I use to think that the winter season meant a shift of responsibilities and a less stressful work load. It seems lately that my thought process there was a bit off. The last week or so, I’ve had a change of heart. My latest conundrum has been the replacement of a valve for the cattle waterer. A couple of week’s ago when we had that -14 degree weather, the unit that my cows get their water from froze. Usually it then is a process of boiling some water, remove the top piece and pour the hot water over the valve and the water starts flowing again. This time, it took two pots of hot water to get the water flowing again and when it started flowing, the water wouldn’t stop. For some reason, the valve was malfunctioning and it created a situation where the water continued to flow and eventually, everything downhill from that unit became one big ice rink. Of course there is no local supplier of this unit near by so I had to go online to find the replacement valve for the unit. This all happened on a Friday afternoon so the chances of getting the valve before the first of the week was out of the question. Today is Wednesday and the unit came late Tuesday night. It actually only took 20 minutes to replace the valve but the adjustment to get the float in the correct position took about 3 hours to get correct.
Unfortunately, the whole area below where the leaky valve was turned in to a big pad of ice. Seeing as I got 15 years without any difficulties, I guess I made out pretty well. The cows and I are actually enjoying this abundance of snow and cold because it provides a base of snow pack which keeps the cows off the ground and out of the mud. It makes it much easier for keeping the cows fed and bedded. With all this snow it seems that I have been plowing and cleaning out the driveway and the barn area almost every day.
Try to get out and enjoy the snow that we have been blessed with. If we are going to have an abundance of snow, get out and enjoy it.