Reach for the Sky !

Winter is not easy on us. Keith is outside the most, getting cows into the milk parlor, milking them in the  cold parlor, scraping the manure off the concrete lot  in a tractor with no cab, doing misc. other chores. I am outside some , usually feeding sows and horses and calves and chickens, unless I am making meat deliveries or caring for our grandkids or seeing my elderly aunt. But, we cope. And we drink a large amount of warm fluids and we dress in layers and we talk of spring which will , one day, come again.

The animals on our farm cope with the winter as well. As long as they have a dry shelter out of the wind with a deep manure pack and fresh bedding. Unless they are very old or very young. For example, we found this poor fellow yesterday morning.

Yup. Dead as a doorknob, tail feathers blowing in the breeze. Perched on the wire roof of  the chicken yard. Why was he up there ? Was he watching over his girls ? Enjoying the view ? Maybe he went up to the roof to shovel some snow and BANG , sudden MI. He could have gotten inside if he had wanted to. The door to the chicken yard was open and the little door (bottom left of next picture) leading into the well protected chicken house was open as well.

Or maybe, he was just hen pecked, one too many times.