Winter "events" and getting the farming done

I lost time over the weekend working in the calving barn. I worked 12 hour shifts over the past four days, and today Jenn and I got caught up. During our time together, she indicated that we had received between 18 and 22 inches of snow over the weekend. I knew we had received a lot of snow, but I had no idea we experienced a three-foot dump. After getting my truck wedged into a drift across a local road, I suppose I should have known, but when you are preoccupied with working at getting a dairy farm through a snow storm, you often don’t realize the full extent of the events that occurring in all around you.

I was staying pretty busy at the farm, and between calvings, assisting in the milkhouse, constant fixes to the truck, and treating a load of ill cows over the past four days, my time was also filled with a steady moving of snow from one place to another, I never bothered to add up the number of times that I cleared five inches of snow from this place or that. I also didn’t have time to read or listen to weather reports while breaking through at least three inches of ice in some of the water troughs or de-icing DeLaval parts in the unheated barn. In fact, the necessity of getting things done and keeping things going on the farm and the surrounding roads meant that the folks working on the farm had very little time to talk about the weather. Of course, if anyone asked me, I simply said it was the “best day ever” – my stock answer for most any inquiry about the nature of my day.

Yet, after working through a weekend like that, then finding out that you bested three feet of snow, I considered the nuances of the past days and how it seemed like less than a nuisance to navigate the various obstacles presented by working outdoors in sometimes sub-zero temps. I have concluded the following:

Working on a farm often means working at or pretty close to home. That means a hot meal with family in the middle of each day.

The pleasure of the celebratory nature of family meals when work is done for the day. Our family mealtime is often filled with laughter as well as good food that we have grown ourselves. There is a satisfaction to enjoying the fruits of one’s labor so directly.

Employers that value your work and that don’t micro-manage.

The satisfaction of laboring for an hour to pull a backwards and upside down calf, and finding it alive and well, followed by a twin that birthed easily and is just as healthy as the first.

Doing the job right.

Just one of the many reasons that the hardest day on a farm is better than the easiest day at the office.

Just a few more thoughts on this season’s weather. This winter, and much of last winter, are reminiscent of the winters of the 1970’s that set the standard for my winter experiences. I was a between the ages of 3 and 13 during that decade, and Michigan experienced its share of blizzards, cold temps, and multiple snow days. Also, that decade was filled with hockey in the street, driveway basketball that required chipping the ice of the cement an inch at a time, and dreams of baseball season marking the official end of Michigan winter, even when opening day was snowed out one or two years. During the seventies, Michigan had four distinct seasons. I wonder if we might return to that weather pattern for a few years. A strong winter makes the Tigers’ home opener that much sweeter.