afternoon. I like watching them play.

We built extra wind breaks between some of the barns/sheds to block more wind out of the yards. The back machine sheds can drift shut until early spring so we blocked the drive completely going to them. That makes the rest be pretty well wind resistant as long as the wind blows from the North or west. An east wind plays havoc with things.

After lunch we finished a deal with a long time friend. He is retiring from the day to day farm work at the first of the year. The boys rented his ground and buildings. I bought a tractor and combine. He is keeping his smaller stuff. He and his wife are heading south to warmer places. They are going to travel across the southern US this winter. They are looking at places to buy for a winter home. They want some season changes but not the below zero stuff. He is going to play hired hand for the boys during planting and harvest. So it should work well for all the parties involved. They have a five year deal with an option to renew it for another five. He only has one daughter and she is totally on board with what is going on. She lives locally too so that helps.

So I should be able to set inside a warm house and watch the wind blow!!! LOL

Don't have the mass of scale nor elements to the degree that you have, but your last line is what makes it all worth while. "When the hay is in the barn" you can rest easy. I know the feeling. Good luck on your stock.

I got the weather front on my truck today and fuel filled/treated.

It is going to be cold the next couple of days.

Sounds like fun, some pics would have been nice!

Well I hope you enjoy it! Breaks are few and far between at times.

Thursday was our really cold day, and of course the manure spreader was full and needed dumped. I backed up to the pile and slowly started it Heard a pop, broken chain! Spent yesterday and part of today emptying it by hand. If TSC has the link that attaches to the cross bar I'll have it fixed quickly tomorrow morning. Had a holiday dinner to attend today so could' t get it done. Good news, it was 60 degrees by afternoon, up from 18 yesterday.

Mrs. Shoo and I let the horses out yesterday. When we get a stretch of cold weather (for us, that means a few days below freezing- nothing on the Midwest scale), their water troughs freeze up, so we let them out so they can drink out of the creek. Always a rodeo when we do that. Put several small squares in the round bale feeder, for when they settled down (which doesn't take long, if there's feed involved). Been in the 20's and teens for several days- supposed to warm up and rain tomorrow.

Tried the trick of directing a heat gun into the air intake on the diesel tractor- worked great. Its a Kubota- no block heater, and apparently the glow plugs have quit working- another project!

These bedding bales - are they small squares of straw? Is this something you bale?

When it's below zero - what kind of activity goes on with the farm? Are you guys feeding in this stuff everyday, out and around in the trucks and tractors? Or do you hold up in a heated machinery shed making repairs and/or doing seasonal maintenance readying the equipment for next season. When it's down this cold, do you have a favorite go-to tractor vs warmer weather?

I had an uncle that use to say - if we make it through mid-February, we've got winter licked, I like to point my marker at December 21 - shortest daylight day of the year. Everyday after, a little more daylight and spring is closer. Kind of gives me some encouragement during otherwise cold January days.

It always amazes me how the pioneers ventured into these lands and survived the cold - cold winters.

Bill

I'm surprised there aren't more underground houses in the colder areas of the country,3 sides under ground, the top covered with dirt or maybe hay storage and open to the South.

Round baled corn stalks.

My pick-up has been running for 22 hours.
The semi for 36.

It'll be in the 20s when I get back with the semi so the pick-up will shut down shortly.

Bill VA T in NE has it right. We bale corn stalk bales just for bedding. We make around 4500 for bedding. As for feeding we feed twice each day. The morning feeding start at around 6 AM and we feed in the late afternoon around 4:30 PM. As for equipment we pretty much used the same tractors on the feeder wagons year round. We have all cab tractors on the feeder wagons now. As the wagons have gotten bigger we have replaced the JD 3020 and JD 4020s on the wagons. They just where not large enough for the 750 cubic foot TMR wagons anymore.

We do maintenance work all winter long. The middle son does repair work for customers. I quit doing that two years ago. I may do a job or two over the winter but mostly work on my own projects when or if I want too.

As for weather I have seen Feb. be the toughest month. I can remember year when we got more snow in Feb. than in Dec/Jan. Usually it take the first of March to get over the bad weather.

Update on the spreader chain: TSC had the link, got it installed and was trying it and something jammed and it popped another link. I got the last one at the one store but we have two others close by that I can hit on the way home from work. Found another issue with it, the bearing support on the front was all rotted out. Have to patch in some steel to fix that, although it should hold to unload small loads. Another bonus: the temperature dropped into the low 20s and the wind picked up. Not fun.

We bought a bigger place about 2 years ago and after remodeling the house and putting up 2600 ft of fence for the horses and running two water lines for the horses,one in the barn and one outside. The one in the barn dripped a little bit every once in a while. It was on the property when we purchased the place but was in another building having never been used. With all that was going on I just let it go but the first cold night it froze and after getting it thawed out I just put a heat tape on it from the ground up to the handle and wrapped it with insulation and so far it is ok. I was busy building stalls inside for the horses. The first eve we put them inside it was sort of like a Chinese firedrill as we were having freezing rain. I think it's going to be ok for now.

oh yes when livestock is involved it don"t matter what weather is there are daily things to do no matter what,,,we usuallu try and put out enough hay for the entire week,,so I don"t have to do it in the dark after work.cows get fed twice a day ,water to run , make sure tanks aren"t froze. then retire to shop lol

In my younger days, when we had cattle, many times, I was an army of 1 when it came to feeding time. I'd load the wagon with square bales (we didn't have round bales), pull out in the field with the Ford 3000 diesel, put it in low first, jump off the tractor and start cutting bale strings. The idea was to spread out the hay so the cattle wouldn't lay in it. Feed out some bales, jump off the wagon, back on the tractor, straighten everything out and back on the trailer. We had black angus cattle and the bull always seemed to be offended by the tractor, wagon and whoever was on them. Sometimes that would dictate which side of the tractor you claimed on/off of..... LOL!

We tried to feed out enough for 2 or 3 days as I recall.

Bill