Winter as we’ve known it in the past has arrived with snow and a biting wind that takes your breath away and quickly numbs exposed skin. I don’t mind the snow but I could do without the bitterly cold weather. It’s an element of nature that we have to put up with if we choose to live in this part of the country.
I was hoping for a mild winter, like the one we had last year, but it looks like we’re in for some typical January weather with sub-zero temperatures. This weather is not appreciated by man, beast, or fowl. It can be life threatening.
We always kept our cows in the barn during the winter months, but the heifers were left outside. They had a three-sided shelter where they could get out of the wind, but it was still cold. Their water supply was an open water tank located outside the barn. We used an axe to chop a hole in the ice so they could get to the water. Some people had a water heater that kept the water from freezing, but we didn’t have one.
Feeding silage was also hard after the temperature dipped below freezing, and even harder in sub-zero weather. The silage froze solid around the edge of the silo. Sometimes it was a foot thick and we had to use a pickaxe to chop it loose and break up the frozen chunks before throwing it down the silo chute. It was a cold, miserable job.
It was even worse when we also used a snow fence silo. When there was too much silage to fit in our two concrete block silos, Dad built a makeshift silo out of snow fence, formed into a circle about the diameter of a regular silo. It was positioned against the barn and silo for support on two sides. He lined the inside with a black plastic material that people used to put around the foundation of old houses to keep the wind out. When the first layer was full, he set another snow fence on top of the first one, anchoring it inside the first one. We ended up with a temporary silo, three or four snow fences high.
We fed the cows from that silo first, because once it began to freeze and the snow began piling up, it was miserable working in the cold wind without silo walls for protection from the elements. We were often throwing down silage as the snow swirled around us. When we had emptied the depth of one snow fence, it was removed so you didn’t have to lift every forkful of silage up high and throw it over the side. There were no silo doors in a snow fence silo. Does anyone else remember using snow fence silos?
I also remember how our fingers and toes would begin to hurt after prolonged exposure to the cold temperatures and wind. We didn’t know about wind chill in those days. When we finally got inside and began to thaw out, my hands and feet hurt so bad I wanted to cry. Ma would open the front door of the wood cook stove so we could put our feet up in front of it and warm our hands up too. We’d also get white spots on our cheeks and nose. I suspect we suffered from minor frostbite many times over the years. Maybe that’s why my fingers are so sensitive to cold weather now.
When all of us siblings got together at my brother David’s for Christmas this year, we were remembering how cold it was upstairs in the old farmhouse. I don’t think there was any such thing as insulation in the walls. The only source of heat in the upstairs bedroom where us boys slept was a small, round register hole in the floor. In the morning the windows would be covered with so much frost you could hardly scrape a hole in it. If the wind was blowing there was snow on the windowsill from the gaps around the windows. Grandma Inga slept in the middle bedroom that didn’t even have a heat register. It must have really been cold in that room. No one used the back bedroom in the winter.
As cold as it was, and as miserable as it seemed at the time, I’ve often thought of the soldiers in World War II, fighting for weeks in the bitter cold and snow. I’ve read stories about the Battle of the Bulge. A foxhole was their bed at night and they froze. They would wake up under a blanket of snow in the morning, knowing there was no end in sight to the misery. The same was true for the Korean vets who endured the hardships of living and fighting in the bitter cold of Korea. They didn’t have a nice warm house for shelter like we did, where they could warm their bodies from the heat of a wood-burning stove. The next time you feel cold and miserable, remember what they went through. My thanks and appreciation goes out to every one of you who endured those tough times.
Winter can be harsh, but it is also a beautiful time of year. Yesterday, the hoarfrost and snow sparkling like diamonds created a winter wonderland that was a joy to behold. The beauty of nature makes a January winter bearable.
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