Crow’s Nest: In the snow…

One of the things I love about this job is that some days I end up doing things I had no idea I’d be doing when I woke up in the morning. Shoveling snow isn’t necessarily one of those things that thrills me (the return on the effort is too short-lived), but with snow comes beauty and an opportunity to reconsider the day. No more mulching new plantings or other fall projects; onward winter.

Normally a forecast of 2″ of snow doesn’t make me bat an eye—unless it turns out to be 5″ of heavy wet snow with ice under it, a power outage, and other changes to the day’s plans.

The woods (where Sean and I were updating boundary postings) were beautiful this morning. We were soaking wet by lunch time.

With the power out and planned projects under snow, Jack and I took some time off this afternoon to move our steers to their winter pasture, where we have frost-free water and can set up a heater for the water in their trough. The steers will share the large shed with the goats.

We opted for leading them untethered down the farm lane, Jack is in front with a pan of sweet feed, I’m following to help steer their progress (no pun intended). You can see the goats on the left of this photo eagerly (?) anticipating the steers’ arrival. Three went in easily, the one in the foreground gave us some exercise.

Posted by Daniel Barringer on November 27, 2012.