You know summer is long gone when chunks of ice fly out the end of the hose when you fill the poultry waterers.
It’s hard to know what to wish for, weather-wise, at this time of year. Living here on the wet west coast where grey skies day after day after day can bring down even the cheeriest soul, it’s hard not to hope for clear skies and a bit of sunshine. Clear skies, though, also generally mean colder temperatures – that dreary blanket of cloud is a blanket of the warming kind, too.
My farm is small and it’s spread over several neighbouring properties where I lease land to graze my animals. Even though the entire operation is contained within a kilometer radius, the difference between what’s freezing at the lowest lying, most exposed field and what’s still just wet and cold is remarkable. Yesterday morning the remaining grass down in the main turkey pasture area was crispy with frost while up at the top of the hill near our house everything was soaked with heavy dew. The water was running freely at the house but down there in turkey-land, after some ominous gurgling and crackling, chunks of tube-shaped ice shot out the end of the hose. That was too close to a full on freeze up for my tastes!
Frozen water lines are a pain in the backside around here and require schlepping of hot water from the house to whatever frozen water bucket needs to be defrosted. Given that we have years where we never freeze (last year was one of those) and over the course of most winters we endure truly cold temperatures for only a few days, it’s not really worth installing expensive water systems even here at the home farm and not an option in the various leased fields.
And so, I watch the skies and the weather reports and on a morning like today when I look outside and see slate grey sky and hear the sound of rain, I breathe a little sigh of relief.
Interested in learning who else is participating in the 30 days blog-a-thon or the five things Holly Spangler will be talking about this month? Head over to Prairie Farmerto find out!
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