We knew going in to this experience that we could not possibly be immediately prepared for everything. We knew that this first year would be trying, and at times maybe even a little discouraging, but we also knew that we did not want to put our move into farming off any longer. A lifelong dream for me, and a newfound dream for my husband, we felt like we needed to make the plunge into this lifestyle before our kids got any older and decided to jump with both feet into the deep end. We tried to imagine and plan for every scenario, but who would have guessed that our first winter on the ranch we would be hit with an unprecedented winter storm. Now this is something that our friends in the North deal with regularly, but we are just not used to it down here, and so we have had to do a lot of improvising on the fly.
Make-shift windbreaks for the bulls who are still segregated in one of the smaller back pastures was one of the first obstacles. The pasture they are in has no natural shelter from the wind, so we wanted to do something to help them out. We didn’t have much on hand as far as materials go, so we made due with 5 t-posts placed in an “L” pattern and wrapped with a tarp. It wasn’t perfect, and it definitely wasn’t pretty, but it worked, and the bulls seemed to appreciate it.
On the second day of the storm, we needed to get out early and check on the cows down in the bottom pasture and put out another bale of hay, only to find that neither tractor would crank! With no other choice, we improvised a hay feeder out of a small low boy, manually loaded as much hay as would fit, and hauled it out to the cows. Luckily on the third day we got the newer tractor back up and running, and were able to get a full bale down to them.
This week has brought with it a lot of problems we never figured we would have to face. From chopping firewood in single digit temperatures, to having to use the same axe to break ice in the water troughs, I don’t know if we ever would have been completely prepared for the challenges we had to overcome, but I am glad it happened. In a way, it seems almost like a baptism by fire, and knowing that not only did we make it through unscathed, we were also able to enjoy the time with each other. It makes me thing of something I heard regularly growing up, “If it was easy, then everyone would do it.”
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