We had a really mild winter this year and have really enjoyed not having to shovel snow every morning at 4 a.m. to keep paths cleared to the barn for our 5 a.m. milking. We had several snow falls of four to eight inches during December and January, but nothing significant. Someone in the family even mentioned February first how it had been such an easy winter and spring wasn't too far away down in the canyon and they should start seeing green grass soon.
That comment was made the first of February and as you can see from the pictures it started snowing and it DIDN'T STOP for some time! Most of the 4-foot snowfall happened the last two weeks of February!!! That is my greenhouse and chicken coop back there!
The barn handled the snow accumulation magnificently. At the most we've seen maybe four inches of snow on it before it comes sliding, avalanche style, to the ground. There is one fault with it, however, (since we don’t have the openings closed in yet) the walls, and windows and doorway act as a giant sieve when the snow combines with the wind. Sometimes we have to shovel and deice the entire thing before I can milk.
So this is what our life looked like after the snowfall - rabbit trails to wherever we need to go. March 4 the thermometer read 8 degrees.
Woe be unto anyone who dares to step off the trail!
We did have a funny incident happen the other evening. We turned the cows back into the corral after milking. But one escaped and followed the driveway until she came to another shoveled path leading to our haystack. She indulged herself with a few bites of hay until JW1 caught up with her. Instead of running back down the path she came in on, she took off through the snow. It looked like she was swimming! You couldn't see anything but her head, back and rump, but she was still moving through the snow! It was incredible! Of course she wouldn't go back the way she came, so she somehow plowed/swam her way through the huge drift along our driveway until she broke through onto the cleared driveway again. She made no argument then about going back to where she was supposed to be in the first place! I wish I hadn't been so irritated at the situation. I should have left her there for a few more minutes while I got my camera!
Here's what the snowline against the house looked like after the boys shoveled 18 inches or so of snow of the roof.
CW admits to protecting this impressive icicle specimen and carefully plucking it from the roof when it got as tall as he is. How his brothers missed it I will never know.
Kit shoveled a new trail to my old stanchion where we will use the ready-made roof to shelter part of the next load of hay to see us through until spring. The story of how we got it here I will post next. It was impressive I'll tell you that. Near the outbuildings the snow depth settled down to around two feet by March 4.
The snow does make a fantastic snow-scape when the sun comes out. And yes, those are fence posts sticking out of the snow. This was down in the creek bottom where there was a bit more snow. Kit measured it at about 34 inches.
Just in case you needed some more visuals on the amount of snow we had.
The guys continued their logging operation with the oxen until the snowfall got ahead of their trail packing capabilities, and we had to take time off to shovel the roof, driveway, and trails. But their education continued briefly in another direction which we will share with you next.