I'm starting to notice that a lot of the introductory pictures on this blog feature cows. Cows eating hay, cows with babies, baby cows, cow poop, cows with ice balls hanging off of them. Great balls of fire, where has my life taken me? How did I get here? Anyway, we had some weather recently.
Most of the time, the severe storm warnings (be they of the snow type or the hail type) don't come true. I'm fairly confident that NOAA stations the rookies in Glasgow, Montana on purpose. "If they screw up, no one will ever know. Nobody actually lives in eastern Montana," is what the NOAA chief-of-staff says.
This time, they got it right. On Saturday, the storm was a pretty sorry version of a winter event with just a few flurries and wind. By Sunday morning it had truly escalated to blizzard status.
When the skies cleared Monday morning, we had ourselves a herd of crazed cows that were desperately trying to cross the creek (crick) to reach feed and water. The wind had rendered that little ambition impossible.
The drifts were as tall as the barn and in some cases nearly as wide.
Ultimately, we were able to use the tractor to plow a swath to the hay yard. The entire herd had been pelleted with snow for 36 hours and they were desperate for some good news. 
With a bit of cake and a hefty dose of good hay, they thawed out nicely throughout the day, although they remained prisoners to the snow drifts which were still soft and could not support their weight. 
Strategy was important on Monday morning. Danish Cowboy and his brother usually use a bizarre language of hand signals and mind reading to accomplish chores. Not that day. They apparently have not yet developed a language for blizzard recovery. It just doesn't happen often enough to necessitate its own set of signals. 
In fact, it was such a huge event, that we even broke out the big guns for plowing duties. They quickly got the feeding done and spent the remainder of the day doing snow removal. I think that mostly Danish Cowboy was tired of hearing my stories and desperately wanted me to return to work on Tuesday, thus he ensured a path was cleared for me.
As for me, I spent the rest of the day enjoying some good photographic opportunities. The wind was relentless on new trucks.
And old ones.
The snow was drifted so beautifully and peacefully over the haystacks,
and the brilliant clean whiteness of it against a boldly blue sky made for magic sights that day.
No comments:
Post a Comment