Northern Farmer

By the looks of the radar we might be in for a humdinger of a snow. It’s just started as I write this but things are in pretty good shape here, so if it’s a big hit we can take it. A herd of cows with snow on their backs in the morning is always kinda neat to see. And the temps are sure a long ways from being cold so it’ll be easy to keep warm. Even the creek has opened up some since last week. But, I’m not in dreamland because up here we understand that January and February can be colder than one can imagine.

Most of the time the coldest day of the year is when we load calves to take to the sales barn in January. Two years ago it was thirty five below on that day. The two trucks came in midmorning and I had everything ready, even had the calves trained to run down our loading chute. That’s one of the best tricks in the book, pre training them. They don’t even know that they ended up in a trailer. Working on days like that is something like out of a science fiction novel, or else an Arab country. The only thing showing on a person’s body is their eyeballs. And they’re pretty deep down in there. Merino wool is my favorite material and also any furs. Plastic type materials don’t work on me, freeze down too fast, I don’t know why, but they do. Gloves are the regular work gloves tucked inside of fur lined mittens, easy to whip off so a person can work gate latches and such. Everything a person does is much, much slower than normal because of the heavy weight of the clothes and boots, plus a person doesn’t want to breathe too hard from over work because you could freeze the lungs. The funniest thing is how the calves are not bothered by all of this. And we do get feedback from the buyers because they are always sold to some folks that buy naturally raised calves, with no antibiotics or hormones. It never ceases to amaze me how them critters can take it and thrive.

But even when it’s so cold out, at the end of the day there’s always a warm, snug home to relax in. And warm is an understatement when a person burns wood instead of purchased energy. In the evenings I like it at least eighty in here. Warms these old bones up just right. Catch up on reading, studying the Bible, and shelling corn.

One last note of interest, speaking of shelling corn, rumor has it that hand cranked corn shellers are on backorder. I know that I checked a couple of places on the web and demand is outstripping supply. The manufacturer can’t keep up. Now as far as I’m concerned this is some great news when looked at from my point of view. Even if I have to wait for a sheller this is telling me some people somewhere in this country are buying them things. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever figure there’d be a run on them. I wonder what other simple tools are starting to sell well. More and more folks are doing things on their own and it’s great. Let’s hope that the small manufacturers of some of these products, that after years and years of continuing to make them when they looked like they were going to die out, have some good years ahead. I’m sure glad they kept the faith and continued instead of scrapping these useful items. And these tools can last for generations, unlike the modern world throw away junk.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 29th, 2005 at 10:43 pm and is filed under Northern Farmer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.