Oh, Snow!

Have I mentioned that it has been unseasonably warm around here recently? Like, last weekend I checked one of the big items off my “winter farm prep” list and got a truckload of hay from a local farmer… which I loaded and unloaded in a T-shirt.

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Right? That’s last weekend.

And then Saturday I woke up, walked outside, and…

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Well then.

I guess it’s winter.

The animals also woke up Saturday morning, saw what had happened, and we’re like…

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Aw, hell no.

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And all of them refused to set foot (or hoof) outside the barn.

I actually love the first snow of the year–especially on a day where I don’t need to leave the farm–so I was super excited and tried to coax everyone out for a first-snow selfie. The turnout was fairly low…

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The best part of this picture is Doc in the background, staunchly refusing to participate. Not even for a carrot.

And I get it. I know all of the things this snow means… hauling water out to the barn by hand every morning and evening, hours spent shoveling out the barn doors so I can get the tractor out to plow, bored animals stuck in the barn, and a huge amount of anxiety during the hours I’m communting to and from work.

But it’s also real pretty

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There’s just something about a red barn in winter.

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We got a total of 10 inches of snow throughout Saturday. I know this for a fact because one of my friends and I got snowed in with a couple of bottles of wine, and we came up with a new unit of measurement for snowfall…

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If the snow is over the top of the glass, open the second bottle and start the Die Hard marathon, because no one is leaving until morning.

Which actually made this a pretty– and pretty awesome– weekend, all in all. (Plus it’s supposed to be 55 again by next weekend, so T-shirt weather may not be over yet this year, which is even better.)

14 Responses

  1. I live in the Pacific Northwest so no snow here (yet…we’re supposed to get snow showers this week).
    My FB ‘remember when’ feature reminded me that five years ago today we were buried (BURIED!!!) in two feet of snow. It was an absolute gong show. And it lasted four days.

  2. We also got our first snow of the year on Saturday – over 20 inches ! And a lot of trees snapped (yes : snapped) from the weight of the snow. A huge old wild plum tree just keeled over in our back garden and a tall juniper tree in the front garden. I wonder as a result of an unusually warm fall, if the trees still had too much sap in them and if that sap froze, making them snap, as there wasn’t a lot of wind. In my 20 years in this garden, I have never lost a tree to snow before. There is bound to be a lot of other damage out there, just cant see it yet. However it should be back to above freezing temperature tomorrow, so we will be able to inspect the damage tomorrow.

  3. Very creative diy snow fall measurement device depending on which bottle one uses would be very accurate indeed 😉 In mid-eastern Ia. we received 8″ first snow. The new member of the family…20 week old Golden Doodle went zoomers and couldn’t get enough of it and wanted to play in it all day.The photo of the barn is an awesome one showing all of the exterior upgrades completed. According to the selfie some just want postpone the snow for awhile yet….

    🙂

  4. So pretty! I love the selfie ha ha. We had our first snowfall here (Erie, PA) as well on Saturday night, though not nearly as much. I think we had about a half inch that stuck — just enough to cover the ground and be pretty. My hens didn’t like it one bit either! They stood in their coop and glared at it. Though, when I checked on them in the evening, I saw chicken-prints in the snow, so they must have eventually ventured out. Funny little things 🙂

  5. Our ‘first snow’ is usually our only snow and it’s rarely as pretty as that. Of course, it’s usually only an inch or two almost never in double digits.
    I love to visit snow but I’d prefer it not visit me.

  6. That “red barn in winter” photo is amazing! It reminds me of the desktop slideshows you can find online and download. Beautiful.

  7. ha, the “oh hell no” is every time my mastiff has to get her delicate (giant) feet wet when it rains…pup hasn’t even seen snow yet, if we get it in oregon we’ll see how she reacts LOL

  8. Love your way of measuring both the snow and when to open the second bottle of wine. 🙂 I am dreading the snow, yes it’s pretty but it’s so well,cold. The only thing I look forward to is the time that I gain for guilty pleasures when stuck indoors.

  9. Snow only looks lovely on pictures. Thankfully we do not get much of it in the UK 😀 However the pictures are beautiful.

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