Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow!

Suprise!

Another beautiful baby girl. So happy!

And thankfully she came a few days before the snow, so she was nice and dry by the time the flakes started hitting the ground.

unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, our road doesn't handle snow well when combined with cars, so I had a mile walk to check on the goats and bring back hay for the "pets".

The creek is still pushing along. The snow won't last long enough to slow it down.

A long walk

The pond and pastures look great with the snow

the sheep love the snow, the only time they love their coats

all lined up in a row

I finished the waterer just in time to test it out. It worked perfectly. Everything was covered in snow but the bucket didn't even have a film of ice and the bucket stayed full. Not so much with the stall buckets, but the ice wasn't too thick to pick out. 

No-Ice Bucket Challenge

What can I say, I'm a lazy farmer. Waking up every morning before work and breaking waters isn't my idea of a great wake-up call. Soo... whats a lazy farmer to do?

I introduce to you, the Winter No-Ice Bucket Challenge:

I started with elevating the water trough about 8" or so

the using split rails (the ones torn down from the old fence- recycling!) to make a box around the trough. I layed out the hose through the box ending at a floating auto waterer in the pasture.

Fill the box with hay and compost, and double layer the water bucket with a layer of hay/compost in a larger bucket for insulation. As winter wears on, the heat from the hay decomposing will keep the water nice and not frozen. And since the water drains from the bottom of the big barrel, so long as the trough doesn't freeze solid we should be good!

In the barn I also did the double layer insulated waterers to hopefully keep the stall waters non-iced. Hope they work!