9 January 2018 – Sunny and 55°

Oh yeah, that’s right, the thermometer says 55!  It is a warm, soupy, muddy mess out there but we are loving the warmer temperatures.  The forecast, however, is not quite so warm and friendly. It looks like snow again tomorrow and back to the big ZERO degrees by Friday. It is early January here in the Dakotas, so it is more than expected. Still, we are loving the warmth today.

Melting snow from the porch
Muddy drive and side yard
Muddy and stinky cattle yard

We aren’t the only ones.  The cows have found some grassy spots between the melting patches of snow and are preceding to eat all day. I guess their New Year’s Resolutions didn’t take either.

Cows grazing in the melted areas
Waiting to be let out to feed
Walking toward the feeder

I was super excited to see some actual living bees yesterday!  It has been quite some time since I saw any of the girls flying around.  I have noticed piles of dead bees in the snow, but from all I read this is to be expected in deep winter.  Bees are pretty hygienic and they don’t like dead bodies in their house, so when it warms up they toss them out.  The bee corpses are easily spotted in the snow, and for a novice like myself, it is quite disconcerting.  So again, I was actually jumping for joy when I saw quite a few live bees hanging outside the hive yesterday!  I really hope they make it through the winter.

In other news, we added two more heifers and two bred cows to our herd.

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This is an older picture of Honey (red cow on the left) and Mar-Zee (big nose in the camera).  These are the two bred cows we purchased.  We also brought the white face heifers (not pictured) #111, #112 who we named Triple Sticks and Dirty Dozen.

 

Nothing really changes for them; we are still working in conjunction with Cowboy Dave and Linda over at the High Lonesome Ranch, and the herd will stay together. But we are excited to see what we can make happen over the next few years with our ranch.  The big project this year will be barn-building and corral building so eventually we can have our own facilities for cattle.

I am finishing this post on the 10th of January in the early afternoon. Tractor Dave and I swapped out the bucket on the tractor for the snow plow to be ready for the next round of winter. We hold some sort of superstitious belief that if we have the tractor set up to plow snow, we probably won’t need it.

Snow plow
Tractor Dave driving to hook up the snow plow
The hook- up process
Bring on the Snow!!!

We have both retreated inside because it is starting to snow.

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The weather-guy decided to use my phone number in his forecast! Jenny-Jenny!  This isn’t really our forecast, just something I saw on the internet that I thought would make you laugh too.
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The super moon, or Wolf Moon, setting on New Year’s Day in the morning over the Holler.