Thursday, January 22, 2015
Wintertime on the farm
Day One of Snowvember Storm.
The winter of 2014-215 has been very challenging for us at Ambershire Farm. Mother Nature has blessed us with record levels of snow. We had a record breaking snow storm in November 2014. It was nicknamed "the Snowvember Storm". We were snowed in for 7 days. All of the local towns and villages enacted driving bans, so we couldn't get out even if our 800 foot driveway was clear! Getting down to the barn was very difficult. We had 7 feet of snow and had to hand shovel our way to the barn to get our tractor out. We repeated this process for 7 days. Each day it was very difficult to just open our doors. Our family dog didn't want to go out in snow that was over her head. At the end of the storm we had 7 feet of snow and were blessed that our house roof and our barn roof did not collapse as neighbors' roofs had! The lessons learned were many...having enough food, gasoline, diesel fuel and candles on hand for when the power went out. Keeping the animals in the barn when the coyotes were heard calling. Keeping the animals safe from enormous snowloads over their heads. No frostbite was suffered by any animals. We worked very hard to keep them safe and warm!
It was hard for the alpacas to maneuver in the heavy snowfall.
Hand shoveling and constantly snowblowing!
Small paths were hand shoveled each day to get out of the house.
Heavy snow loads were on the barn roof!