Seasons

The seasons have finally changed! It seemed like winter would never end, but now the weather is again in the 60’s and 70’s and there hasn’t been too much rain. It was only a couple weeks ago that snow was still on the ground. Now the long clean up from winter commences. I have been working on some things on and off when I could, but now it is really in earnest.

Winter and summer are so different for obvious reasons, and winter is clearly the harder season, but you get into a groove for both. Winter you kind of have to take as it comes and deal with weather pretty much immediately. There is more to do day to day, but fewer planned tasks. Summer you can plan things better and day to day chores are easier, but that is when projects need to get done.

The transition periods are the hardest. In fall in addition to the daily grind you are prepping for winter; making sure fences will make it through, shoring up shelters, and making sure things like water heaters are still functional after being in storage all summer, not to mention stalking up on hay.

Like I said before, spring is spent cleaning up. It is virtually impossible to pick the paddocks in the winter so that is usually the first thing to start work on when the snow melts. It is amazing what snow can hide! So spring is spent finding poop in the places you don’t expect it, raking back stone from plowing and removing the manure pile that accumulated all winter. The last is a job that took me all summer last year, but with a new dump trailer it is already almost gone!

Soon we will be into summer where the worries are heat, flies and thunder storms. There is never a dull moment!