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AgriCulture: The Winter of Our Discontent
AgriCulture bloggers Peter Davies and Mark Scherzer are the owners of Turkana Farms in Germantown, NY. This week, Peter writes:
Whenever we begin to feel sorry for ourselves, whether unloading hay out in the biting wind of a bitter, gray January day or dealing with frozen gates and water tanks, we remind ourselves of how much easier we have it than our predecessors. The historical record tells us that a century-and-more ago in this region, the winters were colder and snowier, and protection from the elements was far less effective. The local farmer in the not so distant past, as depicted in Stanley Benham Sr.‘s book Rural Life in the Hudson River Valley, 1880-1920, really had it rough.
Mr. Benham, raised on a farm in Millbrook, recalls that the mostly pre-Civil War farmhouses in the region were rarely fully heated, so to stay warm in bed required a goose-feather mattress, flannel sheets, two quilts, and a heavy horse blanket; and it took true bravery to emerge from that cocoon in the morning. Snow could blow through the cracks in the walls and pile up on one’s blanket overnight. To water the animals, a heavy object on the end of a rope would have to be repeatedly dropped onto the surface of a well until the ice was broken up enough to raise a bucket of water. The great March blizzard of 1888 continued for four days with howling winds and below-zero temperatures. People could not move between house and barn, and some of those who tried lost their lives.
With yet another snow fall this past week and record-breaking temperatures hovering around zero, I must admit to feeling that maybe we were returning to Stanley Benham’s challenging winter weather. The increasing intensity of the winter weather, plus a string of equipment breakdowns and a sudden burst in lambing created ever greater challenges. At least, I could console myself with the thought of the warm bed awaiting me.
Mark did not mention in his bulletin last week that lambing here had already started with Hatun dropping twins—black with long ears like all of our lambs lately. Once he joined me at the farm for the weekend, lambing intensified so that by the time he left on Sunday morning to be with his ailing father in Florida, our sheep herd had grown by three more. We had not prepared for such a burst of fecundity, necessitating a last-minute dash Saturday afternoon to prepare two additional birthing pens. Given the falling temperatures, it was imperative to get the lambs and their mums into enclosed areas shielded from drafts. Not long after Mark left, there was yet another birth, bringing the total in our birthing pens to four ewes and six lambs—all requiring hay, water, and grain treat service .
With Mark’s absence and our farm helper, Darlene, not due to arrive until Tuesday, I was in the unenviable, chilly cat-bird seat once again. In addition to the discomfort of Monday morning’s extreme cold (despite Eskimo-like layers of underpants, long johns, lined jeans, a shirt and sweater, a lined coat, gloves, heavy socks and high muck boots, a balaclava, and two wool stocking hats, I could still feel it), I found a few unpleasant surprises waiting for me. On arriving at the barn, I was dismayed to find that the heater in the paddock water tank for the cows had gone kaput, requiring me to hack with an axe through a six inch layer of ice to get to the water below. Was it, I puzzled, the floating heater mechanism, or the heavy duty extension cord leading to it, or the barn outlet into which the cord was plugged? The water fast dwindled, of course, once the thirsty cows got to it.
And a further complication: The temperatures were so low that it was impossible to use the hoses stored in the heated water pump cabinet to fill the water tanks for the cows in the paddock and the sheep in the barn. The hoses, even though in a heated cabinet, froze if they touched the floor inside the cabinet. And when thawed, they froze again once pulled out of the cabinet to fill the tanks.
Until the heater problem could be diagnosed and the hose problem solved, it was a day and a half of carrying buckets of water from the barn to the paddock water tank in an attempt to satisfy the livestock. With over forty sheep and seven cows to water, the number of thirsty beasts approached fifty, and resulted in heightened anxiety on my part. Coincidentally, I had recently read an article on livestock and snow eating. Apparently most livestock can get by, once they learn, by eating snow. But it is not recommended if animals are pregnant, which most of ours appear to be.
But it got better, by which I mean worse. The number of creatures to care for continued to escalate. Monday after lunch I returned to the barn (it was then around 6 degrees) to find Mira, one of our oldest ewes, standing not far from her already frozen bloody placenta, desperately trying to lick the gelatinous birth fluids off a tiny pair of black lambs, already on their feet, trembling in the cold. Scooping up the lambs, one in each hand, and holding them in front of Mira’s nose, I coaxed her into birthing pen 3 and deposited her lambs on a deep bed of straw in a sheltered corner and let her finish her cleaning job. I returned later in my role as Dr. Davies to apply iodine to their umbilical cords and tucked them in for the night. I went to bed with a sense of dread. The next morning , I trudged up to the barn with some trepidation, certain that they could not have made it through the frigid night. After some searching in the dimly lit pen, I found them barely visible—black, still forms. I was sure they were dead. But on touching them I found them warm and moving. Mira had managed to get her babies through the night.
My mood was considerably brightened by their survival, but Tuesday morning was still a very cold one, and the problem of the frozen water tank and hoses had still not been resolved. The new extension cord I had driven to the hardware store to get made no difference, nor did changing to another outlet. And to add insult to injury, Darlene failed to appear as scheduled because of a mechanical problem with her car.
But by afternoon the sun was out, the temperature had climbed into the high thirties, and Darlene made a belated arrival, having stopped at Agway to buy a new water tank heater. Between us we got the water tank thawed out, and the warmer temperatures made the use of the hoses practical once again. To my great relief, my stint as a latter-day Stanley Benham finally came to an end. He, of course, had spent a whole lifetime dealing with such travails, but two weeks were more than enough for me.
You can now find me out early most mornings enthusiastically cheering on the sun, which each day is lengthening our days by two minutes, moving us slowly but inexorably towards spring. —Peter Davies
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Posted by Rural Intelligence on 02/01/11 at 02:23 PM • Permalink
