Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Bracing for the cold

Ready or not, the arctic blast is nearly upon us. We've done what we can to make sure we can keep the water troughs going over the next couple of days, and we've got a tank we can use to refill any troughs with frozen supply lines. The air is dry and the ground has firmed up somewhat since all the rain over the past few weeks, so the cows will fare much better than if it was wet. It'll without a doubt be much harder on us, and my hands are already getting numb just thinking about it. Our biggest hope is that the equipment in our milking barn doesn't freeze up. The milking units and vacuum system itself is not really that hard to defrost, but the pneumatic controls pretty much have to thaw by themselves. These controls include the automatic take-offs and rapid exit system. The next two or three days could get pretty long.

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