We are in one of those deep freeze post-storm periods that crystallize life and make us consider it. For the animals, sub-zero temperatures on top of a heavy snow alters their lives dramatically. They cannot graze or even forage for food, or even move around much, they are totally dependent on us for hay. There is a running stream in the back of the pasture, but heated water is helpful for animals in keeping warm. We grain them once a day, but it also clear how hungry they are when we come out to bring them hay. As long as there is viable grass on the ground, they eat deliberately.
Today, they are eating ravenously, so we give them extra grain and hay twice a day, morning and late afternoon and keep the heated water bucket full. There is no sheepherding, really, it is dangerous to try to move sheep through deep snow and not necessary – their world shrinks to the area between the Pole Barn and the feeders. The donkeys always find things to do, they are mischievous when they get bored, gnawing on wood, moving things around. The sheep seem to withdraw into themselves, sitting and waiting. The chickens vegetate, staying in the roost day and night, we have to bring water to them and keep replacing it when it freezes.
The dogs rush outside, do their business rush back in, the cold is too much for their paws, and they hang by the wood stoves, the barn cats vanish into their mysterious and secret corners, they do not even come out in search of the sun. For us, there is an urgency and difficulty to our chores, digging out snow, chipping away at ice, hacking away at the mounds of manure that freeze to the ground and have to be dislodged one by one. We fill water buckets in the bathtub and keep them inside, as the frost-freeze faucets freeze up in sub-zero weather. We start the cars several times a day and haul armloads of firewood in and out to feed the hungry wood stoves. Spring is meaningful to us, in a week or so the days will start to get longer.
We understand this, we accept it, it is a part of it. It helps define the other times, I would love to take Maria to Disney World to warm up for a few days and walk around the theme parks. Probably not. I want to take her to Florence. One day.