There is nothing else that is as imprinted in a farmer’s mind than memories of cold snaps on the farm.
This is the weather when the radio announcers warn us about keeping extra warm clothes, a candle, mitts, a full tank of gas in the car and to be very, very careful if you get stuck, not to idle the car to keep warm as there is a chance of carbon monoxide poisoning from exhaust fumes. We can all remember someone who died from that!
Now with more clothes dryers and high efficiency gas and oil furnaces, home owners must check outside vents regularly in cold weather for ice buildup and possible blockage and eventual danger of loss of efficiency and even carbon monoxide poisoning.
On the farm, we have special memories of that first bad cold snap which usually comes during that week between Christmas and New Years. Because it’s the first one the farmer sometimes hasn’t got all the little cracks plugged up in the barns where freezing cold drafts could come in.
We always kept the dog in the house on cold nights because if we forgot the dog would find a way into the barn but not shut the barn door or replace that straw blocking the cold from coming in through the hole where the barn cleaner took the manure out.
One such year we spent all one day thawing frozen water bowls so cattle could drink. There were 64 water bowls and by the time we thawed them, one by one and got back to the first one, we had to make another round with the hot water to thaw them again. You had to use hot water and never an open flame to thaw anything because open flames can easily set fire to any straw, hay, shavings or other combustibles. Farm members not on water bowl thawing detail were assigned to plugging any crack where a freezing draft could be felt getting into the barn.
I remember one New Years Day while having dinner at a relative’s house, we watched a neighbour chipping away at the outside manure stacker for hours in a freezing west wind.
We still have a homemade deacon’s bench-boot box with a slotted bottom placed strategically over a hot air register. We kept winter boots and mitts there where they were always warm and dry. Every time we came to the house, we exchanged damp boots and mitts for warm dry ones.
Farmers have to change animal rations to match changes in weather too. If an animal has shorter thinner hair, is wet from freezing rain or snow, is slugging through mud, has manure stuck to its hair, if the animal has to walk through mud or wet bedding, or be out in a cold wind, then energy levels must be increased in the ration to compensate for that as well as lower temperatures. Calves must get high fat milk replacer in cold weather to supply extra energy.
It is usually coldest around a full moon and farmers are quite aware of that too. Not only do the nurses at the hospitals notice higher birth rates around a full moon but more animals are born at that time too. Even though farmers pay special attention to pregnant animals in cold times and around full moons, unexpected births can be a surprise. If a calf is born during a very cold time and not licked dry by its mother or dried off by the farmer the ends of wet ears and tails can freeze and the result can be a frozen calf or a calf with short ears and tail.
When a farmer is proudly showing his calves in the fall and states they grew well for March calves! Someone with a trained eye knows that the calf with the short ears and tail was probably born in January instead of March.
One cold afternoon after getting everything thawed out and chores done, while I sat getting educated on the liar’s bench at the local machine dealers’ the dealer asked a respected old farmer, “how does your new tractor start in this cold weather?” His quick reply was “Great within fifty feet of the house! That’s the length of my extension cord.” Just the week before that, I had left my tractor about 200 feet from the barn and it was too cold to start or plug in. When I tried to boost it, as soon as the booster cables were connected the frozen battery on the icy cold tractor exploded into a thousand pieces. That was my lesson to never boost a flat battery on a cold day without warming the battery first!
Last week, I heard that it was so cold that a town employee spent 10 minutes chipping a dog off a fire hydrant.
Chris Judd is a farmer in Clarendon
on land that has been in his family
for generations. gladcrest@gmail.com
