Selling our livestock in May 2016, we’re going on nine years without milking cows. While that very first day had me standing in the middle of my farm kitchen in tears wondering what on earth people do at four o’clock in the afternoon, I’ve since moved quite cheerily in the direction of choosing what I want to do when.
The big thing I don’t miss about dairying is dealing with and working in the cold. There were times when I’d pull off my gloves; stiff fingers peppered with red and white splotches. Breathing on them, I’d rub my palms together to create friction — warming up as best I could.
Bundling up to trudge out to the barn in the frigid predawn, I’d work up a sweat a few hours later. Stripping off my outer coat, I’d hang it in the milk house to keep it warm as soon enough after I got done with inside work I’d have to feed outside heifers.
The first skidster we bought didn’t have an enclosed cab and therefore no heat. I was tougher than shoe leather — no brag, just fact. I could handle it and did it just because it had to get done. In addition to feeding and many of the chores, my husband would milk cows. I’d do what I always called the peon work — scrape behind cows, scrape aisle, clean and bottle and/or pail feed inside calves their milk replacer and then go outside to feed heifers.
Using the cows’ natural body heat as warmth, we’d kept the skidster inside the barn on the coldest nights to be assured it would start the next morning. At that time, we had transferred over to silage bags to store feed, eliminating silos, so I’d have to make trips from our bags back around to the heifer barn.
The heifers would greet me in the icy mornings, their whiskers coated with a fine layer of frost. Their hot breath meeting frigid air would produce curlicues circulating upward, evident in the predawn yard light’s shadow.
Literally licking their chops, they’d line up in their headlocks, straining toward me. They were hungry. I was filling a need — not only satisfying the hole in their bellies, but giving them fuel to stay warm. We had electric heaters in their waterers so the water didn’t freeze and would fill as they pushed their noses in to drink.
The calf pens in the back of the cow barn had drinking cups that were next to where the cows went out. When the temps hit below zero, those drinking cups would occasionally ice over and once in a while I’d have to haul a bucket of hot water, pouring it in and chop the ice water free.
My husband really didn’t care for cold weather farming either as there was a constant concern about freezing pipes or broken drinking cups or equipment not starting such as silo unloaders, barn cleaners, tractors — the list of possible might-go-wrongs was lengthy.
Winter kept us constantly on our toes, always aware of checking things over, so as to avoid any breakdowns. The silo unloaders would groan as they started in. We’d plug the manure spreader tractor into a heater overnight, as that was a mandatory daily task — cleaning barn.
My husband would always be sure the paddles leading up to the barn cleaner chute would be clean the previous day so no manure would freeze on and cause hardship for the next morning. He’d keep a crowbar close by and bang under each paddle, freeing them up before starting the cleaner.
As soon as we’d clean the barn, he’d head down the road so the load wouldn’t freeze, especially on those below-zero days. I’d be left to finish chores — bedding cows and tearing apart a bale of fresh straw to line the gutters with. This would help handle the overnight manure load.
Another harsh reality of winter was dysentery. I’d say once a winter the cows would come down with it and yikes that made cleaning much more challenging. It was soupy (to put it daintily) and soupy manure doesn’t go up and out the barn cleaner very well. Production goes down when cows get sick and need extra attention — all adding to the stress of cold-weather farming.
The years we had feed stored in the silo were challenging during the winter as, at times, the silage would freeze on the interior wall of the silo and would have to be chiseled off by hand with an axe. Thankfully that was never my chore and one my husband detested. It was hard work.
He’d appreciate a couple of sunny days in a row, and if it wasn’t too desperately cold, tackled it because the sun would warm the silo some — the silage then would peel off like skinning an orange. Otherwise it was hard as cement and chisel is a good descriptive word for what he had to do. No wonder our backs ache now.
Cold weather farming was not fun but we always knew spring was coming.
(“As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.” Genesis 8:22)
Kay Reminger was born and raised on a dairy farm, and she married her high school sweetheart, who happened to farm for a living in Leopolis. Writing for quite a few years, she remains focused on the blessings of living the ups and downs of rural life from a farm wife’s perspective.
Farm Life From a Farm Wife
