Shovel, Shovel – January 10

Shovel, shovel, toil and trouble!

This has been a difficult winter already. The snow fell all day Sunday and Sunday night, finishing with an official total of 12.7 inches. I measured a foot myself, but in the 20 years we have lived here, this is definitely the worst snow we have had. Oh, it is beautiful, but the extreme cold that followed the snow has made this a lot of work and very icy. Being snowed in is not as restful as one might imagine.

I dressed in coveralls and got on the tractor and sort of cleared our driveway and Jane’s. Our neighbor, Al, who has a small tractor like ours (ours is a 27 horse Ford) had gotten stuck in the snow. Luckily, he is a tractor aficionado, and also had a big tractor that could pull out the stuck one. I stopped to help, and it was a successful extraction, but I was impressed with the difficulty of this amount of snow for a small tractor, and I am no expert at snow clearing.

When I was in my twenties, I was unafraid on tractors. Then, John D, who worked at Strathalbyn Farms Club as a groundskeeper, died in a tractor accident. It made a big impression on me, as John D was a seasoned tractor driver. I saw the ambulances that day, and went over to see what was going on. It was a sad day indeed, and a shocking way to die, though more common than I had realized. Now, I am very anxious when I feel the least tip on a tractor. The piles of snow gave me some scary moments! As a strange small world coincidence, I ended up living in John D’s house after his death. It became part of Three Creek Farm and was renamed Wheatfield Cottage. The memory of John D has stayed with me whenever I drive a tractor.

All week, I have been wearing yaktrax, for traction on ice, because the snow was so deep and heavy, it packed, even as I tried to shovel it, and the frigid cold turned it solid.

Eddy has been unconcerned about traction, and has raced through the deep snow with abandon. Eddy enjoys life and every day is a new game.

Harlan brought the trash truck in on Wednesday, Tuesday having been impossible, but since it never occurred to me that he would do that, the snow was not yet cleared in front of the dumpster, so it was a wasted trip. He reported to us that the roads were pretty bad, so we continued to sit tight here, and clearing continued. Thanks to Fred, the bird pictures are possible, and to my delight, a flicker has come to visit the feeder.

With single digit cold weather, I was worried about the shed cats, but to my relief, I was able to entice them into the heated tack room. I slept much better knowing they were warm. They were a little bit miffed, but I let them out during the day, and they returned again. They may be transitioning from shed cats to barn cats, now that Licorice is gone. She would NOT live in the barn, but Marmalade and Tom Morris are more open minded.

The horses have been quite happy this week, playing at being wild mustangs in the snow but enjoying plenty of hay in lieu of grass that cannot be accessed at all.

We finally left the farm yesterday for a trip to the grocery store. Warren County roads were still only partially cleared, but St. Charles County Roads were fine. After the store, we stopped briefly at the NEC, where a horse show was in progress despite the weather. There, we heard that St. Louis County roads were much worse than the St. Charles County roads. We are glad to have Subarus!

And then, today, more snow! It has been particularly beautiful, but just exhausting. I have been too tired to blog, and now this has become a very long post…

And so, we come to the end of a real winter week, with warmer weather promised for tomorrow, and the beginning of a melt, we hope!

Stay safe, stay warm, be grateful for every day. Slava Ukraini! Peace.