Roughing It

It started yesterday - the wind blew and the snow flew. I had a pretty good feeling about this one, I have a special weather forecaster on the place called Billy. He is the resident pygmy goat and usually spends his days with the ewes and lambs in our electric fence - but when he knows the weather is about to turn, he starts bleating uncontrollably until we put him in the barn. He was right again - the weather turned horrid. I am a die hard for training, but I am not crazy - I spent the last few days inside. Today, for the icing on the cake, there was no power. How did they ever manage it years ago? Of course, no power means no water and no heat. There are still lambs to feed and baby calves to worry about, so by a Coleman's Light (powered by recharged batteries - thank God I had at least remembered to plug those things in), we emptied the hot water tank for some water to mix up the lamb replacer, and fed the lambs. I looked after the young orphan calves (they have a nurse cow to suck) and Chris went out in the wind and checked the cows - they took the day off from calving (smart girls). I can guarantee that any new calves would be housing in the Schmaltz Hotel for warmth if they were born. I bunked down with the rest of the animals and kept covered up, looking for a blinking light anywhere to tell me that the power was back on (and the water and the heat). Guess I wouldn't last on Survivor very long. Unless, of course, they had a challenge of feeding voracious lambs in the dark - mark my words, the men would have a disadvantage (or possibly advantage depending on the sickos out there).
Billy came out of his stall today, looked outside briefly, and went back inside. God I hope that doesn't mean 6 more weeks of winter.