Brutal.....

Brutal  |ˈbroōtl|adjective • punishingly hard or uncomfortable : the brutal winter wind

My -35 selfie! 

Brutal is my new word for 2014! Two ice storms, high winds, some snow, frost quakes and two polar vortex's so far and I think this is the coldest winter in the last ten years of living in Canada that these two Brit's have been through!  I remember driving through my first snow storm in Quebec and being told 'get used to it, you are living in Canada now!'  But this by far has to be the coldest and most brutal one to date! None of our animal housing has electricity or running water so we are dealing with frozen water buckets on a daily basis, finding replacement buckets for water, heaving hot water and hot meals around to all our animals has been a chore in itself! 

I am thinking even the animals are starting to wish for warmer days and fresh green grass!  Many of our friends have said that it has been a long time since they have seen a winter this cold.  I remember my great aunt telling me stories of when she lived in Canada just after the war and they would have to walk  to a lake, drill a hole and bucket water out for their farm house! I am just pleased we only have one set of pipes that have frozen so far! 

With all this cold weather outside and the wood stoves burning indoors our attention is on seed orders, field planning, seeding schedules, kidding and farrowing dates to help get us through the long days of winter! So mother nature, we gently ask for you to bring on the snow and the sunny winter days and lose the -35, high winds and snow drifts.  We are eagerly awaiting February 2nd to see if Strattons Stew our ground hog will grace us with another appearance this year to see if we will have any early spring or another 6 weeks of winter!!