SNOW

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

No pics - just wanted to let you know that NY is white covered as normal. We have about 2' on the ground right now. But, Tug Hill area, which is a little NE of Syracuse (about 70 miles away) has had a total of EIGHTEEN FEET so far. They got hit with 4' in one day, then two days later got another 3'. I am sooooo thankful we haven't been hit with major amounts like that. The most we have gotten here in 24 hours was 38", and that shut everything down for about 3 days. Finally opened our roads with V plows, but that was back in about 93.

 

[snake67]

Hi Jeanne

Nice to hear from you - I can sympathize with your conditions as well.

I spent about 6 hours again yesterday moving snow - we are north of you and it has been pretty bad this year - we have more than 3 feet on the flat and the drifts are so high here that the cows are unable to walk to the bales I have out - so I have been cleaning a small area and putting hay in there for the past five weeks on a daily basis. They are crowded but they are fed. Turkeys are coming in by the hundreds to eat at the hay stacks with the cows and the coyotes are there as well eating cow schitte and turkey.

The wildlife population in the bush is hurting bad and we have even had deer stand in with cows while I feed and nothing leaves unless I stop the equipment and get out - then they only run a few feet into the snow and stop until I leave.

I have no place left to blow or pile snow and my yard is big enough on a normal day to drive in with a tractor trailer and turn around without having to back up - just wheel around in a big circle. I have stopped shovelling off the back deck - every time I do the snow comes again - it is so deep on the deck right now that the snow is higher than the railing.

Never seen this much snow here - and the cold has been bad for this area as well with temperatures running steady in the minus 20 range and heavy wind chill on top of that. Expecting one more to hit this Tuesday and then we should be - hopefully - in the clear for a while. The Spring grass will likely be delayed meaning I will have to buy more hay at 50 - 70 bucks a bale - not a great thing.

I have almost all of my fences with heavy damage from the ice and heavy weight of snow - we figure it will be a ten day job to fix fence once the bush gets dry enough to work in. We have about six miles of wire and electric fence that is likely flat to the ground in places. We are ripping out some fence so I debated on the distance of fence to fix - changed the number and lowered it - I am no longer going to fence off crop land - just pasture!

Took me more than 5 hours on Friday to cut a road to another hay stack so I could feed - I sure miss those bale grazing days right now - fuel is costing me a fortune that I do not have.

It has effected us in many ways here - with the simplest of chores becoming quite difficult - just bringing in wood to heat the house is difficult as we burn about 150 pounds of split wood a day and water for some of the animals is difficult but the old cows eat snow as they do not want to fight the drifts to get to the water troughs. I suspect my electrical bill will be enormous this year as I have had to continuously heat three troughs. Had a pretty nice buck drinking at one trough yesterday - it still had half the rack on his head - 4 decent length points and a long brow tine - hope he makes it till spring. I would love to find the other half if he dropped it somewhere close by.

I am so ready for the Spring.

Depite all the negative stuff, I have to admit the lambing is going well and we are chock a block full in the barn - with another batch due to lamb in early April - and I am so happy we delayed calving until the middle of April this year - I just hope we are not wetted out everywhere in April - but I think we will be.

So all in all the snow is heck and the cold is almost done and we are ready to climb on this Spring and start all over again. And it is late now - almost 0820 - getting lazy - chores are calling.

Best to you,

Bez