All together now…

We woke up this morning to a winter wonderland. Though it was difficult to tell exactly how much snow last night’s blizzard had left us because of the wind having blown it all over the place, it sure felt like +/- 18″. Let’s put it this way: the snow drifts were so severe that our Toolcat, which has a 54 HP diesel engine, 4 wheel drive, and chains, had trouble initially doing anything but plowing downhill! Thankfully it lives at the Arena, which just happens to be uphill from everything on the farm except our manure/compost piles. Suffice it to say, that as I was in the middle of shoveling off our house’s large front deck around 7:30 and Jason came down the hill for the first pass with the plow, it sure felt as though the cavalry had arrived to save the day!

With the farm shorthanded, the entire team got involved today in both doing morning chores as well as the cleanup from the storm. Though our kids were happy to have a snow day, to say nothing of an early start to their week-long February vacation, such was the need that even they were ultimately shangheied into the crew. To their great credit, they too put their noses to the proverbial grindstone for 3+ hours in order to help us get the job done. The Arena and the Main Barn which combined house our female herd (and their nursing crias), our weaners, and our yearling males had both been locked down since late yesterday afternoon so as not to create a wind tunnel that would suck the snow inside. As such, the insides of those two barns required a little extra elbow grease this morning to clean up the rather concentrated poop piles. Many hands definitely makes light work though and today was a classic example of that. All told, by 12:30 all of the animals had been fed, the two lower barns cleaned inside and out — the power of five people with snow shovels — and most of the plowing was completed. There was still the matter of cleaning up the dry lot at the Arena as well as dealing with the 5′ snow drifts that had formed on the south side of that barn from the wind whipping the snow off of the shed roofs. At least those tasks were to be accomplished primarily with the use of power equipment. Though even with the assist of the snowblowers and plow, it’s safe to say that every single member of the CCNF team will sleep very, very well tonight…sore muscles and all.         Follow me on Twitter @CCNFalpacas