We got our storm

The storm that was predicted for day after Christmas, the day all my kids would be traveling to us, came like predicted.

Wednesday it started snowing. 

The kids all made it Wednesday evening - winter weather driving made the drives unpleasant but doable.  I'm really glad the kids from the SE part of the state decided to come Wednesday night instead of Thursday morning, as they wouldn't have made it then.

Thursday morning Leah's husband helped my brother do chores and then we went to the horses to water and check them.  They were offered water, but they didn't leave the shelter to come to the water - it was blowing and cold!

I haven't been to see them since....

By Friday morning we had 12.5 inches of snow that was blown about by high gusty winds.

Photo from the warmth of the house...

My brother started pushing snow and by about 1 PM the driveway was cleared out so my kids to continue on to their father's for that Christmas get together.  I and the son in law helped my brother do chores that we could do - hauling feed buckets to the pens we could and checking to make sure waterers were open and unfrozen.  All but two we could get to without crawling through deep drifts, those two pens we could see the cows had plenty of hay, so they would be ok.

I helped feed again Friday evening and we brought 3 cows down to the barn that need to calve yet.  It got cold overnight, - 20 or so.  Ugh!  Brother was out all day moving snow so we could get closer to the other pens and to the hay.

This morning I went out right away, fed all bucket chores while more snow was being moved so we could get hay to the pens.  I filled and carried 16 - 5 gallon buckets of corn ration to 5 different pens - through snow and drifts :)   I'm tired...

We finally got all the cows with fresh hay and everyone grained - we decided to leave the 3 cows in overnight again, so they got watered and fed some hay, too.

After lunch, I went to the neighbors and fed their lone horse, while my brother started on the drive up to the barn and my horses.  If all goes as planned, I should get to them this afternoon.

All for now,

JULIE

PS.  I wish I lived in a barn that was all stocked and prepared for weather such as this - that I wouldn't need to leave until it's warm again :)